“You are.”
“No, I am not.”
“Stop talking.”
“I have provided my identification. I have told you where the registration is. I have stepped away from the vehicle when ordered. I have not attempted to leave.”
Reeves pointed toward the pavement.
“Stay right there.”
Alana stayed.
He walked back toward his cruiser with her license.
She watched him.
The man with the dog food finally spoke.
“Ma’am, you want me to stay?”
Alana looked toward him.
He appeared to be in his fifties, wearing work boots and a Mariners cap.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “Please.”
Reeves turned.
“Sir, mind your business.”
The man raised both hands.
“I’m just standing here.”
“Then keep standing.”
He did.
He also removed his phone from his pocket and began recording.
Alana noticed.
So did Reeves.
The officer returned to his cruiser.
He typed something.
Paused.
Typed again.
Alana knew he should have been running the plate.
What she did not know was that he had not run it before approaching her.
Later, body-camera timestamps and dispatch logs would prove that.
At 4:18 p.m., Officer Daniel Reeves had driven through the Walmart parking lot after finishing a routine shoplifting call several blocks away.
He saw Alana standing near the Lexus.
He slowed.
He passed her.
Then backed up.
No call had been dispatched about the vehicle.
No automatic license plate reader had flagged it.
No store employee had reported her.
No one had reported a stolen Lexus matching hers.
The entire encounter had begun with one officer deciding that something looked wrong.
Reeves would later say Alana appeared to be “looking around nervously.”
The security footage would show her doing nothing more suspicious than checking for vehicles before walking behind her shopping cart.
He would say she appeared to be “handling items inside the SUV.”
She had been loading bottled water and printer paper.
He would say the license plate “resembled a plate associated with a stolen vehicle bulletin.”
Records would show no such bulletin on his terminal that afternoon.
But none of that was known yet.
All Alana knew was that she was standing in a Walmart parking lot while an officer who had accused her of vehicle theft now seemed unable to find evidence supporting his own accusation.
A second cruiser entered the lot.
Then another.
Alana’s stomach tightened.
The first responding officer was a woman named Officer Megan Price.
The second was Sergeant Thomas Bell, a twenty-one-year veteran.
Price got out first.
“What do we have?”
Reeves walked toward her.
Alana could not hear the first few sentences.
Then Reeves pointed at her.
Price looked over.
Alana met her eyes.
Price looked back at Reeves.
Sergeant Bell remained beside his cruiser, listening to something on his radio.
Price approached.
“Ma’am, I’m Officer Price.”
“Judge Alana Pierce.”
Price hesitated at the title.
“Okay. Can you tell me what happened?”
Before Alana could answer, Reeves cut in.
“She’s being detained.”
Price looked toward him.
“For?”
“Possible vehicle theft.”
Alana said, “Officer Price, that vehicle is mine. My registration is in the glove box. Officer Reeves has my driver’s license.”
Reeves stepped closer.
“You need to stop interrupting.”
“I am answering her question.”
“I said stop.”
Price’s eyes moved between them.