Positive Identification

By R. Lindsley Walton

“ Do you think that I have come to bring peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division… father against son and son against father.” (Luke 12:51-53a)

“On January 2, 2003, a black male broke into and entered our house,” is the way the officer instructed me to begin my written statement. In actuality, the man-in-question kicked open the bolted front door of my parents-in-law's house while my wife, mother-in-law and I were standing less than ten feet from it, and he did so without wearing any clothing. Needless to say, it was an unsettling beginning to our Florida vacation.

When my wife began to scream that there was a stranger pounding against the door who wouldn't identify himself, I ran to the foyer where she and my mother-in-law were, while my father-in-law ran toward his bedroom. As it became evident that the doorframe was going to give way, the three of us quickly retreated to the living room. I stopped in the passageway between the two rooms. An instant later, the door flew open and the assailant rushed to within a few feet of me. He was six feet tall, 170 pounds, 25 years of age – or so I thought. He began wildly waving his arms and yelling that he needed help. I responded by yelling back: We couldn't help him and he had to leave. I insisted that the police were already on their way (this was untrue).

For a moment, the assailant did not move . . . until he looked over my shoulder to see my father-in-law coming down the hall with a rifle. At that point, he threw his arms over his head as if to give himself up, then turned and ran back out of the house into the cover of night, not stopping to retrieve the clothes and jewelry scattered on the driveway. The ten minutes it took for the police to arrive seemed like a lifetime, while my father-in-law stood guard over the abandoned clothing, cocked and ready.

One of the surprising and unsettling aspects of the incident was that my family could not agree on the events that took place – who stood where, who said what to whom and in what order – only a short time after it was over. More importantly, though, while we could agree that the assailant was a young African-American male who was without clothing, we could not agree on his age. (I estimated as high as 25 while my mother-in-law as low as 18; we were later informed that he was 15.) But because we were all certain that I had been standing nearest to him, I was chosen to go with the police to make the identification of a suspect who had already been detained.

I was then instructed to approach the center car and identify the suspect being held in the back seat, by peering in through the side window, as an officer shined a flashlight in his eyes. While disconcerting, how many young, naked, African-American men could there possibly be running through the neighborhood, I reasoned to myself?

I was taken in the back seat of a police car to a location two blocks from my in-law's house, where there were at least four other police cars surrounding one in the center. I was then instructed to approach the center car and identify the suspect being held in the back seat, by peering in through the side window, as an officer shined a flashlight in his eyes. While disconcerting, how many young, naked, African-American men could there possibly be running through the neighborhood, I reasoned to myself? So while only vaguely familiar, I did identify him as the assailant.

But I was left to wonder whether under “normal circumstances” there couldn't have been any number of suitable suspects passing through our neighborhood at approximately 9:00 p.m., even ones prompted to flee for any number of justifiable reasons, such as an outstanding warrant or a general mistrust of law enforcement officials. So I asked my escorting officer if it wouldn't be more appropriate to make the identification at the police station. I was resolutely assured that this was the routine means of making an identification for a crime that had taken place within the past half-hour. There was little doubt that this was the procedure I was expected to follow.

To my mind, though, the most disturbing part of the night came when I was taken back to our house and we were told to begin our written statements. “Positive identification,” were the words I was instructed to use. As my father-in-law wrote his statement, he recounted his version of the incident out loud, and on two separate occasions, to different police officers, he told them how he had gone for his gun. “It was only a .22,” he told them, “but it was enough to scare the pants off him.” Both times laughter followed, and each officer responded with the very same words, saying, “That's okay, a .22 will still put a hole in ‘em.” The higher ranking officer went even further, lamenting, “I only wish you'd had your chance to teach him a lesson.” When I raised my head from my written statement as if troubled by this line of commentary and coaching, I was quickly assured that we were only talking about a crazy crack-head, and that my father-in-law was simply doing his (heroic) duty.

