There were no windows to let in the sun. Only his watch told Thomas Shea that dawn had come. The cramps in his stomach were worse, but he refused to use the toilet. Motionless, he sat on the bunk in his cell.
A prison guard appeared and told him that bail had been posted. Wordlessly, Shea followed his captor down the hall to the reception area where Robert McKiernan stood waiting.
“I’m sorry it took so long,” the PBA President said. “It’s hard to find a bail bondsman who’s open on Sunday.”
Shea nodded his understanding. “I appreciate your being here. I’m pretty shook up.”
“Don’t worry,” McKiernan told him. “The PBA will stand behind you one hundred percent on this. If you’re railroaded, no cop in the city will be safe.”
They walked to McKiernan’s car, where, faceup on the front seat, page one of the Daily News screamed, in bold black headlines, BOY, 10, SLAIN BY PATROLMAN; COP IS CHARGED WITH MURDER. After tossing the paper aside, McKiernan drove to the 103rd Precinct station house. There Shea used the toilet and emptied the personal belongings from his locker.
“Can you get home all right?” McKiernan asked.
“No problem. My Volkswagen is parked across the street.”
“Okay. Try to get some sleep. We’ll take care of you. I promise.”
The ride home went slowly. Tired and numb, Shea had trouble keeping his eyes open. He hadn’t slept for forty hours. Passing through Brentwood, he turned off the main road onto a quiet residential street marked Gibson Avenue and slowed to a halt in front of a large brown-and-yellow house shaded by trees. As he exited from the car, his wife Bonnie rushed toward him.
“Get in the house,” Shea said, stopping her in her tracks.
“What?”
“Get inside. You don’t know what kind of nut might have come out here to get me.”
He draped an arm across her shoulders. “Come on, let’s go.”
They walked inside, where their two daughters (ages eleven and twelve) sat waiting.
“Art Monahan told me what happened,” Bonnie said. “The news-papers and television filled in the rest. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
“Has anyone been bothering you?”
“A couple of reporters came by and asked for pictures of the kids. I told them no.”
The telephone rang, and Shea picked up the receiver.
“This is Ace,” a voice said. “I’m gonna get your motherfuckin’ ass. You’re a dead man.”
“Anytime you want to try,” Shea snapped. “Just come on out.” Slamming the receiver down, he looked at Bonnie.
“Have there been many of those?”
“All morning,” she answered.
“We’ll get an unlisted number tomorrow. If the phone rings before then, I’ll answer it.”
Bonnie nodded, and Shea began stripping off his clothes. “Throw these out.”
“I can wash them,” she said.
“I don’t want to see them again. Throw them out.”
“Everything?”
“Everything but the shoes.”
Bonnie looked down at the pile on the floor. “I can wash them, really.”
“I’ll throw them out myself,” Shea said, gathering the clothes and crumpling them into a ball for deposit in the garbage.
“Do you want breakfast?”
“That would be good.”
While Shea showered, Bonnie made fried eggs, toast, coffee, and orange juice.
“Once you eat,” she told him, “you should get some sleep.”
Add Armstead stood on the porch of the small wood frame house at 109-50 New York Boulevard, accepting the condolences of neighbors and friends. Like Shea, he had cast aside his clothes of the previous day, vowing never to wear them again. Later, he would decide to save the three-quarter-length brown leather jacket because he could not afford a new one.
As Armstead spoke, several reporters took notes. “Clifford and me was close. I loved him like a son, and he called me Daddy. He wasn’t no angel, but he was coming around real good. He was a good boy.” Every so often, one of the newsman sought to coax a statement from Eloise Glover, who stood silently at Armstead’s side, her three children beside her.
Finally, she spoke.
“I never had nothing against the police, but they was wrong to shoot my boy. Clifford didn’t do nothing wrong. He never knowed what he was called for. There was no reason that boy had to be killed. They killed my boy in cold blood.”
One of the children began to cry, and Armstead bent down. “You ain’t going to bring him back by crying,” he admonished. “You just gotta keep going.”
Robert McKiernan sat behind the wheel of his car and rubbed his eyes. He had been without sleep for twenty-four hours, but several tasks still lay ahead.
Organized in 1844, the New York City Police Department is the oldest municipal peace-keeping force in the United States. To McKiernan’s knowledge, this was the first time a New York City cop had ever been summarily arrested for shooting a suspect. The procedure smacked of “politics.” If Shea had committed a crime, McKiernan felt, it was up to a grand jury to indict him. The Department had no business condemning one of its own men. And to call the shooting “murder” struck the PBA President as unconscionable. “Murder” connotes intent to kill. It is a wanton unspeakable offense. The charge against Shea represented “a threat to every cop in the City of New York.”
“It’s the Commissioner’s fault,” McKiernan told himself. “His job is to protect every one of his men until they’re proven guilty in a court of law.”
McKiernan planned to tell the Commissioner just that in a matter of minutes.
