Chapter 17: Staged Rebellion

I could have just up and flown away, but that could have been seen as me being cowardly, running away from confrontation; to be honest, I wanted the confrontation with law enforcement, because it would legitimize me in the eyes of the public not only as a force— as someone who could back up his words with actions— but also as someone not to be taken lightly, among other things. No one really knew anything about me, yet, and I needed to control the narrative on that. Step one was getting my side of the story out there, onto the ‘net and into the world, beyond the local scene, so that what I said and did now, could influence whatever came out about me later.

Step two was about to begin.

I watched as law enforcement cordoned off the streets and wider pathways nearest to the quad, where they could look and see everything going on— and, I presumed, primarily me and whatever I was doing. At their closest point, the SWAT and mobile command center vehicles of the law enforcement contingent, were just about a hundred meters away from where I sat with the three journalism students interviewing me. The remaining small gathering, standing a few meters closer to the cordon line, as it were, began to stir and murmur a bit, wondering what was about to happen.

I had a pretty decent idea.

I turned towards the three interviewers, Marcella, Bruce and Christina. “As you can see now, we’ve got company from the local law enforcement. Not campus police, but Metro PD, and I’m sure that there will be others, if they’re not already here with Metro.” I paused, and focused my attention on them. “This is one of the reasons I wanted our interview to be outside; I’m not restraining you, or holding you hostage, and if you,” and here I paused again, to turn towards the small crowd nearby, “or any of you, really, feel like you want to not be here, since I’m pretty sure that these wonderful assholes in blue who will likely shoot first and ask questions later, if ever, are here for me, then you are more than free to leave.”

None of “my” journalists even seemed like they wanted to leave, but maybe a third of the small crowd— perhaps a half dozen?— decided that they would rather not be up close and personal to whatever action was about to happen, and scattered. I didn’t pay them any mind, as I turned back to “my” journalists.

“Now, just to be clear: you’re all streaming this, right? Not just recording?” Each of them nodded, though Marcella gave me a slightly questioning look. “Streaming means that, when— not if, but when— this is all over, and law enforcement starts throwing their weight around, they’re going to try and confiscate any recordings you have. But, since you’re streaming live, then that means that it’s already out there for the world to see, and so law enforcement can’t hide or alter what’s happening here before the world sees it.”

Thinking for a few moments on just what could happen— as I had been doing since even before I’d come onto the campus— I turned back to the small crowd nearby. “Now that I think about it,” I advised them, “knowing local law enforcement, you all might wanna step back a bit, just so you don’t get caught up in any kind of crossfire.” I didn’t want to alarm them, but I didn’t want to leave them in a position where they could get hurt by law enforcement, either; I was here to make statement to the world, not collect a body count from innocent bystanders. The majority of them seemed to take a moment to look at the way law enforcement was positioned around the quad, and then back at me, and decided to back off a couple dozen meters.

Meanwhile, law enforcement set themselves up along the perimeter of the quad, and those who weren’t armed, were frantically gesturing for those ‘civilians’ closest to where they were, to come along and get out of the quad area. Of course, those who hadn’t been near to us from the journalism class building were often pretty eager to vacate the area, especially when their attentions were drawn to the LEOs who were armed, about a third of whom were aiming assault rifles in my general direction.

“This is the Tuskegee Metropolitan Police,” a voice spoke out over a loudspeaker; I turned towards the sound of that voice, coming from somewhere vaguely behind me; the voice belonged to someone male, that much I could tell. “We have cordoned off the entirety of the area. By command of the Tuskegee Metropolitan Police, the criminal in black uniform and helmet is ordered to remove themselves to an open space in the courtyard, and assume a prone position, face down with their hands behind their back and legs crossed at the knees.”

I snorted softly, and turned towards ‘my’ journalists.

“They’re already branding me as a criminal, and I haven’t done anything,” I offered with sarcasm. “Yes, I aggressively defended myself the other night, when the asshole— did I mention before that his name is Lamar?— when he tried to stab me after I stopped him from raping— excuse me, from continuing to rape that young woman, and I wouldn’t let them arrest me, but beyond that, I haven’t done anything even remotely criminal ... yet.”

Bruce cocked an eyebrow at me, just for a moment, but then gave a diffident shrug, as if to say, “I guess so.”

With deliberation, I reached into a pouch on the cobbled-together ‘utility belt” I’d created, and pulled out what looked a lot like a small walkie-talkie. I turned it on, and pressed and held the button to sync it with my helmet. Once the device registered in the bluetooth menu on my helmet, and with the campus wifi system, I set it down near the journalist students.

