Travis heard him.
“What?”
Pike did not answer.
Dana walked directly toward Marcus.
“Are you all right?”
Marcus nodded.
“I’m fine.”
She looked at his cheek.
“That doesn’t look fine.”
“Temporary.”
Chief Danner arrived seconds later.
He looked at Marcus.
Then at Travis.
Then at the body camera.
“What happened?”
Nobody answered immediately.
Marcus looked toward Travis.
Travis had wanted to know who Marcus was.
Now he was about to learn.
Dana spoke.
“Chief Danner, this is Marcus Reed.”
Danner nodded grimly.
“We’ve met.”
Travis looked between them.
Marcus had not met Danner before.
But Danner knew exactly who he was from briefing photographs.
Dana continued:
“Chief Investigator Reed is leading the state standards review your department was notified about this morning.”
Travis’s mouth opened.
No sound came.
Dana looked toward him.
“The review involving repeated use-of-force and complaint-handling concerns.”
Pike slowly turned toward Travis.
The color disappeared from Travis’s face.
“Wait.”
Marcus said nothing.
Travis looked at him.
“You’re an investigator?”
Marcus adjusted his glasses.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you say that?”
Marcus’s expression did not change.
“You didn’t need my job title to treat me lawfully.”
Silence.
That sentence seemed to reach everyone.
Alyssa kept recording.
Chief Danner looked at Travis.
“Did you strike him?”
Travis swallowed.
“It was a control technique.”
“For what?”
“He was noncompliant.”
Marcus spoke.
“I complied with every physical instruction.”
Travis raised his voice.
“He was challenging the stop.”
Danner stared.
“You hit a man because he questioned a traffic stop?”
“No.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Then explain.”
Travis looked at Pike.
No help.
At the chief.
Nothing.
At Marcus.
Calm.
He finally looked down at his own body camera.
The device had recorded everything.
Twenty-one minutes after the slap, Chief Danner ordered Travis to surrender his badge and service weapon pending administrative review.
Travis stared.
“You’re suspending me?”
Danner kept his voice level.
“I’m removing you from field duty pending investigation.”
“Because he’s some state investigator?”
“No.”
Danner pointed toward the body camera.
“Because I have probable evidence you used force during a traffic stop and I need the evidence preserved.”
Travis shook his head.
“This is politics.”
Marcus finally stepped forward.
“No.”
Travis glared.
Marcus continued.
“If my position changes the way this is handled, that would be another problem.”
Dana nodded.
“The review will use the same evidence standards that should apply if the person struck had been any resident of Brookhaven.”
Marcus looked directly at Travis.
“That is the point.”
Travis’s shoulders fell slightly.
For sixteen years, his badge had ended arguments.
Now it was being removed while pedestrians watched.
Pike stepped toward him.
“Travis.”
Travis stared at the sergeant.
“You believe him?”
Pike answered:
“I believe the camera needs to be reviewed.”
Travis laughed bitterly.
“Everybody loves cameras now.”
Marcus looked toward Alyssa.
“No.”
“People love evidence when authority and memory disagree.”
The intersection cleared forty minutes later.
Marcus still received no citation.
No probable traffic violation was established from Travis’s vehicle footage.
The signal camera later showed Marcus had legally entered the intersection before the light turned red.
The original justification for the stop collapsed immediately.
But that was only the beginning.
Marcus arrived at Brookhaven Police Headquarters at 5:24 p.m.
His cheek was still slightly red.
Chief Danner offered to postpone the meeting.
Marcus refused.
“No.”