“You know, when you took up that particular cause, some of us got the sense that you were making it personal. Does it surprise you now to find that you’re not exactly our top priority?”
“Near as I can tell, people have never been your priority,” Randy shot back. “I still remember you from way back when I was a kid and you were a rookie deputy. The only interest you had in people was breaking them down. But considering where it got you, I guess that’s what the field demands. So maybe the problem isn’t just you. Maybe it’s not just a few bad apples, like some people think it is. Maybe it’s the whole barrel.”
Burt’s eyebrows went way up as the sound of those words. “The whole barrel?” he asked. “Now that’s the sort of language that could bring you some real scrutiny. I tell you this with complete sincerity Randy, be careful with your choices of wording.”
“If it fits, I’ll use it. And it looks more and more to me like it fits.”
Burt nodded. “Very well then. But in that case, this barrel has things to do. So will that be everything?”
“Yep, I’ve got people of my own to talk to. Gotta run.” Randy got up and went to the door.
“Watch your speed,” Burt said, just as Randy closed the door behind him.
Chapter 8
Special Attention
As much as Randy wanted to make Chief Grandstone feel the heat for his actions, there wasn’t a lot he could do. The chief hadn’t broken any laws by pointing Armando to Randy’s place or by turning Elena in to Immigration. Randy took his complaints about his conduct to city hall, where they were promptly swept under the mat. The code of silence extended well beyond the uniform.
Randy also continued to pursue his changes to the law in the state capitol, but too many lawmakers feared the bad PR that came with clamping down on police, so for the time being anyhow, it went nowhere. It had at least served to get the attention of law enforcement, but there was a problem with that too. When public officials see their power threatened, what it makes them want to do is reassert that power.
Burt had been right about one thing though. For Randy, this was becoming more and more personal all the time.
After Elena was well established at her job and in school, Randy felt it was time to nudge her into her own apartment. The reality was that they weren’t going to spend their lives together, so it was time for her to get her own life underway. And though Randy wouldn’t say it out loud, there was also the chance that if she met someone that she would marry, that would solve her citizenship issues too.
Elena, however, was not keen on this at all. She liked it where she was, and she liked being with Randy, whatever their future might be. It wasn’t like she didn’t have a few years to waste anyhow. It was a fight between Randy’s logic and Elena’s heart, and the logic won. So Randy helped her find a place, then he paid the first month’s rent for her, and there she went.
She wasn’t officially with him any longer, but the effect that had on their relationship was somewhat limited. She still came over at least twice a week to make him dinner and collect her reward for doing so. For this, Randy didn’t have it in him to say no.
* * *
It was early in 2007 when Randy got his first sign there might be real trouble on the horizon. It was winter and the whole region was frozen solid again. Randy was driving up a hill in town and came to a stop sign, with other cars coming up the hill behind him. The road was icy and if he came to a full stop he might not be able to get going again. So he slowed down enough to make sure all was safe and then continued on through, which was the same thing the entire line of cars was doing. But a city patrol car had seen him do it, and a short time later he saw the flashing lights in his mirrors.
There were two cops in the car, neither of which Randy had met in person before. Driving it was Phillip Pevey, and it was he who came to Randy’s window. The second cop was Ron Kesling, and he came up along the passenger side, crouching slightly in tactical-backup-cop mode. “Mister Gustin, you just ran a stop sign,” Ron Pevey began.
“I’d have been stuck on that hill and holding up traffic if I hadn’t,” he replied. “Did you notice that, or is this a case of ‘the law is the law’?” It was interesting that they already knew who he was.
“Mister Gustin, where are you coming from?” Officer Pevey inquired.
Oh oh, interrogation time… Randy thought. “Errands,” he said simply.
“I see. You been to Olympia today by any chance?”
“What’s that have to do with your reason for stopping me?”
“Nothing at all, these are routine questions. So where are you coming from?”
“I just answered that question. Do you have memory issues or something?”
“Hold on a moment please.” Officer Pevey stepped away and spoke into his radio mike for a moment. Randy couldn’t hear much, but he did make out the word hostile. Pevey stepped back to his window. “Mister Gustin, you’re acting very strange. Are you nervous about something?”
Here we go. Another dweeb fresh out of interrogation school. “Not at all,” Randy replied with a smile.
“Then please tell me where you’re coming from.”
This was becoming irritating. “Sir, is it true you can’t be a cop if your IQ is too high?” Randy asked. That one hit the spot he was aiming for, too.
“You don’t seem to like law enforcement very much, Mister Gustin. I just get that vibe from you.”
“You’ve got ‘vibes’? What are ‘vibes’ exactly? Is it anything like ‘voices’?”
“Please just answer.”
“I’m not answering anything for you anymore. First you can’t remember simple answers, now you’re telling me you’ve got these psychic premonitional things going on, and I’m becoming very concerned for you. Was there by any chance a pill you were supposed to take this morning?”
Randy was finally starting to get Pevey’s goat, but the cop held on to his demeanor. “It just seems like maybe there’s something going on I should know about. Would you mind if I checked out your vehicle?”
“I’d mind a lot. I don’t consent to warrantless searches.”
