The Alien in My Guest Room: Part 27
The Police Report: the second of two parts.
After Fernando had been beaten bloody and robbed while riding home on the bike path on Sunday evening, he and I went to report the crimes to the local police. Culver City, our little town within Los Angeles, has its own police force. Fernando was clearly uncomfortable dealing with the authorities, but Hermes and I felt reporting was obligatory for a variety of reasons.
We approached and I gave the desk officer an English summary of Fernando’s situation. Though Officer G (not his real initial) was Hispanic and bilingual, he kept asking me for the details in English, never even glancing in Fernando’s direction. It felt to me as if he thought a Honduran youth was somehow less valid, less human, than a middle-aged white native English speaker. I started waving his questions toward Fernando, and literally stepped back until he had to address the person who had actually been mugged.
It was a frustrating encounter. Officer G labelled it robbery, but I was — and am — far more concerned about 15 men beating my boy bloody for sport. I said as much. His response was unexpected: “So you don’t want to recover the bike? What’s the point of filing a police report?” He suggested that maybe the crime had occurred in LAPD’s jurisdiction. I sensed he wanted to pass this annoyance — us — off on someone else (though he turned out to be correct, as Hermes reminded me this morning).
Still: I recalled that a few months ago, my best friend Melody had been attacked and beaten up by a couple of female litterbugs in a Culver City park. (It’s a long story). She called the cops, but when they arrived, they dissuaded her from filing a report. They said that if they found the miscreants, she’d have to face them in court, giving them the opportunity to know her name and where she lives. On the off chance they were convicted, they likely would serve weeks or maybe a couple of months at most. The responding officers implied that Melody’s well-being might be at risk. She chose not to pursue it. I love my little town (despite these isolated events), but I am starting to suspect our police don’t really want to go to the trouble to protect and serve.
Back at home from the station, with the help of Hermes and Googlemaps, we pinpointed the location of the assault. A quick phone call later, and LAPD confirmed that it was, indeed, their problem. Though I originally had feared dealing with Los Angeles’ finest, who are world-famous for all the wrong reasons, now I suspected we had a better chance with them then my local constabulary. They told us to sit tight; they were sending officers to take a report.
A couple of hours later, the doorbell rang. The lead officer was a white man, tall and solid, shaved head, with pumped tattooed biceps and a very big gun. (At least it looked that way to me.) He could have been a Marine, standing the whole time, though we offered him a chair. His partner was a petite African-American woman, whom we soon realized was in training.
Once again, they brought up the question of jurisdiction. Fernando and Hermes climbed into the black-and-white with the officers and went to the scene of the crime. I stayed home and made chili. I imagine Fernando was terrified, but it had to be done. The news was good: it was, in fact, in LAPD’s back yard. We didn’t have to go back to the Culver City police. The interview was on.
Neither officer spoke Spanish. Hermes and I offered to translate, but they said that couldn’t do because they needed to be assured of impartiality on the part of the interpreter. I thought it would make the most sense to call in a Spanish speaking officer, but instead they phoned a professional interpretation phone line. Ms Officer would ask a question towards the speaker phone, the translator would repeat it in Spanish with all its details and subtexts. Fernando would respond, and the translator would reverse the process. She was actually pretty amazing, not missing a thing, even in long and rambling questions and answers. The phone line was crackly and everyone involved kept saying, “Excuse me, I didn’t get that?” Occasionally Mr Big Scary Officer would suggest a question or clarification to his partner.
In the process of trying to understand the details of the event, Ms Officer kept asking questions that clearly went in the wrong direction. For example, she would begin, “So you were walking down the street and…”; I was desperate to yell, “He was riding on a secluded bike path, not walking on a street!” But I had to keep my mouth shut, which you may have gathered is very difficult for me. It took hours for her to comb out the story.
I could easily see that Fernando was anxious. He seemed to pull into himself, as if he were trying to shrink until he disappeared. It seemed to me they were harsh, interrogating a suspect, not interviewing a victim. I reached over and touched Fernando’s arm gently, maternally, a show of support. A light clicked in Ms Officer’s eyes. She remembered something from training. “I’m sorry I’m making you repeat this over and over,” she said, “I know it’s traumatic and you don’t want to re-live it.” For the rest of the interview, both she and Officer Big & Scary were much more compassionate.
Towards the end of the interview, Fernando told the officers that one of the attackers had asked him where he was from. “In English or Spanish?” they wanted to know.
English, said Fernando. “Whereareyoufrom?” — all one heavily accented word — he quoted the attacker.
I couldn’t contain myself. “Really?” I exclaimed. “They asked in English and you understood?”
He nodded.
“Wonderful!” I said, with no sarcasm. “You know enough English to get mugged!”
He had the good grace to laugh.
Big & Scary told him (through me) that this question, “Where are you from?,” suggests his attackers are gang affiliated. If anyone ever asks you that, he advised, there is no right answer. There’s a beating coming, if you’re lucky; a knifing if you’re not. The best thing to do is run in the opposite direction as fast as you can.
“Then they got it backwards,” said Fernando. “They had already beaten me.”
To my great surprise, as the officers prepared to leave, Big & Scary asked me to translate for him. “Tell Fernando,” he said, “that America isn’t like this. Yes, there’s crime, but there’s crime everywhere. This is a great place to live.”
The wheels of justice roll on in unpredictable directions, and today two Spanish speaking detectives came by for another interview. I am virtually certain that we will never see my old bike again, and I don’t care one whit. I expect the perpetrators will never be caught. But I am glad that it’s being taken seriously.
Every day at least one friend asks me, “How is Fernando?” with that special intonation of concern. It’s hard to answer. His body is healed. But the other day, he commented, “It’s worse here than in Honduras.” I think it’s the fresh physical and psychic wounds talking. I understand why he says it, I but hope that the sentiment recedes with time. While he did get mugged and beaten up here, so far no-one has shot at him or threatened to slit his throat with a machete, as his father did in his home country.
I hope that the kindness of people like Michaela, who donated a bicycle; and Meenakshi, who offered free medical advice; even Officer Big & Scary — and you, my benevolent readers — help him rediscover hope in America.