Saving Michael Jameson
Sgt Greg Parker had the enviable duty of telling Fearless Leader Ed Land he was being sued. The news, of course, didn't go well as expected. Lane was livid. The prospect of defending this action when he knew it was justifiable tore his insides out. The civil suit was mounted by the son of a man he killed on active duty.
Goran Tomasic fatally shot his estranged wife and took another woman hostage in the Toronto central business district. Negotiation for his surrender didn't progress well, the hostage-taker being in such a state of rage. The situation was aggravated by the fact the Police could not get hold of an interpreter to be present at the scene.
Petar Tomasic, the son, maintained that the SRU did not give his father enough chance to surrender although it had been a textbook operation. The charge was excessive use of force or something of a similar nature. The Boss expressly told Ed no one doubted it was the right call, the Fearless Leader's eyes flashed and bored into the Sargent's "Well, somebody does."
Despite his huffing and puffing, Ed did what he had to do. Accompanied by his lawyer Frank McAndrew he went to Court expecting the matter to be dealt with within a couple of hours. His lawyer advised him to tell the same story he told SIU, the police internal investigative unit, "Then leave me to do my magic." That was the plan, but it didn't work out quite that way.
First Officer Constable Ed Lane had barely recounted his story when a security guard entered the court room and told them to stay put. His instincts kicked in and despite the fact he was there to give his deposition, he inserted himself in the middle of the situation. Upon presenting his badge and stating his credentials, the security guard briefed him about an armed parolee loose in the court house.
"An ex con?" he asked grimly for confirmation. The guard nodded wordlessly. The Take-Charge-Man that was Lane then initiated one-man search for the armed man.
The two of them would meet face-to-face on the stairs.
"I want Dan cheznik," the young man said, a gun aimed at a petrified young woman's head he had held hostage.
Lane assessed the information quickly, "Ok, let me call my Boss." He phoned Sgt Parker who by then had arrived at the scene with Team One, in a coded exchange of words, Lane managed to tell his Boss he was himself a hostage; and no, he didn't have his gun with him.
The Boss relayed the message to Team One and cheekily assuaged their concern, "Ok, he's charming, he's good looking, Ed's going to be fine."
Swiftly, Sgt Parker assigned them to their tasks. Constables Scarlatti and Young were Alpha Team, the non-lethal option; Braddock and Wordsworth were Bravo Team, lethal.
Constable Jules Callaghan stayed as the Boss' second. Sharp and street smart, she was going to be crucial in uncovering why a young man with somewhat of a future ahead of him, and who had just been granted parole would risk everything to speak to the Prosecutor who put him away, Dan Cheznik.
The more they uncovered disturbing truths about the young man's prosecution, the more they wanted the outcome to be non-lethal. Ed Lane had especially bonded with the young man whose eyes spoke volumes of hurt and pain and anguish. They tried every trick in the book to stall for time until they couldn't anymore. Options had simply run out and the young man's patience had also run dry, in a passionate cry for help, he told Ed, "You don't get it, do you? I have nothing left. I'm not afraid to use this. I will kill you both lying here. I don't care anymore!"
It was a declaration of desperation, "I don't care anymore!"
The only option left was to contain the young man in a room except it meant Ed and the young woman remained hostage to someone who was increasingly desperate. But at least it was a better option than a gunman running amok and shooting everyone within sight, so they tricked him into believing Dan Cheznik was in one of the rooms. This done, Spike and Lou had to find a way in via the roof to gain entry where the gunman and the hostages had been sequestered. They had to be quick, the Boss knew this was time critical. Bravo Team had found a direct line of sight from another part of the building but with limited joy, the room had frosted glass.
Wordy, who was acting Team Leader had to educate Sniper Sam about the SRU policy of not firing a weapon using only thermal imaging, "We need to see the guy for real."
Wordy was appointed Team Leader for this critical incident because he had the longest experience in elite policing but he couldn't set aside the fact that his best friend, Ed Lane, was inside that room with a gunman, and so it was now down to Spike and Lou. He counted his breaths, in tandem with Sam. For Wordy, it was as much to calm his spirit as to steady his heart rate.
Jules tracked down the young man's lawyer who confirmed a report was missing from the Michael Jameson's files. It was the record on how Jameson's supposed confession was obtained, "allegedly misplaced." With the crucial report missing, an appeal was not possible.
By this stage, she and the Boss were convinced there was something hinky about how Michael Jameson was prosecuted for the rape and murder of one Katie Baker and were also convinced that Dan Cheznik had a lot to answer for.
