Margaret Bell testified without a written statement in her hand. She described the two men as polite customers and Kesler as an officer who had entered already convinced of their guilt. When Kesler's lawyer asked whether she was qualified to assess police tactics, she answered that she was not. She was qualified, she said, to describe what she had watched from a table eight feet away.
A few people in the audience smiled, but Vaughn asked them to remain quiet. Margaret did not need applause. She needed her account to stand beside the others without being treated as less valuable than a uniformed person's version.
Harold Benson was called as a witness to the original phone call. His voice wavered when he acknowledged making it. The hearing officer played the recording and asked why he thought the two men resembled the suspects. Harold described their race, approximate builds, and unfamiliarity to him.
Then he admitted he had not compared their ages, faces, or other distinguishing features with the bulletin. Kesler's lawyer asked whether Harold had been genuinely concerned about a possible crime. Harold said he had been. When Vaughn asked whether that concern had been supported by any observed offense, he said no. He added that he regretted allowing the vague description to stand in for evidence.
The man in the fluorescent work shirt provided the phone recording he had made. He had not spoken during the incident because he feared drawing the officer's attention, but his video showed Aaron's hands at several important moments. A second customer testified that she heard Kesler use demeaning language before the physical detention. The panel also received the diner security footage, the dispatch audio, and the officer's own statements. The evidence was not perfect, and it did not reveal every thought in Kesler's head. But it left little doubt about the acts the officer had chosen to perform in public.
Shane Dalton took the witness chair after lunch. He wore his uniform without the ease it had once given him, and his hands remained folded in his lap. Vaughn asked what he had seen upon entering Rosie's. He described Aaron restrained against the counter, Nathaniel standing nearby, and multiple customers recording.
He acknowledged that he had initially assumed Kesler possessed grounds for the detention because Kesler had seniority. When Vaughn asked whether Dalton had independently verified those grounds, he said he had not. He explained that his decision to slow down came from the discrepancy between the reported dangerous suspects and the scene he observed.
"I should have asked about the description before doing anything else," Dalton said. "I was ready to follow the order because it came from an officer who'd been here twenty years. That's not how the rules are supposed to work."
He was questioned about the earlier incidents he had reported to independent investigators. Some were outside the scope of Kesler's immediate hearing, and the panel limited testimony accordingly. Dalton did not object. He described two encounters involving Kesler that he had witnessed personally and admitted he had failed to report concerns at the time.