I’m kept waiting for nearly twenty minutes in the hallway outside the spacious ground-floor briefing room co-opted for today’s event. The uniformed officer acting as the hearing’s sergeant-at-arms—a kid barely out of the academy, with a face so pink and boyish I bet he gets carded at R-rated movies—tells me the committee must first address some “administrative matters.”

“Sounds like a bullshit excuse,” he adds under his breath. He’s clearly trying to buddy up to me, gain some macho props. “This whole thing’s bullshit, if you want the truth, Rooney. Everybody knows it, too. Your shot was cleaner than a nun’s ass.”

I pity-chuckle at the officer’s attempt at humor, but smile with genuine thanks for the support. I couldn’t agree with this kid more. Every police shooting should be investigated thoroughly, but what the department’s making me go through is ridiculous. It’s all politics. Pure PR.

But that’s the job. Sometimes it’s your turn to be “made an example of,” and my number just came up.

It pisses me off so much that some nights I can’t sleep, just replaying the events over and over again in my mind: the chase, the gunshot, the aftermath.

Each time I think it through, I know I made the right choice.

But facts aren’t going to matter today.

Appearances will.

Finally, the young officer opens the door to the briefing room and I walk in. Five NOPD brass are seated behind a polished wooden table up at the front. They range in rank from lieutenant to the big cheese, Deputy Superintendent of Field Operations Charles Bossett, a burly African-American man whose mere presence projects authority.

About two dozen people are crammed into the gallery. As I take my seat by myself at a separate table, I give the crowd a scan. It’s a mix of spectators, reporters, a few department colleagues and police union reps, as well as the friends and family of the late Larry Grant.

His death last month by my use of a department-issued sidearm—which is currently being kept inside a locked steel cage deep in this building’s evidence room, alongside my silver badge—is why we’re all here today.

“For the record,” Deputy Superintendent Bossett begins with a stern voice, “Detective Caleb James Rooney has joined the proceedings.”

“Good afternoon,” I respond with a respectful nod.

Bossett continues. “We now return to the matter of the detective’s use of lethal force in the line of duty against Lawrence Christopher Grant, age twenty-nine, at approximately 11:43 p.m. on the night of January 10, 2018—an episode, we are all aware, that has been the subject of ample media coverage, both local and national.”