Midnight Fate

“There’s just no way.” Antonio Pérez, a 10-year police officer in Chicago, Illinois, told his fellow officer. “I didn’t sign up for this.” But what Antonio said wasn’t quite true. It was his career he signed on for, and it was to be a full-time career. But in the meantime, he had a life to live. He had two daughters, both of whom were going to college, hoping one day they could join their father in law enforcement. The job he was being offered was as chief in a police department in Mexico. There were other things on his mind, too. His youngest daughter, who was only three years old, needed him to be home while his wife was pregnant.

But that was just the beginning of his problem. Only three weeks on the job as police chief, all hell broke out in town. Gang members set his home and several others belonging to his officers on fire. In the middle of the night, several other police officers had gone missing. Antonio couldn’t sleep. Then he heard a knock on the door. A person who he assumed was one of the missing police officers stood at the door drenched in blood. “What is going on?” Antonio asked. But the officer was too hurt to respond. With the police radio, which he still had with him, one of his colleagues was able to relay the message to the chief.

Chief Antonio Pérez called out! “We need to get everybody out of here. We’ve got to move now.” The officers set off in their own direction, toward the fire station. They were only a few blocks from the hotel where Antonio’s family had been staying. As they approached, they were confronted by the mayor, his son, two city councilmen, and two other police officers. Mayor Brown was on edge. “We’ve been notified,” he said. “Two of the missing officers were found. There’s no question in my mind that the information they gave us was correct. I can only ask that we not give up hope.”

With half of his police officers missing, Chief Antonio Pérez called a meeting of all the remaining officers in his department. They were all asked to turn in their guns while the investigation was going on regarding who was responsible for the fires and missing officers. He said that while he didn’t believe that any of his officers had done anything wrong; he did believe that the investigation should continue.

It was then that the real story of the disappearance of the officers was told. It began when an officer was kidnapped at home that night because of his family’s financial obligations to the gang and taken to their headquarters. Several more officers were kidnapped the following night. Two officers were arrested in connection with the kidnapping and charged with the crime. It was now up to Chief Antonio Pérez to decide whether to pursue the case.

In the meantime, Mexican officials had come to believe the kidnapping was a hoax, ending the investigation. By the end of the following month, at least two more police officers had disappeared, leaving no trace behind. But it was just as likely that it had all been a ploy by one of their own to put pressure on the police. Chief Antonio Pérez and the other officers were soon back on streets, still hoping that they could find the kidnapped officers, hoping too that this time they would be reunited with their families.

They were wrong. Later, there were no further arrests. Feeling for his family’s safety, Chief Antonio Pérez, his wife, and young daughter moved back to Chicago safe in their own home before the Mexican police went back into action. Four years after the abduction, three of those same police officers who were involved in that fiasco were arrested in a double kidnapping. All the while, Antonio Pérez continued to work for his city being made captain for the Chicago Police Department, until one day, it all came to an end.

On his way home on a cold February night, a dark figure with a gun pointing at him confronted Antonio. Paralyzed in shock, the last thing Antonio Pérez heard were the words, “time for you to experience what you’ve been missing out on,” and the deafening sound of a gun.