“I’ve got this linked to my helmet,” I told them, since they couldn’t know what I was doing beforehand. “It’ll transmit audio that I get, as well as what I send, just in case I need to go and speak with one of the officers more face-to-face.” I smirked, even though they couldn’t see it- but I was sure they could hear it in my voice. “I’ll turn on my helmet cam, and if I get any video I think you should have, I’ll make sure to get it to you. Oh- I suppose I should have your phone numbers for that,” I added, and then got them to give me their phone numbers.

Right about then, I presume because I hadn’t followed the ‘command’ from the officer the first time, the command to basically make myself vulnerable to the law enforcement officers was repeated. I sighed, and turned on the feature in my helmet that allowed me to scan for the radio channel that the police were using, and patch myself into it.

“I hear you,” I said to them, my voice filtered through the voice-scrambling apps I had built in to the helmet. “And I will decline; I’ve done nothing wrong. All I’m doing is speaking with some journalism students, and if law enforcement wishes to speak with me, a polite invitation will suffice.”

I heard a few mutters and sputtering from what I presume was a momentary bit of open-channel chatter, and then the channel was cleared, before a more authoritative voice spoke.

“Who is this and how did you get on this channel?”

“I got onto this channel by scanning for it, so that we could talk and not have to shout at one another,” I said to the voice, “And I might introduce myself, but only after I know whom I’m speaking with.”

“That’s not normally the way this works,” the voice returned, sounding expectant. I didn’t respond. “Hello?” The voice called back after a few moments, sounding confused.

“I’m still here,” I answered. “I’m waiting for you to introduce yourself.”

I could imagine the sigh that the silence seemed to have, before the voice spoke up. “This is lieutenant Bradford of the Tuskegee Metropolitan Police Department,” he said, “and by the command of the Tuskegee Metropolitan Police, I am hereby ordering you to comply with our lawful order for arrest and detainment.”

“And as I said, lieutenant,” I repeated, “I decline; I’ve done nothing wrong. Now, I can understand that you might be frustrated with me declining to be arrested and detained. But I do know enough about my rights to know that unless you have a lawful reason, not a lawful excuse, as to why you want to arrest and detain me, and you inform me of that lawful reason, that you cannot legally arrest and detain me. Now, if you want to illegally arrest and detain me, you can try to do so, but I will then be forced to defend myself, and I will then bring up charges against the Metro PD for whatever I can.”

The lieutenant’s voice sounded like he was getting irritated. “The lawful reasoning of the Metro PD is that you gave violent and harmful resistance to being arrested during a situation of detainment,” he replied. “That makes the arrest itself, lawful.”

“Even if the detainment was not?” I countered. “Even if, in the situation as presented, then all parties available should have been equally detained? And I only responded with violence when I was assaulted.”

“You were viewed attempting to flee the scene of a crime—” Bradford began.

“If you watch the cam footage, officer,” I cut him off, “assuming that the campus police actually have body cams, you’d see that I initially was fine with being detained; it wasn’t until the officer attempted to assault me that I responded, and then upon the arrival of the Metro PD, there was no visual evidence that I was in the commission of a crime, and therefore, your officers’ attempts to forcibly detain me were not legal.”

“According to the reports given by officer Muskallee of the Tuskegee University Campus Police, both his spoken and written words, you were discovered in the midst of the commission of a crime, and were being detained; anything and everything that stemmed from that, irregardless of whether or not your actions were witnessed by officers of the Metro PD, is evidentiary of a proper arrest.”

“So,” I drawled a bit, “What you’re saying is that the campus police officer could, in theory, have given you false information, and you would have carried out the arrest anyway, and only found out if the arrest was a bad arrest at a later time?”

Lieutenant Bradford was silent at that for a moment, but before he could regroup, I continued, “And further, that I should have simply allowed myself to be detained— not arrested, by the way— without due process, and assaulted without provocation?”

“From what was reported,” the lieutenant seemed to have pulled himself back together, his words professional but clipped from what I presumed was growing irritation, “you were and are an unknown person, who refused to identify himself—”

I so wanted to interrupt him, but I decided to wait him out, this time. He finished trying to explain why the police had a right to violate a civilian’s rights— and even though he was mostly correct, at least by a thin technicality, I’d decided that enough was enough.

“I explained to the officer that I was not going to allow him to show my face in a public setting,” I then spoke up, exasperation creeping into my own voice now. “I have a right to not be put in a position for any possibility of retaliation for my attempts to stop a crime.” I paused for a quick breath, and a quick look at my audience of journalist students; I couldn’t care much about the rest of the small crowd, since they were barely within earshot now.

“But you have a bigger problem,” I continued, “more than just me, lieutenant, bigger than the Metro PD, and bigger than all of law enforcement. You are at this very moment, putting a target on the backs of every law enforcement officer in the world, by acting as though nothing in law enforcement has to change. There are Powered folks now, and while you will have many who will still abide by the law, you are going to have many who not only won’t agree with you, like myself, but there’ll be those who will actively be against you, especially because of who you are and what you represent.”