Mind Games: A Brick City Story, by Ikish Mullens

CHAPTER 6: Bury It

Chief Briggs sat at his desk sulking. All morning he has been in meetings with various branches of government, who were inquiring about the drug bust debacle; wondering what he planned to do to rectify the situation. In addition, he has been dodging the press, who has been camped outside Brick City PD headquarters looking for answers about the wild police chase from the night before.

However, Chief Briggs wasn’t concerned about their questions or inquiries, because he had a more pressing issue to deal with.

“Briggs this is unacceptable.” Callaway - the assistant prosecutor - said slamming a file on Briggs’ desk. “What the hell happened out there?”

“I don’t know,” he lied, “We’re still investigating.”

“Briggs, do I have to remind you, that this is an election year?” Mayor Davidson asked. “If this gets out to the press we’re done. You have to get a handle on this fiasco before it get out of hand.”

“It’s already out of hand,” Briggs replied, reminding him of the severity of the matter. “I have four dead detective, a dozen wounded SWAT Team members in College Hospital, and a missing detective on my hands. My plate is full, and I’m dealing with it.”

“Briggs I need you to speed up this investigation,” Calloway screamed, worried about his reputation within the prosecutor’s office. “I need to prosecute someone for this. I am not losing my job because you were too incompetent to do your job properly.”

“I warned you about this,” Chief Briggs calmly reminded him. “I told you that if you pushed for an arrest too soon, something like this could happen.”

“Oh no . . . Oh no . . . You’re not putting this on me,” Calloway snapped. “We’re in this together . . . We decided to do this together.”

“So what do you want to do about it?” Chief Briggs asked. “I’m doing the best I can.”

“Bury it,” Mayor Davidson nonchalantly relied.

“What?” Chief Briggs asked confused by what Mayor Jackson was asking.

“What do you mean bury it?” Calloway wondered.

“What other option do we have?” Mayor Davidson asked. “I don’t care how you do it, but I want you to call for an indefinite embargo within this department. I don’t anyone who knows what really happened last night to say anything to the media.”

“Wow . . . Just when I think things couldn’t get any worse, here you go making matter worse,” Calloway screams. “So what do you plan to tell the public? The incident made the ten o’clock news.”

“We’ll say it was a police training accident,” Mayor Davidson replied. “Tomorrow I’ll hold a press conference, and the two of you will be right there by my side, when I tell the citizens of the Brick City that what happened was nothing more than a training exercise gone wrong.”

“No . . . Absolutely not,” Calloway said protesting Mayor Davidson’s plan to lie to the public. “We can’t lie to the public. It’ll raise too many questions.”

“What other choice do we have?” Mayor Davidson asked.

“Are you listening to yourself?” Calloway asked trying to help him see reason. “Do you really want them to start asking questions? We’re in too deep, and I refuse to spend the rest of my life behind bars because you got sloppy.”

“I just want this to be over,” Mayor Davidson snapped. “We have to tell them something. We have to find a way to bury this until we can find someone to take the fall for this.”

“We know the HoodaBoyz are responsible for this,” Briggs reminded them. “However, we don’t have any evidence to prove they actually did it. Any evidence we could have used went up in flame with that shack, and we can’t connect Desmond Jones to any illegal activity. He doesn’t even have a record.”

“How could someone, who’s been in the game for as long as he has, not have a criminal record?” Mayor Jackson asked.

“You know how,” Chief Briggs replied, “We all know how.”

“You know what you have to do?” Calloway told him. “I’m with Mayor Jackson on this. We have to bury this story, until we can product a suspect, who I can prosecute for this crime.

“Let’s put it to a vote,” Chief Briggs suggested.