Chapter 9: Resolve

“Occupants of the vehicle! Step out of the car!” One of the officers, a young-ish— but a little older than myself— male with blondish hair, called out as he and his partner, another male with red hair, but younger, stopped about a dozen meters away. Mind you, there were at least a couple of other vehicles nearby, which also held ‘occupants’, also ‘quarantined’ by the police cordon, but the blonde male was staring in our direction.

I frowned, knowing just why it was that he was singling out myself and Tony— and it was only nominally because of who had just been talking to us before he resumed resisting arrest— but wondering- at least for a moment or two- why he was acting like a) we were the only vehicle around with ‘occupants’, and b) we were people who needed to be treated like criminals. I looked around, just on the off chance that he was actually trying to get the attention of someone else in another car.

“You!” The officer shouted, and drew his service weapon, pointing it in our direction now, “step out of the vehicle!” His apparent partner gave him a hard look, but also reached for his service weapon; unlike his partner, though, he didn’t draw the gun from its holster.

“Oh hell no!” I shouted back, “Not with you pointing a gun at me!”

“Step out of the vehicle, now!!” The officer shouted, emphasizing each word just a bit harder than before.

“We’ve done nothing wrong!” I called back, my frown deepening.

“Step out of the car, or we will open fire; this is your last warning!” The blonde officer called out again.

I growled, and gently kicked the back of Tiny’s seat. “Don’t get stupid here,” I warned him quietly, “They’ll probably shoot first and ask questions later; we’re too dark for them to care all that much.” I gathered myself to get up and hop over the side; Tiny grabbed the door handle and pushed open the door.

“Slowly!” The ginger-haired officer tossed out.

I ignored him, and hopped out of the car, getting out on the driver’s side; Tony took a bit longer to get up and stand outside of the car.

“Get down on the ground,” the blonde officer called shouted, and I looked back at him like he had gone crazy.

“Not a chance in the fucking world!” I shouted back at him, “You can shoot me right now, but I am not doing another damned thing. I have done nothing to warrant being treated like this!”

“Get down on the ground!” both officers shouted this time.

“No!!” I shouted back. “I am not getting down on the ground! I haven’t done anything!”

“You talked to that criminal!” The blonde officer responded loudly.

“What the fuck does that have to do with the price of tea in China?” I returned, just as vocally.

“Criminals tend to stick together!” Was the response I got.

“And that makes me a criminal?”

“That makes you a person of interest!”

“That makes me a complete stranger who just so happened to have a criminal try to car-jack him and his driver!”

“We just want to talk to you,” the red headed officer offered, probably attempting to apply some diplomacy to the situation. Probably attempting to get us to let our guard down and put cuffs on us, too.

“You could have tried that from the beginning,” I called, not quite shouting this time, but making sure my voice was loud enough to be heard. “If everyone who talked to a criminal was a criminal, everyone would in jail!”

“Now you know why I’m ordering you to get down on the ground!” The blonde officer tried again.

“Why?” I shot back at him, “Because you decided that we look like criminals, that that means you get to treat us like criminals?”

“Because I’m telling you to get down on the ground!” The officer growled back in our direction.

“And I’m telling you I’m not doing it!” I returned, just as loudly. “We ... have done ... nothing ... wrong!!” I emphasized my statement.

“If you continue to disobey my orders, I will charge you with resisting arrest!”

“And you can’t charge us for resisting arrest when you’re not arresting us, and you can’t arrest us for not doing anything,” I shouted back. “We were literally just sitting here, hemmed in by you police officers, when that criminal person came towards us and tried to cause us harm- and now you want to try to arrest us simply because he came nearby? Do you really want the PR and hate-crime nightmare that will crawl up your ass because you decided that two black-looking men were criminals just because of their skin color?”

“Hey! Race has nothing to do with it!” The red-headed officer shouted in surprise and almost palpable discomfort about the topic.

“I’m arresting you because you’re displaying criminal behavior!” The blonde officer said, almost simultaneously.

“You are making false accusations, and you’re trying to make a false arrest based on those false accusations,” I shot back at them both. “And while you’re trying to pretend that you’re being police officers and not bullies, you’re helping let the real criminal get away!”

The ginger-haired officer turned a glancing look to his blonde partner, his expression softening some as he appeared to be considering what I’d just said.

“If you honestly think that that’s true,” the blond officer tried yet again, “then you should have no problem with being detained while we go and help to catch the real criminal.”

“You can’t honestly think that I would believe that,” I called back, my voice louder than conversational, but not enough to be called “shouting” any more, “Nor that I’d voluntarily let myself be arrested, just because you can’t make an arrest stick.” I paused for a breath, realizing the hostility in my words.