5. Jordan / Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted

WHEN TIM CAME to work that Thursday afternoon in February, he, Eddie and about ten other guys were called in for a special briefing. Tim almost fell out of his chair when he heard what was to take place that night: the arrest of three people being accused of trespassing at the Grove Street building.

“I thought all that was in court, Captain,” said one of the patrolmen.

“It was. I understand the eviction suit got thrown out a few days ago on a technicality, so it has to be appealed or re-filed. We got a call from the attorney of the landlord over there. Apparently there are three people who don’t have any sort of rental agreement staying there. Possibly they moved in after the rent strike started. We’ll be going over there at 2200 hours to arrest them for trespassing.”

“All of us?” the rookie asked with astonishment, looking around the room. Everyone laughed. “Wise up, kid,” someone advised.

“All right. Now here’s the plan….”

TIM HADN’T ALWAYS wanted to be a cop. Not because he thought there was anything wrong with it, only that it limited him. Men from the ranks rarely moved as high as lieutenant; in fact, you were lucky to get sergeant’s stripes or become a detective. He was, after four years in the department, just like everyone else: putting in his 20 years for the pension. He liked the job, most aspects of it, anyway. The paperwork he could do without, and he hated going to court. It was the work itself – the arrests, the cruising, the investigations, even the raids – that he enjoyed. 

Once he’d wanted to be a professional football player, and he had been recruited as a defensive back at Cal. But the man who overcomes being five-nine to make the pros is rare indeed. After two years his scholarship was dropped and he quit school, working at various jobs over the next few years: construction, selling cars, warehouseman. But he’d never been satisfied, something had been missing. Excitement, and the feeling that he was doing something that made a difference. So he entered the academy.

He considered himself a patriotic man. Not a flag-waver, but not ashamed to say he loved his country. Some things that were considered “corny” these days were, Tim knew, deep strong traditions for the majority of people, a group in which he included himself. 

He had joined the police department partly because of those feelings for his country, or for what the country should be. Living in San Francisco, he sometimes got to thinking the United States was nothing but faggots, niggers, chinks, hippies, radicals. 

He was not a brutal cop; certainly there were men on the force far more malicious. He was a very physical man, though. He worked out regularly with weights, went to the range often, and played on the police football and softball teams. He had a healthy sexual appetite that he was proud of. He could always get it up for his wife, even now when she was not so attractive to him anymore. He met other chicks on his beat, or at the bars he sometimes went to with Cosgrove, who was divorced. He was considered one of the best cops in the district because he rarely broke the law making arrests. He pushed it often, and knew just how far to go most of the time. The secret was that he had more self-control than other men. He had rarely taken part in the behind-the-station disciplinary lessons administered by other patrolmen in the district. His collars stuck, at least until the DA plea bargained them down.  

He’d done his nine months in the Siberia of the department – chasing kids in Trans Ams and souped up Chevys along the Great Highway. Then he was assigned to Park Station, known as one of the trouble spots, with plenty of action. Most of the women Tim arrested in this district were drug offenders, or addicts he caught breaking in somewhere to support their habit. He knew that he was rougher than necessary with them but you couldn’t really say he was brutal. Like his fellow officers, he deeply resented much of the criminal justice system for expecting cops to stop crime, but throwing all the criminals back on the streets. So Tim figured a little rough stuff during the arrest might teach some of them crime didn’t pay, not on his beat, anyway. Going to court and getting put on probation sure wouldn’t teach them. Especially not the women, they always got off easy.

THEY EXPECTED SOME resistance tonight, unless they could get inside by using the element of surprise to their advantage. Even if they weren’t able to arrest the three trespassers, they were to arrest someone from the building. It had been pointed out that one tenant was an ex-con.

At ten o’clock five squad cars pulled up to the building. Jordan and Cosgrove were to remain outside and keep any onlookers calm and out of the way. 

The tenants refused to allow the police inside. Sergeant O’Brien had no warrant to make an entry. He requested that the three trespassers come outside and go to the station peacefully. This suggestion met with argument. Elsa Callahan, a long-haired young guy and an Indian chick were outside, none of them being the alleged trespassers. Elsa told Sergeant O’Brien that he would not be allowed into the place without a warrant, and that if he wanted he could see the rent receipts of the people he was calling trespassers.

Ten minutes had passed; onlookers had gathered in front of the building. A girl came up to Tim and asked, “What’s going on here, Officer?” 

“Don’t obstruct the sidewalk,” Tim instructed, blocking her. She backed off. “I’m not in the way, I’m only witnessing.” She took out a pen and wrote down his star number.

He sensed the raw nervousness of the other men. He kept looking up at the people in the windows of the building, his heart racing. Always that fear of being shot. One of these fools upstairs might get trigger-happy. The captain had instructed them not to kick in the door and risk any police officer’s life and end up feeding fuel to departmental reformers. But you could never tell when someone might go on a nut.

He glanced at Elsa Callahan, still not believing what he’d learned about her that night, because she didn’t look like a dyke. Neither did her girlfriend. The wind was blowing her red hair across her face and she kept brushing it back with one hand.

