Before the officers left, Marcus requested the incident number and asked that the body-camera footage and dispatch recording be preserved. One officer asked whether he was an attorney. Marcus said yes, explaining that he handled civil-rights and housing cases.
Patricia immediately changed her tone. She said he should have told her that. Marcus asked the question she could not answer: “Would my profession have changed the rules that allowed me to use the park?”
The officers left without arresting or removing him. Marcus remained for another twenty minutes, then went home and documented the entire incident. He called his law partner, who warned him not to become his own lawyer in a dispute involving him personally.
CHAPTER 4 — THE RECORDS
An attorney from another firm helped Marcus send a narrow preservation request to the HOA. They asked for security complaints, park-access rules, surveillance footage, board communications, and documents defining Patricia’s authority.