"Yes. He would."
Simone Carter died peacefully several years later, surrounded by family.
The announcement of her death prompted public tributes.
Newspapers revisited the Riverside Park incident.
Television programs replayed the old footage.
Some headlines returned to the familiar dramatic framing.
An officer arrests the wrong woman.
A protected identity changes everything.
A corrupt department collapses.
But the people who knew her best told different stories.
They remembered her teaching children to balance a budget.
They remembered her restoring damaged chairs in her garage.
They remembered her bringing food to neighbors after funerals.
They remembered her correcting inaccurate reports even when the errors favored her own side.
They remembered her insisting that no person should be reduced to the worst experience of their life.
And they remembered the way she always asked whether someone had checked the original records.
At her memorial service, Abigail's granddaughter stood before the gathering.
She was now an adult.
She had become a public-school teacher.
On the podium rested a photograph of Simone sitting in a garden, smiling beneath a broad sunhat.
The granddaughter looked toward the audience.
"When I was little, I asked Great-Aunt Simone what made her special."
She paused.
"She told me she was a person."
A few people smiled through tears.
"At the time, I thought she was avoiding my question. I wanted a dramatic answer. I wanted her to tell me she had been brave or powerful or secretly important."
She looked down at her notes.
"But she was telling me something more difficult."
Her voice remained steady.
"She was telling me that we should not need extraordinary reasons to respect one another."
She looked toward her family.
"She believed institutions should protect people whose names would never appear in the news. She believed that correcting a mistake mattered more than defending a reputation. And she believed the work was never finished."
She set aside her notes.
"I think she would be happiest knowing that somewhere today, someone filed a complaint and received a fair hearing without a public scandal. Someone challenged an incorrect record and got it corrected. Someone was treated respectfully without having to prove they mattered."
The room was silent.
Then she smiled.
"And somewhere, a child is doing a mathematics problem and showing every step because her grandfather, her teacher, or somebody who loved her taught her that the truth deserves careful work."
She stepped away.
The memorial ended without spectacle.
Family members embraced.
Friends shared memories.
Children grew restless.
Someone asked where the extra chairs were stored.
And life continued.
Many years later, the Riverside Public Accountability Resource Center was renovated again.
The original video remained available in its historical collection.
The green notebook remained preserved.
Arthur Bell's testimony had been digitized.
Ethan Brooks's original recording was stored with its provenance documentation.
The court decisions, audit findings, reforms, and subsequent reviews were all accessible to researchers.
Visitors could learn how misconduct developed.
They could examine how witnesses and records exposed it.
They could study which reforms helped and which required further correction.
Near the exit stood a small display.
It contained no dramatic photograph.