Then Jalen.
Brother bought it.
Demand for control.
Ownership sticker ignored.
Physical contact.
Holloway insisted the situations differed.
They did.
The hearing officer asked him to explain the relevant difference.
The answer wandered.
Andre had seemed nervous.
The white boy had seemed relaxed.
Jalen had been argumentative.
The hearing officer asked whether Holloway considered that people who had previously been questioned by police might begin an encounter less relaxed.
Holloway said officers could not be expected to psychoanalyze everybody.
Nobody asked him to.
The issue was whether nervousness became evidence only after suspicion had already formed.
The union lost the appeal.
Grant Holloway was terminated from Riverton Police after eighteen years.
The decision letter acknowledged his prior awards, strong attendance, arrests, and positive work.
It also stated those contributions did not outweigh sustained findings involving force, biased enforcement, and inaccurate documentation.
That wording mattered to Isaiah.
He did not want the department pretending Holloway had been evil for eighteen uninterrupted years.
People were more complicated than that.
A man could save a crash victim and still profile a teenager.
Good actions did not purchase future immunity.
Bad actions did not erase every good thing that came before.
Accountability needed neither mythology.
Holloway’s criminal case concluded several months later through a plea agreement.
The assault charge was dismissed in exchange for a guilty plea to official misconduct and a requirement that he permanently surrender his Riverton law-enforcement position.
The state certification board later revoked his certification after reviewing the sustained dishonesty and biased-policing findings.
He could not simply move to the next county and begin again.
The internet called that karma.
Jalen had mixed feelings.
One evening he watched a clip of Holloway leaving court.
Reporters shouted questions.
Holloway said nothing.
He looked older than he had at the skatepark.
Jalen shut off the television.
Renee asked what he was thinking.
“I thought I’d be happier.”
Isaiah looked over from the kitchen.
“Why?”
“Because he’s done.”
Isaiah understood.
“Karma feels cleaner in videos.”
Jalen laughed softly.
“What does that mean?”
“It means real consequences usually leave a mess.”
Holloway lost a career.
His family dealt with public attention.
Riverton dealt with lawsuits.
Jalen dealt with fear every time a patrol cruiser slowed near the park.
Nobody returned to the exact life they had before.
Accountability was necessary.
It was not magic.
The Brooks family filed a civil claim against Riverton.
The city eventually settled without admitting broader institutional liability.
A portion of the money went into a protected education account for Jalen.
Another funded counseling and legal expenses.
Renee insisted the settlement include policy commitments already being developed through the department’s internal review.
Chief Warren agreed.
Riverton changed how repeat complaints appeared in supervisors’ dashboards.
Previously, an unsustained complaint effectively disappeared into an officer’s history unless someone deliberately looked backward.
Now allegations involving similar themes automatically generated a pattern-review flag.
A flag did not prove guilt.
It forced someone to ask whether apparently separate incidents belonged beside one another.