He ran to the right into the clothing section and started weaving through the racks. Another man in a red vest came running at Mitch from behind a row of shelves.
Mitch sprayed the man in the eyes with the pepper spray. The man let out a roar but didn’t stop coming after him. He was blinded but kept swinging his arms around. Mitch knocked over two clothing racks to trip the man up.
He looked to his left and saw the mother getting close. Mitch aimed a cloud of pepper spray at her and then tipped over a rack in her path. She went sprawling across the ground.
Mitch looked around. He couldn’t see the little girl because she was shorter than the racks. There was the sound of little footsteps coming from somewhere, but he couldn’t see where.
Mitch moved away from the man and the little girl’s mother and headed toward the exit. Suddenly he felt a searing pain in the back of his thigh as the little girl bit him.
“
Fuck!” Mitch jerked around and tried to kick the girl away without being too harsh. She just attacked his leg. Mitch looked at the can of pepper spray. He couldn’t do it.
From the moment he entered, he knew there were surveillance cameras watching. At some point authorities would see everything he did in the store.
He couldn’t bring himself to hurt the little girl any more than was necessary. Mitch kept pushing her away with his leg. He pulled a zip tie from his pocket and grabbed one of the girl’s wrists.
He yanked her into a clothes rack before she could bite into his arm. He wrapped the zip tie around her tiny wrist and strapped her to the metal curtain bar on the clothes rack. Once he was confident she wouldn’t chase after him as he left the store, Mitch ran toward the exit. The little girl snarled and spit.
He could hear more footsteps behind him. He caught a glimpse of two cashiers and four customers running at him. Mitch pulled out another bag of marbles and ripped it open. He tossed the bag over his head.
He could hear the sound of several bodies hitting the ground. There were still more footsteps. He threw down another bag of marbles. A pair of footsteps still came after him.
Mitch didn’t want to be followed back to the boat. He turned around the corner that led to the exit and pulled the baseball bat out of the duffle bag.
As soon as he was around the other side of the wall, he knelt down and stuck the baseball bat out to trip whoever was behind him. A man in a sheriff’s deputy uniform ran past the corner and tripped on the bat. He skidded across the floor on his face.
Not another cop
, thought Mitch. He had no choice. He took the can of pepper spray from the bag. Mitch walked over and sprayed the man at point blank as he tried to get up. Mitchell started to sneeze from being so close to the spray.
The deputy screamed out and tried to claw at anything he could. Mitch ran through the automatic sliding glass doors and into the parking lot. He saw the deputy sheriff’s car parked up on the curb.
Christ
, that guy got here fast, thought Mitchell. He looked out at the parking lot. It still looked the same as when he came in, with the exception of the flashing blue light from the empty police car. Mitchell ran toward the far end of the lot.
As he reached the hedge on top of the hill that separated the mall parking lot from the highway, he saw three police cars racing toward his direction with their lights flashing. Mitchell ducked down behind the hedge and tried to figure out what to do next.
The police cars pulled into the parking lot and headed toward the front of the store. While their attention was on the front of the store, Mitchell decided now was the best time to make a break for it.
He climbed over the hedge and looked for traffic. The road was clear. Mitchell ran across the highway and climbed over the concrete wall. He found the spot where he tied his boat to a tree and threw the duffle bag filled with stolen goods inside.
Mitchell untied the rope from the tree and shoved off. He didn’t want to get caught next to shore as he tried to get the engine going. He’d be too vulnerable like that.
When the boat was ten feet away from shore, he gave the starting cord a pull. It took him three tries. Finally, it started. Mitchell aimed the bow away from the store and headed up the canal and back toward the Intracoastal waterway. It wasn’t uncommon for police to call in a police boat unit when they thought a suspect might be on or near water. Mitchell kept the boat going as fast as he could without attracting too much attention.
As he entered the main waterway, he looked back and saw the police helicopter over the Super Center shining its spotlight into the parking lot below.
Mitchell reached into the back of his pants and pulled out the license plates. He looked at the numbers and letters and then tossed them into the water, where they sank to the bottom.
Mitchell steered the little boat toward a large drawbridge that connected the inland part of the city to the beach. There was one more errand Mitch had to do that night.
33
When Detective Rios got home, he had trouble sleeping. His wife and two kids were already sound asleep when he got there. He crawled in to bed and stared at the ceiling for an hour. He couldn’t get the idea out of his head that Mitchell Roberts really was a victim. Certainly someone who left a wake of destruction in his path but someone just as scared as everyone else.
When he saw the paper the next morning, he texted Simmons that he was going to check on something before coming into the office.
The headline read “Mad Mitch Rampage” and described the events of the previous day using lots of convenient ‘allegedlys’ in a way that made Roberts out to be some kind of domestic terrorist. To be fair to the paper, this was how law enforcement was proceeding at this point. Any time you have bodies and someone running from the scene, it’s hard not to conceive of that person as being guilty of something heinous.
Rios drove over to the neighborhood where the first incident took place. He parked his car and walked to the spot where Mitchell had allegedly attacked the parking enforcement officer. The car had been towed away to evidence. Yellow spray-paint marked out on the street where the car had been.
If it hadn’t been for the incident at the mall, Rios and Simmons would have canvassed the neighborhood for witnesses. That had been put on the back burner while they dealt with the larger crisis. The problem with waiting was that people forgot things or moved away.
