ArchivedLogs:Privilege Escalation

Privilege Escalation
Dramatis Personae Jax, Tian-shin	2015-04-22 "The city's jus' /inviting/ folks to kill us." (Warning: discussion of violence and injury.)
Location <NYC> NYPD Station - Garment District
Despite the fashionable clothing of those outside, almost everyone inside the NYPD station is wearing the same dark blue uniform, gold badges flashing on their chest. A few, however, are in business clothing, and a rare one or two are in crisp white uniforms. The police station is several floors high, each dedicated to a different department, and a rare parking lot in the back where the cruisers and trucks sit. Gray and spare, this interview room does at least have even and adequate illumination from overhead fluorescent tubes. Bolts secure the table to the concrete floor, so too the single chair on the far side of it from the door. A hard point on the floor beneath the table has a heavy chain attached, and the observant can easily spot the audio-visual recording equipment mounted on the wall above the single steel door. Beside the door, an aging intercom panel sports a large red panic button. The officer who unlocks the door does not seem nearly as intimidated by the infamous Jackson Holland as one might expect. Young and ginger and perhaps smaller in stature than most would expect of his profession, he seems more interested in the guest he brings than the detainee in his charge. Keeping an eye more perfunctory than wary on Jax, he holds the door open for the woman behind him. In a smartly fitted suit, Tian-shin presents a stark contrast from the shy, athletic woman often seen about the Commons these days. Bound up into a braided bun, her hair stays in place without any visible accessories. Her black jacket and pencil skirt both have fine gray pinstripes, and her blouse shows pale pink beneath broad lapels. She wears sheer black hose and conservative black pumps as though she lived in them. "Thank you, Officer Donnelly." This with a shallow bow, a slim black attache case clutched in both hands. "No problem." The cop doesn't seem to know how to respond to the bow, and almost starts to leave, then stops. "If you need anything, hit the gray button on the top here," he says, pointing at the intercom panel. Then, handing her a small remote control, high-tech in contrast to the rest of the room. "If you're feeling threatened, this button here." "Of course." Tian-shin accepts this with a gracious but thin smile, exposing no teeth, and bows again. "Alright, if you need anything, just--oh. Excuse me." Officer Donnelly blushes bright red and vacates the room, bolting the door behind him. Tian-shin turns around and walks over to the table, setting down her case with a quick exhale. "Hi, there." Jax is sitting at the table already, hands folded together on the tabletop. His fingers are a little fidgety, brightly chromed nails glinting in the harsh fluorescent lighting as his thumbs spin around each other. One foot bounces restless against the floor, bright also in its very shiny rainbow iridescent boot. Aside from the fidgeting he sits rather stiffly in his seat. "Hi." His smile is quick and warm as ever, if rather quicker to fade. "You feelin' threatened?" "Not anymore." Tian-shin's smile, though still thin, looks a bit more natural now. She sits down across from Jax, sliding the remote box over to the edge of the table. "Micah sent me--he probably told you--but I don't want you to accept me as your counsel without some disclosure of my work history. First things first, though: have the police attempted to coerce you to divulge any information, or mistreated you in any way?" "Does hittin' /on/ me count?" Jax's nose crinkles up slightly; it's hard to say if he is amused or put off. "S'been fine otherwise, 'side from the guy what spit at me when I come in at first. Nobody hit me this time, I mean." His shoulder lifts, a slow stiff shrug. "An' thank you. For comin'. Disclosure of what exactly?" "Sexual harassment?" Tian-shin pulls a smallish tablet and a manilla folder from her attache case, arranging them in front of her. "It's deplorably common--ditto the other disrespectful behaviors--and I probably won't be able to do much about it, but I'll make sure it's on record if you like." She stops fiddling with the placement of the folder and steeples her hands, leaning forward slightly. "You're welcome. I...sadly can't claim I become a lawyer to defend people's rights, but it is what keeps me at it. Originally, though? I worked for a firm heavily patronized by my father's business associates." Her expression has gone carefully neutral. "I don't know how much you know about them, but the short version is that I have defended people involved in organized crime, and you might want to consider the possibility of how that will reflect on you if the media decides to latch onto it." "No, it's -- I mean, it's Eric. That's just kind of -- how he rolls. The spitting, though, I guess." Jax