Almost anyone could imagine my father-in-law's dismay when, after the police left, I revealed my reservations concerning his use of the gun. How could I, when everything had gone according to script? Daring to persist, I pointed out that he had gotten his gun while the assailant was still outside the door, and therefore, had no way of fully judging the situation. Chances were very slim that it was a naked, unarmed boy. Chances were much greater that it was an armed assailant, and only God knows what might have happened once he saw my father-in-law. When I reminded him that I was the one standing nearest to the assailant, my father-in-law responded by saying it was a chance he had been willing to take. (Silence momentarily draped the room like a pall.) And when I said that by the time he arrived with his gun, his wife, daughter and three young grandchildren were all standing in the living room between him and this as-of-yet unseen assailant, my father-in-law's only response was that he would have handled it – like one of his Chuck Norris television characters, I'd imagine.

Of course, I only confirmed what my father-in-law already feared, that he was condemned to a lifetime of answering to his northern, ivy-league, liberal son-in-law. . . But his son-in-law was also a Boy Scout, like both him and my father, and it was in Scouts that I earned my share of marksmanship awards.

Of course, I only confirmed what my father-in-law already feared, that he was condemned to a lifetime of answering to his northern, ivy-league, liberal son-in-law (and if I were going to be reduced to categorization I suppose that wouldn't be unfair). But his son-in-law was also a Boy Scout, like both him and my father, and it was in Scouts that I earned my share of marksmanship awards. It was also in Scouts that I gained the confidence to handle my own father's .22, which was supposedly hidden in the rafters of our basement, and one anonymous day while my parents were out of the house that is what I did. Remembering what I had learned in Scouts – you shouldn't unload a loaded gun for fear of backfire – I stepped out the side door of our suburban house and took aim at our neighbor's mailbox. Obviously the excuse was shameless, but with that kind of power at my teenage hands the temptation was undeniable, and fortunately for everyone I grazed my target. (My sister accused me of lighting a firecracker, to which I was quite pleased to confess.)

That was the last time I held a gun. Some Boy Scouts become policemen, while others, like the author, grow up to be priests. But if cleanliness is next to godliness, as we scouts were taught, I believe it is I who can sleep with a clean conscience, at least on this night.

*******

In the wake of September 11, 2001, a great wave of goodwill went out to our nation's police officers (and fire fighters), not only for their heroic service on that horrific day, but for many days past. And rightly so. There was a collective sense that a deep debt of gratitude was owed to them for years of service that had gone unrecognized, while we in the general public were busy gawking at and mocking the O.J. Simpson murder mis-investigation, or worse. But as disloyal as it may appear, it is time to revisit the work of our law enforcement officials, to see how our nation's blank check of trust is being spent, especially in the defend-at-all-costs climate that has engulfed our entire country in recent years.

By rooting our system of justice in the revolutionary principle – that all our citizens are innocent until proven guilty – we courageously proclaim that it is better to suffer the unconvicted criminal than to punish the unjustly accused. But perhaps we Christians, as citizens of a higher country still, are in the best position to work against today's impatient and sufferless tide, knowing that as imperfect creatures we are all capable of making grave and systematic misjudgments.

Now more than ever, our calling is to continue the vigil for the voiceless and wrongly imprisoned, and to resist the temptation to take-up arms as individuals and lone rangers, regardless of which fallible official encourages us to do so. Hasty detentions, coerced identifications, and vigilantism of any kind, in any place, in any circumstance, only imperils the very notion of freedom we are so desperately trying to defend – without justice for all there can be no liberty for any.

I truly give thanks for America's system of criminal justice, because living overseas as I do at present, in a country without the resources to professionally train, adequately compensate, and comprehensively investigate crimes, we don't normally bother to inform the police when our homes, schools and churches are consistently violated. (And I know there are similar communities in the States, I simply have never had to suffer them before.) And so, while it is said that blood is thicker than water, in truth, it is only the love of mercy that conquers – and sometimes divides – us all. For those of us who assiduously endeavor to embody Christ's witness of social conscientiousness, the sword of justice for all, at-all-costs, is the greatest weapon we will wield.

The Rev. R. Lindsley Walton is assistant director of the Anglican Theological Institute in Belmopan, Belize. He is an American Episcopal priest whose ministry is currently focused on developing local leaders in the Latin American church, and he has also worked internationally with Afghan refugees in Pakistan, AIDS orphans in Tanzania. Lindsey is a lecturer in Christian ethics and church history, and may be reached by email at nancy4lin@aol.com .