“You understand he may have committed assault.”
“I understand I am emotionally involved.”
He glanced toward Jalen.
“That is exactly why I should not be deciding what charge somebody gets.”
Warren nodded slowly.
That answer reached Holloway later.
He did not interpret it as restraint.
He interpreted it as FBI strategy.
The first medical assessment showed Jalen had bruising near his left hip and a scraped palm. Nothing was broken. Holloway had soreness in his shoulder and back from the takedown.
Isaiah had a small scrape along one knee.
Nobody required hospitalization.
Physical injuries were minor.
The larger consequences had already begun.
Renee sat beside Jalen at home that evening with an ice pack wrapped in a dish towel.
Jalen had barely spoken since leaving the police station.
Isaiah sat across from them.
His FBI credentials rested on the kitchen table because he had emptied his pockets after coming home.
Jalen looked at the badge.
Then at his brother.
“You think he would’ve done that if he knew?”
Isaiah knew exactly what he meant.
“If he knew I was FBI?”
Jalen nodded.
“No.”
The answer came too quickly to soften.
Jalen looked down.
Isaiah continued.
“That’s part of what bothers me.”
Renee watched both sons.
Jalen asked, “So what if you weren’t there?”
Nobody answered immediately.
Isaiah could have offered comfort.
He chose honesty.
“I don’t know.”
Jalen’s eyes filled.
“He was going to arrest me.”
“Maybe.”
“For my own skateboard.”
“Maybe.”
“That’s messed up.”
“Yes.”
Jalen looked angry now.
Isaiah preferred anger to fear.
Then the boy asked a harder question.
“Did I do something wrong?”
Isaiah leaned forward.
“You argued.”
“Yeah.”
“You could have answered some things differently.”
Jalen’s expression fell.
Isaiah held up one hand.
“Listen to the rest.”
Jalen waited.
“You being argumentative does not automatically create a lawful reason for somebody to throw you down.”
The teenager stared.
“You can learn how to handle an officer safely without pretending the officer handled you correctly.”
Renee nodded.
Two truths.
Again.
Isaiah’s career had trained him to live inside them.
Sunday morning, Holloway wrote his formal incident report.
He stated that Jalen matched the general circumstances of a stolen-property complaint and became evasive when asked to provide the skateboard for inspection. He wrote that Jalen “bladed his body, pulled away, and raised his arms in an aggressive manner,” causing Holloway to initiate a control technique.
Then came Isaiah.
Holloway wrote that an unknown adult male “entered the scene at high speed and attacked without warning,” knocking him to the ground. He said he reached toward his radio rather than his weapon.
That report became the beginning of the end of his career.
Not because every sentence was false.