After calling roll, Sergeant Joseph Kennedy smoked a Chesterfield to the butt, then left the station house at 11:30 P.M. to go on patrol. The night was unusually quiet and, breaking for a meal just before 4:00 A.M., Kennedy and his partner (a six-year patrolman named Richard Gray) commented on how calm it had been. Then the Step Inn Bar erupted in gunfire. Kennedy and Gray were en route to the scene, their radio at full volume, when the voice of Walter Scott punctured the night air.
“Anticrime, ten-thirteen, 112th and New York Boulevard.”
Immediately, the Step Inn Bar was forgotten. “Ten-thirteen” takes precedence over any signal a cop might hear. It means that a fellow officer is in trouble.
Almost instantaneously, the radio dispatcher repeated the call: “Ten-thirteen, 112th and New York Boulevard. 112th and New York Boulevard, ten-thirteen, plainclothes.”
Before Kennedy could flip his transmitter on, another unit answered, “Three Charlie on the way.”* Two near-identical responses followed.
Gray gunned the car north along New York Boulevard toward 112th Road, seven blocks away. In less than a minute, they were there. The streets were empty, no one in sight.
“Keep going,” Kennedy instructed. “Maybe they’re further on.”
As they drove north, another patrol car passed in the opposite direction, its siren wailing.
“Hey, central,” a voice called over the radio. “Where’s the unit for the ten-thirteen?”
“Anticrime,” the dispatcher asked, “what’s your location on that ten-thirteen?” Inside the lot, Thomas Shea and Walter Scott stood hidden from view, huddled by the body of a ten-year-old boy.
“The backyard,” Scott answered into the walkie-talkie by his side.
Kennedy turned toward Gray. “Turn the car around, and go back down New York Boulevard.”
“Location? What address?” another cop radioed.
“We’re on Dillon Street [on the far side of the lot],” Scott answered.
“We just passed there. We don’t see nothing.”
“Come over to Dillon Street,” Scott shouted. “You’ll see a green Javelin or something out front of a house.”
Shea stood up from a kneeling position and looked at his partner. “I’ll go out and flag someone down.”
Kennedy and Gray were passing the lot for the second time when Shea emerged with a floppy white hat clutched in his left hand.
“There he is,” Kennedy said. “Hold it here.”
Gray jammed on the brakes, and the Sergeant exited from the car, meeting Shea at the curb. “What happened?” he asked.
“I had to shoot someone back in the lot.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
Kennedy turned toward Gray. “Call the ten-thirteen off. Otherwise, every cop in South Jamaica will be here.” Then he turned back to Shea. “Where’s the victim?”
Shea pointed toward the center of the lot.
“Is he alive?”
“I think so.”
“Let’s go,” Kennedy ordered.
The two men began walking toward the trees.
“What happened?” the Sergeant asked a second time.
“My partner and I were driving down New York Boulevard when we saw two men who fit the description of the guys who pulled the taxi job. Walter made a U-turn. I got out and, when I identified myself as a cop, they ran. I chased after them, and one of them pulled a gun. I fired in self-defense.”
“Did you recover the gun?”
“No. As he was falling, he tossed it to the other perpetrator. The second guy got away.”
One hundred fifty feet into the lot, they reached Clifford Glover, who lay moaning on the ground. Walter Scott stood over him, gun in hand. Kennedy knelt down and examined the blood that poured from wounds in the boy’s back and right shoulder.
“Where are you hurt?”
There was no answer.
“Can you walk?”
Clifford squirmed but said nothing.
Two more cops, Sergeant Thomas Donohue and Patrolman John McCabe, approached. Spotting Scott with his gun still out, Donohue walked over and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Take it easy, Walter. It’s all over. Put your gun away.”
Scott opened the cylinder of his revolver and ejected a spent shell. For the first time, Kennedy realized that Scott too had fired.
Two more cops, Frank Alvy and Ralph Panico, walked into the lot. While circling on Dillon Street, they had passed a black man standing in the center of the road waving his arms and pointing toward the lot. Panico, who was driving, slowed down enough to hear the word “shooting,” then sped toward the lot, believing that a fellow officer was in trouble. The old man had been left standing in the road.
“What happened?” Panico asked.
“He pulled a gun,” Shea answered. “We stopped to question him about the taxi robbery, and he pulled a gun.”
