Red Squad Ch. 02

This story is part of an ongoing series. The chronological order of my stories is listed in WifeWatchman's biography.

Feedback and constructive criticism is very much appreciated, and I encourage feedback for ideas.

This story contains graphic scenes, language and actions that might be extremely offensive to some people. These scenes, words and actions are used only for the literary purposes of this story. The author does not condone murder, racial language, violence, rape or violence against women, and any depictions of any of these in this story should not be construed as acceptance of the above.

***

Part 7 - Recordkeeping

"Five fifty-four to go, Wildcats leading thirteen-to-nothing, but on their own half-yard line. They snap the ball and Johnson turns and hands it to Appletree, and he hits the hole right up the middle! There he goes, Clarence Appletree! He's at the 40, the 50, the 40... and the Bulldogs defenders try to cut him off, but he veers to the right sidelines and they won't catch him! He runs all the way into the endzone! TOUCHDOWN WILDCATS!!"

Carole had been up and cheering from the moment Appletree was handed the ball, and I heard it on the radio before it was shown on TV. Still, there was plenty of time to cheer raucously or scream in frustration as we watched Appletree's record-making run.

"Ninety-nine-plus yards!" screamed the Wildcat Radio color analyst as the Wildcat players came off the field after mobbing their teammate in the end zone. "That ties the Conference and National records for longest run from scrimmage! Appletree now has four hundred and two rushing yards, a new Conference record!"

"A-PPLE-TREE! A-PPLE-TREE! A-PPLE-TREE!" yelled the Wildcat crowd in the stadium in unison, beginning to realize that they were witnessing a special day. Rodriguez tacked on the PAT.

"It's 20-0 Wildcats!" said the TV play-by-play man. "Just when you thought the Bulldogs had a chance to get back into it, Clarence Appletree goes ninety-nine for the touchdown."

"The Bulldogs didn't fill the A-gap," said the television color analyst dejectedly, trying to play the intellectual, "and it left a hole wide enough to drive a tank through, and they simply couldn't catch Appletree..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

That last run had pretty much taken everything out of Appletree. After a full day of runs short and long, and taking punishment from the Bulldogs defenders on every play, his day was over. So was Jamaal Washington, who had a credible day of five catches on five balls thrown to him, for 65 yards. Coach Richmond would begin substituting on offense.

But not on Defense. His players wanted a shutout against their rival Bulldogs, and they were destined to get one. The Bulldogs simply could not move against the Wildcats D. The Wildcats were content to run the ball against the exhausted Bulldogs front seven, churn out yards, and punt the Bulldogs into deep holes.

"And that's it." said the Wildcats announcer as the time rand to '00:00'. "The Wildcats have run the Bulldogs into the ground today, taking a solid 20-0 win that was not as close as the score would indicate..."

The color analyst on TV apparently watched a different game. "It was a valiant effort by the Bulldogs defense, but they just couldn't get anything going offensively. The good news for the Bulldogs is that Coach Thrasher is recruiting well, and will have a much stronger offensive line and great skill position players next year, players who are redshirted now..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Okay, it's over, the Wildcats won." Cindy said dismissively. "Time to move on."

"Auburn is on, against Ole Miss." said Todd. We turned to that game on TV for Teresa's sake, but continued talking about the important teams.

"Be glad you weren't the Florida Gators." said Edward Steele, to Cindy. "Georgia just beat them 42-7."

I said "I think the Bulldogs are going to be right there on the top-tier in the next few years." I said. "The Georgia Bulldogs, that is. The University Bulldogs? Not so much."

Cindy gave me an acid look, then replied "Thank God Jerome Washington and Clarence Appletree are graduating. I've seen more than enough throw-and-catch plays between them."

"What do you mean, Aunt Cindy?" Carole asked.

I replied "They're graduating, Carole. This is their last year playing for the Wildcats."

"Awwww." said Carole. She and Marie were scowling, looking sad at that news.

"That's how it works, Fussbudget." I said. "Every player graduates or leaves School eventually. Jamaal and Clarence will go to the NFL now, and play professional football.

"Can I still wear my No. 10 jersey?" Carole asked.

