PAX Centurion - January / March 2016

Page 46 • PAX CENTURION • January/March 2016 617-989-BPPA (2772) our cars before their guys opened fire on us, with Mariel firing the “shot heard ‘round the block.” Officer Johnson was not so lucky. The first bullet fired by Mariel struck him right above his eye. It was the first time I had ever witnessed an officer go down, but I didn’t have time to process what I’d seen now that I was in the midst of an active shooting. I would later find out that the whole incident lasted around two minutes from the first gunshot to the last, but it felt like I was there for two hours. Whenever someone is in the middle of an incident such as this they experience “bullet time,” the state in which an individual’s perception of time will slow down dramatically in the brains effort to process the events that are unfolding, and I knew that I was in bullet time when I was able to clearly read the serial numbers of the bullets coming out of my gun. I was even able to see the bullets my partner was firing, and I distinctly remember my eyes following the bullet that found the center of Felipe Mariel’s chest. Mariel down the rest of the Kings stopped shooting. At the end of it all three people were killed: Officer Johnson, Mariel, and a young boy who just happened to be riding past on his bicycle when he caught one of the Kings’ stray bullets (I would later find out that the boy was out getting milk for his family). Some of them escaped through backyards, but the ones that we were able to pick up were arrested and, as of right now, are awaiting punishment. But for me the arrests didn’t matter, all that I cared about was the fact that two innocent people, a child and one of Chicago’s finest law enforcement officers, were lost to such needless violence. The ultimate sacrifice that Officer Johnson made is one that we are all too aware of, as he joins 20,267 other heroes whose names adorn the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial inWashington, DC, This fact didn’t help us mourn the loss of our brother in arms, but it made it slightly easier to rationalize. Losing the child was much harder to handle for me, personally, because he was an innocent victim who was just enjoying a late night bike ride when his life was taken by Felipe Mariel. Those innocent victims are the hardest to move on from because they’re the ones we’re supposed to “protect and serve,” and it feels like I failed that boy. I can honestly say that the only saving grace from the events of May 19 th was that Felipe Mariel won’t be around to cause any more harm to this city. Unfortunately, that’s not how the rest of the city saw it, and it’s the reaction the city gave us in the weeks after this incident that hurt me more than the tragedy itself. It would seem like anybody who could support Felipe Mariel would be an absolute lunatic, considering he was the one who instigated the shooting and killed two innocent people. Well if everyone who could make that leap in logic is a lunatic then Chicago is ArkhamAsylum. The next day the Chicago Tribune ran an article with a headline that read “Another Day, Another Victim of Police Brutality”. The article was a disgusting excuse for journalism that condemned my partner, Office Hart, for killing Mariel during the shootout. “Had Mariel been white there is not a doubt in my mind that he would be alive today, in custody to face proper justice for his actions. Instead, Officer Hart felt it necessary to take the life of a man who simply made a mistake.” First of all, the article neglected to mention the child Mariel killed and barely talked about Officer Johnson at all. Second, Felipe was the instigator of the shooting, he led his gang in firing upon three officers, and Officer Hart’s reaction was absolutely appropriate - in fact we are trained for that exact scenario and Hart acted in accordance with everything we were taught. Lastly, and this is the biggest criticism I have about this article, nothing that happened on May 19 th had anything to do with race. Just because Mariel was Latino didn’t make him a target for police. The fact is Mariel was a criminal who took the life of two innocent people before he was justifiably taken down. Now there are plenty of real instances of police brutality that occur around the country, but just because Hart was white and Mariel was Hispanic doesn’t put this on a level such as Ferguson. Unfortunately I would come to find out that the public was on the Tribune’s side in this case. The people of Chicago vilified Hart instead of seeing Mariel as the villain that he was. “Hart is getting paid leave for the murder of a minority” was a common line that was thrown around. If they only knew that Hart was so emotionally scarred in the weeks after the incident that he didn’t leave his house out of fear for his safety. Meanwhile there’s a memorial on the end of the street for the boy on a bike, who would later be identified as a twelve year old named Ben Delgado, that everyone seems to forget was killed by the worthless waste of life we were trying to arrest. The people demanded a response from us, and we had no choice but to give them a press conference. So on May 26 th , a week after Johnson was killed and a day after his funeral, our captain hosted a press conference, with me and Johnson’s partner joining him to give our take on what happened. The press conference was an absolute disaster. Our captain gave the true version of the events that unfolded, but the crowd wasn’t hearing it. They were more content to question our character than hear our perspectives. “How come you shot at him, aren’t you trained to arrest him?” “You just killed him because he’s Hispanic!” “It’s From Superman on page 43 EvenClarkKent can be Superman…