Chapter 22: Slave Patrols

Fall 2023 to Spring 2024

After the press conference I had a chance to call home and say hello to the kids. They already had heard I was a supercriminal and in prison for the rest of my life, so I had to tell them I had broken out and would be home later that night. They both promised to stay up to see me, which seemed unlikely to me.

We didn’t leave Conover until almost eight. Both Delahoye and Ruskin had run out of things to ask me and agreed that they knew how to find me if they had any questions.

Kelly and my parents had driven over in Mom’s Sienna, though Dad had insisted on driving. On the way home I drove up front with him for the simple reason that I was taller than Mom or Kelly and needed the leg room. On the drive home I told my family what had happened, which caused both Kelly and my mother to start crying again.

We stopped for dinner at a barbecue joint in Athens. There was a television on the wall tuned to Fox News and the Conover story was all over the news, though the sound was off. I saw video of the press conference as well as video from 2010, when Obama gave me the Medal. There were some statements on the screen, but it was too far away to read the highlighted sections. I was going to have to wait until getting home to watch it on the news.

That ended up being Friday morning. When we got home it was after midnight, and Seamus and Sharon were dozing in the living room. Despite their plans to stay up until I got home, the kids were asleep in their beds. Likewise, while Kelly had told me that she planned to use me for her demented carnal needs as soon as we got home, I was asleep before she ever got out of our bathroom. Deviant sexual excess would need to be delayed until Friday night.

I spent most of Friday watching news reports on television and the Internet and calling my various clients to tell them what had really happened. Helping in that regard was the fact that the deputies had screwed up by slamming my face into the bars of my cell. It’s hard to argue that you never touched somebody when they’re bleeding and have a black eye. Client relations went well, but not perfectly. Two departments dodged my phone call and a police chief in Alabama said he was waiting until things ‘settled down’ before contacting me again. At least the outfits down south I was working with on SWAT systems were all standing firm, sticking with the plan to use me for design and implantation of their SWAT teams. I said thank you and promised to visit the following week to review plans and update them on my situation.

I also heard from Simon & Schuster. My editor had seen me on television, with my messed-up eye and busted lip, and wanted to know if I was going to be in shape to be on television. The final name of the book was The Slave Patrols: An Evolution of Violence, and was officially scheduled for release on Tuesday, October 17. The book tour would begin the Tuesday before. That was in about two-and-a-half weeks, and we could realistically expect that my face would be healed by the time I had to be on television. If there was any remaining color, it could be covered up with makeup. The book tour would begin on MSNBC, and Al Sharpton was going to be on the show with me, since his name was on the cover of the book (Foreword by Rev. Al Sharpton) in a smaller font than my name but much larger than I thought he deserved. Oh well.

One thing we weren’t as sure of was what extent the notoriety with the bank robbery would affect the book tour and sales of the book. Hurt or help? The best we could plan for was developing a set of canned answers for when somebody asked. We also knew that it would be when they asked, not if they asked. There was a lot more interest this time; outlets and shows that had only given us tentative slots for Protect and Serve were giving us definite airtime for Slave Patrols. We also guessed much of the interest was so people could ask about the bank robbery.

I stayed in touch with Irene Delahoye and Bill Ruskin concerning the bank robbery and deaths afterward. The Conover County District Attorney had refused to charge the deputies who had thumped me in the back room of the jail and decided to dump it on the Feds. He also refused to charge Sheriff Conover. The DA was related to the Conover family somehow and wasn’t going to screw up family dinners at Christmas. His opinion was that the evidence wasn’t sufficient to proceed. This despite the video evidence and my DNA in the bloodstains in the cell. He didn’t even ask for bail, and they were all out on their own recognizance.

The US Attorney for Northern Georgia, Bo’s old job, wasn’t impressed. The deputies involved in my beating and the sheriff were brought up on Federal civil rights charges. Sheriff Conover had plenty of family money from corruption and graft to be able to hire good lawyers, but his deputies didn’t; Delahoye reported that they were attempting to plead out, but she was holding out for them to start ratting out the Conover family. I was willing to, if not forgive, then to forget my black eye and busted lip to help get Conover.

Not so fortunate was Ronnie Conover. Considering the video evidence of him blowing away a couple of customers in the bank, even the Conover County DA couldn’t bury this disaster. He was charged with involuntary manslaughter and was released on $50,000 bail, which was paid in cash. Involuntary manslaughter was an appropriate charge since none of us could imagine why Ronnie would have wanted to kill Reginald Westman and Adrienne Mussolo. Involuntary manslaughter carried a sentence of from one to ten years in prison, but it wasn’t that simple. Since Ron Conover killed the two customers while acting in his role as a peace officer, he could argue that he was acting legally but in an unlawful manner, which could knock the involuntary manslaughter down from a felony to a misdemeanor. That was up to the judge, a family friend.

The US Attorney’s office was not amused by any of this. Federal marshals were waiting at the courthouse and arrested Ronnie as the smiling fool left with his father and their lawyers. Murder is normally a state crime but there are some exceptions that make it a federal crime, such as killing a federal judge or law enforcement official or elected federal official. One notable exception is bank robbery - a federal crime! Since Westman and Mussolo died during the commission of a bank robbery, that made their deaths felony murders, and murder committed during a bank robbery was a violation of 18 USC 1111. The fact that the murder was committed by a police officer rather than a bank robber was irrelevant.

