The police sergeant didn't know who the Black man was when he grabbed the back of his slate-gray polo shirt and drove him face-first into a muddy puddle beside a lonely Georgia county road.
And by the time he found out, the damage had already been done.
The sound of the impact was sickening.
Brown water splashed across the asphalt. Wet gravel scraped against the man's forearm, and mud spread across his cheek as he turned his head to keep his mouth and nose clear.
Above him stood a muscular forty-five-year-old white police sergeant wearing a black short-sleeved uniform, a heavy duty belt, and an expression of almost personal satisfaction.
The orange light of the setting sun reflected off his badge.
Behind them, bare tree branches stretched across the evening sky. An old wooden fence ran beside a pasture, and two police vehicles stood on the gravel shoulder with their emergency lights flashing.
The sergeant pressed one hand against the Black man's upper back.
"Stay down, Blackie!"
The man gasped.
He was forty-two years old, athletic, with closely shaved black hair, deep-brown skin, and a calm face that had become tense with pain. His fitted slate-gray polo shirt was soaked along one shoulder, and his beige khaki trousers were stained with Georgia clay.
He had not thrown a punch.
He had not attempted to run.
And less than a minute earlier, he had been standing upright beside his own vehicle, answering a police officer's questions.
Now his cheek rested against the cold mud.
"Officer," he said, struggling to keep his voice steady, "I'm not resisting."
The sergeant leaned closer.
"Then stop telling me how to do my job!"
The man closed his eyes for a second.
He could smell wet soil.
He could feel a small stone pressing against his wrist.
And he could hear another police officer moving behind them.
A younger white officer, perhaps thirty years old, stood beside the patrol SUV. His face was pale beneath his short brown hair, and his eyes kept moving between the sergeant and the man lying on the ground.
"Sergeant," the younger officer said.
The older man ignored him.
"Sergeant, that's enough."
The sergeant turned sharply.
"Stay out of this!"
The younger officer stepped closer.
He had spent the morning reviewing a departmental announcement.
A photograph.
A biography.