Original subtitles

Hey, you gotta turn it down.

Hey, enough with this garbage already!

You two are gonna turn those noise makers down,

or I'm gonna pull this ride over at the next--

Oh, God!

7-17 to dispatch.

Dispatch, go ahead, 7-17.

Signal 31, at Park Heights and Woodland.

Come on, 7-17.

I got a female pedestrian down.

I need an ambulance.

You kill that woman, man?

He don't give a damn, he wasn't even watchin' where he was drivin' at.

Listen, punk!

You, it doesn't bother you, do it, McCusker?

It's like you was aimin' for her!

- You go to hell! - You go to hell!

Homicide.

The most underrated Baltimore landmark, the water tower in Curtis Bay.

Yeah, the one with the Roman arches, I love that.

Baltimore Cemetery.

At night, the entrance looks like the set from an old horror movie.

Or the old Pabst Brewery at the bottom of Light Street.

Baltimore is a city of many splendors,

but the greatest architectural feat, Madonna's Bra.

- What? - Yeah, Madonna's Bra.

There's a sewage treatment plant out in East Point,

and two golden cones just sticking up out of nowhere.

"Madonna's Bra"?

That's what the east siders call it.

Two golden orbs shimmering in the moonlight, towering over the landscape.

- I don't think I've ever seen it. - Are you serious?

To die without viewing it would mark an incomplete life.

What the hell's going on?

All units, tactical teams

are now responding to civil disturbance at Lower Park Heights.

This frequency is now committed channel for that event.

Eighty-eight, we got a fire,

at the corner of Quantico.

It's a bad day to be in a radio car.

Homicide, Lewis.

There's a riot going on up in Park Heights.

Two bodies on the ground.

Bad day in general.

- Gaffney said this to you? - Said he was concerned.

Said he was just here to help.

- He's a snake. - You two go way back, I take it.

He was useless as patrolman, as a detective, even worse.

As a captain, well, I guess, he does his best.

But, of course, then I'm not the one to know

what the police captains actually do.

Hey, Gee, we've got a riot going on up in Northwest.

They called Homicide?

Two dead so far.

- Tactical's trying to keep things under control. - Where exactly?

Around Park Heights and Woodland.

Little Jamaica. Go with them.

Raise me on the radio when you know what they've got.

- Jasper. - Welcome to the party.

We heard you had two on the ground.

Two dead males, one injured woman.

Here's the first body.

Oh, good God.

No idea who beat on him or why.

But the uniform says it all.

BTA bus, BTA driver.

- He was dead when you got here? - Very.

Any witnesses?

No, when we got here it was a riot, not a crime scene.

Where's the second homicide victim?

This way.

More of the same, huh?

You tell me, I don't have a clue how it all fits together.

What about the injured woman?

Medic-5 transported a Black female to Sinai.

She was found in front of the bus,

unconscious, and looking like she might stay that way.

What happened to you?

Some moke threw a brick when we made the turn-off from Cold Spring.

No reason, for the fun of it, I guess.

Hell of a day.

What's up with him?

Fatal beatdown.

Same with Ralph Kramden up the block there.

Plus we got a woman getting ready to go 10-7 on us up at Sinai.

All right, we'll go to the hospital, and check on the victim.

- You got a preference... - No, you call it.

Well, we started the driver, so we'll work him.

- Was she beaten? - I don't think so.

There was no scratches, no abrasions, no welts.

Not really good with forensics, but if you ask me, I think she was hit by a car.

Any ID?

Yeah, the passport and the green card from her purse.

Said she's Marletta Manley, she's 36 years old.

- She's a Jamaican national. - Is she gonna make it?

Mm, that's touch and go.

She lost the baby, though, that's for sure.

Baby?

Yeah, six-months pregnant.

Patrick McCusker, 53.

He called in to report that his bus had struck a female pedestrian.

He asked for ambo. That's all we know.

- Did you know the man? - I knew him.

Friends?

Not friends.

- The man is dead. - Why speak ill, right?

The man died on the job, on his route.

I got no problems with him.

Paxton Smart.

$22,329.

ADSS card.

Monthly bus fare card, state ID,

- DOB, 29. '76. - Bus fare card.

Maybe he was on a bus.

No way to tell.

The man gets beat a long way from the main attraction.

