(Scene opens with Officer Jake Lacey. He is in his cell. He opens a box and pulls out pictures. He thumbs through them before picking up a camera.) They gave me this camera and told me to, “Say whatever you want to say to the camera. Tell us your side of things.” I didn’t become a cop to end up here, in this place, counting down the days to my death, reading stories about me in the newspaper. (Laughs) Everybody wants to know my side of the story. I told them I would do it but they had to do something for me first. (Beat) When you’re counting down to the end of your life, you’ll be surprised how giving people can be when they want to know, “why?” That part is simple (Beat) because I decided I was justice.
I wasn’t the product of my environment; my parents never hurt me, nothing like that. It was more like I was a product of a certain set of circumstances. My father was a plumber, simple man with a simple set of morals and needs. He loved his family. It was just the three of us: mom, dad and I. He would always come home, drop his tools on the table and I would run in with my set of plastic tools and we would play “Mr. Plumber Man” with our sets of tools. Hell, I thought being a plumber, was like being the President, my dad was truly amazing. Mom would bring us dinner in the living room so we wouldn’t have to stop playing. She’d watch us from the kitchen smiling and laughing at me trying to tighten a screw with pillars, hey I was a kid. And my dad never told me that wouldn’t work. He’d say “Keep turning it Jake, it’ll tighten sooner or later.” (Laughs) My mom passed away when I was eleven. We watched her die. She had MS and it took her three years to die and we stood by her side and watched it happen. I watched my dad die with her. He changed; fell apart in a lot of ways. But he still went to work everyday and he still tried to make life seem normal for me.