shrugs, looking down at his hands. His fingers still fidget restlessly. "I don't -- know a ton, I mean, only -- kinda bits an' pieces from when Tag --" He shrugs, a little uncomfortably. His teeth wiggle rapidly at one lip ring. "You're a defense lawyer, isn't defendin' criminals kinda par for the course? M'fair sure I'm worse scum in most people's eyes than alla them anyhow." Tian-shin nods and swipes something on her screen with a stylus. "If you know his name and badge number, I'll record those, too--the man who spit at you, not...Eric." Her brows wrinkle slightly and she looks down at the empty expanse of table between them. "Organized crime is sensational, especially when perpetrated by non-white immigrants. Even so, you're probably right...about how people will see you. I didn't think you would be winning any popularity contests in this case regardless, but wanted to give you fair warning and offer to find you someone else. The upside of my sordid work history, though, is experience with self-defense pleas." She flips open the folder. "You should be arraigned tomorrow, hopefully, and we'll get you out of here. The ADA may offer you a deal if you plead guilty, but..." She looks up from her papers at Jax. "That's your decision, of course." "I --" Jax hesitates, here, his hands finally stilling. "I don't know," he admits softly. "What I should do. I did hit her. I mean, she done hit me /first/ an' -- then was tryin' to stab me. An' her friend done shot me. But I did -- hit her. I don't know whether or not I should jus' --" His shoulders slump. "I ain't usually in the habit of jus' givin' in, you know? But I got kids. Ain't gonna do them a lotta good jus' t'be in jail forever." Tian-shin nods. "That's a very difficult call. How much time you get for a guilty plea will depend in part on whether they charge you with assault or aggravated assault, and I would put good money on the latter." She straightens a little. "However, we shouldn't give up right this moment. I need to hear a detailed account of the events from you--the media tells the other party's 'version,' with varying levels of embellishment or skepticism, and Micah only gave me a very brief rebuttal of it." Glancing down again, she straightens the page on top to stack neatly with those beneath it. "Legally speaking, the other party /should/ have been subjected to arrest, as the police do not have the authority to decide whether their claim of self-defense is valid. The fact that they have not may help us build a case for discrimination, but unless we can find witnesses or footage that discredit them, it will still be a tough fight." "I mean, we was out on the street in Harlem at -- eight thirty? Nine? Was prob'ly a /host/'a witnesses, s'just a question of if there's any ain't -- y'know, in their corner already." Jax lifts his hand, rubbing his knuckles against his cheek. "I was jus' tryin' to get to my car. I mean not my car it was a rental -- I was drivin' a student back t'the school, he'd got stranded in the city. An' there was this stupid /sign/ put up there, have you seen the ones? These like, anti-mutant neighborhood watch nonsense? And this woman come down off her porch where she was sittin' with the other one, t'tell us t'get out their neighborhood. An' I said they didn't have no right t'chase mutants off the street. An' they said --" His jaw tightens. "They said if we had a problem with it, t'take it up with the cops. Kinda mocking, you know, like they knowed the cops wouldn't do nothin'? An' then the woman in front of me, she hit me in the chest an' told me to get out again. Said that -- t'get out her neighborhood 'fore /she/ called the cops, on account of -- the cops knowed what t'do with mutants." His cheeks flush, dark red. "... s'when /I/ done punched her, first." Tian-shin's stylus scribbles rapidly while Jax speaks, and she nods once when he mentions the signs, her expression as much /concerned/ as anything else. "Okay..." She continues writing for a few more seconds after he finishes, and then flicks at her screen to scroll back up, nodding again. "Okay. The neighborhood watch thing is good. That's a red flag for overzealous vigilantism in a lot of minds now. And their comments about the cops plays into the police bias angle. Also..." She highlights something on her screen with the stylus. "...one of them /did/ hit you first." Her eyebrows are raised slightly, but her tone does not mark it as a question, exactly. "Yeah. The signs had like. The red circle? With a line through it? In front of a silhouette of a person with -- horns an' a tail. And it said humans only. An' like, we look out for -- I forget what it said." Jax shakes his head with a scowl. "Jus' creepy. But -- yeah. She hit me first. I -- I don't know how much that -- means when. Y'know, I can level a city block with my brain. I expect they'll jus' say I weren't in no danger --" The red in his cheeks darkens furiously. "An' maybe that's..." His lips press