Madeline saw her eye, as brown as a deer’s, in the corner of the rear-view mirror that was otherwise filled with red and blue dome lights. After a needle of sheer terror shocked her system with adrenaline, she realized that this was one time in her life that she was glad to see the police. She didn’t know where the thieves might be. They might have seen her retrieve her car. She could tell the police that she found her stolen car and then have them escort her home.
She breathed a sigh of relief as she pulled over. Sure, her car was important, but it wasn’t worth getting hurt or killed over. It was a 1997 Honda Civic that was on permanent loan from her cousin. Someone had hotwired it from in front of her apartment building and took it for a joy ride. She heard the distinctive squeal from the fan belt as it departed and was able to report it stolen almost immediately. A friend of hers had called saying that she had seen the car parked along Shoreline near the beach in Alameda. She took an Uber and found it there. She lived in Oakland, so she had left nothing worth stealing in it. She couldn’t put the key in the ignition because it had been pried open with a screwdriver, so she had twisted the wires together so she could get it home.
She knew the routine. She placed her driver’s license and insurance on the dashboard and rested her hands on top of the steering wheel in plain sight. In the rear-view mirror she saw the officer open his door, then hesitate behind it for a moment before emerging with his gun in his hand.
“Exit the vehicle, please,” he commanded while keeping the barrel of his weapon leveled at her head framed in the window. She hesitated. She knew that she had to get this exactly right because her life depended on it. All she had to do was survive long enough to tell the officer what was going on and everything would be fine. Why was he asking her to exit the vehicle? Standard protocol for a traffic stop was to ask for ID. She kept her right hand on the wheel as she slowly and carefully reached for the door latch. She reached down to undo her seat belt.
“Keep your hands where I can see them and exit the vehicle!” She was shaking so hard that when her foot hit the pavement, she stumbled. A gun that her tax dollars had paid for, fired by a public servant pledged to protect her, placed a bullet in her heart.
“Dispatch? Send an ambulance. Black female suspect down. She was driving a stolen car and lunged at me when I pulled her over.” He was covered in sweat and his heart felt like it would explode from his chest. He was devastated. This might put a real dent in his career.
Literature in Small Doses 