Maybe he was dragged here afterwards.

Dragged?

Now, if a man's gonna get beat down in a riot,

you know, why you wanna drag him out here?

You just leave his body where it lays.

Well, maybe he didn't want a part of the riot.

Maybe he was trying to get away, and someone catches him here.

A button? What's that mean?

It could have been here for a week.

True.

But it ain't exactly like our cup runneth over with clues.

Excuse me. I paid for two fare zones.

I rode ten blocks, I want my money back.

- You on the bus? - I'm saying you owe me for at least one zone.

Yes, ma'am, we do. We most certainly do.

A dollar and 80 cents.

Excuse me, Detective, she was on the bus.

A witness, and she's still here?

Excuse me, ma'am, did you see what happened here today?

The afternoon disturbance here in the Lower Park Heights area

has left two people dead, one critically injured.

In addition, two city officers were treated and released from area hospitals.

Authorities say it began when a pregnant female pedestrian--

People don't get beaten to death in broad daylight in my city.

I don't care if we have to work around the clock.

No one goes home until we've made arrests.

- Yes, sir. - Where's Ballard?

- Off for three days. - Is she reachable?

No, she's up in the Shenandoah,

she's hiking the Appalachian Trail.

- Page her. - We tried that, Gee.

Her desk started beeping.

All right, the two of you get over there to Channel 11.

We want a copy of that videotape riot.

You got it, Gee.

So there was loud music.

There was these two boys with radios.

First, there was one playing this island music.

Reggae.

He was Western, anyway, you could tell from his accent.

And the other man?

Well, he was younger,

playing that hippity-hop nonsense.

All right, so these two guys were playing their music loud.

Well, one would turn his up loud,

and the other one would turn his up even louder.

And what did the driver do?

Look back around the cusp, told him to turn it down.

He got angry?

Was there a racial epithet used, either from the driver or from the passengers?

Anybody get upset because McCusker was white?

I don't recall anybody saying anything.

Of course, he's been a bus driver on that line for a long time.

It ain't like he made a whole lot of friends.

So you're saying that Mr. McCusker

had some problems with Black folks?

I'm saying

he wasn't real friendly.

But you don't remember anything racial

that may have started the incident?

He ran over a Black woman.

Of course, if she'd have been white, she'd have got hurt, too.

It ain't like white folks got rubber bumpers on their backsides.

Damn. Page after page.

Paxton Smart's a piece of work.

Drug distribution, weapons charges,

assault with intent, assault by shooting.

If a Jamaican drug dealer falls in the alley,

and there's no one there to hear him, does he make a sound?

What do you two have?

Well, we got one dead jake in the alley.

No indication of whether this incident had anything to do with the one on the bus.

- Anything else? - He had a monthly BTA pass.

Maybe he was on the bus when McCusker hit that woman.

All right, Giardello and Gharty,

you have a passenger in the interrogation room.

- Better go to look at your victim. - Right.

Lieutenant, Colonel Barnfather's on line one.

Just like that? You assume there's some racial element involved?

- It's a natural assumption. - It's an unnatural assumption.

The case is about mob violence.

It's about trying to figure out who's responsible

for starting a riot that killed a man.

You jump to race, you start making assumptions,

it makes it that much tougher to get to the truth.

You didn't get the sense that the driver had some issues

when we were talking to his supervisor?

There was no real love for McCusker there.

They weren't friends. It doesn't mean it's about race.

White man drives bus into Black pregnant woman.

Black crowd beats white man to death, torches bus.

Am I missing something?

You don't think that this could have happened if the bus driver was Black?

No, I don't.

- How can you say that? - How can I say that?

I've lived in Baltimore my whole life.

I'm white, and the city ain't.

I know how that plays in some places.

- Nothing personal, you understand. - Oh, yeah, I understand.

No, he's West Indian.

I don't like them much, though.

They move in, and change the neighborhood.

Do you recognize him from the bus?

No. Mm-mm.

He wasn't the West Indian with the loud radio?

Oh, the man on the bus was older.

Thank you.

Are your parents home?

Baltimore police.

We're looking for the relatives of a woman

named Marletta Manley.

There are none.

Excuse me?

She come alone from Kingston eight days ago.

New green card.

What was Marletta doing here?

