Apprehensions & Convictions

by Mark Johnson

  Charlie laughed. “Well, I mighta used some colorful language. And yeah, I was pumped.”

  Charlie’s a fifteen-year veteran, a motorcycle cop now. I used to work with him in First Precinct patrol years ago. He’s a handsome six feet, 200 pounds, solid, dark skinned with blazing white teeth, and a no-nonsense demeanor about him, although he’s quick to smile and joke around. He’s really a gentle soul; I’ve always liked and admired him. But he can summon a fearsome command presence in an instant, and I can picture his eyes flashing fiercely with his weapon drawn on Wallace, the potato chips ablaze behind him, Charlie not knowing if Wallace’s got a gun or not, and a terrified Tobias Smith and Kayla Cunningham within reach as potential hostages. Charlie was counting on his command presence—his stern countenance, the authority of his voice—to do the trick, or this could all go south in a hurry. It was Charlie’s once-in-a-career Dirty Harry moment. Fortunately, his turned out better than mine. But Charlie’s moment wasn’t much like the movies, either.

  If he’d been in uniform, it probably would’ve worked. Especially if he’d been wearing those shimmering black leather knee-high motorcycle boots he’d normally have had on. Those damn boots alone mean business.

  (And they mean other things, too, if you believe John Balzer, who rides a PD Harley with Traffic now, too. He calls them his “fuck me” boots. “Women can’t resist a man in these boots,” Balzer swears, grinning. “Even when he looks like me.”)

  If Charlie’d been in uniform, if he’d had his radio on his belt and the microphone clipped to his shoulder, and Wallace could’ve heard the chatter of backup units being dispatched to the Dollar store on Schillinger, if he’d heard “robbery in progress, officer holding one at gunpoint,” chances are Lawrence Wallace Jr. would have complied.

  But Charlie was in his civilian clothes. He was off duty. Despite Charlie’s intimidating size, his confidence, his fierce demeanor, and the authority of his deep voice and his .40-caliber semiautomatic Glock leveled directly at Lawrence Wallace Jr.’s center mass from a can’t-miss distance of three strides, Lawrence decided to make a run for it.

  Actually, backup was already on its way. Well, not “backup,” exactly, but police were already en route to the Dollar store to respond to a robbery in progress. They were just expecting the gun toter to be the bad guy, not some weird little guy with lighter fluid and a lit Bic. Unknown to everyone at the time, an employee at a nearby service station had observed Charlie run out of the Dollar store to his car, grab his gun, and run back into the store. The alert citizen at Raceway Discount Gas called 911 and reported, “A black guy with a gun’s robbing the Dollar store! I just saw him run into the store waving a gun! It’s happening right now!” The good Samaritan’s racial profiling aside, his call did the trick: the cavalry was coming, though Charlie—and Wallace and everyone else in the Dollar store—didn’t know it.

  “Sometimes, profiling works to our advantage, eh brah?” I said.

  He laughed. “Yes it does. No doubt it does. And this ain’t the only time it’s worked for me, either, or probably for you, know what I’m sayin’?”

  Wallace bolted to the rear of the store, entered store manager Smith’s office, and attempted to close the office door behind him. But Charlie was right on his heels, his Glock stuffed into his waistband, and snatched Wallace back out of the office.

  In the movies, Charlie would have just dispatched the bad guy with a single clean shot between the eyes before he could take a half step toward the back of the store, and it would’ve been ruled a righteous shoot by Internal Affairs because they’d have found a .38 in the bad guy’s pocket. In real life, even though Wallace had already set the store ablaze (arguably placing people in danger), Charlie would’ve been in trouble for using lethal force at this point.

  “A brief struggle ensued, which ended when I was able to control the subject with a series of body punches,” according to Charlie’s written account for the Incident/Offense Report. When I read this, I shuddered at the risk Charlie took by attempting to take a robber into custody—especially one who’s actively resisting arrest—with his weapon just stuck in his pants, unsecured. What if the robber had made a quick, lucky grab for it? When Charlie told me how it really was, the hair on the back of my neck stood up.

