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About 40 minutes past noon on a Tuesday in April. Sun shining down, slight but persistent breeze, pale blue sky, a few clouds floating by. Fabulous day for a ride in a small city on the Upper Great Plains, the traffic director thinks, then chuckles out loud as he watches passengers board the city’s transit buses in the center of downtown. A man on a bicycle waits in the boarding area in front of one of the buses. He’s black, looks like maybe he’s unhoused – not especially clean looking, a catcher’s mitt of a face that’s taken way too many strikes, worn-out, deeply wrinkled, saggy in spots even though he’s on the thin side, probably makes him look 10-15 years older than he is – all the tired and often erroneous clichés surfacing. Truth is it’s hard to tell, Traffic Director admonishes himself. You really never know. What’s certain is that, at a glance, “problematic,” “threatening” or “uncooperative” are not words he would associate with Bike Guy. But that thought comes after. A second black man approaches, his voice rising well above the whistle of the breeze and the hum of the buses’ diesel engines. He calls out to Bike Guy, staggers forward, gives him a hug and a too-loud greeting. He wheels about, takes a shaky step away from the bus, then another step, this one nearly perpendicular to the direction of the first. He bends over, puts his hands on his knees. Bike Guy reaches out, perhaps to lend a steadying hand. Traffic Director, whose responsibility it is to release the buses on time and keep people safe when they arrive and leave, notices. Tired? Benefit of the doubt, but Traffic Director doubts it; he’s been on this job too long for that. No, he thinks, just as the second man topples to the asphalt. Drunk. The buses are in a formerly private parking lot to the south of the depot, procured by the city when the departure zone where the buses had been arriving and leaving for more than 50 years started sinking. Five decades plus with eight or nine 15-ton buses rolling in and out every half hour from early morning ’till late at night, with three or four more parked on the east side when drivers went on breaks, before someone finally noticed the roof of the underground parking beneath the bus platform was sinking. Had to shut it down, months ago now. City engineers are still trying to figure out if they can fix it, raise and reinforce it somehow, or if they’ll have to tear the whole damn thing up, dirt-fill the hole and pour new concrete over it. Regardless, the buses now roll in and roll out of a parking lot not designed for the purpose. To make it work, the city designated the first row of parking spaces as the passenger waiting area, across a gap between parking rows (a driveway), from where the buses park over the top of a double set of parking spaces/rows. To get to the depot after deboarding a bus, a passenger needs to cross over the driveway to the waiting area and vice versa. This creates several problems, most of which involve danger to passengers whose mothers and fathers apparently failed to teach them not to walk out in front of moving buses. They stand around in the driveway or run out late to catch buses that are already rolling out of the makeshift staging area. Clueless passenger, meet 15-ton vehicle. Normally a traffic director would not be needed in a transit operation like this one, but it’s liabilities like that he’s supposed to keep from biting the city in the ass. The inebriate lying close to the driveway is a problem.
Traffic Director squeezes the walkie-talkie. “Dispatch, I’ve got a guy out here, looks like he’s pretty intoxicated.” “Where?” “He’s lying on the ground in front of Route 2. Bus 2216.” <pause> “Security in there?” Traffic Director asks, watching the intoxicated man attempt to stand. “We already called the police.” Security Guy. “Ten-four,” Traffic Director says, moving toward Inebriate and Bike Guy. More people are gathering around, some laughing at the drunk. Others stare with sad or distraught looks on their faces. Secondhand shame; it’s almost as bad as the real thing. “Wha’d’ya want me to do here?” Traffic Director asks. “Cops are on the way,” Dispatcher says. Doesn’t exactly answer my question? Traffic Director thinks, still moving toward the intoxicated man. Then he sees Security Guy weaving through the throng and stops short. He’s got this, Traffic Director thinks, watching as Security Guy helps Inebriate to his feet and begins guiding him back to the public waiting area. Bike Guy pedals slowly behind. Must be friends, Traffic Director thinks, then notices a cop running toward the staging area from the north. He refocuses on to the Apple watch on his left wrist and the fast-approaching departure time. At precisely a quarter before the hour – the watch shows all the way out to seconds – he calls it. “O.K., 17, let’s roll. Two, you’re next. Everyone else follow down the line.” As he does at every release, Traffic Director walks west across the public waiting area so he can see the drivers behind the glare on their windshields; he needs to know if all the passengers have made it past their toll boxes and down the aisles and that the driver is ready before letting each bus depart. As the last bus for the round passes, he begins walking toward the low wooden walkway over the curbs at the west end of the parking lot that customers and transit employees use for access to/from the depot and the bus-staging area. There is the police officer. White, dark brown hair and mustache/beard, about 5’6” to 5’8” tall. Shorty Cop, Traffic Director thinks. Shorty Cop engages with Inebriate, Bike Guy and several others. A passenger waiting for the next round of buses stands about 12 feet away, watching. She can hear what’s being said but can’t make out the words; the wind rushing past her ears raises a whoosh. Like that conch shell I found on Indian Rocks Beach, she thinks, but it’s more like: Conch shell. Indian Rocks. Yeah. Security Guy is there, too, waiting to see what’s going to happen next. Suddenly, with no warning and no aggressive physical behavior by the black man with the bicycle that either Future Passenger or Security Guy sees, the officer grabs him and violently throws him to the ground. His back connects flat with the asphalt, his legs trailing off of the wooden walkway. They hear his wind burst from his lungs – “HUH!” – when he hits, hard. His eyes are wide, like he’s just seen his grandmother’s ghost, she thinks: Gramma. Scared.
