"My wife was in the kitchen," he said. "She was making coffee. She had done nothing to bring an officer to our home, and neither had I. When Officer Puit suggested he could use some imagined emergency procedure to bring her out of that house, I understood he was no longer trying to identify a crime. He was looking for something that would make me submit to him."
Webb let the answer settle. "Why didn't you show your police identification at the beginning?" Raymond considered the question carefully. "Because I was a homeowner before I was a detective sergeant, and those rights did not depend on a badge," he said. "I believed an officer should assess the actual circumstances rather than the person he imagined I might be. I also knew I was taking a risk, and I don't ask anyone else to take that risk to prove a point."
"Did you try to make him afraid?" Webb asked.
"No. I tried to make him slow down and think. I requested a supervisor. I kept my hands visible. When he raised the baton, I told him exactly how I intended to retrieve my credentials." Raymond looked toward Puit, then back at the prosecutor.
"I wanted the encounter to end without anyone being hurt, including Officer Puit."
Donner approached for cross-examination with his notes arranged in careful order. He established Raymond's training in defensive tactics, his senior rank, and his familiarity with police procedures. Then he asked whether Raymond had intentionally withheld his identity. Raymond said yes. Donner repeated the admission slowly, as though it were the center of a confession. "So you could have ended this encounter at any moment by showing your badge."
"I can't know that," Raymond replied. "I believe it would have changed his conduct. That isn't the same as saying he had a lawful reason to detain me before he knew who I was." Donner asked whether a patrol officer might reasonably fear a large man refusing to follow instructions. Raymond answered that size alone was not a threatening act, and an instruction unsupported by law did not become lawful because an officer repeated it more loudly.
Donner suggested that Raymond's legal knowledge had been deliberately provocative. "You weren't behaving like an ordinary citizen, were you?" he asked. Raymond's face remained composed. "Ordinary citizens can know their rights," he said. "And the officer had a responsibility to know them whether I spoke about them or not." A juror in the second row leaned forward, listening closely.
"You were testing him," Donner said. "You wanted to see how far he'd go before revealing that you outranked him." Raymond looked at the attorney without hostility.
"I wanted him to have an opportunity to correct himself before that information became relevant. He had several opportunities. He received a clean plate return, heard a neighbor confirm my residency, and could have called a supervisor when I requested one." He paused. "He chose to continue. I did not make those choices for him."