What do everyone do when they come to America?

She look for better.

Where's her roommate?

This floor, other side.

- Thank you. - Thank you.

...more active, moving around more.

A week ago?

Paxton reported, and said he was okay.

Yeah, all right, then, thanks.

Paxton Smart's parole officer says he reported last week,

and claimed to be crime-free, and looking for work.

Meaning he was out there

doing the same old, same old, but just lying about it.

- Probably. - What if he got beat on spec?

What if he got done to death for no damn reason,

just for being in the wrong place when the drama was going down?

We could try his address, see how he was living, talk to his folks.

Yeah, that's the next move,

- I'm just going to snatch up some joe, you want one? - No, I'm good.

Gharty, everything that Channel 11

ever aired or filmed on the riot.

Station manager was extremely cooperative,

as long as we provided him with tips on any arrests and perp walk.

- Thanks. - Mm-hmm.

Damn.

Damn.

It's a shame they didn't get footage of the driver getting beat,

like Los Angeles, case would be closed.

Oh, that's him, that's him, that's the boy.

- The one with the camouflage jacket on. - What about him?

Oh, he's the one who got on the bus with the second loud radio,

playing that hip-hop.

You recognize anyone else?

That one, standing there

watching with the knitted cap on his head,

the one playing that island music.

- Are you sure? - Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Oh.

They sure wearing that poor bus out.

Trouble, Gee.

Big trouble with my dead Jamaican in that alley.

I'll bet I can guess.

I bet you can't. There's my only clue.

You're going to tell me that button's off

a standard blue patrolman's shirt.

- Yeah. - And that you found it

in an alley near the body of Paxton Smart,

and that the police may be involved in his death.

- How the hell-- - Get over to the northwest district.

- The shift changes in about 40 minutes. - How'd you know that, Gee?

I just came from Barnfather's office.

There's already talk in the Heights.

Man, if this gets out in Little Jamaica,

we're gonna have ourselves a real riot coming.

Get over to the district now.

They're out on the corners tonight.

Yep, Rastafarian street party.

The jakes up here are crazy, man.

My mother's mother was West Indian.

- Oh, yeah? - Yeah. Proud woman.

But all of her people were like that.

- Where from, exactly? - Trinidad.

She came here as a young girl, went to college, got a teaching degree.

She always acted like she was a little better

than just regular folk, you know?

How do you mean?

Like there was more to her culture

than anyone who came out of the Carolina backwoods could claim.

It's still like that.

The West Indians hold themselves apart.

Well, it's like the Northern Italians.

I mean, you know, they get confused.

They think they're Swiss or something.

They start looking at Sicilians as if they're dogs.

That's funny. To me, Italian's Italian.

To you, Black is Black.

I'm not much on the island boys.

I worked a foot post at Belvedere in the Heights for about six months.

Let me tell you something.

These jakes were manning every drug corner

from Belvedere down to Park Circle.

You ask me, they got no reason to hold themselves above or apart from anyone.

Yeah, there's plenty doing dirt,

but there's plenty more like Marletta Manley coming here straight up

just looking for some piece of a decent life.

Like today, we're downstairs, and we see a dope fiend on his afternoon nod.

We go upstairs, we find a clean spare room

with a new bassinet

and job applications on the table.

Heads, tails, same coin.

That's what I'm saying.

We're gonna deal with the shift coming in off the street.

Y'all two take the one going out, all right?

- It's kind of awkward. - Sure is.

We're here to identify one cop for murder,

while you guys ask his bunkies to look at photographs for another killing.

Better not stay too close to us. Might get the cold shoulder.

Lewis, Sheppard? Never heard of them.

My man.

What's up?

Lewis, Homicide, downtown.

Hellriegel. Street, uptown.

You lost something there.

Who's she with, the fashion police?

Jimmy, get me the union rep on the line, will you?

Thanks, Jimmy.

I want my lawyer.

How did you know I was even on the bus?

We're police, Mr. Yates. We know everything.

Yeah, we know you helped smash the bus window.

Oh, yeah, you were the one that heaved that brick through the side window.

We know that.

Yeah, well, he shouldn't have run that lady down.

Oh, well, that was an accident.

A brick through a window, now that's no accident.

He should have seen where he was going instead of worrying about my tunes.