Ronnie was promptly whisked off to Atlanta by the marshals, with his lawyers trailing them. The bail money was returned to the Conovers in the form of a check, and the FBI immediately began tracing where the Conovers got their hands on fifty grand in unmarked twenties and fifties. This case was just the gift that kept on giving. I was meeting with Irene, Bo, and a couple of investigators when they informed me of how suspicious it all was. When I asked why, the bunch of them looked at me like I was the village idiot. Irene said, “Grim, there’s a simple formula in the money-tracking business. Corrupt cops plus bucketloads of untraceable cash equals drug money. The Conovers are dirty. We just don’t know how dirty yet, but we’ll figure it out. It’s what we do.”

The sheriff was loudly proclaiming his innocence and welcoming the opportunity to clear his name and resume his rightful role defending the safety of the citizens of Conover County. Meanwhile he planned to run for reelection as Sheriff. That didn’t matter, though. Until and unless he was acquitted of the federal charges, the Conover County Sheriff’s Department was under the control of a Georgia State Patrol lieutenant reporting directly to Bill Ruskin; said lieutenant was reportedly born without a sense of humor and was not making life easy on the remaining deputies. He planned to run them all out of the county!

Bo, meanwhile, was having the time of his life working on a defamation lawsuit against Sheriff Conover. When the sheriff issued his statement saying I was a drug kingpin and crime lord and murderer it became an open and shut case of slander. So said Bo, anyway. He also told me that while the case was a slam-dunk, legally speaking, it would take years before I ever saw a penny of it, if I ever saw any of it. The reason for that was that the Conovers had spent years hiding their money. He was piggybacking on the FBI investigation trying to track their money and said it would take years to dig it out. Any court victories would probably end up being symbolic only. “It kind of sucks, buddy, but my bet is the Feds will probably scarf most of it up anyway,” he told me.

“You’re a fucking bundle of good news,” I replied.

Bo just grinned. “They can’t spend it in jail.”

“There is that,” I agreed.

My trip to New York went much as my first trip. I flew in on Monday and stayed at the same Hilton Garden Inn I had stayed at last year. This time I called in a favor from the FBI and Delahoye had one of her agents ease my way through security at ATL. It wasn’t as good as a magic pass and badge from TSA, but it worked well. We chatted about the latest fun and games in Conover County, and he flashed his badge at my luggage check-in and also at the security screening station. He couldn’t promise anything for my return trip, but I thanked him and went on my merry way.

I was scheduled for additional time on MSNBC Tuesday morning. Last year I was scheduled from 8:46 until 8:57. This year I was scheduled from 8:38 to 8:58, with a commercial break from 8:44 to 8:46. My editor expected that one segment would be on the bank robbery and the other would be on the book. Like before, I was stopped on entry to the studio because of my weapon, and when the head of security showed up, he brought with him an escort to follow me around. I was fortunate in that I had my Glock 22 back. For a couple of weeks my 22 had been in the custody of the Staties and the Feds, and I had been using my 27 for protection. That was smaller and more easily concealed when I wore casual clothing, but I preferred the larger 22 with its larger magazine. It didn’t really matter in New York, because I had to limit my magazine size in either case to seven rounds.

The morning’s commentators were the usual mix of political pundits and reporters. We knew that Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski would be there, and Al Sharpton was a lock to blow his own horn on the book. In the green room I learned that the other talking heads were Willie Geist, Mike Barnicle, Eddie Glaude, and Peggy Noonan. Geist was a well-known second-generation reporter who was a cohost on the show, Barnicle was a freelance columnist who was almost a regular, Glaude was a writer and academic who specialized in African-American issues (he was African-American like Sharpton), and Noonan was an ex-Republican speechwriter and political pundit. As usual, Mika did the introduction:

Mika: (Holding up a copy of the book) “We are joined this morning by Doctor Graham Reaper who recently wrote a new book on the history of southern police, The Slave Patrols: An Evolution of Violence . The book is a follow-on to his successful book from last year, To Protect and Serve: A History of Policing in America. Welcome back, Doctor Reaper.”

Me: “Thank you for inviting me back. It’s a pleasure to be here.”

Joe: “Before we get into the new book, Doctor Reaper, I’d like to ask you a few questions about something that happened to you recently. Just a few weeks ago you were in a bank in Conover, Georgia, and the bank was robbed. Could you tell us what happened?”

We knew this sort of thing was going to happen, though not the specific question format.

Me: “Well, my car broke down in Conover and I needed to go into the bank for some cash. While I was in line three masked robbers entered, firing their weapons and ordering everybody to the floor. I dropped to the floor, but the robbers lost control of the situation. The local sheriff’s department responded too quickly for them to escape, and it became a hostage situation. When the robbers began threatening to kill the hostages, I was forced to draw my weapon and respond.”

Joe: “You killed the bank robbers.”

Me: “Yes. Then it got worse. Several of the customers tried to run out of the bank at that point. The first deputy to enter began shooting and killed two of the customers. I was taken prisoner in an attempt to shift the blame. Several deputies attempted to coerce me into confessing. Eventually I was rescued by an FBI Response Team.”

A picture of me taken in the cell flashed on the screen, laying on the bunk and bleeding. A second picture in better lighting of my swollen shut eye and my stitched lip followed.