In this case…real-life legal stories

FIRST-PERSON….I was visiting a friend about 2:00 in the morning. I parked my car and three men approached me. They said something I didn’t understand. I thought they were asking me to buy drugs. Then they said something louder to me, we want your wallet. I turned around and they were right behind me, all three men. They pulled out a gun, and they put it to my head, and they cocked it back, and they said, we want your wallet. I said a quick prayer, I reached in my pocket, gave them my wallet, and then they ran away. Didn’t take my watch, didn’t take my keys, didn’t take my cell phone, didn’t take anything else. Just my wallet.

When they put a gun to my head, I was rather calm. I didn’t see my life flash in front of me or anything like that, but I did say to myself, I can’t believe I’m going to die right here. I thought they were going to kill me. Because when they cocked the gun back, it was right by my head. I heard it. It wasn’t just like a fun gun or anything.

I went to my friends’ house, she got the police on the phone. They were there in like three minutes. As they were interviewing me I saw three or four more police cars zoom up. That’s when I heard sirens, and the dogs, the canine unit. They let them loose, I heard the barking. And then they had some people in custody. I think it’s called a show-up lineup. Where they have the alleged perps and you show up there and you identify them there. That’s what they asked me to do, and I said fine.

They had six people on the ground with handcuffs on. They asked each one to stand up and walk toward the police car. They shone the light on them, and I said whether I recognized them. There were three assailants, but I could only pick out two positively. The two that I identified I was 1000% positive that I remembered. They were arrested. They were agitated, yelling, cussing. I was happy that they were arrested. Because I knew I had them, the correct identification.

There’s been no trial yet. I did appear before the grand jury, trying to get an indictment. And I did call the prosecutor to find out what was going on. They’re 100% positive I have the right guys, but they still need to investigate all these other things. They have alibi witnesses, they have somebody else saying there’s other people….Now that these other witnesses have come to light, first they have to interview them all. Then they have to put them all before the grand jury to see, you know, how credible they are. They’re still going to seek an indictment. They told me they let the guys out while still pursuing the case.

The other day I was subpoenaed to appear at a parole revocation. One of these guys violated his parole by getting arrested, and now they want me to go there and try to keep him in jail. It does make me a little nervous, to be honest. Very nervous, really. But, you know, if I can prevent this from happening to other people by keeping him in prison while they try to pursue an indictment, I’ll do whatever I can. I want to do the right thing. I want to see how the system plays out. I’m looking forward to it.

Kenny was held up on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

Flickr photo “Police Line Up” by Mitali Mookerjee.