Officer Mark Sullivan patrolled the familiar streets of his precinct, the neon signs casting long,

distorted shadows on the wet pavement. It was a Tuesday evening, quieter than the weekends, but

Sullivan’s eyes were always scanning, always looking for anomalies. He had been on the force for

fifteen years, and over time, a cynicism had crept into his worldview, coloring his interactions and

hardening his heart. It was a cynicism born of seeing the worst of humanity, but it had morphed into

something uglier, something prejudiced. He often saw guilt before innocence, especially depending

on who he was looking at.

His radio crackled. A report of a stolen vehicle in the vicinity. A late-model silver sedan, plates

matched a vehicle registered to a Susan Miller. Sullivan’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. He

knew that car. It belonged to his mother.

Panic, sharp and cold, spiked in his chest. His mother lived alone on the edge of town, a quiet

neighborhood that had seen an uptick in minor crimes lately. He flipped his sirens on, the wail

cutting through the night air, and sped towards her address. As he approached the intersection three

blocks from her house, he spotted it. The silver sedan, waiting at a red light.

Sullivan swerved his cruiser, cutting off the sedan’s path and boxing it in. He drew his weapon,

adrenaline surging. "Step out of the vehicle! Hands where I can see them!" he bellowed over the

loudspeaker.

The driver's side door slowly opened. A young Black teenager, no older than seventeen, stepped out,

his hands trembling as he raised them above his head. He wore a faded hoodie and jeans, his eyes

wide with terror as he faced the blinding spotlight of the police cruiser and the barrel of Sullivan's

gun.

"Get on the ground! Now!" Sullivan roared, his prejudice flaring up. In his mind, the narrative was

already written: a young thug stealing from an elderly woman.

The boy complied, dropping to his knees and then flat on his stomach on the damp asphalt. "Please,

officer, I didn't do anything wrong," he stammered, his voice cracking.

Sullivan ignored him, moving in quickly to cuff the boy's wrists behind his back. He yanked him up

roughly. "You're driving a stolen vehicle, kid. And it happens to belong to my mother."

The boy, whose name was Jamal, looked confused and terrified. "Your mother? Mrs. Miller? I didn't

steal it! She let me borrow it!"

Sullivan scoffed, pushing Jamal toward the back of the cruiser. "Save it for the judge. My mother

doesn't lend her car out, especially not to someone like you."

"Please, just call her! Ask her!" Jamal pleaded, tears streaming down his face. "I was running an

errand for her. She wasn't feeling well. She needed her heart medication from the pharmacy across