Pierce exhaled.
“Do not explain anything else over the phone.”
“I know.”
“Are local supervisors there?”
“Yes.”
“I’m coming.”
Isaiah almost told her she did not need to.
Then he remembered he was no longer simply a brother at a skatepark.
He was a federal agent involved in a use-of-force incident with a local police officer.
Every decision after that required distance from emotion.
“Okay.”
Pierce arrived forty minutes later wearing jeans and an FBI windbreaker.
By then, the first video was already online.
It did not begin with Jalen.
It began with Isaiah dropping into the bowl.
Viewers saw a shirtless Black man fly down a concrete wall, reach a uniformed officer, take him to the ground, and pin him.
The caption read:
MAN ATTACKS COP AT RIVERTON SKATEPARK.
Within twenty minutes, another account reposted it with a different caption.
BLACK SKATER BODY-SLAMS OFFICER IN FRONT OF CROWD.
Comments multiplied.
Some praised Isaiah.
Others demanded his arrest.
Several asked what happened before the clip started.
That question saved the public story from hardening too quickly.
A teenager named Connor Wells had recorded the entire confrontation between Holloway and Jalen from the moment the officer asked about the skateboard.
Connor’s video was nearly four minutes long.
He uploaded it.
The narrative changed.
Now viewers saw Jalen standing beside his skateboard.
Holloway asking where he got it.
Jalen explaining the ownership sticker.
The argument.
The contradictory commands.
The phrase you boys.
Holloway grabbing his collar.
Jalen’s empty hands.
The shove.
Jalen falling.
Then Isaiah.
A third video showed the aftermath and Ruiz discovering the FBI credential.
The internet changed direction with predictable violence.
COP ATTACKS BLACK KID—THEN HIS BROTHER TURNS OUT TO BE FBI.
RACIST OFFICER PUTS HANDS ON THE WRONG TEEN.
HE THREW A BLACK KID DOWN. HIS BROTHER WAS A FEDERAL AGENT.
The last headline bothered Isaiah immediately.
Not the factual part.
The phrase wrong teen.
Pierce found him reading comments inside the recreation office.
“Stop.”
“I know.”
“Then stop.”
Isaiah locked the phone.
The department’s chief, Elliot Warren, arrived before three.
He watched enough video to make one immediate decision.
Holloway was placed on administrative leave pending an external investigation.
The Maryland State Police agreed to investigate the physical confrontation because a Riverton officer and FBI agent were both involved. Riverton’s Internal Affairs Unit would separately examine policy and complaint history.
Isaiah supported the arrangement.
Then Chief Warren asked whether Isaiah wanted Holloway arrested immediately for assaulting Jalen.
Isaiah looked surprised.
“Is that what your investigator recommends?”
“We haven’t made that determination.”
“Then no.”
Warren studied him.
Isaiah continued.
“I want the evidence processed normally.”