me sideways, my boot slipped, and I hit the tiles. I remember trying to protect my head. I remember asking him to let me breathe. I remember being conscious that the civilians watching might now believe I had done something dangerous. That was perhaps the worst part: the sound of a lie spreading before anyone had time to ask whether it was true.
The paramedics arrived within minutes of the chief's order. They checked my shoulder, wrist, neck, and breathing. I told them about an old injury and the episodes of stiffness that followed hard impacts. One asked whether I had struck my head. I couldn't be certain, so they advised further evaluation. I agreed. The sergeant asked whether I would like someone to contact my family. I asked her not to call my mother yet. She worried enough when I was twenty miles away, and I didn't want her first description of the day to come from a stranger telling her I had been hurt at police headquarters.
The chief waited while the medical team prepared to take me for an examination. “I wish we had met under different circumstances,” he said.
“So do I.”
“I want you to know this will be reviewed.”
“I want to know exactly how,” I answered.
He paused. “We will preserve the video and statements.”
“Preserve the recordings from all cameras, the desk clerk's call log, the officer's radio traffic, and every report written today. Don't let people compare stories before their first statements are recorded.”
The chief looked as if he might object to being instructed in his own building. Then he nodded. “You are right.”
I looked toward the officer, who now stood separated from the others. “And don't let his report begin with the sentence that I reached for a gun. He never saw one.”
The chief nodded again. “Understood.”
At the hospital, the physician found bruising and a shoulder strain, with no immediately apparent major fracture. The relief did not erase the soreness. Every time I shifted, I felt the memory of that officer's grip. I called my sister from the examination room because she had always been the person who knew how to hear bad news without making it worse. She listened until I finished the account. Then she asked whether I was safe. I said I was. She asked whether I wanted her to come. I said no, but she told me she was coming anyway.