Chapter Four
DURING THE PAST YEAR AND A HALF I had fallen out of touch with Jon and Mickey. The last I had heard, they got full scholarships to play baseball for a college in North Dakota. In January, I was at the town mall and I ran into a kid I had coached. We had a friendly chat, and he asked if I had heard that the Bowies had given up their scholarships and come back to Columbia. I was caught so off guard that I struggled for excuses, forgot my errands, and returned home. I found the Bowies’ phone number on an old roster and called, and Jon answered.
“Hey, Mick,” I said.
Jon laughed. “Nah, Coach. This is Jon. You want to talk to Mick?”
Once I knew I was talking to Jon, I thought I could distinguish his slightly higher, slightly clearer voice. Still, I was irritated and a little embarrassed that I had mixed them up again.
“Not particularly,” I said. “I mean, either one. I just called to find out what’s going on.”
“You mean about school?”
“Yeah. What’s the story?”
I don’t recall Jon ever hesitating for an answer, and he didn’t this time, either.
“It’s too cold in North Dakota.”
I did hesitate. “Were the books giving you trouble?”
“Nah, that wasn’t it. Like I said, it was just cold.”
“What about Mickey? Was he having trouble?”
“Nah. They told him he probably would make the football team, and I’m pretty sure I was going to make the baseball team. We just talked about it and decided to come home.”
Jon and I talked for several minutes, and I became begrudgingly convinced that he was comfortable with the decision.
“I don’t suppose your mother took it too well.”
He laughed. “She’ll get over it.”
“So, everything’s going all right then?”
“Well, almost. Mick and I got beat up by some cops over the holidays.”
I couldn’t imagine Jon and Mick being beaten up by anyone.
“How? What did you do?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Seriously. I mean, we had a party at a motel and there was some beer, but the cops just got crazy and started hitting us.”
“Did you hit them back?”
“Nah. I’m not stupid. You can’t hit a cop. I would have liked to, but they had badges, you know. One of them was pretty big, but I think we could have taken them in a fair fight.”
This wasn’t sinking in. I paced back and forth in the kitchen, searching for an appropriate response.
“Did you get hurt?”
“Yeah, some. Mickey’s face was all cut up and bruised, and he got black eyes. They hit me with a billy club a couple of times and cut my mouth and stuff.”
I was at a loss. This was completely outside my frame of reference.
“We can’t have that,” I finally said. “Is there anything you can do about it?”
“We’ve got attorneys and filed complaints. The police department is investigating it.”
“Well, good. We just can’t have that sort of thing.” Then I changed the subject. “How’s Mickey doing?”
“To tell you the truth, I’m not sure. He doesn’t seem to have his head together. He just lays around and hangs out.”
“Well, you know Mick. He’ll sort things out and he’ll be all right.”
“I guess. I don’t see how there’s anything I can do about it, regardless.”
“Well, tell him I said hello.”
“Okay, Coach.”
“And you’re sure everything’s all right?”
“Sure, Coach. I’m sure.”
We said good-byes and hung up.
I didn’t forget what Jon told me about the motel incident, but I did assume it would be taken care of. Eventually, I would think of this as the last conversation I would ever have with Jon Bowie.
* * *
During the week following the motel incident, Jon read a feature article in a local paper about the Reverend Doctor John Wright, the head of the county chapter of the NAACP. Wright, the article said, had a reputation for taking on local agencies, including the police, and for a willingness to help anyone, race aside. Jon figured that maybe Reverend Wright knew how to go about filing complaints against the police, and he wrote the reverend a letter. He looked up the address of Wright’s church in the phone book and drove to the address on a rural road south of Columbia to deliver the letter himself. Wright wasn’t there and he left the letter in the church door. When he checked the next day and the letter was still in the door, he put a stamp on it and left it in the mailbox of a home across the street.
Jon’s determination made Sandra doubt her own doubts. Still, she wasn’t certain that her sons were justified in filing complaints against the police. She knew that people could get excited and see what they wanted to see. She neither encouraged nor discouraged Jon and Mickey, and she kept expecting the issue to somehow go away.
Reverend Wright called Jon and told him it didn’t matter that Jon and Mickey were white. The NAACP was interested in hearing their story. They met with Wright and he recommended an attorney, Jo Glasco, who was a member of his congregation and had an office in Columbia.