  “It was a real knockdown, drag-out, man. Messy. I mean, like one a those old cowboy movies where there’s a fight in the saloon, dog. I had a holda him by his jacket, y’know? And he kept tryin’ to wriggle out of it like they do. I was slingin’ him by that jacket all over the store, we were knockin’ down display racks, makin’ a helluva mess. And this old white guy, a customer in the store, y’know, he jumps in, tryin’ to help me. We were back in the shoe section, and this old man’s whackin’ the dude in the head with a shoe.”

  According to the witness statement written by fifty-one-year-old white guy Cornelius Jenkins (yeah, just fifty-one—really, Charlie?—“old”?), “I had cancer on my nose about six weeks ago, but I noticed a fight broke out and I helped the guard”—meaning Charlie—“subdue the thief and hold him down until Police arrived.” We need more good citizens like Corny Jenkins, willing to risk life and limb and the cancer bandage on his nose to take a stand for justice.

  Without the uniform, we’re not Police, even if we have a gun and announce “Mobile PD.” In Cornelius Jenkins’s eyes, Charlie was a “guard.” But at least Mr. Jenkins didn’t mistake Charlie for the bad guy.

  Cornelius Jenkins continues, “I removed his wallet from his back pocket, and he kept trying to put his hand in his left pocket and I did not know if he was armed or not.”

  I asked Charlie if Lawrence Wallace seemed high, or crazy. “I mean, what was he thinking? Like, ‘I bet he’s just bluffing with that gun, he won’t really shoot me’ or ‘I can outrun this guy,’ or ‘I can take him, he doesn’t look that tough.’ He had to be high, or crazy, or really, really stupid.”

  Charlie shook his head. “If it’s any of those, I guess it’d hafta be stupid, ’cause he didn’t really seem crazy or high. But he didn’t seem that stupid, either. I don’t know. Probably just young. He was just inexperienced, naïve, y’know? Playactin’ the badass, like he’s seen ’em do on TV. He obviously had no experience in robbery: no plan, no weapon, no mask or partners. He wud’n no real criminal, he was just playin’ one on TV. Lot of ’em are like that, y’know? Till shit gets real.”

  For Lawrence Wallace Jr., however, shit had not yet gotten real, if his televised perp walk is any indication. He was still playacting the badass gangsta two hours later, when he was walked out the backdoor of headquarters by Officer Steven Green before a phalanx of TV news cameras and loaded unceremoniously into the cage for transport to Metro, on the very real charges of Robbery First and Arson First degree. For most people facing charges of that magnitude, on their way to Metro after two hours in police headquarters cuffed to a table in a cramped interrogation room with a robbery lieutenant, four robbery detectives, and an arson investigator, shit’s gotten plenty real.

  But not for Lawrence Wallace Jr. He strutted, sneered, and trash-talked all the way to Patrolman Green’s cage, even pulling his cuffed hands around from behind his back to throw gang signs. “Y’all ain’t seen the last a me,” he declared with a snarl, playing to the cameras. “I ain’t near done in da two-five-one,” he said, referring to Mobile’s telephone prefix. “Y’all gon’ remember my name, y’hear me?” He smiled maliciously. “Fuck da Poe-lice! I ain’t done in da two-five-one, y’all!”

  According to the reports, Wallace was fully compliant, even polite, if somewhat unfocused at headquarters. “He was cracking jokes with everybody the whole time, even the secretaries we walked past,” one of the Robbery detectives later told me. “Like this was his fifteen minutes of fame.” He signed the Miranda warning and waiver and talked freely, fully confessing to his actions at the Dollar store. The interview and his confession to detectives were videotaped. Store surveillance video was also secured and viewed, which confirmed the acco
unts by Charlie Wilson and the others.

  Wallace claimed to the robbery detectives that he had been forced to do the robbery by three unknown black males who had driven him to the Dollar store in a black Navigator and were waiting for him in the parking lot until, he theorized, they must have left when they saw police arrive. He had no explanation for the presence of his own silver Toyota in the parking lot but would not recant his “forced-to-do-it-by-three-bad-niggas-in-a-Navigator” story.

  Officer Green, visible in the periphery of the television camera shots, climbed into the front seat of his cruiser after Wallace had his fifteen seconds of swaggering and transported his prisoner to Metro. Green, thirty-six and the father of two, had been a police officer for seventeen months. He had been one of several officers responding to the Dollar store after the 911 call, but another more seasoned officer, a sergeant with the tactical response team, had actually taken Wallace into custody. Green had transported Wallace from the Dollar store to headquarters. There Green had waited through Wallace’s two-hour interrogation by the robbery lieutenant, four robbery detectives, and the fire department’s arson guy.