Sunday, April 29, was the day of the Department’s annual communion breakfast. Very shortly, the Commissioner would be addressing 2,000 New York City policemen. McKiernan planned to confront him on the dais and demand an explanation for Shea’s arrest.
Normally McKiernan was a quiet man. Born and brought up in New York, he had fought in the European theater during World War II, where he saw action in the Battle of the Bulge. Two years after joining the Police Department, he became involved in PBA politics and served as a precinct delegate for twenty years. Having been elected President of the PBA in 1972, he quickly earned a reputation for thoughtful, fairminded behavior. Indeed, some line cops had criticized him for being “too soft on the politicians and police brass.” Now, for one of the few times in his career, McKiernan’s gray eyes were blazing.
Unaware of McKiernan’s approach, Donald Cawley stood before 2,000 angry cops at the communion breakfast. The situation was volatile, and the neophyte Commissioner knew it. Within hours of Shea’s arrest, members of the 103rd Precinct had threatened to walk off the job. Only the determined all-night efforts of PBA Trustee Charlie Peterson and PBA Delegate Ron DeVito had stemmed the revolt. Again and again, Peterson had counseled, “Look, this will straighten out in the end. Thomas Shea will be fully exonerated and back in the precinct working alongside of you. Meanwhile, you’re professionals. Do your job.”
Grudgingly the cops had carried out their assignments. But across the city, dissent was spreading. Before dawn, fifty cops from other commands had arrived at the South Jamaica station house and begun to picket. In dozens of precincts, the incident was discussed on police radio frequencies in violation of Department regulations, which forbade “nonofficial” communications. Always the comments were the same:
“Shea was a cop doing his job in an area where a lot of people carry guns . . . Most shoot-outs last only a second or two. If a cop hesitates, he can be killed . . . Hey, that cop could have been me.”
Speaking on an unrelated subject from a prepared text, Cawley was all but drowned out by catcalls from the communion audience. Finally, he set aside his notes and, in an apparent about-face from the previous day, told his audience, “The charge of murder was wrong. I will have more to say on the subject later today. In the interim, I ask for responsible conduct from each of you. Thomas Shea will be treated fairly.”
Then, gathering his notes, the Commissioner left moments before McKiernan’s arrival. Several hours later, the following statement was broadcast to all New York City cops via police radio:
FROM THE OFFICE OF THE COMMISSIONER
As a result of the investigation into the killing of Clifford Glover, the District Attorney who conducted the investigation ordered the arrest of Police Officer Thomas Shea . . . It is with outrage that I heard the actions of the police officer described as “murder.” Murder clearly connotes a premeditated design to kill someone, and there is nothing in this investigation to my knowledge that substantiates such a characterization. I deplore and resent any suggestion that the dedicated police officers of this great department conscientiously abuse their sworn powers.
Martin Bracken arrived at work in mid-morning. As the Assistant District Attorney “on call” for the weekend, he was required to spend all day Sunday in the DA’s office, located in the Queens County Criminal Court Building.
The media reaction to Shea’s arrest troubled Bracken greatly. Both the New York Times and Daily News had carried front-page stories stating that it had been “ordered” by him. In truth, he had neither ordered nor performed the arrest. The cops had done both. Indeed, Bracken could not have “ordered” it even if he had wanted to. To effect an arrest, the District Attorney’s office must file a request with the Criminal Court, after which the court issues a bench warrant which is executed by the cops. All Bracken had done was announce the arrest to the press once it had taken place. “Someone has to tell them,” Louis Cottell had said. “Why don’t you do it?” Cognizant of his boss’s command to “do whatever the cops tell you to do,” Bracken had acceded to the request. Now he regretted his malleability.
Outside the courthouse, sixty cops under the leadership of PBA President Robert McKiernan were picketing in noisy protest. Dressed in the civilian clothes they had worn to the communion breakfast an hour earlier, they marched back and forth across the plaza, chanting slogans as a bevy of reporters and news cameramen looked on. Suddenly a car pulled up to the curb, and out stepped Frederick Ludwig, the Acting District Attorney for Queens County.
Ludwig’s position was precarious. Fifty-nine years old, a former police captain who had been known to black cops as “The U-Boat Commander” during his tenure on the force, he had received a law degree from St. John’s University and joined the Queens County District Attorney’s office as Chief Assistant to DA Thomas Mackell. When Mackell resigned in April 1973 after being indicted on charges of obstructing justice, Ludwig was elevated ex officio to the role of Acting DA pending the appointment of Mackell’s successor by New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller. Now, as Bracken listened in horror, the same man he had spoken with less than twenty-four hours earlier told the assembled crowd, “There was no need for the arrest of Thomas Shea. I never made this decision. I was not consulted by my assistants. Had I been notified, a different procedure would have been followed.
