Right after making his lifesaving deal, Quadry promptly accused the arresting officers of doing a drum solo on his head in the station I-room with their PR-24 aluminum nightsticks.
The EMTs were called but couldn’t find a mark. This fact was of almost no consequence. Once the charge was made, regardless of its validity, Internal Affairs was mandated to take the case. The two patrol cops were pulled from the field and put on paper-clip duty for several months until the adjudication of their IA Board of Rights hearing.
Filing a false police report was a Class C felony worth, at best, only a year in jail, which meant nothing to Quadry Barnes, who had just agreed to serve a life sentence. It was just another part of the endless cycle of BS that cops were now forced to deal with.
I watched as the Persian rug wearer turned to look at the street. He still had his equipment out and now began waving it at the passing commuter traffic. I’d been studiously trying to avoid dealing with this guy, but he’d finally crossed the line. I opened my car door and got out. As I approached him I began to pick up a raw downwind odor, which grew in intensity as I neared.
“Excuse me, sir, but you’re unzipped,” I said politely. “Exposing yourself in public is a violation of Criminal Statute Three-One-Four, punishable by fines and incarceration.”
“You miss me wid dat, dog breath,” he growled through a busted mouth with the few teeth he had spaced wide like the front grille of a ’53 Buick. He waved his meat at me to make his point. “Dis here be the English Sentry. The English Sentry, he do what he do. I got no say over Lord Ding Wallace.”