Jimmy reported four locations directly to Harten and then washed his hands of it. It was almost December, and his own matters were pressing. Slacking off and studying had become his priority.
During this time, the gang members, who had been suppressed for two months, started to stir again. The impact of 911 was gradually fading and the police patrol intensity slowly returned to normal.
In these days, Jimmy had to deploy several times, solely because of the shortage of police officers. The dispatch center had no choice but to call for backup to handle routine disputes and regular police calls. One could only imagine the trouble once these gangbangers, stifled for two months, were let loose.
Of course, another reason for the increased frequency of Jimmy's deployments was that Plaskey County Police covered a much larger area and always lacked enough manpower. In contrast to city police, the county police managed a larger area with just a few dozen officers, who also had to be divided into different shifts and areas, while the Little Rock City Police Department had 300-400 officers, a considerable difference.
With gang members ramping up their activities, incidents of street racing, fleeing from police, fighting, theft, robbery, illegal possession of drugs, and illegal possession of weapons exploded. Compared to the previous two months, every patrol officer was so busy they had no time to sit down for a proper lunch, often eating a burger while driving to the next location.
Normally, patrol officers deal with various routine 911 calls, minor incidents and crimes; serious crimes only account for 1-3% of reports. But during this time, just these minor issues were enough to tie up all available police resources.
After 5 p.m., Jimmy responded again to a dispatch notice to handle a domestic violence case. He drove to the suburbs, arrived at the house reported, and parked his car to walk toward the front door. Heart Eye was already activated; inside, two adults were arguing, a tall person gesticulating wildly, seemingly debating something, and the ground appeared strewn with chairs and other objects, indicating they had already come to blows.
"Knock, knock." Jimmy stood beside the door and knocked. "Plaskey County Police, please open the door."
The tall person inside approached the door and opened it to see Jimmy.
"Oh, F**K, The Butcher?" the man sized up Jimmy and suddenly shouted out.
Jimmy: "Hmm? You know me?" Although Jimmy was wearing sunglasses, his appearance was quite distinctive, which was understandable.
Man: "Of course, of course. What seems to be the matter?"
Jimmy: "There's been a report of domestic violence here, and a noise complaint as well. Can you tell me what's going on?"
The man quickly waved his hands: "No, no, just a normal argument between husband and wife, no violence at all, absolutely not. Maybe we were just a bit loud. I'll apologize to the neighbors. I promise."
The woman in the house also came to the door; upon hearing the man's words, she suddenly spoke up, "No, we were arguing, he..."
The man suddenly covered the woman's mouth with his hand, smiling at Jimmy, "Sorry, she's a bit upset. I'll have a word with her, just give us a moment."
With his hand still over her mouth, the man pushed her back into the house, whispering in her ear. Jimmy couldn't hear everything, but it appeared their actions weren't dangerously coercive, so he didn't intervene.
Since this person recognized him, there was a high chance he was also a gang member. Since he didn't pull a gun on Jimmy, and considering the content of their indoor conversation that Jimmy could guess, with many things going on, Jimmy decided to let it slide for today if the man showed sense, as domestic violence was too common in the United States, and the woman appeared uninjured.
After waiting for two or three minutes, the man and the woman came back to the door.
Man: "Sorry for troubling you to come here, we're fine, truly fine. We'll go apologize to the neighbor in a moment. Sorry for the disturbance."
Jimmy: "Okay, let's go together."
Man: "Sure, no problem, right now."
He led the woman next door as Jimmy followed, watching them knock and talk with the neighbor before returning.
Jimmy put his right index and middle finger together, motioned to the man with a finger beckon, and when he approached, Jimmy put his left arm around his neck and spoke softly, "You know who I am. I really shouldn't be here for these trivial matters, but you gang members have been too disruptive these days. I hope you can pass on a message—try to keep things quiet. I'm not always this easy-going."
The man nodded, looking down at Jimmy's hand on his gun, too afraid to speak.
Jimmy released him, moved his hand away from his gun, shook hands with him, and said, "Since there's nothing serious, I'll head back now. Goodbye."
The man shook hands with Jimmy, "Goodbye."
Jimmy got into the car, notified the dispatch center via radio, and then drove back to the police station.
Seeing Jimmy drive away, the man breathed a sigh of relief and led the woman back into the house.
Back at the station, Jimmy reflected on how the encounter had been relatively smooth. The man was reasonable, and it hadn't cost Jimmy much trouble or created additional issues. If he had to take a domestic abuser back to the station, he would have had to write a report. Now, luckily, it was as if nothing had happened.
After spending a bit of time, Jimmy quickly clocked out, and he had a good reason. He had already submitted his resignation and was set to end his career with the county police in mid-December. It wasn't the time to work overtime unless something special came up.
Jimmy's warning seemed to have some effect. The next day, the number of 911 calls in the suburbs significantly decreased, and Jimmy was only dispatched twice, a great improvement from the previous days.
After receiving the four targets from Jimmy, Agent Harten had arranged for surveillance and reconnaissance on them. However, they hadn't reached any conclusions yet because Jimmy couldn't directly communicate what he had seen to Harten, so they had to cast a wide net and monitor all four houses simultaneously.
Now that it was November, Harten and his team, anticipating a possible resurgence of murders by Christmas, were diligently following up on leads.
Unfortunately, they had bad luck as nothing unusual had been observed at these houses during the surveillance, yielding no results after several days of hard work.
However, it wouldn't be accurate to say there was no payoff at all. As FBI agents, they had the technology and personnel to inspect the four houses thoroughly and discovered a large number of weapons and an altar in the basement, though they hadn't yet identified any suspicious individuals.
For the FBI, merely catching criminals with illegal weapons was meaningless. Their current targets were the NC Cult followers involved in the murders.
The house with the altar was now under primary surveillance. Just as Jimmy had deduced, the basement was too clean, deliberately cleaned up. If they hadn't abandoned this stronghold, they would definitely come back.