Marcus spent those days doing something less visible. He asked Roy Briggs to research Finch's assignment history, complaint record, and prior disciplinary proceedings through lawful channels. He sent preservation demands for all reports associated with the officer, including communications about citizen complaints that had been closed or reassigned. He also requested available dispatch records to compare the language of callers' reports with the reports Finch later wrote. Marcus did not yet know what he would find. What troubled him was the possibility that the incident at Fresh Mart was neither exceptional nor unexpected.
Roy Briggs was a former investigator who approached his work with an almost painful distrust of shortcuts. He was in his late forties and wore the same gray tie to most interviews, partly because he disliked shopping and partly because people rarely remembered what he was wearing. He had spent years looking for people who were omitted from official narratives: bystanders sent away before statements were taken, family members who remembered an earlier warning, clerks who kept copies of forms after a file was marked closed. When Marcus asked him to investigate Finch, Roy started with the cases that had produced paperwork rather than with rumors from patrol officers.
One record led to another. Complaints had been filed over nine years by seven residents, six Black complainants and one Latino family. Some involved stops near homes or shops; others alleged unnecessary physical handling, insulting language, or extended detention without a clear reason. Every complaint had been resolved internally without formal discipline. Several contained short investigative summaries that accepted Finch's explanation despite the absence of supporting evidence. Roy could not yet say whether each underlying allegation was true, but he could show that supervisors had received repeated warnings and had chosen not to impose meaningful corrective measures.
One complaint belonged to Arthur Sims, a sixty-three-year-old resident of the east side. Arthur had lived on the same street for thirty-one years and walked to a corner store several times a week. According to his statement, Finch stopped him three times in six months, demanded identification, and detained him on the sidewalk while checking information that did not lead to any charge. Each encounter ended with Arthur being allowed to continue his walk. Each left him a little less comfortable in a neighborhood where he had spent half his life raising children and burying friends.
Roy contacted Arthur through an attorney who had assisted him with the original complaint. Arthur agreed to speak, but only after asking whether Gloria's case would actually change anything. He had seen investigations open and close. He had been told that his complaint was taken seriously, then received a form letter saying there was insufficient evidence. When Roy explained that his client was pursuing not just an individual officer but questions about supervision and departmental knowledge, Arthur agreed to meet him at a public library. He arrived carrying a folder of his own, worn along the edges from years in a kitchen drawer.