tight together. "It was the comment about the cops, you know? With the whole fight ring thing, when she said they knowed what to do with us, her tone, it was -- I don't know if it was a threat but it sure felt like -- like sayin'. To call them in to hurt us like they done before." His arms cross back around his chest, though with a small grimace, a sharp inhale of breath. "But she hit me an' I hit her an' then she drawed a knife. An' tried to stab me. An' I put up a shield around my -- stomach t'stop the knife -- everything after that got kinda hectic. Their friend there kicked my -- the student I was with, an' I guess the woman on the porch musta had the bow cuz I didn't even see when she done shoot me I jus'. /Sprouted/ a arrow. An' she shot my kid -- I mean not /my/ kid, the kid I was with -- an' he didn't even hit anyone, he was on the ground gettin' kicked." "The prosecution is going to try the 'you were never in danger' thing, no doubt." Tian-shin taps her cheek absently with a finger of her free hand. "However, you did /not/ level a city block. You didn't level the house. You didn't /escalate/. Whether wisely or not, you met an unarmed attack with an unarmed attack." She spread her hands in front of her. "/They/ escalated. /They/ used deadly force--on a defenseless minor, no less. If you used your powers, as they claimed you did, after the knife and the bow came out, I do not think it can constitute further escalation." She frowns. "Given that they walked away to tell the tale." "I burned her hand t'disarm the knife. But then I'd been shot an' she was grabbin' the arrow -- like /yankin'/ on it -- I hit her in the face with my hand heated up jus' t'get her /offa/ me. Then I grabbed Jack from where the other girl was tryin' t'stomp on him still an' bolted." Jax presses fingertips very lightly against his chest, his face kind of pale. "Jus' the fact they didn't even get arrested o nothin' -- I mean, 'tween those signs an' everything, it's like. The city's jus' /inviting/ folks to kill us." He starts to slump in his seat, but sits up straighter soon, wincing at the shift in posture. "The second time you burned her is going to be a hard sell for any jury--not because it was escalation, but because she's a woman and people are horrible." Tian-shin pauses, hmming quietly at her tablet. "That's going to be a problem throughout this case, actually. The prosecution will milk that misogyny for all it's worth, along with any other group politics they can." She sighs and sets down her stylus neatly beside the tablet. "As far as your actions and theirs go, especially in light of the sloppy police work, this should be a self-defense strong case. But this didn't happen in a vacuum, and we're up against a lot of bigotry and even more fear." She draws a deep breath. "So here's my assessment: you take a big risk going before a jury. They won't understand intersectionality; they're only going to see an inked up white guy who can shoot lasers. That said..." She sits up even straighter, folding her hands together primly on the table. "Your case is not by any means hopeless. We still don't know where all the witnesses fall, and I would be really surprised if there weren't /some/ footage out there. You're right, this case will probably have implications for future law enforcement interactions with mutants, but that doesn't make your own life and liberty less important." Her posture relaxes visibly. "Regardless of how you plead, I'm fairly confident you'll get to go home after arraignment." For a long while Jax is quiet. He leans slightly forward, elbows propped on the table and his head sinking into his hands. "You know," there's a soft breath of laughter in his voice. Kind of tired, kind of humourless, "I'm. Sort of tired of fighting." His palm grinds up against his eye, shoulders sagging. "What would you do? If you was sittin' here?" Tian-shin opens her mouth with a reply ready, then subsides, slender brows knitting. Then, at last, evenly, "I'd fight. I'd fight, and if I lost I'd appeal, and appeal again." She looks Jax in the eye and gives a very small shrug. "But I'm not you. I haven't been on the front lines of this...of this war, I guess, and I haven't got as much to lose." Jax exhales. There are faint wisps of shadow starting to coil, dark and smoky, around his arms. "Okay." Now his voice is just flat. Toneless. "Feel like this is gonna be a long few months either way." "You are not wrong, I'm afraid." Tian-shin's dark brown eyes widen slightly as they track the shadows. Then she sets her lips in a determined line. "Keep in mind, you can always change your plea after you're indicted--you're not committed if you plead not guilty at arraignment. And you're not fighting this alone." She looks briefly like she wants to reach across the table and touch his hand, but instead reaches into her case to retrieve an actual pen. "I'll handle most of the paperwork, but there are a few things we do need to go over..."