NationStates Jolt Archive

Officer Fruaver Stoneheart drove his police cruiser through the Red Light district of Tarana. It was a the worst patrol the Tarana Police Department did and at the worst hour. Stoneheart was still hardly scared. When one is an armed Troll fully equipped to enforce the law, one rarely was.

Off to the side, Stoneheart saw a couple women, a Human and a Satyress, walking the street, swinging their hips enticingly. He shrugged a little. He couldn't pick them up now. That honor belonged to vice cops posing as customers and sometimes to officers lucky enough to drive up when a deal was in progress.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a Piskey and an Eshu making some kind of deal. Stoneheart could barely make out a hint of green pass between them before the two men turned the corner into an alley. Swiftly, Stoneheart pulled the patrol car over and leaped out. He leaped out from the vehicle, pulling his gun. He turned the corner swiftly into the alley. "This is the police. Please place your hands above your heads!"

No more than ten minutes later, the sirens of ambulances and police cars were wailing. Stoneheart lay in a pool of his own blood, a bullet in his chest. On the other side of an alley, a Rock Giant lay, also downed by a gunshot wound.

While photographers snapped the scene, forensic investigators searched for biological evidence, and medics lifted Officer Stoneheart into an ambulance, Officer Wallannan Darkeyes walked over to the other wounded man, crouching his plastic form down to get a better view. "Dana! It's Thayendanegea!"

"What? You're serious?" cried Detective Ismal Lihanith as he strode over. Jerry Thayendranegea was well known to the police of Tarana. His columns in the radical newspaper Coming Dawn frequently accused the Tarana police department of racism and brutality in its dealings with Nunnehi and Amerindian people. Men like Stoneheart, Darkeyes, and Lihanith could often find themselves described as murderers and thugs in that paper.

Darkeyes nodded. "I'm sure. Looks like the bastard finally took his vicious cop hatred out on Fruaver." Darkeyes's voice seemed strange, out of whack with the movements of his plastic lips, disembodied even as it seethed with anger and pain. A couple of medics carrying a stretcher pushed past Darkeyes. The Mannikin almost looked like he planned on stopping them but he said nothing. He was a cop and understood the virtue of dealing with these things in a court of law. As they carried the stretcher away however, he leant in close. "I hope you die on that stretcher, you son of a bitch."

Thayendranegea blinked up at the man, opening his mouth to speak and gurgling out a small trickle of blood. The medic spoke swiftly. "Don't try to talk, sir."

Chief Ianian ap Dougal arched a brow. "I'm not surprised. This newspaper has effectively been functioning as an anti-police hate group for years now. If you ask me, we shouldn't allow those kind of papers at all. Still, I don't make the law. I just enforce it." His hooves clicked lightly on the ground as he walked around to the front of his desk.

"It's a shame they got to go this far. It might've saved a good man's life to shut them down long ago." answered Captain Hadaah Lamal. The dusky man stood as well, pacing with the chief. "This guy's a cop killer and the rest of them back cop killers."

"Do they?" Ianian asked.

"Well, they'll back him." Lamal answered. "You can count on it. They'll make this case into politics."

Ianian shrugged. "I just have my job to do. I trust our politicians to handle the politics...Well, when push comes to shove I trust most of them anyway. Go take this over to the Royal Prosecutor."