A Certain Justice

Between the ages of eighteen-and-a-half, when he got out of jail on the Portola robbery, and twenty, when his bloody fingerprint was identified on Michael Mullen's steering wheel, Jerohm kept a low profile, and though he was brought to the Hall and questioned several times, he was charged with no new crimes.

Although Jerohm lived and hung out mostly in the Bay View district between Hunter's Point and Candlestick Park – one of the coldest and most inhospitable environments in the state – at about midnight on June 21-22 he was arrested by an African-American inspector sergeant of homicide named Ridley Banks as he exited the Kit Kat Klub just north of Laguna, a long walk from Candlestick, after his presence had been reported by that establishment's owner, Mo-Mo House, who had some sort of arrangement with Sergeant Banks. Accustomed to the drill, Jerohm offered no resistance.

A search of Jerohm's given address, an apartment he shared with an eighteen-year-old unemployed hairdresser named Carryl Joyner and her two-year-old Damien, turned up one of Michael Mullen's credit cards.

Jerohm professed ignorance as to how the credit card had come to rest between the cushions of his couch, saying that maybe it had fallen out of the pocket of his friend, Tooth, when he'd been visiting. Tooth, sadly, had died a few days ago when he had gotten hold of some extra pure Mexican brown heroin and mixed up a speedball with it. That's how Jerohm's fingerprint must have gotten onto the steering wheel, said Jerohm. Thinking it had been Tooth's car, Jerohm had had to drive Tooth home in it that night – the man was really messed up and his woman would kill him if he spent the night out again. Jerohm hadn't noticed the blood – it must have been on the seat or something, got transferred to his finger.

Two days after Jerohm's arrest, a Friday, he took part in four separate police line-ups. On the good side of the glass, on these four occasions, respectively, sat Josh Cane, who had been the driver behind Michael Mullen; Raya

All of the witnesses picked out Jerohm Reese as the one who looked the most like the shooter. None, however, could be one hundred percent certain it was him. The man who had hijacked Michael Mullen's car had been tall, like Jerohm, and had appeared to be well-muscled and athletic, like Jerohm. But he had also been bearded, and Jerohm today was clean-shaven (had been, he said, for months). Further, the man had been wearing a sleeveless down jacket, which may have made him look more puffed-up than he had actually been. Finally, after eight on a muggy June night, the waning light wasn't any too good. None of the witnesses could be sure.

Even without the eyewitnesses, however, the incident report and record of arrest went down one flight to the office of the district attorney. Inspector Banks was interviewing other potential witnesses, people who might remember, for example, whether Jerohm had worn a beard recently, people who could perhaps place Tooth in an alternate locale at the time of the crime – normal, dogged, police procedural work.

On the following Tuesday, June 28, District Attorney Christopher Locke a

Jerohm was ordered released from jail, and signed out on Tuesday afternoon at two twenty-eight. He waited until after they had served lunch.

Tuesday, June 28

2

A large drinking crowd was gathering at the Cavern Tavern, a workingman's bar in the Richmond District of San Francisco. Jerohm Reese's victim, the CPA Michael Mullen, had been a regular at the Cavern – he'd been that establishment's accountant – and June 28 would have been his fortieth birthday. The management of the pub decided they were going to say goodbye to Mike their own way – they'd have a party for their boy.

Mike's younger brother Brandon, a thirty-five-year-old telephone repairman who had taken the day off, and his cousin and best friend, Peter McKay, currently between jobs, hadn't had any luck getting Mullen's widow, Paula, down to the Cavern. She'd had her fill of Irish wakes, the rites of burial, drinking. Mostly she was already sick of her grief, and what she wanted was to get back to her normal life with her children, which, she was begi

Brandon Mullen and Peter McKay were depressed enough about Mike's senseless death, but Paula's refusal to accompany them to the Cavern's special memorial had put them into even blacker moods. Mike's own wife!

There was a huge head shot of Mike blown-up against the dart wall and this reinforced their loss – their brother and friend was gone. Goddamn, pour some whiskey.

The Cavern's oval-shaped bar ran the center of the room, and Jamie O'Toole wasn't letting any of the regulars buy a drink. This was the Cavern's wake, for its patrons, and the place was pla

By eight forty-five, close to sixty men had poured into the Cavern – ready to get half-tanked coming in after their wives and kids and supper, or hot and sweaty and thirsty from their daytime jobs on construction sites, body shops, road crews. Jamie O'Toole poured and they raised their glasses to the poster-sized photograph of Mike Mullen's smiling mug.

Neil Young's 'War of Man' was playing on the juke box, loud, throbbing and insistent. Somebody kept playing it over and over, and Jamie O'Toole kept the volume up. Guys were starting to sway, shoulder to shoulder, packed in, sweating, spilling their beers.

Kevin Shea, a twenty-eight-year-old graduate student in history at San Francisco State University, was clean-cut and red-cheeked and he was lucky if he looked twenty. He had thick, nearly black hair, a sardonic grin he liked to trot out from time to time, and a recently acquired predilection to drink that he thought he was shepherding along nicely.

He leaned into the wall by the juke box, on his third free pint of Harps. He hadn't known Mike Mullen, hadn't come down here specifically for the send-off, although he guessed that subliminally he must have heard about it – he was at the Cavern most every day anyway.

Neil Young was getting on his nerves. When the opening riff for 'War of Man' started up for the fifteenth straight time, he jammed his hip into the side of the box, sending a jarring screech through the room.

'Watch your arse!'

The place was quiet. The Irish call such a moment 'angel's passing,' but if that was it, no angels stayed around long. At the bar, in the hole of silence, Peter McKay happened to glance at the television, which suddenly seemed to be blaring. He grabbed heavily at Brandon Mullen's shoulder, spilling more beer over his glass, down the sides, over his hand.

'Hey, look at that!' he yelled. 'Up there. That's the nigger that killed Mikey, isn't it?'

All eyes were glued on the newscaster, who stood holding her microphone on the steps of San Francisco 's Hall of Justice, empty food wrappers and other debris swirling around her in the late afternoon wind.

'In local news,' she was saying (Jamie O'Toole had turned the sound up as loud as Neil Young had been), 'Jerohm Reese, who last week was arrested in co