J. Bertrand - Nothing to Hide

“I will not submit to this. I’m under no obligation to cooperate.”

“Sir, if you operate a motor vehicle in the state of Texas. .”

“Was I speeding? Do I have a brake light out?”

“Sir, if you can just cut me some slack here. License and registration?”

Something in Farouk’s manner seems to reassure Nesbitt. The only part of him visible to the cameras is the back of his head. He slumps a little and sighs loud enough for the microphone to pick it up.

“You need to understand something. I want you to listen carefully. You are interfering with a U.S. government operation. I’m working directly with the Central Intelligence Agency. You understand what I’m telling you, officer?”

Farouk sends another micro-glance toward Silvestri. When I was in uniform, there were some heady late-night traffic stops, but nothing like this. If a guy I’d pulled over started telling me he worked for the CIA, I’m not sure how I would’ve handled it. I probably would have laughed. To his credit, Farouk stays professional. Maybe he’s too nervous in front of his training officer to show what he’s really thinking.

“Sir, I’m going to need your license and registration to call this in.”

He doesn’t come out and say that he’s going to confirm Nesbitt’s story, but his words are carefully enough chosen to be interpreted that way. Despite his belligerence, Nesbitt’s hand appears in the window, extending his license toward Farouk. Then he reaches toward the glove compartment and returns with an insurance card. Farouk tells him to sit tight, then returns to the patrol car, disappearing from view.

My next step in this situation would probably have been to administer a Breathalyzer. Whether you smell alcohol or not, when a driver claims to be a secret agent, that’s probable cause in my book. Maybe Farouk signals something to Silvestri. The training officer takes a couple of steps toward the cruiser, then stops. He seems to nod, as if to say message received . Then he turns on his heel and approaches Nesbitt’s window.

I’ve watched the video countless times by now, but never on a large screen. The enlargement renders the details as boxy pixels, but even so, I notice something this time that I’ve never observed before.

As Silvestri makes his approach, Nesbitt’s head is clearly turned. Up to this point, only the back of the head was visible, but now I can see the darkened cavity of an eye and a mouth. He is watching the training officer as he advances.

And Silvestri does something I never noted before, too. Like Farouk, he rests his hand on the butt of his pistol. As he passes across the spotlight’s beam, his right hand is brightly illuminated. I can’t make out the individual digits, but the gesture is too familiar for me to miss. He pops the thumb break securing his gun into the holster, then flips it free. This is the sort of thing a cop might do if he’s expecting to have to draw.

I pause the video and go back to the computer, doing a search that cross-references the shooting and the term thumb break . Instead of the hundreds of results that came up earlier, this time there are only a few. The first one takes me to a blog post with screen captures from this moment in the video. Red lines overlay the image, illustrating the significance of the movement. The title of the post reads, EXECUTIONER COP GETS READY FOR THE KILL. So at least I’m not the only one to have noticed.

Back in front of the television, I advance the video a few frames at a time. Silvestri never lifts his side arm out of the holster. He also never removes his hand from the butt. There’s nothing to suggest he’s a would-be executioner. Then again, he’s clearly prepared to draw his weapon.

“You have no justification for doing that!”

The tone of Nesbitt’s voice sounds different to me. He’s not arguing about the traffic stop. He’s protesting that popped thumb break. I feel certain of that. It’s the perceived escalation of force that sets him off this time.

Silvestri’s reaction is a little surprising. On the big screen, it’s clear that as Nesbitt speaks, the training officer’s face turns. He looks away from the driver, back toward the patrol car. Back toward the camera. I pause the video and run it back. The resolution is poor, but I’m sure there is a change in the face, a momentary fullness signifying the backward glance. Why would he take his eyes off a belligerent driver at such a critical moment? To check on Farouk, perhaps? To make sure he’s ready to provide backup should it be necessary? That makes sense. I can even imagine myself in the same situation making a similar mistake. But watching again, what it really looks like is this: Silvestri’s about to make a move and he’s checking behind him to see if anybody’s looking.

It’s ridiculous, of course. He’s a training officer, brimming with experience. Even if the conspiracy theorists are right and he’s about to attempt an assassination, a glance over the shoulder isn’t enough. He would know the camera was filming everything he did.

The muzzle flash from Nesbitt’s pistol looks huge on screen, out of all proportion to the tiny size of his.32 caliber ammunition. The flash is caused by unburned power hitting the night air. Erupting in Silvestri’s face, it must have been blinding. He reacts like a blindman, stumbling backward, falling on his backside. Only after he’s on the ground does his gun clear the holster. I remember it differently, the training officer firing from the ground, but watching closely this doesn’t appear to be the case. It’s Farouk who flies into action, Farouk who’s already rushing forward, his bullets shattering the windows of Nesbitt’s Merc. As far as I can tell, the training officer never even fires. Nesbitt slumps forward, just the top of his head visible on camera. He’s dead, struck in the neck by one of Farouk’s.40 caliber rounds.

When the footage ends, I sit with the controller pressed against my cheek, contemplating a replay. I thought I knew what I was going to see. For the most part, I did. But that gesture of Silvestri’s, the backward glance, coupled with the release of his thumb break. . I’m starting to have my doubts.

Nesbitt was clearly worked up. Based on the way things actually went down, there’s no question he was also in the wrong. If I’m right about him seeing Silvestri release the thumb break, though, it helps explain why he thought his only course of action was a preemptive strike. And that backward glance really bothers me. It looks like the unconscious action of a guilty man.

Troubled by my new doubts, I shower and shave. The water makes the scrapes and nicks on my hands and legs burn, scrapes and nicks I didn’t realize I even had.

“You’re getting too old for this,” I tell the reflection in the steamy mirror.

I towel myself dry and do some stretching exercises on the bedroom floor, trying to limber my leg for the day. Bending over, I can just touch the ground without bending my knees, but there’s a nasty pull all down my leg. It feels like a bamboo shoot has been jammed down through the muscles. All I have to do is push the stretch a little further and the pain grows intense. The way it travels along the sciatic line, I imagine digging my hand through the tissue, grabbing hold of the nerve, and yanking it out.

The stretch exacerbates the discomfort at first. After I walk it off, I can feel the leg relaxing into a prickly numbness, about as functional as it gets.

I’ve known cops who had to retire based on back injuries. There’s so much weight to carry, so many demands that even a plainclothes detective can’t keep up. In my mind, there’s always been something pathetic about such cases. I’ve always wondered if the guys whining about their bad backs weren’t goldbricking. Now I’m one of them.