  At Metro, Green pulled into the sally port, which is essentially a cinder-block garage attached to Metro intake and booking, with large overhead garage-type doors on both sides of it.

  You pull up outside and push a button to an intercom. “Control” is what you hear.

  “MPD, one male prisoner” is what you say, what Green must’ve said, and Control pushes a button raising the overhead door and says, “Ten-four. Secure your weapon.”

  You drive into the sally port and the overhead door closes behind you. It’s big enough to hold four cruisers, two in each lane. When Green pulled in with Wallace in his cage, there was another Crown Vic already there, the unmarked unit of a County Probation and Parole officer who had parked in the inside lane, all the way forward to the second overhead door, the one for exit. The PO had already taken his parole violator into intake for processing. Green pulled his cruiser up next to the PO’s as the overhead entry door came down behind him. The intake area is to the left of the sally-port parking lanes, behind a heavy bulletproof door with thick bulletproof glass that is locked and unlocked remotely with a loud buzz.

  Green got out, popped his trunk, and secured his sidearm there, as he’d been reminded to do by Control over the intercom before entering the sally port. No weapons are allowed inside Metro, or any facility for incarceration, to preclude the possibility that a corrections officer or outside law enforcement officer could be overpowered and his gun taken from him by a prisoner, resulting in hostage taking, murder, mayhem, maybe even escape.

  There are a few lockboxes for securing weapons by the intake door, but I’ve never seen anybody use them. Most of us prefer to secure our weapons in our cruisers. Those who drive caged units will sometimes just leave their weapons in the forward, uncaged half of their cars, locking the car behind them, unlike Green who put his weapon in his trunk. It doesn’t much matter, security-wise.

  My first FTO Porter would always slip his Glock surreptitiously from his holster and slide it under the driver’s seat as he pulled into the sally port, before getting out and opening the backdoor to let the prisoner out, on the theory that the prisoner, whom we always keep away from our gun side, will assume he’s still armed and not try any “funny stuff.” If you get out and open your trunk before you unload the prisoner, Porter reasoned, he’s gonna wonder what you’re doing back there, watch you, see you put your gun in the trunk, and know you’re unarmed, which might embolden him to try some “funny stuff,” he explained. “Better to make him think you’re still armed and you’ll just pop a round in his ass” if he acts up. Maybe that’s why nobody ever uses the little lockboxes by the intake door.

  Of course, even though you don’t have your gun, you’re not exactly unarmed, I remember thinking. You still have your Monadnock knee-capper, your pepper spray, your Taser, and probably a knife or two to discourage any “funny stuff.” But I’ve always done it Porter’s way and slip my Glock under the seat.

  I guess it can be argued either way. If you’re not sneaky enough when you put your gun under the seat and the bad guy knows there’s a gun in the car, it’s theoretically more accessible to him there than in the trunk, because he could, I don’t know, maybe smash the driver’s window with the steel cuffs on his wrists—which would be a good trick with his hands behind his back, but possible, not to say painful—and then get the gun. Of course, he’d still hafta unlock the car door with his hands behind his back, and the little lock knobs, recessed down into the door when locked, are almost impossible to grasp even if you’re not cuffed in back, and the remote unlock button is way down inside the door on the armrest, a stretch with your hands behind your back. And then there’s the challenge of getting the weapon from under the driver’s seat while handcuffed behind the back, too. Unless the bad guy’s smart enough to snatch the disabled cop’s car keys—and cuff key, which is rarely kept on a cop’s key chain—to use on the cuffs, then on the car door or the trunk. Some thugs are skinny assed, long armed, and limber enough to maneuver their cuffed hands in the back over their boney little butts and around their feet to the front. I’ve seen it happen. It’s plenty good reason to whack a handcuffed prisoner a couple times upside the head for “attempt escape.” But any scenario—cuffed in back or cuffed in front, gun in the trunk or under the seat, and a prisoner who’s really clever, quick, and a contortionist as well—requires the big assumption that the prisoner’s “funny stuff” has somehow disabled the transport officer, thereby enabling him to go for the cuff and/or car keys, to get the gun in the trunk, or under the seat, or whatever, and then what? He’s still locked up there in the sally port. And whatever he could have theoretically done to disable the transport officer would have been in full view of the intake officer just behind the bulletproof glass, to say nothing of the video cameras remotely monitored by corrections staff, who will instantly sound the alarm at the first sign of any funny stuff, sending jail guards swarming into the sally port, eager to put a good beatin’ on the smart-ass before he can snatch any keys or weapons or anything else—it’s all pretty damn academic, if you ask me. I’m sure every possible criminal scenario has been imagined, corrected, planned for, and prevented or defeated through tried-and-true, redundant security measures, architecture, engineering, and procedure relentlessly tested, reviewed, and implemented by experienced professional wardens, sheriffs, and chiefs all over the country.