"Yes, of course." I said, feeling pretty sure that Washington's number would be retired, and no other Wildcat player would be assigned No. 10 again...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Molly and I heated up and put out all the leftover food out, and it was consumed rapidly. Little Jack Burke announced that I needed to have another birthday, so that we would have more cake. I replied that I liked the idea of more cake, but not the idea of getting older.

Auburn beat Ole Miss 35-10, so Teresa was happy, and Teddy Parker, an Ole Miss graduate, had a long Monday ahead of him. Teresa said to me "Alabama-LSU is next week. Geaux Tigers!"

"No doubt about that." I said. "If someone doesn't beat Alabama, we'll be facing them in the National Championship game, assuming we get there..."

Part 8 - Red Squad

Sunday, October 27th, 10:00am. I normally would've dressed casually, or wear Wildcat colors, but today I wore my uniform, and made sure the creases were sharp enough to cut someone. I wanted to make sure I looked right when I lit into Orosco.

There was a knock on my door right at 10:00am, and I said "Come in!" Lt. Commander Ted Orosco, leader of Internal Affairs, formerly with the SBI, came into the office.

"Before you sit down," I said, looking up at him with as much of an 'evil eye' as I could muster, "I want you to know that this had better be good. Damn good. Not only was yesterday my birthday and I was hosting a large party of family and friends, but my alma mater was playing against the local University in varsity football. One day a year... one weekend day... I should be able to go through without being called into Headquarters."

"What I was calling about was very important, sir." said Orosco.

"Important enough to literally demand several times that I come down to Headquarters, but not important enough to say on secure phones what it was?" I asked. "You did call the Chief, like I advised. Did you tell him what it was about?"

"No sir." said Orosco. "I did call him, and told him it was important, but he said not to bother you further until today."

"Well," I said, noticing that Orosco's demeanor wasn't changing despite what I'd just said, "it's today. Sit down." Orosco sat down. "What's it about?" I asked.

"Sir," said Orosco, "a few weeks ago, you asked Commander Croyle and me to do a forensic audit on the Police Force regarding complaints and potential Police abuse." (Author's note: 'Only Time', Ch. 01.)

"And I 'won'?" I asked.

"No sir." said Orosco. "We discounted every complaint by Citizens For Police Accountability. The only remaining complaints about you were by reporters and other Media personnel."

"Okay." I said. "So tell me what you found. And should Commander Croyle be in here for this?'

"No sir," said Orosco, "her presence at your home is why I didn't come up to your home yesterday."

"And I wouldn't have let you in, if you weren't there to watch the game." I said.

"Was that game really that important, sir?" Orosco asked.

I gaped at him. "Are you kidding me?"

"No sir." said Orosco. "What I'm about to tell you is very serious."

Though stunned, I just said "So, what's it about?"

"I've found some anomalies, sir." said Orosco. "At least the computer analysis did. Complaints have mainly come from two areas, sir. The Southwestern Ghetto, the poorest area of the County and mostly black, and the northern suburbs, particularly around the Heritage Cloisters subdivision... seems that any time one of the rich kids gets pulled over and ticketed, the parents call their Town & County representative as well as file a complaint."

"That's probably cause and effect." I said. "They call their Council Rep, who tells them to file a complaint. But I digress. Are the complaints valid? In both areas?"

"The Officers on the north side do it correctly." said Orosco. "Absolutely by the book. Not a single complaint has been verified by us, nor the I.G.'s office if it's elevated to there. I might add that a good number of those complaints occurred when the Council demanded a crackdown and more tickets be issued, and you made sure the northside felt the enforcement as much as the southside did."

I nodded and Orosco continued: "On the south side, we've had some close calls. People there, particularly young black men, tend to get belligerent, especially if the Officers are white. We've noticed that if crowds are present, black men won't follow instructions to get down on their knees so that the Officers can safely make the arrests. A number of them have ended up getting TASERed, and that generates Facebook postings, and sometimes formal complaints... especially if they have video of what they're reporting."

"I've heard of that being a problem in other cities." I said. Then I made my voice severe as I said "So what's the thing you couldn't wait to tell me?"

Orosco peered at me, correctly interpreting my voice as still being peeved at him, and he was offended that I had been peeved at all, much less was peeved now. He said "As part of this, we ran computer analyses of aggregate or group situations. We included Police reports that generated referrals to I.A., as well, as Officers can anonymously drop tips to us. Very few do, but in the cases of Sergeant McCombs and Officer Hendricks, we get a bunch, and some openly, not anonymously."

