Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Public security incidents such as these were usually prosecuted by the police without mediators.
After the police submitted the indictment to the court, the court would hear the case. In this case, Li Du, as the defendant, was not sure to be convicted.
However, if they accepted public security punishment, they would be certainly guilty, and the related information would be added to their criminal record.
However, this crime of affray was not serious, and public security punishment was often light.
Li Du and his men listlessly followed the officers into the hall of the police station, and then felt that the situation was not good: there were reporters, holding up cameras to take photos!
“Damn, no more privacy,” grumbled Li Du in frustration.
The policeman next to him said, “Why did you break the law then?”
Fortunately, the camera was not focused on Li Du. There was a group of other people in front of him. The large hall was extremely crowded, with over a hundred people.
The police chief walked up to the front and said a bunch of nonsense, but Li Du focused on the general idea: a kind of loving punishment the Tucson police department was going to use instead of harsh penalties.
While Li Du was wondering what this could possibly mean, the punishment began.
Just as the lawyer told him, this matter was of a relatively large scale and would be widely publicized, but the punishment would not be serious, especially for Li Du who had recorded evidence of acting in self-defense.
The punishment was a little out of the ordinary. Two police officers demonstrated it by holding on to each other’s waist with one hand, and then standing side by side, raising the other arm above the head, and forming a heart shape.
Seeing this scene, not only Li Du, but everyone else was shocked as well.
Li Du thought this pose looked familiar, and then remembered that it was popular with many couples on WeChat.
Li Du always felt that it was tacky and never did it with Sophie. Now, instead of Sophie, he was posing with a male stranger!
It was even harder for the tough guys from Tucson to accept such a punishment. The idea horrified them so much that they cried out:
“Are you asking me to do this? Shoot me, I’d rather die!”
“F**k, I’m not going to do this. Don’t even think about it!”
“I’m sorry, officer, I regret drinking and fighting, and I swear I’ll never do it again. Leave me alone, don’t let me be so disgraced!”
“I regret it too. I would rather go to jail.”
Li Du sighed helplessly as he watched the bruised Tucson men showing their weakness. These fools did not realize that the police introduced such public punishments precisely for their psychological effect. The Tucson guys’ horror showed that it worked.
Sure enough, the police officers refused very firmly. “This is a police station, not a grocery store, and you can’t haggle. Here, you come out first. Come up here and pose.”
The two men, one from Tucson and the other from Phoenix, went up on stage to pose for the photo.
Li Du looked at the scene. There were 70 or 80 people from Tucson, more than on the treasure hunters’ side. He had a bad feeling about it all.
He saw some of the police officers carrying coffee, evidently intending to play a long game, and a depressing idea occurred to him.
The chosen people refused to participate, arguing back and forth with the police. The media was there, so the police could not use violence and the whole business was stuck for a while.
At this moment, Li Du stood up and said to the policemen, “Officers, I am willing to accept this punishment.”
“F**k, this bastard is a f**king gay!” someone from Tucson called out.
“If you want to, do it yourself, with your little boyfriend. We’ll never do it!”
“Damn it, we should have beat up this bastard last night!”
Li Du looked at the Tucson side, smiled, and said to the loudest man, “What about this guy? I’ll take the photo with him.”
The man who was scolding him was shocked. After a few seconds, he reacted and shouted, “Why the hell do I have to take a picture with you? Don’t even think about it! I would never do that!”
Brother Wolf dashed out of the crowd like a whirlwind and gave a flying kick. The loud-mouthed man flew into the crowd.
Instead of punishing Brother Wolf, however, the police pulled him back. The chief said to the Tucson men with a cold face, “Don’t make trouble here, watch your words, or I’ll send you to jail!”
“I’d rather go to jail than…” someone began to speak, but changed his mind and stopped mid-phrase.
Li Du stood in front of the crowd and said, “Since this guy doesn’t want to take the photo with me, I’ll choose someone else.”
He looked at the crowd from Tucson, and they dared not scold him. Whenever his eyes met theirs, they lowered their heads.
Li Du chose one guy that looked relatively honest. He pointed to that person, and two police officers went and dragged him out.
The young man looked desperate and said, “I am innocent. I didn’t think of taking part in the fight at that time…”
The police didn’t care.
Li Du stood with him and said, “Ok, buddy, give me your hand quickly. We’d better get this over with. Believe me, you will thank me later.”
The young man trembled as he raised his arm, and his face was bitter as he muttered, “I’m done, if the photo leaks out, I am finished. I will never be able to live this down.”
They touched their fingertips together, and the camera flashed several times.
Li Du looked at the police chief, who nodded. “Get the rest of the procedure done and you can leave.”
Brother and Godzilla did their part after Li Du, and the next few groups proceeded with the photographing session without objection. Once the first few teams had gone through with the procedure, the others stopped struggling and reluctantly accepted that they had no choice.
The crowd thought that they could leave after taking one photo, but the director smiled and said, “To make a sufficiently deep impression, no one will be allowed to leave before they take photos with ten people each.”
Everyone’s expressions changed. There were about a hundred people in the hall. If everyone had to take pictures of ten people, it would waste a lot of time.
The key point was, taking a picture with one person could be interpreted as a joke, but ten such photos? How could they explain it to their friends?
This was why Li Du had taken the initiative to set an example. He found that the police were prepared for a long process. How would it end with just one photo each? That would have been too easy.
As he suspected, all the people in the back were punished over and over again, except those who volunteered.
