When Sherman testified, he did not bring a prepared speech. He told the board about working at Reed Auto Shop since 1979 and about how Ambrose had hired him when other employers refused. He described Hagen holding a second pair of cuffs in front of his face and threatening to take him to jail if he did not step back from the owner.
"What did you do?" Wilma asked.
"I stood there," Sherman said. "I've stood on that lot forty-seven years. I wasn't about to disappear when the man who built it would have wanted me to speak."
Jaylen testified about his own arrest, including what Hagen asked during booking. He described being frightened, angry, and ashamed that he could not stop the original detention. Wilma asked him whether Clayton had instructed him to record the officers or confront them. Jaylen said no. He had been filming cars for a sale advertisement and later held a phone where a witness could lawfully record the public encounter.
Hagen was allowed to respond. He said he had answered a theft call, acted under supervisory direction, and believed caution was justified. The board asked why he had disregarded multiple witnesses, why the driver's license was not read before the detention continued, and why he had failed to intervene when Lel threw the badge away. Hagen said he had been following orders and did not personally throw the badge.
Wilma looked at him over her glasses. "Your partner threw it. You were holding the owner against a vehicle. Those are two different actions. We are examining both."
Hagen could not explain why the officers' initial suspicion became stronger after more evidence contradicted it. He spoke repeatedly about safety and procedure, but the recording showed no resistance from Clayton and no attempt to take a vehicle. When asked who had told him to make sure the arrest "stuck," Hagen looked down and did not answer directly.
Clayton had one opportunity to address the board. He told them he had not come to watch a man lose his job as entertainment. He had come because everyone who wore a badge should be accountable for what the badge allowed him to do. He asked the board to remember the simple fact that a man had shown identification and been punished not because it failed but because an officer refused to accept it.
After considering the record, the board voted to revoke Hagen's law enforcement certification, subject to the applicable appeal process. The decision also directed the record of his conduct to the appropriate agencies for independent examination. Hagen walked out without looking at Clayton, Sherman, or Jaylen.
In the hallway, Jaylen leaned against a wall with his hands in his pockets. Clayton asked whether he wanted to speak to the former officer. The young man shook his head. "He knows what he did," he said. "I'd rather he think about that every time he passes a car lot. I've got work to do."
Sherman drove on the way home because Clayton kept looking at the brass ring. The small message on its back had become the first thing he wanted to tell Erica and Hope. Sherman said Ambrose had always known the ring would be passed down and wanted Clayton to find the engraving on his own. Clayton laughed quietly at the old man's stubborn sense of timing.