“Very well, you’re standing on the fourth, and that’s your constitutional right. Are you a constitutionalist?”
In fact he was a constitutionalist, but what that word means in reality, and what it means in law enforcement circles are two different things. In reality it typically means a person who believes constitutional civil liberties need to be observed. There’s nothing too terrifying about that at all, really. In law enforcement circles however, it more typically means something along the lines of “ticking Timothy McVeigh waiting for an excuse to go off.”
Officer Pevey was leaning closer to the window so he could project authority at closer range. It was clear that civil conversation just wasn’t going to happen here, so Randy decided to let his sarcastic side have its way. Just a little.
“Sir, raght now you er violatin’ mah sovereign airspace,” he said in his best Southern drawl. “If ah had mah pocket constertution wit’ me I’d show ya…”
Outside the passenger window, Tactical Backup Cop smiled, but Pevey wasn’t amused. “Sir, I need you to step out of the vehicle. Now, please.” Unfortunately the law gave them that right, so Randy got out. As he did so, another patrol car rolled up and parked across the street from them with the overhead lights on. There were two more unfamiliar faces behind the windshield, but that mattered little because it didn’t seem as if any help was coming in any case. They got out and walked over to the scene, which was now drawing a lot of stares from both drivers and pedestrians passing by. Randy was now pretty much surrounded.
Tactical Backup Cop, aka Ron Kesling, finally spoke. “This is just a routine stop, and your cooperation would really help us to speed you on your way,” he said in a friendly tone.
“Good Cop! Thank God you’re here!” Randy exclaimed, then he turned to Pevey. “Bad Cop, we’re done talking. From now on I’m only talking to Good Cop
.” Then he turned back to Kesling and pointed his thumb at Pevey. “Jesus Christ man, you have to work with this dick?” Again, Kesling cracked a smile, but he was the only one.
Pevey pointed at Randy’s fanny pack holster. “Is that a weapon in there?”
“Yes it is.”
“I need you to remove it please.”
“For safety reasons, I prefer to leave it where it’s at.”
Pevey motioned to the other officers, and soon Randy was surrounded by all four. “This is an officer safety issue now, so you’ll be detained in handcuffs.” The two new arrivals, who now stood in front and behind him, put their hands on their guns. Randy began to seriously wonder if this was the moment he had been waiting for. Then Pevey and Tactical Backup Cop each grabbed an arm and pulled them behind him. As soon as they had the cuffs on him, his fanny pack was removed and he was relieved of his weapon.
This wasn’t funny anymore, and it was all downhill from there. For the next thirty minutes, Randy was badgered, interrogated, and hounded for a search of his truck, which they never got. He was made to stand in the cold wearing handcuffs while they went to their car and had a long private talk with parties unknown on the radio. Finally his weapon was returned and he was cut loose with a warning on the stop sign. But the message they wanted to send him had been made clear.
Randy had been designated for special attention.
* * *
But around the state, Randy wasn’t the only one who could make that claim by a longshot. Failure to fully respect authority will make anyone the subject of special attention, and there was a lot of that going around.
On May 28 of 2008, 18-year-old Randall Privasky of the town of Marysville, which was just north of Everett, was spotted speeding by a sheriff’s deputy. He was driving on an expired learner’s permit and didn’t have insurance. So rather than stop, he decided to try and ditch the deputy, and in doing so he disrespected his authority.
In Washington, a cop is only allowed to engage in a pursuit if they witness a felony, and speeding is only an infraction. However the law also makes fleeing a felony. It made for a great catch-22, and that’s what served as his justification. Any petty offense becomes a felony as soon as you flee.
The chase proceeded up a road that had a steep embankment on one side. It was on this road that the deputy decided to use what’s called a “PIT” maneuver. “PIT” stands for “pursuit immobilization technique,” and it involves pulling the front bumper of the police car up next to the rear bumper of the pursued vehicle, then swerving into it, spinning the car around backward, and hopefully causing the engine to stall. Trouble arises however when attempting this maneuver without enough room.
Upon using the PIT maneuver, Privasky’s car went down the embankment, crashed into a tree and killed him. The pursuing deputy who caused his death had the wisdom of his decision questioned, but he faced no other consequences of any kind. That’s how it happens when you become the subject of special attention.
On November 8th of 2008, an Everett man died in a way that left a lot of questions hanging in the air. Police responded to the home of Dustin Willard about a burglary call, and what happened after that is the subject of some dispute. The official story is that they knocked on the front door, and Willard answered while holding a shotgun. Feeling threatened, as they always say, police opened fire and killed him at his door.
There was a witness however who claimed that wasn’t the whole story. Before the shooting at the door, there was a single shot fired in the vicinity of Willard’s backyard. There was also blood on the knob of his back door. This left open a rather distinct possibility that he was killed in his backyard without justification, and then quickly brought inside and set up for a “justifiable homicide” at his door. Exactly what happened in that back yard no one knows, but the cops did show up looking for a robber, and they might have instead found a resident who had chased one away and then neglected to immediately disarm so as not to invite upon himself some special attention.