Fresh stuff, huh?

What, the bus driver had no ear for the cutting edge?

Yeah.

So when he was down on the ground, you got your shots in, right?

Wait, wait, wait, wait, look, look, look,

I never touched that man, all right?

Now, look, I might have messed with the bus a little bit, but I left that man alone.

Now, y'all know about the brick, and y'all know I had nothing to do with that beatdown.

- Who did? - Peoples, man.

- Peoples? - Yeah, lots of them.

- Jamaicans? - Some of them was, some of them was regular folks.

We heard you had some beef with a Jamaican on the bus.

You had your tunes, he was playing his.

Man, I'm sick of all that island stuff, all right?

Them going around eating all that goat and jerk chicken,

playing them damn dub tapes every night,

hair all out to here, talking about, "Jah this and jah that."

Look, man, this is Baltimore, all right?

I'm from Baltimore, all right?

So the jake with the radio, the one you beef with,

the woman on the bus says the driver smashed his radio.

Yeah, I was there for that.

So, was he in on the beatdown?

No, man, he tried to stop it.

We think Officer Hellriegel is the one that beat Paxton Smart.

I know about Hellriegel.

- I've had problems with him before. - What do you mean?

About five years ago, he was involved in a police shooting.

Hellriegel covered for a lieutenant

who shot a young Black man in the back.

Hellriegel knows the drill, he's lawyered up good and tight.

- He make any statements? - None.

What we do have is this, an open IID complaint for excessive force.

The complainant, Paxton Smart.

And guess which one of Baltimore's finest he's complaining about?

Officer Hellriegel Meister here.

Then it's an open investigation?

Scheduled for a trial board.

You know, Paxton's serious as a heart attack about this.

He's even got a witness listed.

- A witness? - Mm-hmm. Another Jamaican.

His name is Desmond--

- Clements. - Clements.

Find him, fast.

You think he was with Paxton Smart when the beating went down?

Either that or he's heard about it,

and knows the name of other witnesses.

This Yates kid rides that bus every school day.

Then he must know the name of the passengers. Lean on him, get names.

I want everyone on that bus in an interrogation room.

Come on, man.

Y'all know that bus would have burned

whether I threw that brick or not.

I'm telling you, there wasn't a lot of love in Park Heights

for Mr. McCusker, man.

- No? - Oh, man, please.

He would drive right past the stop if you wasn't there waiting.

Even if he seen you running to catch his bus, he'd just drive on.

- So was that racial? - Of course it was racial, man.

You think he would have just driven past some white lady a few feet from the stop?

I don't know.

When was the last time a white lady

was at a Lower Park Heights bus stop?

I'm saying make believe, man.

I'm saying that you don't know

that this had anything to do with race.

The people that beat McCusker, did they say anything racial?

Did they do anything to show that they were hitting him because he was white?

Look, man, they hate that man, all right?

They've been hating him for as long

as he's been driving the number 13.

He was always out there dogging somebody,

talking about they don't got enough for the fare

or they gotta pay extra for the zone, man.

- You know what I'm saying. - Hey, that was his job.

Look, man, you just don't know, all right?

I am asking you to remember.

Did anyone say anything racial before McCusker got beat?

- Did they? - No, not out loud.

You want to avoid adult detention?

You give us the names of every passenger you can remember

and what they did do and what they did not do.

They gonna know I put 'em in?

Not from us.

All right, just cop a squat in here.

Make yourself comfortable.

look like a busful.

Look, do we have all the passengers?

There's no way to know that.

You take their statement, you get some names.

More names, more interviews and more interviews.

- Vicious cycle. - Diligence, Munch. Diligence.

- What bus? - What bus?

No, uh-uh, I don't know what you're talking about.

- I don't know what you're talking about. - No, uh-uh.

I've been on the bus, but I wasn't on that bus.

I was outside the bus, don't mean I was on the bus.

I wasn't on that bus.

Uh-uh, uh-uh, uh-uh.

Desmond Clements' address looks to be a working drug house.

Looks like.

We knock on that door, they're gonna panic. Flight or fight, you know?

Hey, we don't care about nobody but our witness.

Anybody else comes through that door, let them go.

Hmm?

All right, now, hey, you're going up to the front. Announce yourself.

