He called his attorney.
They discussed the letter carefully.
The remaining civil claims involved compensation, accountability, and the appropriate resolution of disputed matters. Some facts had been established through the disciplinary process. Others remained subject to legal proceedings.
The engineer did not want a public spectacle.
He did not want revenge disguised as justice.
But he also refused to pretend the incident had been a misunderstanding.
The watch had been forcibly removed.
The officer had shoved him while he struggled to balance on a prosthetic leg.
The officer had damaged his property.
And the official record had initially failed to describe the encounter accurately.
Those facts mattered.
After the call, the engineer walked into the backyard.
His niece was helping his mother repot several plants beneath the shade of a fig tree.
The girl looked up.
"You look serious."
"Just paperwork."
She smiled.
"That's what you say when it's something important."
His mother glanced toward him.
"Come sit down."
He lowered himself into a chair.
The girl returned to the plants, leaving the adults some privacy.
His mother studied his face.
"More trouble?"
"Not exactly."
He explained the letter.
She listened quietly.
When he finished, she reached for his hand.
"Do you want to meet him?"
The engineer considered the question.
"I don't know."
"Then don't decide today."
He looked toward the garden.
"I thought this was finished."
His mother shook her head.
"Some things finish in court before they finish inside you."
He looked at her.
She had spent much of her working life washing hospital linens, coming home exhausted, and making sure her children had food, clean clothes, and enough confidence to imagine futures larger than the neighborhood where they grew up.
She understood endurance.
But she also understood the danger of spending too much of one's life fighting a battle that had already taken enough.
"Whatever you decide," she said, "make sure it's something you're doing for yourself."
He nodded.
That evening, he sat at his dining room table and wrote down what he actually wanted.
He did not begin with money.
He began with recognition of the documented wrongdoing.
Then meaningful accountability.
Then safeguards against repetition.