“Tomorrow,” Ludwig continued, “I will seek to reduce the charges against Shea. From what I know of the case, the grand jury will either refuse to indict or charge the police officer with negligent homicide. Within a day or two,” the Acting District Attorney closed, “I will make a decision about what to do with Martin Bracken, who handled the case. My decision could be to suspend or dismiss him.”
Moments later, Ludwig ascended the courthouse steps and instructed that Bracken be sent to his office. “Sit down,” he said when the young assistant appeared.
Bracken did as ordered.
“Young man,” Ludwig began, “you’ve caused quite a bit of trouble, and you might have to be fired. Perhaps it would be best for all concerned if you handed in your resignation.”
“That’s not fair,” Bracken answered quietly. “I didn’t order the arrest. You know that. Besides, I telephoned you yesterday, and you okayed everything that happened.”
Ludwig leaned back in his chair. “I recall no such conversation.”
Slowly Bracken felt his composure slipping. Somehow, the tables had to be turned. “Listen, you son of a bitch,” he snapped. “I called you. You okayed everything. And I can prove it. I taped our conversation yesterday. And if I get canned, I’m sending a copy to every newspaper in the city.”*
Ludwig blanched. Both men sat silent.
“We shall forget the matter,” the Acting District Attorney said at last. “I must have been tired when you called.”
“You weren’t tired,” Bracken shot back. “You were drunk.”
Patrolman Eddie Anderson disliked the morgue. He always had and always would. But police procedure required him to identify a body now lying in Manhattan as the person shot by Thomas Shea.
One day earlier, Anderson had cradled Clifford Glover’s head in his arms on the way to Mary Immaculate Hospital. Now the cop was alone, driving toward the office of the Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York at 520 First Avenue.
Anderson had been born in South Carolina and reared in Brooklyn. A good-looking, gentle man with a kind face and neatly cropped Afro, he joined the Police Department after several years with the United States Postal Service “because the city paid better.” Through four ghetto assignments, he had never fired his gun.
“You’re a cop,” Anderson told himself again and again as he drove toward Manhattan. “Be professional. Get hold of your emotions.”
Unaware of Anderson’s impending visit, Dr. Yong Myun Rho (New York City’s Deputy Chief Medical Examiner) had begun his daily work. His office was obligated by law to perform complete autopsies on all persons who died violent, accidental, or suspicious deaths. Two medical attendants placed the body of Clifford Glover on a stainless steel slab. Then, with several interns looking on, Rho began to cut, dictating to a stenographer as he probed the remains laid out on the table in front of him:
The body is that of a young Negro male child appearing the stated age of ten years, well-developed, well-nourished, measuring five feet one-half inch in length and weighing ninety-eight pounds. Rigidity is complete, and a faint lividity mottles the posterior aspects of the body. The head is covered by abundant, short, black kinky hair. The conjunctivae are pale. The corneae are cloudy. The irides are brown. The ears and nose are not remarkable. Natural teeth are present. A bullet wound is present on the back.
The entrance of the bullet wound is on the right side of the back just inside the lower angle of the scapula. It is a sharply outlined, circular hole surrounded by a narrow rim of excoriated skin measuring one-third inch in diameter. The track of this bullet wound is directed forward, upward and slightly to the left. The bullet has fractured the right seventh rib posterially and perforated the middle and upper lobe of the right lung. There is approximately two thousand cc. of blood in the right pleural cavity. The bullet then fractured the right first rib anteriorly. The right subclavian artery above this rib has been torn. The bullet finally exited the skin over the superior clavicular region at a point one inch to the right of the anterior midline.
As the autopsy continued, Rho studied the victim’s neck, cardiovascular system, respiratory tract, liver, spleen, urinary tract, genitalia, pancreas, gastrointestinal tract, head, and bone structure.
Midway through the examination, Eddie Anderson entered the morgue to identify the body.
“Brace yourself,” a medical attendant told him. “The autopsy isn’t complete. The boy has been opened up, but we haven’t had time to sew him back together again. All you can see are his insides and his face.”
Several hours later, accompanied by a neighbor, Eloise Glover journeyed by subway to the morgue. There she viewed the body of her son for the first time.
“I’m sorry,” Dr. Rho told her.
Without a sound, Mrs. Glover bent down and touched Clifford’s forehead. Then she went home. That night she gathered most of her boy’s belongings together and put them in a large carton so she wouldn’t have to look at them again. Among the possessions packed away was a composition that Clifford had written in school the previous Halloween:
What Am I?
They chose me from my brothers. “That’s the nicest one,” they said, and they carried me out a face and put a candle in my head, and sat me on the doorstep. Oh, the night was dark but, when they lit the candle, I smiled.
Clifford’s teacher had praised the composition as excellent. “Creative” was the word she had used. Clifford had been very proud.
Fingering the paper, Eloise Glover shook her head. She wished she could read better than she did. Maybe then she would have been able to understand what it was that Clifford had been saying.
* In fact, Bracken had not taped the telephone conversation.