Sandra reluctantly agreed to go along with Reverend Wright’s suggestions, but she said the boys would have to pay for the attorney themselves. She thought this would end the matter, but the boys began saving money. They met with Glasco, who advised that, for legal reasons, the boys should have separate attorneys, and she recommended someone to represent Jon.
With the attorneys’ guidance, both boys filed complaints at the police department against Officers Victor Riemer, Ricky Johnson, and Pete Wright. This would lead to an internal police department investigation about whether the officers had used excessive force or violated any other police department policies or procedures.
The boys also filed assault charges at the courthouse against the officers. These charges put the case in the normal judicial process and would lead, they thought, to a day in court when they could tell their stories to a judge.
The police department, meanwhile, charged Jon and Mickey with various offenses such as assault on an officer, hindering an officer in the performance of his duties, and resisting arrest. These charges were expected to lead to trials in which Jon and Mickey would be defendants.
In early February, the head of the county police department’s Internal Affairs Division, Sergeant Nelson Graham, interviewed Jon and Mickey and most of the other kids who had been at the motel. The Internal Affairs Division, or IAD, was the part of the police department that investigated complaints against police officers. Jon and Mickey told Sandra that the interviews went all right, although Officer Graham kept trying to get them to say they had drunk more beer than they did, and that they were ring leaders in the group.
Reverend Wright suggested that the boys contact the FBI because that agency investigated complaints against police officers. Sandra took off work one afternoon and went with the boys to the local FBI office. She waited in the reception area with each son as an agent interviewed the other for well over an hour.
Jon or Mick mentioned that one young woman had taken a few photographs at the motel before the police arrived, and they had copies. The photographs showed nothing unusual—no beer cans scattered about or glassy-eyed people. Just young people smiling at the camera. After the interviews, the agent told Sandra he wanted to see the photographs. He came by their home a few days later to collect them.
A few weeks later, the agent and his boss came to the house. Sandra immediately sensed bad vibrations and noticed that the younger agent wouldn’t look her in the eyes. She led the two men into the kitchen and called the boys.
“Mrs. Keyser,” the older agent began, “we’ve looked into this matter, and our investigation shows that there was no wrongdoing on the part of the police officers.” Sandra stared at him without responding, and after an uncomfortable silence he continued. “You have to understand, Mrs. Keyser, that police officers have bad days, too.”
Sandra was furious, and she remained silent as she tried to control her emotions. She thought, I work with children all day. If I had a bad day and hit one of them, I’d be out of a job. What kind of explanation is that?
When she sensed that the blood in her face was cooling, she said, “What else can we do?”
“If I were you, I’d just drop it,” the older agent said.
“You don’t believe us?” Mickey asked.
The older agent stood as if he had been about to leave, and said to Mickey, “Young man, you should understand that you have to listen to what a cop says. You have to learn to respect authority.”
Mickey went, “Pffft,” with his lips and waved an arm in the agent’s direction.
“Forget it.”
Sandra saw the disappointment behind her son’s nonchalance. She saw it in Jon’s face, too. As calmly as she could manage, she said, “Why don’t you give the boys a lie detector test? Then make up your minds what happened.”
The older agent gave Sandra an icy stare and said, “It is our experience that habitual liars can pass a lie detector test.”
The lid nearly blew off Sandra’s calm, but she had to save the situation for the sake of her sons. Trying to keep her voice from trembling, she said, “What do you think the chances are that there were fourteen habitual liars in the same motel room?”
* * *
Sandra still wasn’t convinced her sons were doing the right thing by pursuing their complaints against the police officers, but the meeting in her kitchen with the FBI agents was a turning point for her. Regardless of the merits of the case, she didn’t think they had taken the matter seriously.
When the FBI agents had left, Sandra went back into the kitchen thinking that she knew a bit about what it felt like to be a black person in America.
“Do you believe us?” Jon asked.
“Yeah,” Sandra said slowly.
Mickey looked at Jon. “I still don’t think she believes us, but she’s in.”
* * *
Toward spring, Chong Ko was tried in the Howard County District Court for possession of drug paraphernalia at the motel. On the Monday after the motel incident, Chong visited a doctor and got a drug test, which came back negative as he had known it would. He didn’t know what that Officer Riemer was thinking by charging him with possession of a pipe that wasn’t his, and he didn’t know why Jeff’s girlfriend had said he had brought the pipe into the room. What he told anyone who would listen was that his family didn’t come to America to be treated like this.
