Log:Judgement Comes for the Judge

Here Comes the Judge 2021/07/27 Carpenter Celia The Judge 9

Thanks to the detective work of Carpenter and Harris during their investigation--and an extremely lucky shot by Det. Harris that left DNA evidence at the scene of the crime--they uncovered the identity of the Judge, the vigilante who has been acting as Judge, Jury, and Executioner on the streets. Clayton Barstow, a man whose loss and grief seven years ago over the deaths of his wife and son eventually leading him on a path to vigilante justice, had been targeting drug dealers, street criminals, and anyone who would try to stop him, by they heroes, vigilantes, or even cops.

Carpenter was left with a choice: Go after the Judge himself as Night Marshal, or do this by the book. He chooses to do this by the book. After presenting their evidence to Captain Landry, choosing the right way ultimately leaves him and Det. Celia Harris benched as Landry calls in Captain Leng of SCRAMBLE.

The unit acts fast. Captain Leng doesn't want any metahuman interference with her team. It may be an act of pride, or just knowing how things go sideways when heroes get involved. Which means most likely there'll be no heroes involved. For all the pros and cons, at least it means some of the heroes close to Carpenter won't get hurt again.

The six-man SCRAMBLE team gears up quickly and piles into a SCRAMBLE vehicle, leaving Carpenter and Harris and other CBPD units to follow in their own vehicles. The law descends on the single family home address for Clayton Barstow. It's an older neighborhood, but the overgrown lawn, faded paint, and dirty windows of Clayton's home stands out. A perimeter is quickly established, and SCRAMBLE gets into position to prepare to knock and breach.

Detectives Carpenter and Harris are left taking cover behind one of the police squad vehicles at a distance to watch.

Carpenter looks to Celia. "I would have liked to be one of the people to go inside, but...given how that shootout went previously, this seemed prudent."

Celia isn't exactly happy. This would've been one of the big busts since she made it to meta crimes and became Jack's partner. "I would, too. But the Captain brought in SCRAMBLE, so...here we are," she says as she watches SCRAMBLE circle the home. "Hopefully this'll be the end of it."

Celia looks to him. "Do you think they would've let you in if you asked? Maybe they'd loan you a suit," she smirks.

Carpenter nods. "Keep alert. We might be needed anyway." He chuckles. "Given Landry's opinion of me...probably not. Don't worry, we'll still get to fill out the reports and get some of the glory."

Celia nods and checks her firearm, with the safety on still for the moment. "You don't think Landry would be amused at seeing you geared up like some superhero?" she quips, satisfied with her firearm check. She looks back as the two-man team at the front begin to prepare to knock and breach and sighs in resignation. "Well, there's that. The DA should have plenty to put this guy away."

Carpenter checks his firearm as well with practiced precision. "She might have been amused at that, yeah. All the more reason to do this by the book. It needs to stick."

The SCRAMBLE units knock and shout their announcements. It's hard to hear from the perimeter. It's late afternoon, and the sun's getting low, leaving a yellow cast of light over the area.

And then, there's a burst of action. The two-man team at the front breaches the front door, their power armor more than enough to let them easily kick in the door. Celia aims her gun at the building, braced over the roof of the squad car, safety still on and her thumb near it to flick it off if they need to go live. Other cops are doing the same.

Carpenter is slower to aim his pistol at the building, but he does so. "I'm surprised some meta hasn't swooped in yet."

"Yeah. Even with the Captains keeping this quiet, I expected some meta to stroll up and bench SCRAMBLE like the Captain did us," Celia says. The siege is quick. Once SCRAMBLE is in, it's only a brief time before the detectives and everyone else can hear an exchange of gunfire. It lasts maybe a few seconds before things go quiet again. Celia stays silent in anticipation.

Carpenter waits to hear an 'all clear' message over the radio. "Think they captured him alive?"

Celia tries to listen for some clue. "I don't know. How touch is that power armor SCRAMBLE uses? If he wasn't a danger to them even with that arsenal he was packing, I'd bet....alive. How do you think it went down?"

Carpenter shakes his head, "Not sure. If it was SWAT going in, we'd have a couple of downed officers, at least. But power armor...probably is good enough to stand up to what he was packing. Probably?"

After a bit more silence, there's bursts of radio transmissions. All Clear. Bring in EMTs, STAT. The EMTs waiting behind the perimeter by the ambulance start to go into motion as do other officers, rushing the building. Celia was holding her breath and lets it out, holstering her sidearm. "Sounds like that power armor wasn't enough. Guess you should be glad you weren't going in there with the team."

Carpenter nods slowly. "Yeah. There...are some benefits to having metas involved. A lot of them are bullet proof." He holsters his pistol as well, and comes around from behind the car, starting to head toward the building, though he makes sure to not get the way of the med teams.

"Not all of them, though, right? Wasn't there at least one that the Judge put in the hospital?" Celia read the report as part of the case. She follows alongside Carpenter as they get closer to see what's going on. The EMTs go inside.

Carpenter nods to Celia, "Yeah, not all of them. We needed someone like Titan here." He steps inside cautiously and looks around to assess.

"When was the last time Titan responded to a police call? Isn't he out in Hollywood these days?" Celia must not be an action movie fan? Or just not someone who follows entertainment news.

As Carpenter enters, he has to walk over the smashed in door and wood splinters. The force used to knock it in was enough to splinter the door frame around the hinges. Back in the master bedroom in the rear, two SCRAMBLE agents have Clayon pinned to the ground even though he isn't moving, his wrists secured behind his back by meta-level restraints. They aren't taking any risks. One SCRAMBLE agent has been moved to the kitchen by the EMTs to treat a gunshot wound to the shoulder that went through his armor.