"Okay." I said. "Can we begin putting together something to fire them and withstand the Union backlash?"

"Not yet, sir." said Orosco. "But I was mentioning them as just one example. I've found several others of aggregate issues. For example, there are two groups of Officers that will have lunch or dinner as a group, and the aggregate number of complaints against them is much higher than other groups."

"Are they partners?" I asked. "Working in the same places?"

"They are often groups of partners, sir." said Orosco. "Six persons, three sets of two partners, all six with more complaints than normal. One group on the northside, one on the southside. Sir... have you ever heard of a 'Red Squad'?"

"Why yes." I said. "I heard that name on..." I paused a second, as little voice told me to be careful. "... television, I think." I was about to say I'd heard about it on 'Star Trek: Deep Space 9', that 'Red Squad' was a supposedly elite unit of cadets at Starfleet Academy. And then it hit me who our biggest Star Trek fan was... the Sheriff.

"After all this came to my attention," said Orosco, "we began surveilling those Officers we think are involved. They only talk in very general terms, but we kept hearing the words 'Red Squad meeting', and then those groups of Officers would have lunch or dinner within 24 hours." I nodded.

Orosco continued: "I did some research in I.A.'s files, the files even you and the Chief are not allowed to see. Captain Malone had at least two groups of Officers that did a lot of 'off the books' things, mostly busting up drug gangs a little harder than normal, or extralegally. You exposed his favoritism scheme when you first got here. It was going on before Malone's day, too."

"Okay." I said. "So connect the dots for me. What's going on, and what do I need to do about it?"

"Sir," said Orosco, "are you aware of a group called the 'Blood Order', particularly within the Orange Order?"

"Ye-es." I said. "Kind of an honorary within the honorary, and members only come from the Orange Order, so they're the best of the best."

"Are you a member of it?" asked Orosco.

"At this point," I said, "all I'll say is that you need to take this upwards, to the Inspector General's Office, if you think the Blood Order is a problem."

"I'm hoping I don't have to do that, sir." said Orosco. "For two reasons. One, this Blood Order may not be part of the problem. As you said, they're the best of the best Officers. The second reason is that with the changes coming to the I.G.'s Office, if this lingers until next year, and the Election produces a very unfavorable result, if you know what I mean... then this might be used to hurt our best people, which is not my intent if they're not really part of the problem."

"And you think that might be an issue?" I asked.

"Sir," said Orosco, "one of the people that have been at these group meetings... is Commander Croyle."

"Yep, it's gotta go upwards." I said. "At the very least, we need to call the Chief." I reached out for my Police iPhone and made the call...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"I seeeeeeee." said Chief Moynahan as Orosco and I sat in front of his desk in his office. "You were right to call me in. So there are two of these groups?"

"Maybe three or four, sir." said Orosco. "The group Commander Croyle has had lunch with several times are all Orange Order members, but the other three groups, and it may just be two that are really active, have no Orange Order members."

"We need to call the Sheriff." said the Chief. He reached for his phone.


"Sir," said Orosco, "before you do..."

"What is it?" the Chief asked, pulling his hand back.

Orosco steeled himself and said "I know I should've gone to the I.G., but I wanted to talk to Commander Troy first, as a courtesy. Sheriff Griswold may be part of this."

"So that's why you didn't come to my house." I said. "Not because of Commander Croyle, but because the Sheriff was there." Orosco nodded.

"And yezzzzz," said Chief Moynahan, "you really should've gone to the I.G. if you think the Sheriff was involved."

"Let me rephrase, Chief." said Orosco. "I think Sheriff Griswold is part of the Orange Order's 'Blood Order'. I also believe that years ago, including before the merger, then-Captain Griswold had a group of Officers working with him in an... 'independent'... sort of way. Now it may have been for the good, as there was a lot of corruption in the old Town Police and County Police, as well as the Sheriff's Department, and Griswold and Captain Charles formed that group to fight the corruption from within. So I didn't want to just go to the I.G. All of this could really could be... misinterpreted... by people who mean the Sheriff no good will."

"That's true." I said. "I appreciate the discretion."

