Walking Home By James Bauhaus

Mike Dunn of New York is finally shoved out of prison after discharging a 35-year sentence for a rape he had nothing to do with. The world has turned into a very cold, suspicious, paranoid place since he last walked free. He does not realize this despite noticing that the number of cops has tripled, and a new crop of cop has been invented, the security guards. The crowded streets are full of cops and guards, cruising like sharks, scowling at the frightened citizens as they speed by in their shiny new patrol units. Though Mike is black and should be wary, he is simply happy, no, euphoric to finally be free of the state's boot on his neck. He loves the world and thinks it loves him back now that he has paid the debt a jury of fools said he owed.

As Mike is walking home to his poor old mother, he passes a car in which someone has inadvertently left the dome light on. Mike, still being no criminal despite the state's criminal ways toward him, is still of the 1974 mindset. In 1974, when people saw a minor disaster brewing, we just fixed it and went on. Without the slightest thought as to the consequences, Mike looks around for the owner, sees no one around and does the good deed. He went waist-deep in the window and clicked off the dome light. Somebody's battery will not be dead in the morning just before work. Mike pulls himself back out of the window and prepares to continue up the street when a large, angry man bellows at him from far away. Mike doesn't know it, but the yelling man is secret undercover officer Don Edwards. Mike does know that this angry, bellowing man is black, large, has a gun aimed at him and is racing towards him with mayhem as his obvious goal.

Reality floods back into Mike's mind. Mad gun guy is not yet near enough to kill him, but soon will be. Mike makes the obvious choice to run from the gun. He sprints for his life. Too bad for Mike that the stress of prison caused him to smoke too many of the shittiest, most destructive and toxic cigarettes ever invented. Also too bad for Mike is that the city hires young punk cops and pampers them with health and fitness programs. They are swift as well as large, angry and heavily armed. Secret, off duty detective Edwards is insane with rage that his target is trying to escape. This rage makes Edwards incredibly swift. He closes the gap between him and his intended victim. Mike sees mad gun guy closing in and is terrified. He can't run any faster, and he can't run much longer. Mike's lungs are bursting. His throat rasps for air. Just before he feels like he will collapse in pain and wheezing, Mike sees a car moving up behind mad gun guy. He can't stop, reverse direction and beg the people in the car for help without running into the arms of mad gun guy. Instead, he continues running, but flails his arms over his head, trying to attract their attention so that they can be calming witnesses when mad gun guy completes his attack.

There are three men in the car and they see the gun wielder chasing his prey. They gun their 375 horsepower engine. They pull their unassuming vehicle parallel to the chase, being careful to stay safely behind mad gun guy. They scream at him to stop. Edwards, an arrogant inexperienced young cop, follows his intense police training and ignores the intruding civilians. They are ants. He will punish them later. Edwards thinks of all the crimes he will put on these annoying people trying to interfere with him and his job as a cop.

This is the last thought that Edwards ever has. One of the white guys lurking inside the stalking vehicle thinks of black people as ants. He especially doesn't like black people waving guns and chasing the public around like wild dogs. He is enraged that nutty gun-guy ignores his screams to stop. This lack of instant obedience makes him insane with rage. He empties the clip of his own gun at mad gun guy. The spray of slugs hit him twice. He flips head over heels and dies in a heap on the sidewalk. Mike collapses and spends ten minutes croaking with asthma instead of answering questions screamed at him by the accumulating swarm of cops. Mike disappears into the mob of angry cops.

The cops investigate for a solid 36 hours as the media begs for details. Finally the TV pukes New York police commissioner Ray Kelly. The story that he and his spokescops have chosen to vend is this: off-duty Detective Edwards chased an unnamed car burglar past three unnamed detectives who accidentally shot him to death because they thought he was a robber. The cops dodged liability for their belligerent, arrogant incompetence by blaming the dead man. The spokes-cops claim that Edwards was not wearing the secret cop identifying color, which the cop-killer cops diligently checked for before spraying bullets all over the place.

Mike Dunn is still in jail. The cops are going to convict him of burglary, eluding a police officer and resisting arrest. These are crimes that they think a flock of jurors will accept. The cops later added the little-known crime of "failure to assist" a cop in his duties. (Outrageous but true: all citizens are, by law, forced to render free service and possessions to any cops who demand anything.) This extra accusation is for leverage only. Cop/prosecutor/judge teams hate to remind the public of the cops' power to extract free labor and service at whim. This extra charge is for coercing Dunn into signing his jury trial rights away and accepting a quiet plea "bargain," which the cops will immediately trumpet into the media as proof that something went right in their attack.

We in the Midwest didn't get a lot of details on the fiasco. News gets suppressed more and more with increasing distance from the scene. Also this is news that the media hates to report. Cops and prosecutors do damage control. Any plane crash, car wreck or celebrity shenanigan is the perfect excuse for the government/media alliance to whip their incompetence into concealment and direct citizen attention to less embarrassing matters. (During Regan's presidency, it was common for some politician or government bureaucrat to capture public attention with inane nonsense as cover for a political crime perpetrated elsewhere by his fellows.) Since the government/media alliance suppressed details, I was forced to supply my own. I hope you gained insight from Mr. Dunn's efforts of walking home.