Part 1

It wasn't often that the officers arrived at a scene and the suspects were still there. Today was a case like that. Sofia could hear the fight the gangs had before she saw how many of them were around.

"We need some back-up." She ordered through her radio before she left the car. Two black and whites were already here, she passed the corner and saw around two dozen teenager yelling at each other. So far it seemed like nobody had tried to assault anybody, what didn't mean, it would stay this way.

"Hey, hey, excuse me!" She tried to get the attention of the teenagers. "LVPD, shut the fuck up!" Four officers were trying to keep the two gang separated.

"Get lost!" At least somebody noticed her. She placed herself in between the two gangs, eyeing them and picked the one, who yelled at her.

"What's this about."

"Not your damn business."

"You made it my business by being that loud."

"Fuck you."

"That's not…" Before she could continue to talk a stone flew from behind her into the group of the people in front of her. The attack got responded immediately Sofia found herself in the middle of a battlefield.

"I know it's not my business but what went wrong with your last shopping tour?" Sara looked amused at the blonde detective.

"Very funny." Sofia wore a jumper that was at least two number too big for her.

"No seriously, what happened? Are you pregnant and bought the outfit for later?"

"I had a white blouse and somebody managed to spill a lot water of whatever it was, over me and I don't have to tell you what happened to a white blouse when it gets wet. It wasn't the best thing to wear and I didn't have anything else handy, the press is all over the place, I took the first thing somebody offered me."

"Okay, that sounds better. Who wears a baby blue jumper from your officers?"

"None of them. There was a young woman and she gave it to me."

"You took a jumper from a suspect?"

"I don't think she is a suspect, I think she was a bystander…I've to find her, to know where I've to return that jumper…" Sofia looked around. The woman should be here, she was a possible witness.

"You do that. Anything you can tell me about the case?"

"Two street gangs, when I arrived they were just yelling at each other, four officers tried to keep them separated, suddenly a rock or something like that flew and they all started fighting."

"That's where you got your lovely black eye from."

"I'll come back to this guy personal. Believe me, this will be the black eye he'll regret for the rest of his life."

"Bad ass cop."

"Go and investigate the crime scene, Sidle. There is one db and enough evidence."

"Sure thing, Tyson."

"I'll bite in your ear if you don't move now."

Sara grinned and walked away. She had to start the scene alone, Greg was supposed to help her, but had to finish another scene first. It was a messy night.

A young man was lying on his back, blood was all over his t-shirt and pants. David was on his knees next to him.

"Hey David."

"Hi Sara, how are you?"

"Quite alright. What do we have here? Stabbed?"

"Yes, there's a deep and wide wound on his chest. Somebody must have forced a knife or something like that in his chest and drag it a few inches through his body."

"Looks like a y-cut gone wrong."

"Very wrong. I can't remember seeing anybody at university cutting that bad when we had our first y-cuts."

"You were all good students with time, these were street kids, with no time and only one goal: kill the enemy. Do you know how many are wounded?"

"No."

"A dozen." Sofia was back.

"What about officers?"

"We're all a little bit bruised, one got a broken nose, but the back-up was here fast and we got them separated."

"Back-up wasn't fast enough for him." Sara angled a wallet out of the back pocket. "Jermaine Rice, eighteen. Not old enough to drink and already dead. All for a stupid gang fight."

"They were having fights the last two or three weeks." Sofia said. "The Black Hoods were trying to get some area of the Red Ribbons."

"Black Hood? Red Ribbons? What are these kids thinking? The more stupid the name is, the cooler is the gang?"

"Kind of.

"Well, this Red Ribbon is now yours." Sara gave the driver's license to Sofia.

"Talking to the parents. My favorite part of the job." The blonde noticed the address and gave the license back to Sara.

"I'll go and find out if his address is the same like his parents. Do you need me here anymore?"

"No, thanks. I'll see you later."

"Yeah, I need to be back in the department ASAP, there're a lot of suspects to talk to. Would be nice if a talented CSI could give me something to work with."

"I'll ask Greg when he's around." Sara smirked and blinked at Sofia, who rolled her eyes. Did Sara have something strange in her dinner?

"I've got some DNA samples in the lab, a shoe print from the back of the vic's shirt and can tell you, you're looking for a knife, one sharp side, one blunt, around an inch wide and at least four inches long. That was the deepest part of the wound." Sara gave a notepad to Sofia.

"Thanks."

"More later."

"That's a lot for two hours."

"I thought you'd appreciate the fast work, Greg was a real great CSI."

"I don't want to make Greg bad but you know I was talking about you."

"Were you? Thanks."

"Wanna come with me for some interviews? Playing smart ass investigator while I play bad ass cop."

"Yeah, I can do that. If you need me."

"Always."

Sara chuckled and followed Sofia to an interview room. When the blonde opened the door she stopped right away.

"Who's that?" She asked the officer.

"Nico Thomas. She doesn't talk."

"What?"

"All she did was giving us a passport, she isn't from here. An interpreter is here in a minute."

"And she doesn't talk?"

"Not a word."

"Why…"

"I'm sorry, I came here as fast as I could." A woman in her late forties came in the room. The visitor pass showed her name was Kellerman and she was the interpreter.

"We just arrived ourselves. Have a seat." Sofia got a chair from the wall to the table, let the interpreter sit next to the young woman. The same woman, who gave her the jumper. Was she more than a bystander? But she was obviously a foreigner, why should a foreigner be involved in a gang fight?

"You were the one who gave me the jumper." Sofia said to the young woman. Her dark blond hair was a little bit messed up, it touched her shoulders and fell almost in her eyes in the front.

The interpreter started to talk to the woman in a language Sofia and Sara had no idea of what it was. It wasn't Spanish.

Sofia's cell phone rang. She sighed and rolled her eyes. "Curtis….okay, I'm on my way." She looked at Sara. "They went on with this fight, one more db. You come with me?"

"Sure."

"Sorry Mrs. Kellerman, we need to get you another detective." Sofia got up. What was wrong with these guys? They had half of the gangs in custody and the other half simply went on fighting?