Carpenter lets out a whistle as he sees the effect on the armor. He looks back to Celia, "Yeah. We made the right decision, I think."

Carpenter smiles. "Titan hasn't shown up in quite a while. At least on my cases. But he lives locally."

Celia nods, eyes scanning the scene like she's taking in the evidence. They're the ones that'll have to help process it for the reports, after all. "I agree," she says, not eager to have a bullet in her shoulder. Their last exchange with the Judge was adrenaline-pumping enough. "That's a shame. He'd make easy work of a situation like this. And he's easy on the eyes, too." So maybe she IS a fan.

Carpenter pulls on some gloves..and starts to look for the evidence that their suspect is Judge. The high powered firearm is certainly a clue, but not conclusive. Ballistics will need to be done to test it.

As Night Marshal, he may not have gotten a good view of the gun up close. But the firearm Carpenter finds is definitely not standard issue. There's a whole arsenal in the walk-in master closet. There's also an add contrast of family photos hanging on the walls of the bedroom and parts of the house, though the frames are a bit dusty. Clayton wasn't much of a homemaker. There's some bullet holes in the wall, and blood spray from the SCRAMBLE agent that was hit. Forensics will have to document all that. And as if on cue, Naila Massri, CSI, is lead to the room by some officers, carrying her equipment.

Carpenter pokes around, looking for the costume he's expecting to see. Or the cowboy hat. It should be here someplace.

Celia puts on her gloves as Carpenter starts checking through things. There's ammo cases in the closet, and an old suitcase stacked under some storage boxes. The drag marks on the carpet bring Jack's attention to it, and in the suit case, he finds the Judge's outfit and hat.

Carpenter nods to himself. "Bingo." He points out the outfit to Celia.

Carpenter nods. "So we have the suit. The firearm. Have to match ballistics, but this should be a slam dunk."

Celia looks relieved. She must be, because she even smiles a bit. "I'll be glad to see him behind bars. I'd almost feel sorry for his situation, but I don't have any sympathy for him going vigilante."

Carpenter looks away from Celia, back at the gear, to make sure he doesn't give away anything on his face. "Yeah. I can empathize. But he went about things the wrong way. Acting as judge, jury, and executioner."

Celia begins looking and searching other parts of the room, unaware of what Carpenter's hiding. The night stand, then under the bed. SCRAMBLE has taken Clayton away to lock him up in a car. "Think Captain Leng will even mention our work to the press?" she asks skeptically.

Carpenter chuckles. "She may not. But we'll get to testify. So...it'll come out then, at least."

"I guess there's that," Celia sighs heavily and straigthens up from checking under the bed. "I don't imagine any of the crooks he went after that survived will be testifying," she adds wryly.

Carpenter whistles, "We could try to convince them, but that'd be a hard sell. They'd want immunity, and the like. It might be easier to just go with the physical evidence. This is still pretty solid."

That gets a dry chuckle from Celia. "You thought I was serious?"

Carpenter laughs. "That wouldn't be the most difficult thing I've had to do in this line of work." He continues looking for any more evidence...perhaps other targets that weren't known about yet?

"The harder sell may be getting the ADA or the DA to buy that immunity offer," Celia smirks.

As far as Carpenter can see, there's no physical list or evidence of planned targets. But he certainly has enough ammo that there's got to be something.

Carpenter looks to Celia, "Have you found anything about his targets? He must plan out his attacks, but I haven't found anything yet."

Celia shakes his head. "No. I haven't seen his phone, either. Did you find it?"

Carpenter shakes his head, "No. Not yet. Might have it on him. But we can check the other rooms."

Checking around, Carpenter notices the dresser as a very low lip on the bottom. He has to get low to the ground to check, but he sees a smartphone under there. Possibly kicked under during the altercation.

Carpenter slides his hand underneath to slide the phone out. "Found it."

Celia smiles. "If we can get the techs to unlock it and his home computer, I'd be willing to bet we find our lists. Maybe in his search history."

Carpenter nods. "Most likely, yeah." He goes ahead and bags the phone and labels it.

"It's a good thing our guy left his incriminating stuff here. I'll start checking the rest of the house," Celia offers.

Carpenter sighs, "We need to make sure he had his rights read to him. That's the kind of thing that will get him off scott free. I'll deal with that now."

Celia nods. "Good idea. The Captain will be on our asses if the department has another Miranda Rights lapse."

Carpenter heads out to where Clayton is, to check on the status of things. He doesn't even ask if his rights were read to him yet. He just says, "You might have already heard this, but....You have the right to remain silent..." Etc, etc. Going through the whole thing.

Clayton doesn't respond. Not even to the question of whether he understands these rights. He's not quite catatonic, but he doesn't make eye contact with anyone, instead staring hard at the ground. His got a grizzled beard and more salt than pepper in his wavy hair.

Carpenter makes a note of that. His rights will likely have to be read to him again. A response is...pretty much necessary. But perhaps not immediately.

Carpenter nods slowly. "You look significantly different when you're not wearing the scary costume, Clayton."

Clayton must be paying attention, because his lips purse and his eyes squint a bit more. And then finally, Clayton's gaze lifts to study Carpenter's face.

Carpenter says, "We've met. The shootout in the lobby after you came down the stairs."

Clayton's eyes narrow as he realizes he was part of the shootout that got him injured. It looks like he did his own patch job on the shot to his neck. A grazing shot that could've been fatal if it was a half inch elsewhere. There's a gauze bandage on it, nothing professionally treated. "You..." he says in accusatory tones.

Carpenter nods. "Me. Doing my job. Protecting the city. From people like you, Clayton." Of course, he thinks it was Celia's bullet that actually hurt the guy. But he's not going to throw her under the bus here.