Powder Burn - Carl Hiaasen [95]
He wrote:
Interviewed D. Petri, W/M, DOB 4-3-50. Owns Danny’s Pizza Shack. Says he doesn’t know anything about Chevrolet in parking lot.
Interviewed Susan Lesser, B/F, DOB 3-21-48. Stylist at Pep’s Poodle Emporium, ph. 555-4457. Ms. Lesser says blue Malibu has been parked outside for at least two days. Doesn’t know who it belongs to.
Interviewed Joy Burns, W/F, DOB 8-8-52, ph. unk. Works as silkscreen operator at custom T-shirt booth. Says the blue Chevrolet in quest. has been parked at mall at least two days. Ms. Burns says she is sure because her boyfriend noticed it one day when he picked her up from wk.
Pincus walked out of the mall to tell his partner what he had learned. He saw a figure lying on the pavement near the burgundy van and broke into a run.
He later wrote:
Found subject, Aristidio Cruz, W/M, DOB unk., address unk., lying in parking lot bleeding profusely from head. He was unconscious and showed rapid breathing.
Capt. Nelson stated that when he asked subject for identification, subj. suddenly opened the door to the van, which struck Capt. Nelson in chest and arms. Capt. Nelson stated that he ordered subj. Cruz to get out of the van and put his hands up, but that subj. Cruz attacked him with fists.
Capt. Nelson further stated he struck subj. Cruz several times with his fists, which failed to subdue him. Capt. Nelson stated he then got his Kel-Lite and was forced to strike subj. Cruz numerous times before he could put the handcuffs on.
Capt. Nelson asked me to call Metro Fire Rescue. A search of subj. van, Fl tag JOG-737, produced: one Head tennis racket, three Wilson tennis balls, two towels, three (3) marijuana cigarettes and one Adidas athletic bag containing 8.7 pounds of white powder substance in plastic bags. (Substance later tested out as mixture of cocaine and lidocaine.)
Subj. Cruz transported to Flagler Med. Center. Charged with resisting arrest w/violence and possession of controlled subst. w/intent to distribute.
That’s what Pincus meticulously wrote in the blue notebook. That is not precisely what found its way into the official arrest report or what the internal review board heard.
“Do me a favor,” Nelson said that afternoon after the ambulance had left. “The headhunters are going to want to know if this was excessive force. Tell ’em you saw the guy come at me.”
“But I didn’t.”
“Look, we just made the biggest coke bust this month. That Cruz guy is a scum. I got a file this big I can show you—”
“He can’t be more than twenty years old,” Pincus protested.
“Means nothing,” Nelson said. “I got lots of work to do and I don’t have the time to waste in all these goddamn ‘use of force’ hearings. I’m asking you to do me this one favor.”
They had not been partners long enough to read each other’s minds, or long enough to enjoy that peculiar we’re-all-in-this-together bond. Pincus was wary, but he was also green.
“It’s no big deal,” Nelson said, “and someday you’ll need me to do the same thing. That’s just the way it works.”
“OK,” Pincus said after a few moments. “But there’s one thing I don’t understand. If this Cruz guy was so wild, where’d you get the time to run back to the car and grab the Kel-Lite?”
“Well,” Nelson said, chewing on the end of his cigar, “that happened right after you went into the mall. Before he went nuts on me. I asked him if I could have a look in the van, and he said sure. That’s when I got the flashlight.”
“Then he came at you?”
“Right.”
So Pincus hedged on the report, hedged even more when one of the internal review guys asked him what he saw and downright lied on his affidavit: “Subj. Cruz then attacked Capt. Nelson and began striking him as this officer approached scene.…”
Cruz himself gave a remarkably different version, but no one in the department seemed to pay much attention. Cruz was unable to give his statement for three months, until he was out of the hospital and the speech therapy had sufficiently progressed,