3158/Police brutality and a field of buttercups.
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| Police brutality and a field of buttercups. | |
|---|---|
| Date of Scene: | 15 November 2017 |
| Location: | Unknown |
| Synopsis: | Summary needed |
| Cast of Characters: | Wu, Buttercup
|
- Wu has posed:
There's something about Gotham that demands a soundtrack from the likes of Nick Cave or Barry Adamson. Maybe it's the people in it that would feel right at home in a Tom Waits song. Maybe it's just the fact that it has some of the worst socioeconomic conditions in the USA leading to lives of desperation and despair. Whatever it is, it's a colourful place, provided you see dull greys and blacks as colour.
It's broad daylight. The sun's rays put hardly a dent in the gloom that the city steeps in. The usual sounds of crowds and cars and distant sirens fills the air. Along with screams. A gunshot. More screams. Then a man bursts out of Los Pollos Hermanos, waving a gun around, screaming incoherently in a way that makes people part before him. In his hands are a wad of crumpled notes. Behind him is a server bleeding out on the ground.
"Get out of the way! Get out of my way or I'll blow your head off!" he shouts, running away from the shop (and from the GCPD building nearby).
From within the crowd of people, near the edge, a small white ball of what looks like paper flies out in an arc that hits the man in the chest. A red-headed, wiry boy ... no, it's a woman ... steps out, gun in hand, pointed at the culprit's head.
"Right next to the cop shop?" she asks in disbelief. "Really? How stupid are you?"
She kneels on the suspect's neck, watching him turn a bit purple before easing the pressure.
"Tell me why you shouldn't just get thrown in the Gotham River right here and now, Larry."
- Buttercup has posed:
It's a place like Gotham, where the sun never seems to reach the ground for all it might shine all day, where little Buttercup is needed most. She's just heading out of the prison facility arm in arm with a pregnant woman whose cheeks are chapped with weeping, and she's offering a firm-toned patter of fluent Spanish, supportive and reassuring, not to mention with an impeccable accent which might make the odd onlooker doubt the young woman's blindingly caucasian complexion. She's gesturing with her other hand as she speaks, pinching fingers together demonstratively when shots ring out-- no surprise, really, in this neighborhood-- and she hustles to the side of a building in order to get the expectant mother to cover and pull out her phone to dial 911 and inform them of the shooting. At Los Pollos Hermanos. Yes, the same one. The place is just a bullet magnet. Thank everything their biscuits are to die for.
Buttercup makes sure her friend is secure and comfortable and then keeps her phone in front of her as she approaches. Maybe she's filming. It's hard to tell. "It's OK," she tries to diffuse the situation a little. "Be careful, don't hurt him. You don't want to get in trouble, too," she reasons.
- Wu has posed:
"Please back off, Ma'am," Alice says gruffly, without looking up. "This is police business." She flashes a badge, flipping back one of the lapels of her vest to show a silver (not gold) GCPD badge. "And this piece of human excrement is about to learn an important lesson."
The man on the ground looks terrified as Alice looms over him.
"First thing, Larry, give me that." She takes the money from his hands. "That's going back to the shop. Now give me your wallet." This is hastily pulled out of his front pocket--hasty but with nervous care to not look threatening--and given to the person claiming to be a cop. "This is going do Madame Zhang. You remember Madame Zhang, don't you? She remembers you."
Alice stands. "As for you, you're going to go to jail. If there's no accident on the way there."
- Buttercup has posed:
Police business? Well, Buttercup's //definitely// filming now. She doesn't back off, but she doesn't advance any further, either. Maybe she shifts a little bit in a circle around the incident to get a better angle on the filming. "Why are you taking his things, ma'am?" she asks calmly from the sidelines, looking somber and more than a little sad. "He's not resisting you," she points out, rather emphatically. "Are you threatening to hurt him? Why would there be an accident?" she continues to pepper questions.
- Wu has posed:
Larry, if that's his real name, is yanked to his feet.
"The money in his hand is not his. You would have to be a blind woman to not figure that out. The rest ... we'll call it restitution. Larry has a history."
Larry's hand is yanked none too gently behind his back and cuffed then to the other. "As for accidents, they happen. We're all humans. Mistakes happen." She glares at Larry. "Sometimes in rapid succession," she adds. "Now don't go anywhere, Larry, if you know what's good for you."
Alice fishes in her pocket for something and pulls out a sheaf of white paper squares. Very thin, almost transparent sheets of it. All scribbled over with notes that appear to be written in something resembling Chinese, only ... very strange Chinese. (A scholar of Chinese might recognize at least fifteen different historical scripts.)
She glances over at Buttercup, specifically at her camera, and picks one of the squares. She crumples the paper into a very tight ball--recognizably the same kind as the one that hit Larry in the chest--and drops it on the ground.
"Do you have any more questions? If not, perhaps you might like to guide the EMTs to the victim; I kind of have to make sure the perp doesn't escape. And if I have to do that AND guide the EMTs, I may wind up kneecapping him to stop him from running."
- Buttercup has posed:
"If he owes people money, call in his victims and help them bring suit against him," Buttercup pleads. "You can't just take his stuff, beat him up and call it fair, or else you're no better than he," she reasons. "You work for the police; don't you believe in your own justice system?" she asks, a heartfelt question, tinged with sorrow, sympathy-- pity? She looks up from her phone, dropping the instrument to about waist-high, and looks at Alice quite plaintively. Eyes shift from Alice to Larry. "Larry, did you shoot someone?" she asks. "Where did you leave them?" She was a little distracted at the incipiece of the event, after all.
- Wu has posed:
"The victim is in the Los Pollos Hermanos," Alice says, pinching the bridge of her nose. "And he doesn't owe Madame Zhang money. He owes her legs. The ones he left her with don't work so well anymore."
She gestures to the camera. "I think your camera is malfunctioning," she adds as a segue before turning to Larry.
"Larry, Larry? Listen to me very carefully. I'm going to guide some EMTs to the server you shot. If you take one step from that place, I will find you. You know I will. And you know what I will do to you if you make me find you. Nobody wants that. You for obvious reasons and me because dry cleaning leather is really expensive."
With that she jogs over to the approaching ambulance and guides it to the front of the shop, after reassuring the EMTs there's no shooting in progress.
EMTs hate being shot at.
- Buttercup has posed:
"Are you going to take his?" Buttercup asks, in re: the legs which Madame Zhang requires. Presumably it's not an actual option, but Buttercup asks it with all due earnestness, anyhow. "I'll wait here with him," she goes on, stepping closer as though in protection of the brutalized individual. She looks down to her camera phone, then up to the cop. "What, are you ashamed to let people see how you're behaving?" she asks.
- Wu has posed:
"Larry is going to pay for Madame Zhang's physiotherapy," Alice says curtly, upon returning from the EMTs. "Or at least a session or two of it. While your concern for his well-being is touching and very modern, I care far less for him than I do for his victims. Please note the plural. Larry has left a trail of shattered lives behind him that our dear justice system can't do anything about. So I will, where possible."
"Good news, Larry," she says to the thug. "Your victim isn't going to die. Armed robbery and attempted manslaughter is all you're gonna get. Celebrate."