I figure if our boy's in there, he'll come bouncing out the back.

- You set? - Yeah, good to go.

Police, looking for Desmond Clemens.

Police, open up!

Hey, Sheppard, anything come your way?

- No, not yet. What about you? - Nothing worth keeping.

I'm going inside to see what's what.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, easy, Desmond.

Police. Get out of here.

Down. Down on the ground.

What? You're going to shoot me?

For what?

Get off me! Get off me!

Bitch, let him go!

Get off me! Get off me!

I'll shoot, let him go!

Hey! Hey, get the hell up!

Bitch, come on!

Get o--

- Hands behind your back! Get 'em behind your back! - Okay! Okay! Okay!

- You got him? - Okay, okay.

I got him, man, I got him.

- You got him? - I got him, man, I got him.

Let go. Let go. Let go of him, baby. Let go.

Signal 13, I got an officer down,

3600 block, Homer Avenue.

Stay down!

- No, no, no, hey, hey. - He got-- he got my gun.

- It's all right, it's all right. - He got my gun.

- I got him. - I know you did, babe.

I didn't let go. I know.

- What are you doing back? - You tell me.

I am on a ridge line 20 miles from nowhere,

and I am watching a red-tailed hawk chase a rabbit

through a field of orange heather,

when all of a sudden there's a US park ranger on horseback.

It was a very Harlequin Romance,

only he's got a teletype telling me I have to report

to my shift commander immediately.

So, what? What am I missing?

- Sheppard's hurt. - What?

Yeah, she was beaten.

Lewis is with her at General.

What the hell is going on? Come on, we'll fill you in on the way.

- You gonna dump me? - What?

You gonna move me off the shift, get me off the street?

No, of course not.

I got beat.

Got my gun too.

Could have happened to anyone.

If they ran out that back door, then it happens to Lewis.

Right?

So, you still think this is racial?

- I know it is. - Based on what?

Based on scratch the surface in this town, what do you get?

It's always been that way, it ain't gonna change.

This guy McCusker, he's been driving a bus for 20 years, right?

Okay, so, he's not sending any money to the NAACP,

but he's doing his job, and then one day,

he smacks into a woman, Black, in the neighborhood, Black.

And his passengers, all Black, decide he's done his job long enough.

You know, maybe there is another reason.

It seems that this McCusker didn't hesitate to piss people off.

I piss people off, you piss people off.

You don't see a crowd gathering to stomp us to death. For that, you need race.

Maybe you need race, Gharty. Makes it a lot easier for you, doesn't it?

You don't have to dig deeper, look further for what really happened.

- You know, call it a race crime, and everybody's happy, right? - Oh, come on.

Some Texas rednecks drag a Black guy behind a pickup truck,

it makes the national news.

But a white bus driver gets beat to death in Little Jamaica,

- and nobody wants to talk about what we all know. - No!

- What you think you know. - Hey, hey, pal!

I was on the street during the Winter Olympics of '79. You remember?

A couple of feet of snow became an excuse for looting in every Black neighborhood.

In 1968, Gay Street and Pennsylvania Avenue,

it all burns while they throw bottles at cops and firefighters.

A lot happened in April '68.

You know, as I remember it,

that story started on a hotel balcony in Memphis.

Oh, and that justifies anything?

No way that that justifies anything.

Look, all I know is that you don't see

white people throwing bricks in this town

just because something doesn't go their way.

Well, what wouldn't go your way? Tell me, I want to know.

What would have to go wrong for guys like you to throw a brick?

What, mortgage rate rises above 10%?

Or maybe the lawn service didn't show on Sunday.

Oh, no, no, no, no, I know.

The new Buick's come out with less leg room.

- No justice, no peace. - Oh, you think you're funny.

No, there's nothing about this conversation

that is even remotely humorous to me.

Hey, the other passengers,

they're acting like they're not even sure where Baltimore is.

Much less the number 13 bus route.

Ah, to hell with it. Let's just charge them all.

- We'll, uh, we'll sort it out later. - Yeah, charge them all!

- You can lock up the whole city! - Right!

Hey, Meldrick, where is she?

Gee's in there with her.

Oh, my God, how is she doing?

Oh, she's doing great, Ballard. What the hell you think?

She got her ass kicked. Broken ribs, I think.