Donohue bent over to examine the boy’s wound. Just then, Richard Gray, who could no longer stand the suspense of waiting in Kennedy’s car, joined the group.
“What happened?” he queried.
Before anyone could answer, Donohue stood up. “Come on,” he said to Shea. “Let’s take a walk.”
“Okay.”
“You too,” Donohue said, pointing to Scott.
The three men walked toward New York Boulevard, Scott in the middle, Shea and Donohue on either side.
“What happened?” Donohue asked.
“We found a stripped car and were on our way to the station house when we saw two guys,” Shea began. “They fit the description of the guys who pulled the taxi holdup, so we stopped them. I got out of the car, identified myself as a cop, and flashed my shield. Then the one who got shot said, ‘Fuck you, you’re not taking me,’ and both of them ran. I chased after them and the guy who said, ‘Fuck you,’ pulled a gun from inside his jacket and started to turn. I fired in self-defense.”
“Did you recover the gun?”
“No. As he was falling, he passed it to the other man. I stayed with the one who was shot. Walter chased after the second guy, but he got away.”
Donohue turned toward Scott. “Is that right?”
“Yes sir. I chased after him. But when we reached the burned-out garage in back of the lot, he fired a shot at me. I put my arm across my face and, when I took it down, he was gone.”
On Dillon Avenue behind the lot, a fourth patrol car arrived, its siren wailing and domed red light flashing. The driver, Al Farrell, was a large, red-faced Irishman who had been on the force for twenty years. Friendly and outgoing, he had worked in South Jamaica for more than a decade. At his side sat Thomas Scott, a sixteen-year veteran who had transferred to the 103rd Precinct one month earlier.
Looking up Dillon Street, Farrell saw a black man frantically waving his arms.
With no one else in sight, he stepped on the gas and pulled alongside.
The man was nearly incoherent. “Help! Help! Shooting! My son! My son!”
Both Farrell and Tom Scott got out of the car, guns drawn, and frisked him.
Scott found a nine-inch white metal wrench and removed it from the man’s pocket. “Help! My son! My son! Shooting!”
Neither cop could fully understand him. “Did your son shoot at you?” Scott finally asked.
“No, no, no, no! Backyard! My son! Help!”
Like a frightened dog, the man grabbed hold of Farrell’s arm and began tugging at his sleeve, trying to lead him toward the lot. Farrell pulled free and pointed toward the car. “Get in,” he ordered.
After flinging the door open, the man half flew into the back seat. Tom Scott slid in alongside him, and Farrell got behind the wheel. Quickly, he put the car in reverse and backed up two hundred feet along Dillon Street until he reached an entrance to the lot.
“What’s your name?” Scott asked.
“Armstead.”
On 112th Road, a fifth police car pulled to a halt by the southern edge of the lot. Its driver, Eddie Anderson, was a five-year veteran of the force. He was the first black man to respond to the scene. With him was John Higgins, twenty-five years old, three years as a cop. Higgins had ridden with Shea on three previous occasions.
After parking their car, Anderson and Higgins walked toward the center of the lot. Just as they arrived at the chain-link fence where Clifford Glover lay, Donohue returned with Shea and Walter Scott, and Armstead rushed into the lot with Tom Scott and Al Farrell.
“That’s my son,” Armstead cried, pointing to Clifford.
Shea looked up startled. “That’s the other guy. Where’s the gun?”
“He didn’t have one,” Farrell said.
“Did you toss him?”
“Yes.”
“Toss him again,” Shea demanded.
Farrell did as told. “There’s no gun,” he said.
Anderson stared down at the crumpled form of the boy lying on the opposite side of the fence. “Has anyone called an ambulance?”
“Yes,” someone told him.
“How long ago?”
“A couple of minutes.”
“Why don’t you take him to the hospital,” Kennedy interrupted.
The black cop nodded.
Kennedy bent over and scooped the boy up, holding one forearm under Clifford’s back and the other beneath his thighs. As he did, Walter Scott reached down and picked the floppy white hat off the ground where Shea had dropped it and placed it on the boy’s chest.
Clifford groaned, and Anderson turned away.
Kennedy handed the boy across the fence to Higgins, who carried him to the car. With Tom Scott helping, Higgins slid him across the back seat, and Eddie Anderson slipped in alongside. Higgins then climbed behind the wheel and began to drive toward Mary Immaculate Hospital.