  So Officer Green locked his Glock in the trunk, got Wallace out of his cage, locked his car, stuck the keys in his belt, walked his prisoner over to the door, and signaled the corrections officer to buzz him in. But there was a delay. The intake space is small, and it was already crowded with Mardi Gras revelers who’d gotten a head start on the first parade’s festivities scheduled for later that night, and inside there were also that PO and his proby violator being processed. It happens, especially during Mardi Gras. So Green and Wallace stood there side by side in the sally port, waiting patiently for intake to clear enough space to buzz them in.

  Green stood with his right hand gripping Wallace’s left arm, waiting. His empty holster was exposed to Wallace’s view, but, all things considered, that was academic, anyway. Then Wallace scratched his nose with the thumb of his right hand but quickly put the hand back behind him. Green saw the nose scratch. Perplexed, Green leaned in toward Wallace, reaching behind him to grab Wallace’s free hand, presumably to re-cuff him.

  Quick as a Cassius Clay uppercut, Wallace punched Green in the throat with that loose right hand, staggering Green. Down he went. Wallace ran back over to the far side of Green’s cruiser, as the stricken officer struggled back to his feet, his hand at his throat. Still in the fight, he stumbled after his prisoner, chasing him around the parked Crown Vics. But he was hurt, and not just from a sucker punch to the throat. Blood spurted through his fingers as he gave chase, and Green collapsed in a fountain of crimson.

  Wa
llace circled the cruisers and returned to his victim. He snatched the keys from Green’s belt, opened the trunk and grabbed Green’s pistol, slammed the trunk, jumped in the cruiser, and crashed it through the sally port’s exit door. A few seconds after the escape, the plainclothes PO and a few corrections officers can be seen rushing in to Green. They attempt to apply pressure to Green’s wound, but it’s already too late. Officer Green is beyond saving, having bled out onto the sally-port floor. His jugular had been severed, and he is gone.

  My group at the firing range reacted to the Metro surveillance video as had every group preceding us: stunned, sickened silence. Stifled rage. Disbelief. And grief. The classroom lights came on, and our instructor, the same tactical sergeant who had first taken Wallace into custody at the Dollar store months ago, told us to take a break and be back in the classroom in fifteen for a briefing from the intelligence unit on local gang activity. We filed out of the classroom wordlessly, as if from a wake.

  Shit had gotten real.

  My weapon still in hand, I hurry up the driveway on the north side of Cedar Park Drive, across the street from Green’s cruiser, abandoned in somebody’s front yard, lights and siren still going strong. I’m hunting a guy who has cut a cop, stolen his car, and escaped from Metro. Though Green is already dead, that word has not gone out on our radios.

  I’m figuring Frank and Bailey can’t miss Green’s cruiser and mine right behind it. They’ll be screeching up behind me any second, because Dispatch keeps saying, “AVL still showing Cedar Park at Jacksonville, subject may have bailed, subject may be armed . . .” and I’m counting on the lady with the handful of mail to point them my way.

  I get to the end of the driveway and hug the brick house’s rear corner, peering carefully around to scan the backyard—lotsa hidey-holes: a detached shed with an open carport coming off the back of it piled full of stuff, two junk cars in the tall weeds near the back, and a cement mixer, a couple of old gutted motorbikes and a rusty go-cart clustered nearby—all enclosed by a six-foot wooden slat privacy fence on all three sides.