Bad Cop No Donut

The handicapped man shook his head and closed his laptop, having just read the latest in the never-ending litany of bad cop no donut news stories. This was another of the all too familiar SWAT raid on the wrong house variety, leaving a dead family pet, destroyed home, and screaming children in its wake.

The fifty-five-year-old man rolled his wheelchair into the kitchen and retrieved a bottle of water from the refrigerator. He took a long drink, twisted the cap back on, stuffed the bottle between the arm of the chair and his left hip, and wheeled back into his living room. Since becoming paralyzed five years ago due to a spinal cord disease, he had started a blog. He had always thought of himself as a writer, but the early promise he had shown had been waylaid by jobs, marriage, children, and the myriad time-constraints, distractions, and commitments of adult life. For better or worse, with a wife at work all day, children grown, and career cut short, he was now free again to follow his muse.

He wrote about all manner of things, from short fiction to movie reviews, from memoirs of his childhood to pieces about holiday entertaining. But mostly he wrote about government conspiracies, and the expanding abuse of authority by law enforcement officers. 

He glanced out the living room's wide bay window, and with a start he saw a police cruiser stop in front of his house, blocking his driveway. A jolt of adrenaline shot through him. What the fuck!? he thought.

A cop sat in the driver's seat looking at an open laptop. After several minutes of the cop just sitting there, the man reopened his own laptop and logged onto Facebook. He checked his Chat bar, but none of his friends were online at the moment. When he looked up from his computer again, he noticed that the cop was no longer inside his vehicle.

The man rolled from one room to the next and stole glances out the windows, but with his limited mobility, could not see where the cop had gone. Although there was nothing he was particularly guilty of, he had received a violation letter from the Village citing grasses and/or weeds above the restricted height. His son came out as often as he could to tend to the yard, but with work and a young family of his own, the lawn sometimes went for several weeks between cuttings.

He waited anxiously for a knock on the door, or for the squad car to pull away, but after fifteen minutes, his driveway remained blocked. Further checks of the windows still revealed no sign of the officer. It was not unknown in his town for police to come on private property and shine flashlights in garage windows looking for cars without proper vehicle stickers, and anything else they might find.

Paranoia, justified or not, was beginning to get to him. He had always harbored the fear that his outspoken disdain for the government and their hired thugs would get him in trouble. Indeed, in his blog he had taken potshots at the NSA, DEA, FBI, TSA, and many other alphabet soup organizations (although conspicuously not the CIA, because those fuckers were genuinely scary). In addition, he had written exposes about Big Pharma, Monsanto, Halliburton, the Trans Pacific Partnership, and many other corporate entities who were not above hiring black ops contractors when they needed a little wet work done.

After twenty minutes, the man decided he was done with this cat and mouse game, and he dialed the non-emergency number for the local police department.

"Chief Gobshite speaking."

"Yes, there's been a police vehicle blocking my driveway for the past twenty minutes, and I'd like to know why he's parked there."

"I show that the officer is talking to your next door neighbor about a police matter. I'm sure he didn't mean to block your driveway. Do you need the officer to move his vehicle?"

"No, that's all right. I won't be leaving my house," said the man. He didn't add that he was unable to leave his house, even if he wanted to.

He hung up the phone and used the remote to turn on the TV. Generally, wild horses could not get him to watch daytime television, until Judge Judy came on at 4, but he wanted to distract himself. He channel surfed for a few minutes, realizing once again why he refused to fall into the abyss of non-primetime programming. A sharp banging on his front door brought his heart up to his mouth.

The man rolled to the door and pushed aside the curtain. A cop dressed in a blue uniform stood on the small porch. The man maneuvered himself and opened the door. He sat a few feet back from the screen door which separated them. The cop's right hand rested on the butt of his holstered service weapon.

"Sir, did you just call and complain that I was blocking your driveway?" said the cop.

"No, I didn't call to complain, I called to see why you were parked there," the man replied.

"How about if I arrest you for interfering with a police officer in the performance of his duties," said the cop, "Siiiir?"

"Um, I don't believe you can do that," said the man.

"Are you a lawyer?" said the cop. This time there was no "Sir."

"No, but I know my rights," said the man.

"Rights!" the cop scoffed. "When dealing with the police, you have no rights."

"I'm not sure the courts would agree with that," said the man. He was getting angry. He was in his own home.