The boy moaned.
“Hush,” Anderson told him, stroking his forehead. “You’ll be all right.”
Higgins radioed the hospital to have a doctor waiting.
Clifford squirmed and tried to sit up.
“Lie still,” Anderson ordered. “You’ll be all right.” He ran his hand down the boy’s cheek till it came to rest just above Clifford’s chest. Then, noticing which way the boy’s shirt was tearing, he turned toward Higgins. “He’s been shot in the back. He was shot in the back, and the bullet exited in front.”
The ride to the hospital took ten minutes. Clifford was bleeding badly. At the in-patient entrance, he was placed on a portable stretcher and wheeled to the emergency room with Higgins and Anderson by his side. Two nurses checked his pulse and blood pressure. Both were unrecordable. An attending physician made an incision in the right side of his chest and inserted an endotracheal tube to drain 2,500 cc of blood. At the same time, a transfusion was given and attempts at cardiac recuscitation began.
“It’s critical,” the doctor said. “The chances for survival are not good.”
Back in the lot, a dozen cops had gathered. Taking six of them aside, Sergeant Kennedy ordered a search for the gun. Fifteen minutes later, when no weapon had been found, he told his driver to radio the Department’s Emergency Services Squad for help. Then, after instructing that the area be secured, he ordered Farrell and Tom Scott to bring Armstead back to the station house and the remaining cops to resume patrol.
“All except you two,” Kennedy said, pointing to Shea and Walter Scott. “You’d better go back to the station house and wait.”
Both men nodded, retreated to Walter Scott’s car (which was parked on Dillon Street), and drove off alone. As he watched them disappear, Kennedy wondered for the first time why the car had been parked on Dillon if Armstead and Glover were apprehended on New York Boulevard.
Farrell and Tom Scott ushered Armstead into the back seat of their car and began driving toward the station house. Farrell was behind the wheel. Tom Scott was at Armstead’s side.
“Do you want to tell us what happened?” Farrell asked.
Armstead nodded.
“I was going to work. My boss told me to be in early to open up the shop, and I brought the boy. He always comes with me on Saturdays.”
“Where do you work?”
Armstead reached into his pocket and pulled out a card bearing the name Pilot Automotive Wrecking Company.
“I don’t remember the name so good, but this is the place.”
Farrell nodded.
“We was walking to work,” Armstead continued, “when a car pulled up and a man got out. He hollered, ‘You black son of a bitch,’ and I run. I had my pay from yesterday, and I thought he be going to rob me. Then he started shooting, and I fell by the fence with my boy. My pliers fell out of my pocket.”
“Forget about the pliers,” Farrell told him. “What happened next?”
“I run to Dillon Street, and a police car come by but it didn’t stop. Then you two come by and helped me.”
In the station house, Joseph Kossmann was breaking for a meal in the first-floor lieutenant’s office. Sitting at a desk wedged between four lockers and the wall, he was about to devour his sandwich when someone banged on the door. Kossmann looked up and Sergeant Robert Bennett rushed into the room.
“We have a shooting.”
“What kind?”
“A bad one. Tom Shea shot a suspect who’s been taken to Mary Immaculate Hospital.”
Leaving his sandwich behind, Kossmann hurried to the front desk in the reception area, where Shea and Walter Scott had just arrived. The time was 5:45 A.M.
“What happened?” Kossmann asked.
Shea repeated his story for the third time.
“Okay,” the Lieutenant told him. “You’d better fill out some forms.”
Then Kossmann retreated to his office, where, as a matter of course, he called Leonard Flanagan (the on-duty Captain for Queens) and advised him of the shooting. As he hung up, Farrell and Tom Scott arrived with Armstead.
“Take him into the roll-call room in back,” Kossmann ordered. “And stay with him.”
The two men did as told, instructing Armstead to sit in a metal frame chair by the vending machines. Moments later Walter Scott stuck his head into the room. “Keep an eye on him,” he warned. “That man’s my prisoner.”
“Yeah, right,” Farrell said.
In the reception area up front, Thomas Shea was completing a Firearm Discharge Report. After filling in his name, shield number, and the date, he came to the words “Describe the incident in detail.”
“Officer observed two m/n [male Negroes] who fit description of past armed robbery,” he wrote. “After officer IDed self, one m / n stated, ‘Fuck you, you’re not taking me,’ and started to flee into vacant lot. Officer pursued. At this point, same m/n took revolver from his pocket and attempted to turn in officer’s direction. I fired.”
