``That's not me!'' he said.
``Sure looks like you,'' said the cop. They were looking at a freeze-frame on the surveillance monitor.
``That's him!'' said the clerk.
``That's not me. I don't do stuff like that. That's not me!''
They booked him anyway. Threw him in a cell with a Gollum like creature who crouched in a corner shaking and silent.
``I didn't do it! Let me out of here! I'll lose my job!''
No one heard. No one cared.
He went to court in shackles. Shaking and white. His attorney said ``he says he didn't do it.''
The prosecutor said they had the picture to prove it.
The clerk said it was him. Pulled a gun on her then ran when a cop car went by with its sirens on.
``That's him!'' she said.
``That's him!'' the jury said unanimously.
He did two years in silent anger. Went back to the world an ex con with few job skills. ``It wasn't me!'' he'd say in the bars and break rooms, ``It wasn't me.''
Five years later a bank attack went wrong. Indignant customers attacked the hooded robbers.
There was gun fire. Two deaths. In the investigation that followed an interesting fact emerged. One of the captured men admitted a series of crimes. Started with a convenience store seven years earlier. He ran away when a police car went by with its sirens going. That was the first.
``Water under the bridge,'' the DA said.