Chong had told Officer Riemer that first night at the police station that he was going to get the drug test, and Riemer started calling him at home, first asking for the results of the drug test and then, after the test came back negative, saying that he might be able to get the charge dropped. Chong said, “Sure.”
Jon and Mick told Reverend Wright about Chong, who met with Wright. Reverend Wright told Chong that it was outrageous for Officer Riemer to call him at home and offer to drop the charges, that Riemer was interfering with the courts, and that was illegal.
Riemer kept calling Chong, saying that he had arranged for Chong to meet with the Howard County state’s attorney, which is what the county prosecutor is called in Maryland. Chong refused at first, but before his court date he met with the state’s attorney. Chong didn’t speak perfect English, he wasn’t familiar with all the legal terminology, and he didn’t fully understand all that was said at the meeting—there was something about him doing his part.
In court, Chong told the judge that Officer Riemer had called him at home, and the judge said a police officer wouldn’t do that. The judge asked the state’s attorney if he had test results on the pipe, and the state’s attorney told the judge the test results were not back yet. The judge put the case on the “stet” docket, which meant it was set aside and would be dismissed if Chong stayed out of trouble for a year.
* * *
One evening in March, Mick was getting ready to go to a party at the apartment of Chong’s older sister. She was out of town and said Chong could use her place. Jon was getting over strep throat and he didn’t think he would go. Mickey reminded him that they would be watching what promised to be an exciting game in the NCAA basketball tournament on TV, and Jon decided to go.
As many as three dozen people were there that night. They wandered in and out of rooms watching television and talking. The doorbell rang around ten o’clock and somebody said the police were at the door.
“I’m not putting up with any more of this,” Chong said, and he answered the knock. He stepped outside, closing the door behind him, and Jon and Mickey stood on the other side of the door watching through the peephole. It was Officer Riemer and another officer. Riemer wanted to know how many people were in the house, and Chong said he didn’t know. Riemer said everyone had to leave, and Chong said, “Fine, but you’re not coming inside. I’ve had enough of you guys.”
Riemer asked, “Are the Bowie twins here?”
“They might be,” Chong said, “and they might not. I’ll tell everyone to leave, but you’re not coming in.”
When Jon and Mickey heard Officer Riemer ask for them, they ran through the apartment and out the back door. Others were also leaving through the front and rear doors, and Riemer called out for the other officer to go around back and look for twins and hold them, because he wanted to talk to them.
Jon and Mickey ran through the woods, and several others ran with them. They stopped on a hill in the woods and watched as the officers came around back, shining their flashlights on the back of the building and into the woods. Jon and Mickey’s cars were parked at the apartment, and they weren’t sure what to do. Someone said that since the officers were looking for twins, Jon and Mickey should split up. Then the officers wouldn’t know if they were twins even if they saw one of them. A friend walked with Mickey the several miles back to Mickey’s house.
Mickey had been home about a half hour when Jon arrived and came into the kitchen. Jon said he and Chris, the first baseman, went to a friend’s home in a nearby apartment complex. The three of them were standing outside the friend’s door when Officer Riemer drove up in his police car. Riemer looked over at them and then went inside another building across the parking lot. It scared Jon that Officer Riemer asked for him at the party and then showed up where they’d gone after the party broke up.
The next day, Sandra called Sergeant Graham of the Internal Affairs Division and told him she wanted Riemer to stay away from her sons. Graham said Riemer couldn’t have been at that apartment complex because it was not in his patrol area. Sandra said, “That’s ridiculous. Police cars have wheels the same as any other car. If Jon says Riemer was there, then he was there. I’m telling you that I want him kept away from my sons.”
Several days later the FBI agent who had interviewed them came by to return the photographs, and Sandra told him about the party.
“It sounds like Riemer is feeling guilty about something,” he said.
“I don’t care what it sounds like,” Sandra said. “My sons have told the police department and the FBI what happened at that motel, and nobody believes them. Now this guy Riemer shows up at a party looking for them, and then shows up where Jon went after the party. I tell the police and they don’t care. I tell you about it and you just shrug it off. What does it take to get you people to pay attention?”