Completing the form, Shea realized that there was blood on his hands and went to the lavatory to wash them. Simultaneously, Sergeant Donald Bromberg entered the station house and walked to the roll-call room, where Walter Scott had joined Farrell, Tom Scott, and Armstead.
A seven-year veteran of the force, Bromberg had been called to the lot shortly before 6:00 A.M. His half-hour search had revealed nothing but a pair of pliers embedded in the earth five feet from the chain-link fence. After surveying the scene, Bromberg decided to visit the station house and talk with the participants.
Approaching Walter Scott, he asked the now-familiar question: “What happened?”
“Who the hell are you?” Scott demanded.
“I’m Detective Sergeant Donald Bromberg assigned to the Fifteenth Burglary and Larceny Squad.”
“Good for you,” Scott told him. “I’m not answering any more questions until I see a lawyer.”
Bromberg began a slow boil.
“Look, stupid! I don’t know what went on out there, but your partner might be in a little trouble. Tell me what happened, and let’s get it over with.”
“I’m not saying anything,” Scott answered.
Walking from the room, he rejoined Shea, who had begun filling out arrest forms on Armstead and Glover.
Sergeant Kennedy walked by.
“What are the charges?” Kennedy asked.
“Attempted murder, possession of a dangerous weapon, and reckless endangerment,” Shea told him.
Kossmann appeared in the doorway. “Captain Flanagan is here. He’d like some details and wants to see you in Alveranga’s office.”
Wearily, Shea stood up, preparing to tell his story for the fourth time. “You too,” Kossmann told Scott.
“Okay, okay.”
Inside Alveranga’s office, Leonard Flanagan sat waiting. Normally assigned to the 108th Precinct, he was the on-duty Captain for the Borough of Queens on the morning of April 28, 1973. He had been a cop for twenty-eight years. As Shea and Scott entered the room, he stood to greet them, then asked, “What happened?”
Shea began. “My partner and I were on a late-night tour assigned to Anticrime. We had just found a stripped car and were on our way to the station house to report it when we saw two people who fit the description of the men who stole a cab earlier in the evening. Their clothes were the same. We made a U-turn and, when I got out to identify myself, one of them said, ‘Fuck you, you’re not taking me.’ Then they ran.”
Flanagan interrupted. “Where did you stop your car?”
“On New York Boulevard north of 112th Road.”
“Go on.”
“The men ran into the lot. Walter and I followed for a few steps, and then Walter ran back to the car and drove it around the corner to head them off. He stopped on 112th Road and came back into the lot.”
As Shea talked, Flanagan began to diagram the lot on a piece of paper. “Could you show me where you ran?”
Leaning forward, Shea took the pencil from the Captain’s hand and drew a straight line from New York Boulevard to the center of the lot.
“Go on,” Flanagan said.
“Just then, one of the suspects reached into his pocket and pulled out a gun. I fired three times. He passed the gun to the other suspect and fell. Then the second man fired a shot at Walter and got away.”
Flanagan turned toward Scott. “Did you see the suspect pull a gun and pass it to the other man after he was shot?”
“Yes sir.”
The Captain stared down at the makeshift map in front of him, then looked directly at Shea. “I don’t see how Patrolman Scott could have driven his car around to 112th Road, gotten out, and run back into the lot in time to see the shooting.”
There was a long silence.
“Well,” Shea said at last, “I didn’t draw the line exactly right. The two of them didn’t run straight. It was a zigzag chase, sort of a curve.”
“How did your car get to Dillon Street?” Another long pause.
“I drove it,” Scott volunteered. “After the second man took the gun, he fired a shot. I pegged one back, then ran back to the car and drove over to Dillon to head him off, but he got away.”
Flanagan looked down at his hands. “Do you know how old that boy was?”
Neither man answered.
“He was ten years old. Couldn’t you see he was a kid?”
“It was dark,” Shea mumbled. “He was wearing a white hat that shaded his face.”
“Let me see your gun.”
Just then Kossmann entered the room.
“Patrolman Anderson called from the hospital, sir. The boy is dead.”
* The 103rd Precinct was divided into several sectors for purposes of patrol. “Three Charlie” meant unit number three, assigned to Section C.