Eventually, they tracked down the Prosecutor and asked him why the young man was after him, he simply said he didn't remember, "Try harder", encouraged Jules with subdued menace. The Boss made a comment to Cheznik, "Eleven years in the joint, this guy still sounds like apple pie," the legal eagle sourly dismissed this as manipulative behaviour.
When they entered the court room where he was told Dan Cheznik was waiting, Michael was enraged that he had been lied to, he threatened to kill the hostages. Ed who had established a connection with him, tried to reason with him, "You have got to forget about Cheznik. Ok, and confronting him at gunpoint is not gonna convince anyone of anything. If you're innocent, put the gun down. A gun never solved anything, believe me. The police are probably out there right now with a sniper and I know how they work. So I'm asking you... I am begging you. I am begging you, just put the gun down."
Michael's eyes grew very sad. Perhaps he thought he had reached the point of no return, perhaps he just needed someone to listen and here they were, two hostages with nowhere to go, so the young man told his story. Tears brimming, his voice breaking, he told them how they put him away when he was 15, tried him as an adult for the rape and murder of his best friend. He told them how kind she was to him when no one else was. He said he promised Katie when he went to her grave for the first time that he would clear his name because until that happened no one would be looking for the person who did this to her.
"Not for me," he said, "for Katie."
Having now said his piece, he escalated again, Sgt Parker hollered, "Spike, he's escalating. Where are you?" The Techie whispered, "Fifteen seconds away." In a rare moment of utter, utter frustration, the Boss kicked a chair and said, "That's not good enough. Now! I need you now! I need you there now."
Bravo Team offered to take the shot but the Boss was adamant, "No, I don't want to go lethal! I don't want to go lethal. Alpha team, I'm watching you. Are you set?" He had no doubt this young man had been dealt with the rawest deal, and God help him, he would not be instrumental in ending his life.
The saga would come shortly to an end. That was the plan.
Spike and Lou got to the balcony of the courtroom, jumped down in tandem, with haze from exploding smoke bombs they managed to get Ed Lane and the young woman to safety but not the young man from self-harm. When the smoke cleared, they were confronted by a sight of a broken man, a gun aimed at his temple asking for a tape recorder to leave his last message to the world. It was another one of those experiences that would permanently bond Spike and Lou to each other.
They didn't want to go lethal. Lou knew he had rubber bullets in his gun – so it would be up to him now. But he also knew Michael's gun could discharge by accident, the finger pulling the trigger could get Michael killed.
There had been people he would have been delighted to scrub off the face of the earth. People who really didn't have a place in society. He had admitted to himself that killing wasn't something he'd like to do but he could... yes. He could kill if that was what it took to keep the peace. But this young man? His mind racing, He's younger than me, and the words he said, "I had never even kissed a girl," reverberated in his brain.
Spike's brain was racing too. He was thankful for the helmet because no one could see how wide his eyes had become when the smoke cleared. Finding the young man with a gun to this head, that was a fail. A massive, massive fail.
They were meant to rescue the hostages and disarm him in the process, but now...here they were. He was desperate to die and they were desperate to keep him alive. There could not have been a wider chasm between two agendas.
The Italian controlled his breathing, his brain processing the information, he had come to a decision. If it came to it he would shoot Michael in the elbow. The young man would become an amputee but he would be alive and they would be alive. With the young man's arm steady and firm, cocked at the elbow, and up-close, he had a greater than 99% chance of blowing the guy's firing arm off and saving him. And just because he was Michaelangelo Spike Scarlatti it even crossed his mind that it was 100%, but philosophically, the number of perfection couldn't be achieved or it would not be perfection anymore.
There was also one thing they were both sure of at that moment, they both decided that if this guy died in their hands it would be all over for them. No one else in the Team could feel the way they felt that day or thought their thoughts.
Later in the evening, when the dusk had covered the City, they would drink to it and talk about it. They could listen to jazz music to unwind and to reflect on their day. There were moments like these that only the two of them shared intimately like they could read each other's mind.
The young man did survive his ordeal became Ed Lane cared, the Team cared. Everyone who mattered at that moment cared. Ed summed up the day at the conclusion of their operation, "No one died today."
But he did so much more than that, he asked the young man whose life he was instrumental in saving, "You didn't tell me your name."
"Michael Jameson," he replied. For once, in the eyes of a lawman he was no longer a series of numbers – he was no longer a file number or a prisoner number – he had a name.
This lawman would never forget that name.
