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The witness—bald with sunburned scalp, a long, oval face, and a blind right eye—was George P. Carter III, a.k.a. the Altoid Man. Something of a West LA institution, he had appeared on the scene in the mid-2000s—a tall, slim, and elegant figure with a closed eye and an affinity for spotless white sweaters and crisply pressed tan or light-gray pants. At the time, he was a PhD student at UCLA, had a Culver City address, and a seven-day-a-week surfing habit in Paradise Cove in Malibu. Then one morning he showed up on the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Whittier Drive, across the street from the Beverly Hilton Hotel—the preferred venue for many a charity dinner, million-dollar bar mitzvah, and, throughout that decade, numerous Oscar luncheons—holding up a sign that read, LAPD blinded my eye and refuses to apologize or pay for it.

The sign’s fine print described a weekend altercation between him and the police: he was driving in the area—the border between Beverly Hills and Century City—and the cops pulled him over for no reason; he objected, since “we don’t live in North Korea,” so they beat him, blinded his eye, and took him to jail. Afterward, they wouldn’t even apologize.

He appeared so sophisticated and held the sign with such dogged earnestness, he managed to slow down the already-excruciating traffic on the corner.

Below the fine print, a larger-type font declared that George P. Carter III was not homeless or hungry, didn’t want motorists’ money or their expressions of pity. He wanted “justice” for himself, compensation for his eye, and an apology from the police chief, the mayor, and the president of the police commission.

He got a lot of curious stares, a few people honking their horns and giving him a thumbs-up, but no reaction from the police. So he returned the next day.

Monday through Friday for the next five or six years, the Altoid Man arrived at his post on the seven a.m. bus and stayed exactly twelve hours. Every ten minutes or so he would put the sign down, reach into his pocket, and retrieve a box of “original” Altoids, pop one in his mouth, and resume his stance. He took a half-hour lunch break at noon, and sat out the weekends when the traffic on his corner was light. Over the years his appearance showed signs of attrition. He grew increasingly thin and disheveled, his clothes became ragged and dirty, and his sign turned weather-beaten and nearly illegible—but he never gave up his Altoid habit or his steadfast demand for reparations from the LAPD.

In time, he and his sign faded like celluloid figures off a black-and-white reel; he became just another angry soul riding the buses and wandering the streets of LA, but he never stopped fighting the good fight. Just in case he was attacked by the police again, he carried a disposable camera in his pants pocket and pulled it out every time a cruiser slowed down or stopped near him.

* * *

He told Montoya that he had seen “everything” with his one eye, and could give a precise description. “But I’m not talking to you goons,” he said. “Go get your boss and bring him over here to lick my ass.”

By “boss” he meant the police chief, Charlie Beck, but since he wasn’t available or on the premises, the Altoid Man had agreed to meet with Leon instead.

He told Leon he had been riding the 4 bus from downtown to the beach, which was what he always did, going back and forth all night to avoid sleeping on the street, where he’d be vulnerable to “more police brutality,” or in a shelter, where the company was intolerable “since I don’t drink, do drugs, or speak Spanish or Ebonics.” He’d had to get off the bus at two a.m. to fulfill a pressing urge, “and I don’t mean just pissing.” He liked Mapleton for that purpose, he explained, because it was a nice street where “a man with his butt bare” wouldn’t be attacked by “a bunch of faggots” or robbed by “bean-eating Mexicans,” and because there was a large construction site not too far away from Sunset.

“Some fucking maharaja’s been building here for ten years. Must have spent a hundred million on it and all it’s good for is a half-decent shit.”

From the construction site, the Altoid Man had noticed the gray car drive up to the gates of Raphael’s Son’s house, had seen “everything, I can give you minute-by-minute details, but fuck you if you think I’m gonna tell you a fucking thing without first getting my dues from the fucking LAPD.”