The Sound of Breaking Glass
“I don’t need a bottle of water. Come on. Help.”
The words were almost lost beneath the sound of shattering glass.
Officer Daniel Morrison drove his fist through the driver's-side window for the third time. The safety glass burst inward, scattering across the dashboard and onto the lap of the man sitting behind the wheel.
Marcus Troy did not scream.
He did not reach for the door handle. He did not raise his hands.
Both hands remained firmly on the steering wheel.
For several seconds, the world seemed to freeze.
Traffic slowed along Elm Street. A woman standing outside a pharmacy lifted her phone. A man walking his dog stopped at the corner. Everyone could see what was happening, though few yet understood why.
“Get out of the car!” Morrison shouted.
Marcus turned his eyes slightly toward the dashboard.
The camera was still recording.
That was all he needed to know.
Morrison reached through the broken window, unlocked the door, and tore it open. Another officer, Harris, grabbed Marcus by the shoulder. Within seconds, Marcus was dragged from the car and thrown onto the pavement.
His shoulder struck the asphalt.
Pain exploded through his body.
“Stop resisting!” someone yelled.
Marcus wasn't resisting.
A knee pressed into his back. His arm was twisted behind him. Cold metal cuffs closed around his wrists.
Above him, the evening sky was turning purple.
Marcus closed his eyes.
Three weeks earlier, he had been sitting in a conference room in Chicago, staring at a photograph of the Deerfield Police Department.
His supervisor had told him exactly what might happen.
Give them the opportunity to show us who they really are.
Now, with his cheek pressed against the street and blood trickling from a cut near his temple, Marcus understood the true meaning of those words.
The officers surrounding him believed they were in control.
They believed he was another stranger passing through their town.
They believed nobody important was watching.
They were wrong.
Every second was being recorded.
And before the night was over, the people who had spent years deciding who belonged in Deerfield would discover what it felt like to be afraid of the truth.
The Assignment
Three weeks earlier, Marcus Troy sat across from Special Agent Evelyn Keller in a windowless conference room.
There was no dramatic briefing screen. No weapons laid across the table.
Only a photograph.
Deerfield, Illinois.
Population: 11,000.
Police officers: 23.
Complaints filed over three years: dozens.
Complaints successfully investigated: almost none.
Marcus studied the photograph without touching it.
The police station looked harmless. A brick building with a flagpole and carefully maintained flowerbeds stood beneath a bright summer sky.