Free Society: After It Happened Book 3 by Devon C Ford Page A

night.  Busy as usual.  We got a call for a kid with a knife on the outskirts, bad area you know?  Concrete jungle kind of place; all high rises, high crime rates and high unemployment” Marie knew. 
    “We got there, looked around and couldn’t see anyone who looked more suspicious than normal.  We’d had a lot of hoax calls there; kids on the estate throwing things at the cars.  Couple guys got hurt; one was quite bad when a freezer went over the balcony and hit a car.  It was becoming an estate you didn’t go onto unless you went in force”
    Marie knew those areas well, having sent plenty of people in force to fetch her the bad people to lock away.
    “Anyway.  Walking back to the car and my mate goes down; they’d lobbed a half-brick at us from a balcony.  Just dumb luck that he took it in the head.  Lights out, fractured skull.” He drew on his cigarette, taking it down to the end before he flicked it away with his thumb and forefinger.
    “A kid appears from by the car.  It came to my head that they’d figured out what we were and were going to take the guns.  I still believe that now, even when it doesn’t matter anymore.  I tried to call for backup but this kid ran at us.  He had something in his hand.  I couldn’t see it clearly but I was sure it was a weapon.  I drew on him, shouting at the top of my voice for him to stop.  He didn’t, so I shot him once in the chest” he said, eyes vacant and tapping the fingers of his right hand on his sternum.
    Marie stayed silent, letting Dan fill the gap.
    “They all scattered” he said, looking up with tears streaming down his face “Backup arrived and helped me do CPR on the kid.  My mate survived, the kid died on scene.  They took my gun, swabbed my hands and led me away to give my initial statement – they all had that look of pity on their faces.  Dead man walking.” He cuffed at his eyes.
    “The press screamed racism.  Police brutality.  Black youth murdered by white cop; all that shit. He was fourteen years old.  I was sure it was a gun he was carrying but the only thing they found was his fucking phone.  He was running to help, and I killed him.  He wanted to be a paramedic when he grew up.  He was first aid mad when all the other kids his age were chalking up robberies and weapons charges”
    He cried.  “It was awful.  They hung me out to dry.  My name got leaked and I had death threats.  ‘Racist pig murderer’ – that’s what they painted on my car.  I went downhill badly.  Depression, insomnia, mood swings.  I was in a bad way.  Not just my career – I didn’t care about that any more – but my life was over”
    He looked down at the floor “That’s when she left and took the kids.  I found out afterwards that she’d been dropping on her back for her boss anyway; not that it mattered by then.  Everything I’d ever worked for was gone.  I did my job, and the organisation crucified me for it.  I was in a situation and reacted how I was taught, but it was wrong.  I was wrong.  Not once did the job stand up in the inquest and say I was innocent; they bent over backwards to help prove I wasn’t”
    “After eighteen months of hell the inquiry declared a lack of any evidence to convict me for murder, but nobody forgot.  It was ruled an ‘accidental death following police contact’.  I’d moved back to where I’d started out before transferring.  Everywhere I went it was the whispering; ‘that’s the bloke who shot that kid’.  Bastards; you’d think your own side would look after you, wouldn’t you?  After that the word of the private prosecution came through.  I was suspended again, and was looking at a trial for manslaughter”
    He paused.  “It looked likely that I was going down for it”
    Dan angrily wiped the tears from his face and lit another cigarette. 
    “So now you know everything” he said bitterly “still want me around?”
    Marie had stayed still and silent as it all