TWO POLICE OFFICERS SHAVED MY HEAD—THEN DISCOVERED I WAS THE JUDGE ASSIGNED TO THEIR CASE.

A medic cleaned my scalp while I sat in a small conference room wrapped in a spare courthouse jacket.

I wanted my mother. Instead, I called her and said, “Lock your door. Elena is sending someone.”

“Naomi, what happened?”

“I’m safe now,” I lied.

Tessa entered carrying the morning docket and one of my clean scarves.

“I canceled the hearing,” she said. “Judge Ames can handle the emergency matters.”

“Not canceled. Reassigned.”

The case involved Derek Voss and Shane Pruitt. Months earlier, they had arrested nineteen-year-old Isaiah Bell for filming an encounter outside a gas station. Prosecutors alleged they had beaten him, planted a weapon, and lied in sworn reports. Isaiah survived, but a spinal injury changed how he walked.

Their defense lawyers had been fighting the release of a new piece of evidence. I had scheduled the hearing to decide that dispute.

Now I was a victim and a witness. I could not remain the judge on their case.

“Tell Judge Ames I’m recusing,” I said. “The decision belongs to another judge.”

Elena nodded, relieved I had said it first.

Camille sat across from me, refusing to stop shivering. She had been scraped across the hall but was otherwise safe. Her phone lay inside an evidence pouch.

“Do you regret recording?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “I regret almost leaving.”

Leah Morgan, the federal prosecutor, arrived with two investigators. She listened without interrupting, then said, “We’ll treat what happened downstairs as a separate investigation.”

At that moment Tessa’s phone rang.

She listened, turned pale, and held it out to Leah.

A maintenance worker had found a note beneath the disabled camera monitor.

Three words were written on it:

KEEP ELLISON DOWN.