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The silence that followed was heavy. It was the kind of silence that made the distant hum of city traffic sound like a roar. Walsh stared at the badge, then at my face, then back at the badge. The reality of the situation began to bleed through his bravado. He claimed it was a joke, a desperate hope that this was some elaborate prank, but I pointed to the seam in the blanket. I told him about the cameras. Three angles. High definition. Direct stream to a secure server.
For six days, I had documented a reign of terror that would make a seasoned veteran sick. On Monday, I watched him threaten a homeless man with an existential erasure. On Tuesday, he destroyed a woman’s only possessions because her presence offended his sense of aesthetics. On Wednesday, he shoved an elderly man into the dirt for the crime of wasting oxygen. And today, he had kicked me in the ribs and ordered me to crawl for his amusement. As I listed his crimes, Walsh’s shoulders slumped. The fear in his eyes was palpable now. He tried to argue that I didn’t understand how things worked on the street, that these people lied and complained. I told him they existed, and that was enough.