Dale Morrow received notice that his role in the reviews would also be examined. He responded angrily, arguing that advocating for officers was a legally protected union function and that the department could not treat every procedural objection as evidence of misconduct. Voss agreed with the first part. A representative was entitled to challenge evidence and defend a member's rights. The questions concerned whether Morrow had coordinated with decision-makers to suppress witness material or alter the scope of reviews, conduct that would be a different matter entirely.
Morrow began searching his archived correspondence. Much of it was routine negotiation, meeting schedules, and legal argument, but a message sent to Torres during the second review troubled him. In it, he had written that a prolonged inquiry would create bad publicity for the department and that moving the matter to informal coaching would be best for everyone involved. At the time, he had regarded the note as pragmatic. Now he wondered whether pragmatism had become the name he gave decisions that shifted harm onto people with less influence.
Two weeks after the driveway confrontation, the administrative hearing convened in a fourth-floor conference room beneath the Garland City seal. Chief Mercer sat at the head of the table beside Deputy Chief Torres and civilian oversight representative Ela Cross, a retired judge known for asking questions that rarely had comfortable answers. Puit arrived with his attorney, Craig Donner, and Morrow sat nearby as union representative. Raymond attended as a complainant, not an investigator, and placed a single page of notes in front of him.
Donner spoke first. He characterized the event as an overzealous effort to investigate suspicious activity, aggravated by a citizen with unusual legal knowledge who had refused to identify himself as a fellow officer. His argument was professionally presented, but the body-camera and neighborhood footage had already been made available to the panel. He did not claim the encounter had unfolded differently than the images showed. He argued that Puit's judgment had been poor without being intentionally discriminatory.
Mercer asked whether the officer had received a call about 4117 Maplewood Court. Donner acknowledged he had not. Cross asked what made a man washing his car suspicious after the registration matched the address. Donner spoke about totality of circumstances, and Cross requested that he name those circumstances without including Raymond's race, clothing, or decision to ask for an explanation. The room became quiet because the list was unexpectedly short.
Then Raymond was invited to speak. He stood, straightened the cuff of his uniform jacket, and looked toward the chief. "I've written statements about violence and misconduct for twenty-two years," he began. "This is the first time I have been required to explain what it felt like to be the subject of an encounter I knew had no lawful foundation."