Before ending the call, the adviser added one more thing.
“There may be an additional witness.”
The commander frowned.
“Who?”
“A delivery driver. He contacted the regional office after seeing the video online. He says he was traveling behind the patrol cars before they stopped you.”
The commander became still.
“What did he see?”
“He says the officers appeared to be waiting for your vehicle.”
The commander looked toward the hospital door.
Her pulse quickened.
The adviser continued.
“And he has a dashboard camera.”
The commander closed her eyes.
For the first time, she began to suspect that the most important recording might not be the one showing the Taser.
It might be the recording showing what happened before the officers ever approached her window.
The delivery driver arrived at the independent investigator's office the following morning carrying a small black dashboard camera and a memory card sealed inside a clear plastic sleeve.
He was a fifty-six-year-old white man with a weathered face, closely cropped gray hair, and the exhausted posture of someone who had spent most of his adult life behind the wheel. He delivered medical equipment across Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia, usually driving several hundred miles a day. He had seen enough traffic stops to know that officers sometimes followed vehicles before stopping them, but the behavior he witnessed that afternoon had troubled him immediately.
The investigator invited him to sit.
He placed the camera on the table.
“I haven't changed anything,” he said. “The recording is still on the original card.”
The investigator nodded.
“That's helpful. Tell me what you saw.”
The driver folded his hands.
“I was behind those two cruisers for about six miles.”
“Were they using their emergency lights?”
“No.”
“Were they responding to a call?”
“Not that I could tell.”
He thought carefully.
“The first patrol car was driving slowly. The second one was farther back. Then they both accelerated when that black SUV came into view.”
The investigator leaned forward.
“Did you notice the SUV doing anything unusual?”
“No. She was driving normally.”
“Did the officers immediately stop her?”
The driver shook his head.
“That's the strange part.”