I passed probation—not because they wanted me to, but because they couldn’t justify why I shouldn’t.
Kingston Division: New locker. New faces. New coffee that somehow tastes worse.
I transferred out of purgatory and into what was supposed to be a fresh start. They called it a new division. I called it a rebranding of the same dysfunction.
The welcome was… lukewarm. Like a room full of people who had already heard about “the one who didn’t play along.” You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out when you’re walking into a room with your reputation already waiting for you.
But I kept my head down, my boots laced, and my notebook ready. I wasn’t there to make friends—I was there to survive. Again.
If probation taught me anything, it’s that the badge doesn’t make you brave. Surviving the people who wear it does.
Three years passed. Long enough to build a reputation, short enough to still remember who tried to tear it down.
By then, I had become what they call ‘solid.’ Reliable. Efficient. A team player. The kind of cop you can loan to detectives and not lose sleep over.
And that’s exactly what they did. I worked my way into temporary assignments with the detectives. I kept my head down, my reports tight, and my instincts sharp. They respected me—some even liked me. For once, I wasn’t a problem. I was part of the solution.
Then came the new captain. Captain Adrian Pierce. Pierce was 5’2″ on a generous day. He had a face like a startled beetle—round, oily, and angular in the wrong places—and the personality to match twitchy, territorial, and allergic to pushback. Pierce was a man who rose through the ranks not by chasing criminals, but by chasing signatures. He built his career in carpeted hallways and air-conditioned offices. His wife, a detective in the same department, was ok—decent, at best.
He wasn’t new to corruption, just new to our address. He also happened to be the best buddy of my old captain, Enrique Donald—the same one who tried to make me resign during probation. Apparently, old wounds talk louder than performance. Over drinks or dirty emails, the old captain must’ve confessed how humiliated he felt when the chief sided with me.
So they made a pact. Round two.
First step? Yank me out of detectives and throw me back into patrol. Second step? Set me up to fail.
Pierce delegated the order, instructing Patrol Lieutenant Phillip Grant to handpick my partner carefully—someone new, someone quiet. Told him to keep his body-worn camera running and his ears open. Told him to record every mistake I made. Every misstep, every sigh, every misworded radio transmission. Create a case. Build the narrative. Fire the liability.
Except they underestimated one thing: my partner had a conscience.
He told me everything. Every word Grant whispered in that closed-door office. He turned off his camera. We rolled through the hours of shifts doing nothing more than driving in silence, running calls low-key, and avoiding anything that smelled like a trap.
Sometimes survival doesn’t look like heroism. But it can be. I will always remember Officer Beau Franklin.
When that didn’t work, Pierce pivoted—classic narcissist move. He traded strategy for subtlety, and by subtlety, I mean psychological warfare.
He ordered me to undergo a “routine” mental health evaluation. For officer wellness, of course. Just a friendly check-in. Totally unrelated to the fact that I’d evaded his firing squad twice. What he didn’t say—what he didn’t have to say—was that the goal was to slap me with a label: Unfit for duty. One little write-up, and boom—no badge, no gun, no job. Just another cautionary tale.
I sat through a total of over ten hours of therapy. Ten. I’ve dated people for less time than that. I answered every question, told her about my life, my job, and my unfortunate habit of talking back to authority figures who deserve it. I even confessed that I collect vintage Vogue magazines and once wrote a freshman paper on Edgar Allan Poe and Vincent Van Gogh as tragic mirrors of fame.
She listened, took notes, and offered tea. And on the final day, she took off her glasses, stared at me like a therapist who’d just binge-watched The Wire, and said:
“Officer Smith, I think your captain wants me to write you up as unfit for duty. He wants to strip away your police authority, take your gun, your badge, and maybe your lunch break while he’s at it.”
I blinked.
She sighed.
“And quite frankly… I’m upset because there is absolutely nothing wrong with you. And you’re wasting my time.”
I almost laughed. Instead, I just said thank you, stood up, and walked out with my sanity and badge still intact. I figured I’d buy her a coffee sometime—maybe a Baltimore Sun subscription too.
It wasn’t fair—I’d earned my place at Kingston Division. But after surviving a captain with a vendetta and a shrink with a conscience, I knew it was time to go. Disappointed? Sure. Surprised? Not even a little. The next place promised a fresh start—one that looked good on paper, but like every job, had its own surprises waiting.
