Wash remembers the police as "the ultimate terror . . . You saw the police, you ran. It was automatic." Why were the police so frightening? "It was a rare weekend passed," Wash said, "that one or two folk . . . didn't get killed by the police . . . This is what they'd do to you: They'd call you and make you stick your head in the window [of the police car] . . . and then they would roll the window up . . . And then they'd hit you on your head . . . They'd beat people to death." As a result, he said, parents could scare unruly children into minding them by threatening, "The police gonna get you."

What is the tone of the excerpt?

shocking
mischievous
rational
hesitant