“Elsa, you’re very uncooperative,” Sergeant O’Brien exclaimed. “If these people aren’t trespassers, why don’t you just have them come out, we’ll take them to the station, and if they’re innocent, as you say, then there won’t be any problem and they’ll be released.”

“And if they’re guilty, as you say, why don’t you have a warrant, Sergeant? You seem to think it’s no big deal to be arrested when you’re innocent, but anyone in this neighborhood can tell you that’s not true. How can you expect us to turn over three people to you who haven’t done anything wrong?”

Exasperated, O’Brien gestured to another officer and took hold of Callahan’s arm. “Then you can come with us. You’re obstructing a police officer.”

“You let her go!” yelled the Indian broad. Behind Tim, twenty or so onlookers had gathered and when the patrolman began cuffing Callahan, they called out “pigs!” “she didn’t do anything!” “Chickenshit cops!” 

He fingered his club tensely. He heard her calling out, “It’s all right, Alix, let them arrest me. There are plenty of witnesses. Just tell everyone else to stay inside. And everyone stay calm.”

“Take those two,” O’Brien ordered, indicating the Indian woman and the young longhair. The patrolman brought Elsa Callahan over to Tim. “Put her in my car.”

He seized her arm. Her hair was in her eyes and her shirt had hiked up on her belly. He lifted her wrists and she protested, “Come on, man, I’m not resisting.”

What was it that prompted him to do it? Later he could only remember the feel of her skin in his hand, soft and tender in his strong grip; the surge that rushed into him; the power he felt at having her in handcuffs and on the way to jail. He lifted her wrists even higher, causing, he knew, fairly intense pain. He knew she would try to pull free instinctively, and she did. Promptly he stuck his foot between her legs and she tumbled to the sidewalk. For just a moment they were looking directly into one another’s eyes, and he saw terror in hers. The bitch is afraid of me. He remembered her girlfriend calling him “little man” and the contempt in Elsa’s face that night. She wasn’t so uppity now. She was afraid! 

He put his foot on her stomach. “You better calm down, girl.”

Behind him a female voice screamed “You fucking animal!” and he heard Cosgrove move closer, backing him. The fear in Elsa’s eyes turned to disgust. She said, “You feel like a real man now?”

Tim laughed. “What would you know about men?”

“Do you get your rocks off beating women?” some guy called. Cosgrove barked out, “Back off!” Then another male voice: “Try that with a man, punk!” and he rushed Tim, a scroungy looking hippie but big and muscular. Tim waved his nightstick in readiness. “OK, OK, who else wants to get booked?”

The big guy stopped. Tim backed up a step. “This girl was resisting arrest. Break it up or you’ll all go in.”

“We’re just witnessing,” a girl said. “We have the right to do that.”

“Right now you’re obstructing the sidewalk and interfering with officers,” Cosgrove said. Another patrolman grabbed Callahan by the shoulders and pulled her to her feet. Tim murmured, just loud enough for her to hear, “You’ll have a good time in jail, honey, but won’t your girlfriend be jealous?”

She gave him a wise-ass look, stared right at him. “That’s not what really bothers you about me.”

Tim’s blood throbbed heavily against his scalp and his nerves stung with the effort of repressing his urge to smack her. “Get that crazy bitch away from me,” he told the other officer.

The squad car with her in the back sped toward the station and he and Cosgrove turned back to the crowd. He felt almost drunk with emotion. Being on a raid always did this to him; that combination of  nervousness, the fear of being shot or hurt, never knowing what would happen, the fright and confusion of the civilians, the physical scuffles. And her, he’d humiliated her! She was a wild smart-ass little bitch, she thought she was so tough but she was nothing. She could be made to eat shit just like all the other fuckups – the niggers and whores and pimps and two-bit thieves and junkies.

The crowd finally cleared out after all three people had been taken to the station – Elsa, the hippie boy and the Indian chick. Tim and Cosgrove got into their car and drove to the station in silence. Now he was beginning to feel frustrated. He could’ve done more. Sometimes he wished he wasn’t the kind of cop he was. There were some guys who’d just pull their gun on a motherfucker and to hell with the consequences. If the fool ran, so much the better. Nobody believed a junkie or pimp foolish enough to complain a cop drew on him. And even if someone did, so what? Junkies and pimps didn’t deserve any better. 

But Tim was cautious. Was he too cautious? He wouldn’t do what he really wanted to do to her. Not that he couldn’t get away with it; you could, if you handled it right. And he knew the thought had crossed Cosgrove’s mind more than once. Why didn’t he do it? Was it because every time he thought of it he remembered how he had felt when he first joined the department? Was he still so naïve he believed in the law he had once sworn to uphold? Or was it just that he was too afraid to do what he knew should be done and take the heat for it? Maybe he didn’t believe in anything that strongly. Maybe being a cop was just a job to him after all. 

But what really pissed him off was that he knew that little cunt wouldn’t waver. She’d do whatever she had a mind to do, no matter what came out of it. He’d allowed her to get the best of him through his reluctance. He’d had the chance to take care of her and he hadn’t. What if she had him in that position, what would she have done? He knew the answer. He knew it, and he hated her all the more for it.