She got stomped, that's how she's doing.

Why didn't you wait for backup?

Because there were no units in the area, Munch.

- I thought I had it covered. Why? - Where were you?

What are you, IID? I was in the back of the house.

I wanted her to raise them up in the front so they'd come back at me.

- Did you get the witness? - Yeah, yeah, he's in a cage car on the way down to Homicide.

She wouldn't let go. She wouldn't let the son of a bitch go.

They got her gun, too.

- They got her gun? - Yeah, they got her gun.

Now, you know how that is, Ballard. Female police on the street.

Now, no offense or nothing, but nine times out of ten,

they ain't gonna win no fight with a flashlight or a nightstick.

I mean, she don't weigh but 120 pounds.

She got nothing to do but go straight for the gun.

- So they got it away from her, huh? - Yeah, they got the gun away.

They shot at me with it, done killed my best brim?

Nah, nah, no way, no how,

nobody's gonna beat my partner down like that,

take her weapon, and use it to shoot up my lid.

- I ain't gonna hear that. - Meldrick.

Meldrick.

Stay with Lewis.

, ease off.

I'm Homicide.

I'm working on a murder of a young brother

who was killed this afternoon in the alley off the Heights.

Now, I know what the talk is.

I know a lot of people around the way are saying

that maybe the police did this, maybe the police killed that boy.

Well, I'm here to tell you right here, right now,

I think that just might be true.

And because I think that might be true,

me and my partner was up in a house on Homer Avenue

looking for a witness.

We were looking for somebody to tell us

what might have happened to Paxton Smart.

And if that witness up and puts in a police

for killing that young brother, then so be it.

That's what we was working on

when my partner got her ass kicked

and got her gun took.

That sister was beat by a Black man,

and she's up in a hospital right now coughing up blood.

Now, one of two things can happen here.

Number one,

that gun comes back.

Not tomorrow, not the next day, but tonight.

And number two,

we ain't never going to see that weapon again.

And if that's the case, every police in the world is going to come down

to Lower Park Heights,

and y'all are going to wish you had never heard of Baltimore, Maryland.

That gun comes back to me,

or my crew is going to give y'all crew a real reason to riot.

Hear me.

I want that gun.

I don't really see the point here.

What does it matter whether or not

there were complaints against McCusker?

None of it justifies what happened.

We've got people who believe this incident is racial.

We've got people who are going to use what happened today

to justify some ugly ideas.

Look, we've got tension all along Park Heights tonight.

We've got people believing that white bus drivers run down pregnant Black women.

And we've got whites thinking

that Black folks are looking for any reason to resort to violence.

One more incident, and we're going to have ourselves a riot

that'll make what happened today seem like a fart in high wind.

Now, if this thing was personal, if it wasn't racial--

Where are you from, Agent Giardello?

I'm from here.

- Baltimore. - Really?

To hear you talk, I would think that you haven't been around these parts

in quite a while.

- That's my child. - Yes, ma'am.

Ms. Manley, what do you remember?

The bus. It was on the wrong side.

You were struck in the northbound lanes,

and the bus was going northbound.

- Yes. - Did you see the bus?

I'm in this country eight days.

In my country, in Jamaica, it's different.

Buses and cars stay to the left.

Here, everything is to the right.

You were crossing the street, and you looked the wrong way.

It was my fault.

Tell the driver it was my own fault.

He should not feel so badly.

My father had nothing against anyone.

Ms. McCusker, his supervisor showed me

three dozen complaints by passengers over the last eight years.

Are you telling me your father enjoyed the Park Heights route?

It was where he came from.

Dad grew up on Wylie Avenue.

Neighborhood changed, though.

- Yeah, did it ever. - And that bothered your father?

A little.

He moved to the County after the blockbusting started

north of Park Circle.

But it isn't the same, is it?

He was a city boy. That was what he knew.

Him staying on that route,

I think it was his way of staying connected

to who he was, to where he came from.

Even though that place no longer exists?

- I suppose. - And who did he blame for that?

What are you asking me?

Are you asking me whether he'd run down a Black woman

because his neighborhood turned to garbage?

No. No. Of course not.

No offense to you, but that was a beautiful neighborhood.

Nothing down there now but guns and shooting

and people who don't want to work.

