Kevan Baker wanted to forget Wanda Lopez's final moments. He ...

740 COLUMBIA HUMAN RIGHTS LAW REVIEW [43.3:711
the BOLO, and that he was uncertain about it. For example, twelve
minutes after Wanda screamed, the BOLO said:
“Hispanic male, 5-9, wearing a flannel shirt and gray
sweatshirt. Suspect last seen heading northbound on foot to the rear
of the Shamrock. May possibly be wearing a white, long-sleeved Tshirt.
That’s may possibly be.”
Seven minutes later, the dispatcher asked Mejia for more
information, and the sergeant again queried the witnesses. Julie can
be heard in the background on the dispatch tape, pressing her case.
Mejia reported “some people” saying that it was “a white shirt,
possibly a white shirt.” Then came a trickle of grooming descriptions
from the Arsuagas: “Clean shaven,” “medium-length curly hair,” then,
nearly a minute later, “slightly wavy just a tiny bit.”
Mejia’s final BOLO was broadcast at 8:32 p.m., twenty-two
minutes after Wanda screamed. This time, Mejia combined the
various details into what sounded like a consistent description of a
single individual:
“A Hispanic male, 5-9, with flannel shirt, possibly a gray
sweatshirt. It may possibly be a white T-shirt, also, long-sleeves.
Clean-shaven, medium, wavy, ear-length hair. He was out there
earlier looking for a ride to the Casino.”
The first sentence was from Baker. The second and last were
from Aguirre. The facial and head hair information was from Julie
Arsuaga.
Adding to the sense that the description was of a single
person, Mejia never broadcast Baker’s information that the attacker
he saw sprinting north behind the gas station had a full moustache
and ten days’ growth of beard and the unkempt look and shabby
clothes of a derelict or homeless person. Nor did he mention the
Arsuagas’ information that the white-shirted, clean-shaven man who
jogged past them at a leisurely pace had disappeared behind Lebowitz
Furniture over a football field in length east of the Sigmor and wore a
button-down dress shirt and dark well-pressed pants.
For the last eighteen minutes of the search, the police hunted
a ghost, with features picked almost at random from three conflicting
portraits, and not matching any actual account of the suspect’s
clothes, grooming, velocity, or direction of travel.