He did not characterize Puit beyond what the record required. He simply described what had happened downstairs. The trap was closing. Voss was 43, compact with dark hair cut close to her skull and eyes that operated on an independent evaluation system. They continued assessing while her face remained professionally neutral.
Eight years in Internal Affairs after coming from financial crimes. She thought about cases the way accountants think about numbers. Every figure has a source. Every source can be verified. And the gap between the claimed figure and the actual figure is always more interesting than either alone.
Puit sat across from her with Morrow to his left. He looked like a man who had convinced himself the night before that the math was survivable and was now in the fluorescent light of Monday morning beginning to revise that assessment. Voss opened her laptop without preamble. "Officer Puit," she said, "your written statement from Saturday characterizes the subject as physically resistive and states your baton deployment was in response to an aggressive movement toward you." She looked at him with the specific quality of patience that comes from having no interest in the answer being what she expects. I'd like to walk through the body camera footage alongside that statement.
The footage played. It showed everything. Raymond's hands consistently visible, consistently still throughout every exchange. The license plate returned clean, matching the address and Puit's decision to continue regardless. The moment Puit moved between Raymond and his own front door, each exchange in crystal-clear audio that the body camera's directional microphone had captured with the impartiality of a machine that has no stake in the outcome.
The holster unsnapping. The baton deployment.. Raymond standing perfectly still through all of it, voice measured and precise hands, never once moving toward Puit. When the video reached the badge reveal and the sound of the baton hitting the concrete, Puit looked away from the screen. Voss paused the footage.
"Your written statement indicates you deployed your baton because the subject made a sudden aggressive movement toward me," she said. "The footage shows the subject standing still with his hands at his sides at the time of baton deployment. She looked at him. "Would you like to revise that? Puit opened his mouth.
Morrow put a hand on his arm. Kyle, the voice had none of the comfortable warmth it usually carried when managing someone's problem.