Justice Is Not Blind

As I pulled up to the laundromat, located at the back of a small strip mall, I saw her standing outside by the door, a frail, grey-haired woman of about 70. The call was for simple larceny, with no real details provided, and I wasn’t expecting much more than a quick report. As I walked towards her, metal clipboard in hand, I could see that she was crying. “What’s going on, dear,” I asked as I stepped up from the curb and followed her into the small, cramped business. She spoke through short sobs, telling me that her life savings, around $800, had been stolen some time overnight from a coffee can she kept in her back room. Concerned that this was a burglary, I asked if anyone had access to the business when she was not there. She began to cry harder as she told me she had recently taken in two homeless young men, both about twenty years old, who had shown up looking for work a few days earlier. She went on to tell me that she had allowed the two to stay in her stock room at night, even going so far as to bring them food and some spare clothes left behind by customers at the laundromat. When she had returned to work that morning, she had found their sleeping bags and belongings gone, along with the stolen money, which represented the entire month’s proceeds from her meager business. Despite her predicament, as I left, the woman begged me not to arrest the men if I found them, asking only for her money to be returned. I assured her that I would respect her wishes and left to begin my search.

It didn’t take Dick Tracy to recognize who my suspects were, and I quickly got to work attempting to locate them. The woman had been able to provide a small amount of information about the men’s identities, and in a short amount of time I had located an acquaintance of theirs who lived in a trailer park near the laundromat. At first, I appealed to his sense of fairness and decency, then to his basic need to maintain a positive relationship with his local police. Pressing him for their probable whereabouts, I assured him that I would under no circumstances tell his friends how I came by the information. After a short period of hesitation, he relented, telling me that the two were laying low at a small mechanic’s garage just over the line into a neighboring county. Assuring him of full confidentiality, I hopped in my patrol car and headed off, anxious to catch up to the two drifters before they disappeared for good into the wind.

In my department, any time an investigation took you out of your patrol area, it was our procedure to call and obtain permission from a sergeant to leave your district. Given that this was in a neighboring county, the rule was even more strictly interpreted, and I knew it was unlikely I would receive permission. With this in mind, I elected to leave the sergeant out of it altogether, letting my fellow district cars know of my intentions. They agreed to cover for me, and off I went, happily in search of my prey.

Pulling into the dilapidated garage parking lot about 20 minutes later, I saw no sign of the men at first. Peering through the dirty glass windows, I observed a thin, sallow young man of about 16 seated by the cash register, eying me nervously as I entered the business. Certain by his description that he was neither of my suspects, I decided to be direct, saying, “I’m not here for you,” before asking in a low voice, “where are they.” Without speaking, he darted his eyes several times toward the garage area adjacent to the office. I nodded and stepped into the garage, the smell of oil and grease in my nose as my eyes slowly adjusted to the dim light. Looking to the rear of the garage, I saw the two of them crouched behind the bumper of a decrepit, rusted pickup truck. I called out to them, telling them to show me their hands and step out into the light. Both men grudgingly did so, their eyes moving from me to the doorway behind me. One was over 6 feet tall, with a stocky build; the other, closer to me, was thin, smaller in build, and clearly nervous, his rapid breathing audible in the quiet of the cramped space. I stepped in and pushed the one closest to me into the side of the pickup, telling the other one to sit down with his hands on his head. After searching him quickly, I had the men trade places and searched the stocky one before switching again, taking the thin one with me to the front of the garage, out of earshot of his partner in crime. Speaking softy, I advised him that I would be leaving there that day with the old woman’s money; how that would be accomplished would be up to him and his partner. He protested at first, then quickly caved, whispering to me that the entire sum was concealed in his accomplice’s underwear. I thanked him for his honesty and proceeded back to where his friend sullenly waited on the oil-stained concrete floor.

“Get up'” I shouted, startling him from his quiet reverie. He stood slowly, glaring at me as he rose. About my size, his scarred hands and rough features told a story of a hard life, but I had no room in my heart for sympathy as I thought of the weeping old woman, her rent and grocery money currently stuffed down this young man’s pants. “Where’s the money,” I commanded, making a “give it here” gesture with my hand. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he spat. Leaning in close, I cheerfully advised him that I had no intention of taking either of them to jail but would happily bounce both of them off of every wall in that garage until I obtained what I had come there for. My bluff hung in the air for a moment as we stared at one another, his eyes revealing the tallying up of past decisions, both good and bad. Without a word, he opened his pants and reached inside, pulling out a tightly wrapped wad of bills still in the sandwich bag they had been in when he had lifted it from the old woman’s coffee can. “There’s about $15 missing,” he said, eyes now averting my gaze. “We got some food.” Taking the money, I assured him that the old woman would surely be amenable to calling it even. I left them standing there in the dirty garage, anxious to return to my district before my supervisor discovered my absence.

Both large and small moments stand out in any cop’s career, some good, many awful. Over the years, I would discover and rediscover how painfully rare it is that any true justice is delivered to most who suffer from the indignity of a crime. Black eyes and broken bones heal, but scars and nightmares remain. Stolen property is rarely recovered, and often there is no resolution, no “closure” at all for the countless victims we interact with each day. I can still see that woman’s face as I handed her back her money, and I can still hear her thanking me as I got in my car to drive away. Throughout my career, I would return to this moment, small as it was, as a way to sustain me in the face of so much random pain and injustice. Every now and then, the good guys do win.