Later, she’ll wonder if her own eyes were just as wide; the abrupt action by the police officer shocked her. He must’ve said something really bad, she thinks. Security Guy is stunned, too. He stares, his mind blank. Blown away is how he’ll describe it later, plus, but that was nothin’ yet. The cop jumps on the black man, left knee on his right thigh and right forearm across his windpipe. Traffic Manager’s mind jumps immediately to 2020. George Floyd! he thinks. The woman sees a video of the Minneapolis scene in her mind, a replay of the murder, Derek Chauvin kneeling on a different black man’s neck in a different city. Despite Shorty Cop’s unprovoked attack, Bike Guy does not struggle. When he finally catches his breath, he pleads with the officer. “Wait, wait... I didn’t do anything!” he says. This further incites the white cop, who climbs even further onto the black man. The cop’s left knee presses down on the man’s right thigh and hip area, his right knee on the man’s left thigh and hip area, with his forearm still crossed over the man’s throat. He screams into the black man’s face from only a few inches away, repeatedly: “Turn over onto your stomach!” “Turn over onto your stomach!” “Turn over onto your stomach!” Security Guy begins pacing a few feet back and forth in front of Traffic Director. What’s happening in front of him is a long way from what he thought would go down; he wonders if he did anything wrong. He’s new to the job. Only 20 years old. Doesn’t want to lose it. He paces a few steps back and forth. Nope, he thinks, I did exactly what I was supposed to – I’m good. Traffic Director stands, helplessness washing over and coursing through his body as Security Guy paces back and forth. It’s much more than a thought, but an actual, physical reaction, followed quickly by anger, then fury. Aside from Security Guy passing back and forth, no one is between him and the white cop on top of the black man. Bike Guy lays there, offering no apparent resistance, but he cannot comply with Shorty Cop’s demand, either. Finally, Traffic Director verbalizes the obvious: “He can’t turn over! You’re kneeling on him!” But Shorty Cop keeps screaming into Bike Guy’s face, anyway – “Roll over onto your stomach! Do it now!” Now the white cop is fully on top of the black man, face to face and chest to chest, legs pinning the man’s legs to the ground. It makes Traffic Director think of rape, or maybe a bear mauling a hiker. Traffic Director takes a step forward, then stops. He repeats himself, trying to get the cop to listen and quit insisting the black man do something that he, himself – the cop – is making impossible. “He can’t do it!” Shouting this time. “You’ve got him pinned down!” But the cop keeps on, either ignoring or too enraged to notice.
