Waiting the way he had waited a hundred times before. That was when he saw it happen. About 30 ft away, near the other side of the park, a man in a black hoodie walked up behind a woman sitting on a bench. The man grabbed her purse off the bench, yanked it out of her hands, and took off running toward the parking lot. The woman screamed.
Other people turned to look, but no one moved fast enough to stop him. Leonard didn't hesitate. He pulled his phone back out and dialed 911. The line connected almost immediately. 911, what's your emergency?
I just witnessed a robbery at Memorial Hospital, Leonard said, his voice calm but urgent. The park outside the main entrance, black male wearing a hoodie just grabbed a woman's purse and he's running toward the parking lot. Can you describe the suspect? The dispatcher asked. Black male, hoodie.
Leonard was focused on getting the information out quickly, watching the man disappear between rows of parked cars. He's heading east toward the parking structure. While Leonard was still on the phone, the robber looked back over his shoulder, saw Leonard sitting in his wheelchair with the phone to his ear and realized immediately what was happening. Leonard was calling the cops, and Leonard was in a wheelchair, which meant he would be easy. The robber changed direction mid-run and came straight toward Leonard.
Leonard saw him coming, but there was nothing he could do. The robber reached him in seconds, grabbed the bag off Leonard's lap with one hand, snatched the phone out of Leonard's other hand mid-call, and took off running again without saying a word. Leonard shouted after him, "Hey, stop!" But his voice didn't carry far enough, and the robber was already gone, disappearing into the parking lot with Leonard's bag, his phone, his wallet, and everything else he had on him. Leonard sat in his wheelchair breathing hard, his hands empty, and looked around at the other people in the park.
The woman who had been robbed was still sitting on the bench crying. A couple of bystanders had gathered around her. No one had chased the robber. No one had stopped him. And Leonard couldn't chase him, either.
He sat there, paralyzed in more ways than one, and waited for the police to arrive in response to the call that had been cut off. Six minutes later, Officer Matthew Reynolds pulled up in his patrol car. Reynolds was 31 years old with six years on the Charlotte Police Department. He worked patrol in the downtown district, and over those 6 years he had built a reputation that his supervisors had documented but never addressed. Four formal complaints from black men over the years all claiming Reynolds had used excessive force, made assumptions based on race, or escalated situations unnecessarily.
All four complaints had been investigated and dismissed. The pattern was there written into his personnel file but no one had ever done anything to stop it. When the dispatch call came in that afternoon all Reynolds heard was this, "Robbery in progress at the Memorial Hospital Park." Suspect described as black male in a hoodie. He drove over without asking for more details.