In the early hours of May 28, 2005, one of those bad things did happen out in the scenic and exclusive environs of Miramontes Point Road.
It was a brutal gang rape that brought Reed, a 19-year veteran of the force and a born-and-raised local, out to the edge of the city, alone, on Memorial Day weekend.
 Half Moon Bay Police clerk Marie Hammerich and Sgt. Mark Reed pose on a pedestrian bridge near the scene of a 2006 rape. The pair have been commended for their work to bring the rapists to justice. |
But the case left him with an image he'll never forget. And it brought out the best in the two local cops and a district attorney, as they succeeded at the bottom line in law enforcement - to stand up for an unprotected victim.
Recently, Reed stood near the spot where he first saw that victim, whom prosecutors call Emily, and told the story.
"During the day, she's walking in Fremont and two guys stop and offer her a ride home from the store," he said. They took her home. Then they went back later and picked her up. They drove around, picking up friends. Reed said they had the 21-year-old Emily against her will, but she didn't try to escape.
The four men in the car that night ranged in age from 16 to 21. They lived in towns scattered around the area and may have been linked by gang ties.
"You have to understand, she was very naïve in many ways," Reed said of Emily. "She didn't drive. Every time she gave a distance, it was how much time it took to walk."
Emily grew up in the foster care system. She had a brother who was homeless somewhere and a roommate, but no family, and no one waiting for her anywhere.
"She had nothing behind her - no backup," said Reed.
The men drove Emily west, to Half Moon Bay. They had been drinking along the way.
"Now it's 1 or 2 a.m. and she really wants to go home. But she has to go to the bathroom," said Reed.
They parked in the beach access lot down Miramontes Point Road and began walking toward the nearby golf course bridge and the stairs to the beach.
"Remember, it's pitch dark, no lights around here, maybe a little light out on the golf course in the open," Reed said. Trees and a road grade shield the path and the nearest streetlight is a couple of hundred yards up the road.
The group got down to the top of the stairs, overlooking the darkened beach. "There's two people down there - a couple, two Stanford students," said Reed.
One of the men went down to check on the couple. He asked them for a cigarette but there was something about the encounter that bothered the students. The man said something to one of the students that could have been like a pickup line in Spanish. It made the pair nervous.
"It was a little bit of a challenge," said Reed. "The whole thing made them really uncomfortable."
Emily walked back with the driver of the car. She didn't want to use the darkened portable toilets along the path and they crossed the bridge to the nearby golf course. The driver tried to assault her there, but she stopped him.
They walked halfway back across the splintered, wooden bridge.
"All of a sudden she hears these screams - this yelling - and the three other guys run across the bridge straight at her," said Reed.
The men lifted her into the air and slammed her down, said Deputy District Attorney Greg Devitt, who picks up the story. "They took turns, and while they were raping her they beat her," said Reed.
"During the course of it, they kicked her in the face, causing a major fracture - it pushed the bone in an eighth of an inch." She was beaten severely and injured in other ways. There was another attempted rape on the way back to the parking lot.
"The 16-year-old was actually the most brutal one of the bunch," said Reed.
The couple from the beach walked by and heard her screaming. They heard a male voice yelling "shut up, shut up." They went back to their car and tried to call 911, but were having trouble with a signal.
It had been a big night for the local police already. An attempted murder had two officers occupied and a missing person call left only Reed able to drive out to the edge of town, alone except for a police dog.
"You have to realize, at this point, I don't know what the call is," he said. "We get these all the time, screaming calls from the beaches at night. It could be people just yelling and partying; it could be someone just playing around."
The men have Emily back in the car by the time Reed pulls up. When they see the police car take a turn into the small parking lot and start to swing up behind them, they start driving, leaving behind the youngest one.
"If they weren't pulling out of this parking lot, they would have got away. If they were driving, I probably would have just passed them," said Reed.
It's then that Reed's long experience made the difference, according to Devitt.
"It's pitch dark and these guys know they are in real trouble," said Devitt. "They're not running and they don't run. He played it really cool."
A recording of the stops shows Reed approaching the car. His dog barks in the background and Emily is visible in the back seat of the two-door Toyota with her hand on her face. Reed is deliberate and controlled as he asks for identification, but the key moment comes very quickly.
"She's sitting there with her hand covering one side of her face," said Reed. "She takes her hand off her face - just an inch - and we locked eyes. She nods slowly at me.
"I'll never forget that look on her face, in her eyes," he said. "I'll never forget that."
Reed called for backup. When another officer came, he took Emily out of the car and she told him she had been raped, and one of the men was still loose in the area. Dogs and a helicopter were called in, and the 16-year-old, Gerardo Resendiz, who had raped her twice, was quickly caught.
The men were interviewed and Emily was taken to the hospital. The evidence quickly mounted in what Reed calls the most complex case he has seen.
Hammerich was in the early years of her first police job. It was her job to sort, label and control five sets of physical evidence and make it available to Devitt at the drop of a hat.
"The evidence really told the story of this case," said Hammerich.
"She went above and beyond what would be hoped for, what was required," said Devitt.
A slip in the chain of evidence in this drawn out and complicated trial could have put the men back on the street. And a false move from Reed and there might have been a different case, or just another missing person.
The case left its mark on Devitt.
He said Emily was trying to put her life back together, but that it had been hard and the trial had brought it all back for her.
"She had to come in and talk about the worst night of her life. And the only defense was going to be that it was consensual," said Devitt.
"She's one of those in society that if you don't speak for her, who will?"
The rapists, Resendiz, Edgar Cardelas, Anastasio Flores and Celestino Guillermo were convicted in June of rape in concert. The kidnapping charge was thrown out, but Hammerich's evidence was flawless and filled in crucial gaps when Emily's memory failed.
The men have been in jail since that night and will be sentenced on Oct. 26. Devitt said the range of possibility was wide, with most of them facing five to 37 years in prison.
The officers appreciate the recognition for their part. It's praise for doing well at the real life grit of police work that is usually fodder for TV shows. But they're also a bit torn, especially Hammerich. She's not quite comfortable with getting an award for just doing her job - especially this job.
"It's a nice thing, but it was a horrible crime," she said. "I look at that plaque, and I read the words, and I think, there's a girl who will have to live with this for the rest of her life."
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