A police cruiser rolls into the parking lot, pulls up near the white cop holding the black man down on the asphalt and screaming into his face. On the side is the police’s motto: “BUILT ON TRUST, ACCOUNTABILITY AND INCLUSION.” Traffic Director looks from the cruiser to the white cop pressing the black man into the asphalt. “My ass,” he mumbles under his breath. A female cop gets out of the car and nonchalantly walks over, as if seeing the white cop on top of a black man, screaming into his face, is nothing out of the ordinary. Just another day on the job. Nothing to see or hear here. She says something to Shorty Cop. He finally gets off of Bike Guy, grabs him by the right arm and roughly turns him over, onto his stomach. He kneels on Bike Guy’s back, slaps the cuffs over his wrists. He gets off again, this time harshly pulling Bike Guy up by his right arm. When he’s halfway up the female cop grasps the other arm. They start leading him toward the cruiser. Traffic Director looks around, notices Inebriate is nowhere to be seen. Someone else must’ve gotten him out of here, he thinks, then turns and walks toward the depot. He doesn’t even register Future Passenger standing there, her eyes wide, mouth ajar. Did Bike Guy say something threatening? Traffic Director wonders, but can’t imagine what it could’ve been; nothing he can conjure would have warranted the ferocity of the onslaught he’s just witnessed. Maybe the cop’s wife left him last night, his internal voice suggests. Or maybe he’s just an asshole who thinks he’s better than homeless people… Little-man syndrome? But his second internal voice, the deeper, wiser one, whispers: that, and because the guy’s black. Traffic Director nods, keeps walking. Yep, he thinks, that’s it. This is why people fucking hate cops. Future Passenger remains, stunned. She can’t believe what just happened in front of her. Oh, my god! she finally thinks. Jesus Fucking Christ. She’s never seen anything like it before, and she’s never had any concept of what “excessive force” really means. Not really. She watches the cops shove Bike Guy into the back of the cruiser. She turns and walks east, back along the passenger waiting area, turning back a couple of times to see what’s happening with Bike Guy and the cops. She sits on the curb, purposefully looking away now. Security Guy catches up to Traffic Director. “Wow,” he says. “That cop was WAY out of line,” Traffic Director says, still walking. “Um... yeah,” Security Guy agrees, but thinks to himself, Was he? From the depot windows, transit employees gawp and comment on the proceedings. Traffic Director sees a police van drive into the parking lot, the driver get out and place the bicycle in the back, then drive back out again. Nothing to see or hear here. Fucking cops, he thinks, but his co-workers seem delighted. They’re laughing about how it all went down, how helpless the black man looked trapped beneath the white cop, how he rag-dolled when the cop threw him to the ground, what he might’ve said to piss off the white cop so much. Traffic Director listens. None of them says anything about what the cop might have done differently, or that maybe none of this would’ve happened at all if he’d kept his cool. Or if he wasn’t a fucking racist. He puts his head down and walks toward the restroom, disgusted, wanting to get away without making eye contact lest he lose his shit all over someone. Later, at a coffee shop, Future Passenger tells her friend the whole story. “You won’t believe what I saw at the bus station today....” She doesn’t quite make Shorty Cop an upstanding defender of justice, but she definitely gives him the benefit of the doubt. That evening she tells her husband. He chuckles. “I’m sure he had it coming,” he says of Bike Guy, reaching for another serving of tater-tot hotdish. She nods in agreement. Within a couple of days she won’t even think about the story anymore. Because that’s all it is – a story. Right around the time she’s rolling out her first-person account to her husband, Security Guy cracks a second beer, asks his girlfriend if she wants one. “Nah,” she says. “I’m good.” Traffic Director is at home, surveying a webpage on his computer at the kitchen table. “City Police,” it says at the top. Finally, he clicks on the link a third of the way down the page to a PDF of a citizen complaint form. The usual – Name, Address, Phone Number, Email Address.... He scrolls to the second page. “Describe in as much detail as possible the nature of your complaint.” He stares at the sentence for a long time. I’m a city employee, too, he thinks. Probably the same damn HR department. He listens to his wife and the kids in the living room, thinks about the rent, groceries, insurance for a couple of vehicles and everything else. Not to mention health insurance, he thinks. Paycheck to paycheck. And about how he’s in a right-to-work state. Which really means Right-to-Fire-Any-Employee-at-Any-Time-for-Any-Reason-or-No-Reason-at-All. “That was bullshit,” he says aloud, but not too loud. Black or not. Homeless or not. Smartass or not. The man did not deserve that. “Fucking white-ass, punk-ass, little-man cop.” He wonders what happened to Bike Guy, where he is right now, how the violence at the bus depot and his arrest have probably changed his life. Not for the better, he thinks. Or maybe it’s just another bump in the road? Either way, that doesn’t make it any righter. He knows complaints have been made before. Promises to clean things up, to be better, followed. And things seemed better for a while, a few months maybe, but in the end? Just cops being cops in a small Midwestern city, like they’ve always been. Traffic Director, the husband and father, looks out the kitchen window. Another apartment building about 12 feet away, the bricks turning black as the last rays of the fading sun slip away. He stands up from the table, glances down at the PDF on the screen one more time. He leaves it open but closes the laptop, turns, and walks toward the living room.
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