"You wanna go down that road?" said the cop. "Do you have any idea what kind of hell I can put you through? I can arrest your ass and hold you for three days without even charging you. You don't look like you'd do very well in a holding cell. You got money for bail? You got money for a lawyer? You want to take your chances in front of a jury?"

"What's wrong with you!?" said the man. He noted the nametag just above the cop's right shirt pocket. Engraved in black on a gold bar was the word WAAD. His first name must be Dick, thought the man.

"What's wrong with me?" said the cop. "You're the one who stuck his nose in my business."

Before he could stop himself, the man said, "Do you practice being an asshole, or does it come naturally?"

The cop drew his gun and pointed it at the man's face. "You just bought yourself a world of trouble," said the cop.

The man reflexively rolled back a few feet. "Are you kidding me!?" he shouted.

The cop adopted the classic two-hand pistol stance. "Stop where you are! Don't move!" the cop yelled.

"Are you going to shoot an unarmed man in a wheelchair?" the man yelled back.

The man's next door neighbor had come out to see what all the commotion was. He stood in his driveway and called out, "Hey! What's going on over there!?"

The cop glanced over his shoulder. "Sir, go back in your house!" he yelled.

When the cop turned his head, the man in the wheelchair rolled back a foot and started to swing the front door shut. The cop snapped his head back, and an explosion echoed throughout the neighborhood.

The bullet tore through the man's chest. The wheelchair flipped backwards, then fell on its right side, the man's dead eyes staring in disbelief.

Additional emergency vehicles quickly responded. The EMTs rushed in, but there was nothing for them to do. Two detectives talked to the cop, and briefly took the neighbor's statement. The county coroner's van arrived and took the man away in a body bag. Police tape crisscrossed the man's front door.

Two plainclothes officers entered the building where the man's wife worked. They approached the receptionist's desk, flashed their badges, and asked for the man's wife. When she came out, the detectives identified themselves and asked if there was a place they could talk privately. She led them into an empty conference room, and one of the detectives closed the door. A moment later, a loud, anguished, "NO!" sounded through the door. The company president, whose office was located next to the conference room, knocked quickly, and went in. The lead detective explained the situation, and the dumbfounded president embraced the man's wife.

"We'd like for her to accompany us to the morgue for identification," said the detective.

The president said to the man's wife, "Do you want to call anyone? Do you want me to call anyone for you?"

With heaving sobs, the man's wife nodded and was barely able to write down her son's name and cell phone number. The president said, "I'll call him right away and have him meet you at the County Building."

An article about the incident appeared in the next day's paper:

At approximately 10:30 yesterday morning, a Village police officer confronted a man in his home regarding an obstruction of justice violation. The homeowner allegedly acted in an aggressive manor and the officer felt his safety was threatened. The officer subsequently drew and discharged his service weapon, striking the man once in the chest. The man was killed instantly.

When quoted, the man's wife asked, "Why did my husband have to die? He had no weapons. He was paralyzed and in a wheelchair."

The officer was identified as Richard Waad, a ten year veteran of the force.

When questioned about the fact that the homeowner and the officer were separated by a screen door and several feet apart, Officer Waad responded, "I could not tell what he had alongside him in the wheelchair. It appeared as if he was reaching for a weapon."

Chief Gobshite of the Village Police Department stated, "The shooting appears justified. Our officer felt his life was in jeopardy. We will, of course, be launching a thorough investigation into this unfortunate incident."

Village mayor Manley Hanshake elaborated, "Our officers have a very difficult job. They put their lives on the line every day. Every interaction with the public involves a very real risk to our officers. They are called upon to make difficult decisions and are trained to respond instantly to any perceived threat. We need to keep our officers safe while at the same time protecting the public. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the deceased man's family, as well as to our officer."

Pending the outcome of the investigation, the officer is on paid administrative leave.

The man's wife said, "This murdering bastard gets a paid vacation while I get to bury my husband."

As word spread among the man's family and friends; his elderly parents, brother, sisters, pastor, members of his local library writers group, bewilderment gave way to grief, which gave way to anger. The man's son and daughter-in-law sat down with their four young children and faltered in their explanation that their grandfather was now in heaven.

Within a few short weeks, the completed investigation found the shooting justified and reinstated the officer who was now back on duty.

Although no criminal charges were filed against the officer, a wrongful death civil suit was settled out of court a year later for an undisclosed sum, which was ultimately paid for by the taxpayers.