"I have something the court should see. " He stood and set the folder on the clerk's table with both hands, the way a person sets down something they've been carrying too long. "A full transcript of my body camera footage. It was recording the entire stop. I didn't realize it until Saturday night.
" The liaison officer's pen finally moved, not to write, just a small reflexive tap against the pad. The sound of someone recalculating how much of her morning this hearing was actually going to take. Britt turned toward his partner, not with anger, not yet, something closer to disbelief. The look of a man watching the one person he'd counted on quietly stop covering for him. Ava accepted the folder without ceremony, the way she might have accepted any other filing, and set it beside the report already in front of her.
She didn't open it yet. For a moment she simply rested her hand flat on the cover, the same stillness she'd shown sitting on a park bench with an officer's grip closing around her dog's jaw. "We'll review this in full before any findings are entered, " she said. "Officer Britt, you'll have an opportunity to respond once the footage has been examined. This hearing is not a conviction.
" She paused. "It's a record. " Nobody spoke. The liaison officer's pen stayed still against the pad. Somewhere behind the respondent's table, Kowalski became aware of his own breathing.
Britt sat with his hands flat on the table in front of him, staring at nothing in particular. The word record sitting in the room longer than a single word should have been able to. "That's all any of this has ever been about, " Ava said finally, quieter now. "What actually happened, written down accurately by the people who were there. " She looked toward the back of the courtroom, where a bailiff stood near the side door.
Is the dog available to be released this morning? Cleared an hour ago, Your Honor. He's with animal control transport, waiting on discharge paperwork. Have someone bring the paperwork to me directly. I'll sign it during recess.
Britt sat back, the certainty that had carried him through six days of Saturday's version of events finally, visibly, running out of road. He didn't look at Ava. He looked at his own hands on the table, the same hands that had closed around a dog's jaw in a park eight days ago because it had seemed, in that moment, like the easiest decision available to him. We'll recess for 30 minutes, Ava said. To review the footage.