Later that same month, on November 29th, an incident took place in which nobody died, but several were condemned. A teenage girl by the name of Malika Calhoun was being booked into the King County jail in Seattle. After being shown to her cell, officer Paul Schene ordered her to remove her shoes. She kicked one of them out the door of the cell, thereby disrespecting his authority and bringing upon herself the burden of special attention. Officer Schene, in a rather exceptional display of professionalism, screamed that that was assault, tackled Malika and slammed her head against the back wall, then punched her in the face twice when she was on the ground. Afterward he would claim that the shoe, which video showed had never actually touched him, had hit him in the leg, caused him injury and pain and made him fear for his safety, never minding the fact that his bruises were caused when he had banged his shin against the toilet in the cell while he was brutalizing the girl. Unfortunately, the assault was all caught on video and broadcast widely. The video generated a rather enormous amount of outrage, especially with a particular gentleman by the name of Christopher Monfort. Though Officer Schene faced no consequences for his brutal assault of a teenage girl, other officers would face those consequences for him. Serious ones.
2009 was an especially bad year for citizens in Washington State, beginning on New Year’s night. There was a University of Washington student named Miles Murphy who was a history buff. He was a little on the eccentric side and often wore historical military uniforms. On that night, he wore a German uniform as he and some friends were ringing in the New Year by firing blanks into the air. To be sure, this is not the recommended way to celebrate New Year’s in the middle of a city, but amidst all the other fireworks going off it didn’t seem like a huge deal at the time. What he didn’t realize is that to commit any type of violation with a firearm is to earn yourself the highest level of special attention.
Police were called, and when they arrived, everyone was already back inside the apartment where they were celebrating. The police knocked, and Miles answered the door while still holding his rifle. Moments later he was dead. Friends of Miles claim that he never made a threatening move with the rifle, and that police gave him little chance to put the rifle down before killing him. The police version of events was that Miles ignored repeated commands to drop the rifle, and then for reasons difficult to comprehend had elected to aim the unloaded weapon at police. The issue of which story held greater credibility got very little attention in the press.
Randy’s traffic stop incident had been unpleasant, and the unpleasantness was just getting started. There would be more frivolous stops, incidents of him and Elena being tailed, their friends being questioned about them, and so on. Special attention was certainly no fun, but at least in their case nobody had died from it.
Not yet anyhow.
* * *
May, 2009
Randy and Elena had both decided a long time ago that immigration court was not a fun place to be. Now as they sat in what was to be the final hearing, the sense that this room gave them of the walls closing in and the vise tightening down was worse than ever.
Her case had worked its way though the process over the previous couple years, and along the way they had been losing piece by piece. They tried arguing that she had been brought here legally and left behind. But while her parents had brought her here legally, when they were deported she was legally obliged to go with them. They argued that she had become a productive citizen, who had emerged from a godforsaken existence where she couldn’t even work, to hold a steady job and take college classes. But there was the little problem of her criminal record, for which having been unable to work and having to survive the only ways she could was apparently not a good enough excuse.
Elena sat close, gripping his arm. Randy wasn’t sure how comfortable he was with that, given the current state of their relationship, but he wasn’t about to nudge her away either. Over most of the last couple years, they had officially been friends, but with loads of benefi
ts. Then around six months ago Randy had decided to cut her off from the benefits. She needed to find a relationship with someone she might actually stay with, and maybe solve her legal issues at the same time. She had tried to do so, but not with a lot of success. Or enthusiasm.
The prosecutor droned on about the importance of upholding the law. And Randy had to admit, he agreed with that position, even though it wasn’t working out well for them at the moment. There were legal ways to handle things like this, depending on what you were willing to do, and depending on whether the people in this country felt strongly enough that somebody like Elena needed to stay. And that was pretty much what he was down to.
The prosecutor finished his diatribe, and the judge addressed Randy and Elena. “Before I rule on this, it’s your turn.”
“Thanks, we just need one moment,” Randy replied, then he knelt down before Elena and lowered his voice. “We don’t have a case,” he told her.
She nodded. “I know.”
“So I’m going to have to drop the bomb,” Randy went on. “I know I’m not the perfect man for you. I’m not quite old enough to be your father, but it’s close. But I love you, and I want to take care of you, and I want you to be with me. Will you marry me?”
The look on her face was so stunned that he braced himself for the rejection. Then she spoke. “Randy, ever since the night we met you’ve done nothing but save my life. Of course I will.”
Randy kissed her, then they stood and faced the judge together. “Your honor, I’d like to respond that Elena is engaged to be married to a U.S. citizen.”
The judge was rather surprised by this development himself. He turned to the prosecutor. “Does the state have any objection?”
“Your honor, the state has no wish to stand in the way of true love,” the prosecutor replied. “Provided they can show us a marriage certificate within sixty days.”
“We can do that,” Elena said.
“Then it is so ordered.” The judge banged the gavel. “And congratulations.”
* * *
On May 23rd of 2009, in Ottawa Hills, Ohio, Officer Thomas White was following two motorcycle riders. The young bikers stopped at a stop sign with White’s patrol car behind them, then suddenly took off fast. Officer White flipped his overhead lights on and took off in pursuit.