"I'm not part of this 'Blood Order' of the Orange Order, though I'm in the Orange Order." said the Chief. "I didn't even know it existed. So I will be personally investigating that aspect of it, Mr. Orosco. If there are any issues with it, at all, you and I will have a conversation with Inspector General Wellman. In the meeeeeen-time, begin your investigation of these other groups. Surveillance, monitoring of their Police communications, and even infiltration of them is authorized, but I want a report with the names of the people you're investigating, and you will bring that to me directly, not through Commander Troy."


"Yes sir." said Orosco. I nodded my agreement.

"Okay, you can go, Mr. Orosco." said the Chief. "I need to talk with Commander Troy." Orosco got up and exited the office. The Chief's eyes turned full bore on me.

"Tell me about this 'Blood Order', Commanderrrrr." growled the Chief. "Do not leave anything out that I need to knowwwww."

"Yes sir." I said. "It exists. I am a member of it, as are Captain Croyle and the Sheriff. It's not the Inner Circle, that everyone knows about. One is brought into the Blood Order by the existing members. And the purpose of the Blood Order is to do what is needed to be done at times."

I continued: "But it's not as bad as that might sound. For one example, I had Teresa use Blood Order Officers to search for and find the device during the EMPTY QUIVER event, because I needed reliable people that would keep their mouths shut and not leak it to the Press." (Author's note: 'The Nuclear Option', Ch. 02.)

"I understand." said the Chief. "So is the Blood Order part of this situation Orosco has discovered?"

"I don't think so, Chief." I said. "I don't know this, neither Teresa nor anyone else has told me about it, but Police patrols step up and more tickets are issued in the wealthiest areas of the County whenever Kelly Carnes or the County High kids get out of control. It would not surprise me if Commander Croyle has Blood Order Officers do those patrols and issue those extra tickets. They do it by the book, completely clean, and the videocams and Officer-cams show it to be good. And that's a 'Blood Order' type of thing to do."

"Yezzz, I can understand that." said the Chief. "What about the rest of them?"

"I don't know, sir." I said. "Orosco telling me today was the first I've heard of it... and by the way, it definitely could've waited until today instead of missing the game yesterday."

"Yezzzz." said the Chief. "But I'll tell you this: Orosco did tell me last night. He called me again after I called you, and told me what it was about. I told him to talk to you about it this morning."

I nodded, though I am not an Agency of the Weak-Minded, and I could see what really happened: Orosco was testing my integrity, gauging my responses, and probably upon the Chief's direction. And apparently I'd passed the test, to this point.

"So, Chief," I said, "should I tell the Sheriff about this?"

"No." said the Chief. "Leave that to me. I will tell him, and it'll be better coming from me. Neeeeeed-less to say, the optics on all of this could be verrrrrry important..."

Part 9 - Confrontation and Negotiation

"This is Bettina Wurtzburg, KXTC Channel Two News!" shouted the redheaded reporterette at 7:00am, Monday, October 28th, from the rooftop of the building on the corner of Riverside and College, with City Hall in the background. "Channel Two News has learned that all charges against Town & County Councilwoman Kelly Carnes have been dropped!"

Bettina began: "Judge Harry Nance dropped all charges with prejudice in conjunction with dropping the Federal charges against Mrs. Carnes. The District Attorney's Office issued a statement saying that there was insufficient evidence, as well as other information that created reasonable doubt that Mrs. Carnes could be convicted by a jury of her peers."

"And now let's go to Jeff Hull with Channel Two Sports, with more on the Bulldogs's game. Jeff!"

"That's right, Bettina!" said Hull, shown on the screen with University Memorial Stadium behind him. "The Bulldogs suffered a heartbreaking loss to the No. 2 Wildcats, 20-0. The Bulldogs 'bend but don't break' defense allowed Wildcats running back Clarence Appletree 402 yards rushing, a Conference record, but held the Wildcats to only two touchdowns."

Hull: "But the story of the game was that the Bulldogs were shut out by nation's best defense. They were simply unable to generate any offense, wasting a strong defensive effort..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Were they watching the same game I was?" Teresa Croyle asked as we watched and drank coffee in my office. "Appletree ran through the Bulldogs's defense like water through a sieve. If the quarterback hadn't been such a frickin' butterfingers and given up the ball so many times, it would've been 41-0, not 20-0. And the Wildcats beat the Bulldogs and the officials in that game. It was the worst officiating I've ever seen, and I watch SEC officiating every week."