But that didn't stop my father from doing his job.

He got up every day and drove that bus.

And just because some people say he didn't let them do every damn thing they wanted to,

they're going to complain.

Well, so what?

My dad didn't have to like them none.

He had to make the stops and take the fares.

Paxton sold drugs. I sell drugs.

Officer Hellriegel, he knows this.

- He knows the both of us. - Right, right.

Now, were you with Paxton when he was dragged into that alley,

or do you know who was with him?

Man, there was no protection for Paxton.

- There would be none for I. - Not true.

You tell us what I think you know,

and Officer Hellriegel will not be on the street.

And what about the next cop? And the one after him?

Well, after it comes out why Paxton was killed,

no officer in his right mind is going to risk his career messing with you.

You're a state's witness in a murder investigation.

That's a hell of a lot more profile than what Paxton had

- in a brutality complaint. - That's right.

Now, if you help us out with this,

we're not going to bang you as hard

for assaulting that female detective.

- She okay? - She's hurting.

And let me tell you something there, bunky.

That's my partner you're talking about.

And for me to cut you any slack on this at all is a miracle.

Now, if you don't help me out,

give me what I need in this murder,

I ain't got no reason

not to let the state's attorney go wild on your ass.

Falsone said Marletta Manley will recover.

He also said she stepped out in front of that bus without looking.

So, McCusker gets murdered for no good reason?

We know that Hellriegel killed Paxton Smart.

- Who killed McCusker? - Well, who didn't?

We got 12 different passengers giving 16 stories, putting each other in.

The way I see it, they're all guilty.

If we try to make everyone responsible, no one will be.

The jury will end up losing itself in the numbers and acquitting everyone.

But McCusker was, in fact, beaten to death by a mob.

You saying we should overlook that?

No, I'm saying we should pick our battles.

Take one honest witness.

One person who we know was not involved in the brawl

and let him testify as to who threw the first punch.

Maybe the second or the third. That is a case we can win.

But do we have that witness?

Mr. Dekker, at this point,

you're the only passenger who hasn't pointed the finger at someone else.

You're also the only passenger

who has been exonerated by all of our other witnesses.

We know you had nothing to do with it.

We also know that the bus driver

didn't deliberately hit Marletta Manley.

She stepped out into traffic.

There was no way he could have stopped in time.

Did you realize that?

Is that why you tried to stop the beating?

No. I tried to stop it because I started it.

I didn't see no woman. I don't know what happened.

All I know is he, the driver, he smashed my radio.

The kid said that, that McCusker broke your box.

People was yelling in front of the bus.

The driver was angry. Others were angry. And my radio.

I told him he had no right.

He looked at me and then down at the woman.

And it was only then I saw.

- You didn't hit him? - Another man.

He called the driver a name and then another shoved him.

But finally there was this one young man

who threw the driver on the ground.

I grabbed that young man.

But others, they start kicking the driver, kicking him.

Because of me. I am the cause.

Over a radio, a man is dead.

Okay, Downey.

Okay.

Him. Him. And him.

The rest of them you can cut loose.

Got 'em. First shove, first punch, first kick.

- Present and accounted for. - Danvers wants to go for second degree on all three.

I want them cuffed with Officer Hellriegel.

And I want them led out the front lobby doors.

The four of them doing a perp walk together should calm this city down.

- There he is! - How does it feel to be going to jail?

How do you feel about that, Officer Hellriegel, can you tell us?

You were right. It wasn't race.

It's a lousy radio.

- You think? - Yeah.

A man from another country plays his radio.

A man from this country plays his. They fight.

Another man, another race. He doesn't want to hear.

He bitches. Woman gets hurt.

And then it unravels. All of it.

All the pretense, all the rote human connections break down.

So, what are you saying?

I'm saying that it's all right there waiting.

Just below the surface. I mean, a radio, an accident, those are just excuses.

Those people didn't like McCusker because he was McCusker.

Because he gave them a hard way to go. And he was angry at that.

That's what started this.

But those passengers also didn't like that he was white.

That's what finished things.

Yeah.

Shades of gray, huh?

Yeah, sometimes I get the feeling this city has grown subtle on me.

Not better, necessarily.

Just subtle.

Well, welcome home, kiddo.

Hey. Hey.

Got you covered.