Your nephew is not a threat. He's a 12-year-old boy with a satchel and a work ethic most adults in this subdivision couldn't match. And the fact that I have to write a notarized statement to say that tells you everything about where we are. Wendell stood, shook Overton's hand, and left.
He walked back through the pedestrian gate, past the wrought-iron letters, past the stone pillars, across Maynard Street to the other side, where the houses were smaller and the lawns were uneven and the median income was one quarter of the number behind him. He got in the sedan. He placed Overton's folder on the passenger seat beside the encrypted laptop. and the leather credential case he still had not opened in public. He made a call, the same 202 area code.
This time the call lasted 7 minutes. When it was done, he sat in the car and looked at the pedestrian gate of Collier Ridge, in the street beyond it, in the roof line of Arthur Overton's house, in the section of sidewalk where his nephew had been stopped seven times for the crime of being black and present and working. He opened the glove compartment. He removed a single sheet of paper.
At the top of the page was a seal he had not shown to anyone in this city. Below the seal was a case number. Below the case number were 51 entries, names, dates, locations, incident descriptions. 47 of them had been compiled before he left the country.
Four had been added since his return. Entry 48 was Micah's first stop. Entry 51 was the most recent one. The sheet also contained a header.
The header read, "Preliminary assessment, 34 USC, Sierra Court 2601. Pattern or practice investigation, Collier Ridge Precinct, Fulton County, Georgia." He folded the sheet, returned it to the Glove compartment, and drove home. The city council public session was scheduled for the second Tuesday of the following month. The agenda posted on the Fulton County government website 72 hours in advance as required by the Georgia Open Meetings Act.
OCGA circ 5-year-old on Fort the Hane 1 listed seven items. Item four was titled community safety concerns Collier Ridge subdivision. It had been placed on the agenda by councilwoman Naen Ashford who had been elected to the district 7 seat 14 months earlier on a platform of neighborhood security and property value protection. The session was held in the county commission chamber on Prior Street 80 seat capacity.
By 6:45 p.m., every seat was taken. Ashford sat at the dais in a cream blazer, her notes arranged in front of her in a leather portfolio. Captain Niles Granger sat in the front row in dress uniform, badge polished, hat on his knee. Sergeant Barrett Tull sat three seats behind Granger in civilian clothes, arms crossed.