I'll have you brought up on federal kidnapping charges for taking my patrol officers. You aren't a sovereign nation, Captain. You're a corrupt civil servant running a taxpayer-funded cartel. David said, stepping past the glass shards. He nodded to Lawson.
Secure the shredder. Unplug it and tag the bin. That's destruction of evidence, a federal felony. Lawson moved swiftly, shoving Hayes aside and securing the machine. You have no warrant for this.
Hayes spat, his bravado returning in a desperate search. I know the law. You can't just storm in here without a judge's signature. Actually, Robert, I can. David replied, pulling a folded document from his breast pocket and tossing it onto the desk.
Title 18, United States Code, Section 242. Deprivation of rights under color of law. Your officers, Miller and Collins, assaulted and illegally detained a federal director on a public highway, then attempted to break into a Class 3 classified DOJ transport case. That provides immediate exigent circumstances to secure the precinct to prevent the destruction of systemic evidence. David paused, glancing pointedly at the smoking shredder.
Which, it appears, was a very accurate assessment. Hayes's face paled. The realization of what Miller and Collins had done began to sink in. Miller. He pulled you over.
He did. David said smoothly. And he was remarkably eager to search my trunk. It made me wonder why a routine traffic stop for a supposedly stolen vehicle immediately escalated into a desperate hunt for a safe. But then my forensic accounting team cracked your precinct's civil asset forfeiture logs last week.
David leaned over the desk, invading Hayes' personal space. The height difference was entirely in David's favor. You aren't just letting your boys racially profile drivers to keep Oakridge safe, are you, Robert? David asked. His voice dropping to a dangerous whisper.
You've been using the midnight patrol as spotters. They target out-of-town luxury cars, fabricate probable cause, and execute illegal searches looking for large sums of cash. If they find it, they seize it under suspicion of narcotics trafficking. But the cash never makes it to the county evidence locker, does it? Hayes swallowed hard, his throat clicking audibly in the quiet dispatch room.
You can't prove any of that. It's circumstantial. It was, David corrected. Until tonight. You see, the Pelican case in my trunk wasn't empty.