He looked around the street to see what houses or apartments had a view of the where he was standing. There were at least half a dozen. He walked up the steps of the nearest house and knocked on the door. The house faced the street and had a large living room window with open curtains.
Nobody answered. Rios was about to walk away and then decided to be a little more thorough. He pulled out a business card and wrote a quick note on the back to call him. He moved on to the next house.
There was no answer there, either. He tried an apartment after that and found a young woman getting ready for work. She told him she’d already left for work the day earlier. Rios thanked her and left.
Back in the street, he looked around for other places to look. Across the street to the right, he saw a second-floor apartment he’d missed before. Rios walked over and climbed up the flight of stairs the led to the second level.
He knocked on the door that faced the street. From inside he could hear someone coming to the door.
The door opened and a short old woman in a platinum blond wig answered.
“
Hello?” she said from behind the door.
Rios showed her his badge and introduced himself.
“
Is this about that boy?”
“
The boy?” asked Rios.
“
Yes, the young man those people were trying to hurt. Is he all right?”
“
Did you see what happened out here?” Rios pointed through the apartment to the street below.
“
I always knew that meter maid woman was a bitch. Gave me three tickets this year. When she attacked the young man, I felt so sorry for him.”
“
Did you tell anybody?” asked Rios.
“
I called 911.”
Interesting, thought Rios. Nobody had told him about the 911 call. He’d have to look into it.
“
So when you say she attacked him, attacked how? How did the window get broken?”
“
When that cow climbed on the hood and started bashing her head into it. I’ve never seen someone so angry.”
Rios got a few more details and then told the woman he would be in touch. She insisted he let her know as soon as he could if Mitchell was OK. Good to know that the kid has at least one friend in the world, Rios thought as he walked back to his car.
34
Mitchell was about to get a lot more friends. Before he made it to his hiding spot for the night, he made one more stop, the effects of which were rapidly changing at least some people’s minds.
In a back alley between a highway and a canal where he’d parked his boat, Mitch made a video and uploaded it to YouTube on his iPhone.
When he turned on the device for the first time since that morning, the screen was filled with a barrage of text messages and voicemail. Some familiar, others weren’t. He didn’t have enough time to check them and could already imagine what they said anyway.
He launched the video camera app. He wanted for people to at least hear his side of things. Up until then, the police had been telling everyone what was taking place. Mitchell suspected that even they really had no idea.
Mitch took off the hat and jacket he’d been wearing and combed back his wild hair with his hand. He took a deep breath and tried a relaxation exercise so he wouldn’t come across too excited or crazy. He knew that no matter what, he was going to sound crazy to most people, but if he could just reach a few, then that could make a difference.
He thought out what he needed to say. He didn’t want to come across as too paranoid or too glib. He also reminded himself that there were people who suffered a lot worse than him. Mitch pressed record.
“
Hi, I’m Mitch Roberts. As you know, I am on the run. Let me make it very clear that I am ready to surrender. All I have to know is that I won’t be harmed and the people who I surrender to won’t be harmed directly or indirectly by my surrendering.
“
There is something strange going on that I don’t understand. Since yesterday, anybody who comes near me that’s not behind glass tries to kill me. Not approach me. Not stop me. But tries to kill me.
“
According to the news, they haven’t released the video from what happened at the mall. I understand that it’s disturbing. I was there. But you need to see this video. The public needs to see all of the video that’s available. You’ll understand that I’m not trying to harm anyone. I’m only defending myself, the same as you would do.
“
For me to surrender, I need to know that the people I’m surrendering to are properly protected and that I can be safely isolated from contact with other people until they find out what’s happening.” Mitchell paused for a moment and looked off screen. He had been holding up so far using his radio voice. It was beginning to crack.
Mitchell’s eyes began to get moist. “If I had known today what would have happened when I ran from the food court to all of those people. To the people in the department store. To the people that jumped or got pushed from the roof by other people, I’d like to think I wouldn’t have run.”
Mitchell’s voice wavered. “I ... I don’t know if I could just sit there and let everyone attack me. I’d never been so scared in my life ... but I’d like to think that if I could go back there and do it all over again, I would have let them.”
Mitch clicked the stop button. He wanted to check the video again but didn’t have time. He pressed the button to upload it to his YouTube account. It would take another hour before it went live. As he was about to shut off his iPhone, an instant notification message popped up from Twitter.
@MadMitchFM Your not the monster they
say you are. #runmitchrun
He didn’t recognize the person who sent the message, but it was comforting just the same. He opened up his Twitter account just to see how people were reacting. There were thousands of @replies to him, many calling him a monster, others showing support. He saw the hash tag #runmitchrun used a lot. Not everyone was buying the story that he was the public menace the press and authorities had made him out to be.
A number of people using the hash tag were offering him advice that ranged from ridiculous to almost helpful. He scanned through and found a couple things to keep in mind. If he could have crowd-sourced his escape earlier on, he could have saved himself some trouble.
Mitchell decided it was worth the risk to send out a tweet. He didn’t want to be flippant, but he also just wanted to feel a part of something bigger than himself for the moment. Trying to figure out what to say took him a minute. Finally, he managed to types something out.