As South Jamaica raged, an intensive police effort to find evidence justifying the death of Clifford Glover was under way.
Under the direction of Captain John Curran and Sergeant Clarence Reichman, teams of Emergency Services patrolmen combed the shooting site for spent bullets, bullet holes, or anything else that might substantiate Shea’s version of events. The searchers used rakes, shovels, metal detectors, and magnets. Hundreds of area residents were interviewed with regard to what they had seen or heard on the night of the shooting. To supplement their efforts, a team of detectives patrolled the vicinity of the lot for several days from 4:00 to 6:00 A.M. in the hope that passersby might have been present during the predawn hours of April 28, 1973.
No exculpatory evidence was found.
Every potentially helpful lead was followed.
Two days after the shooting, a forty-five-year-old man informed police that he had been robbed in South Jamaica by a boy who resembled Clifford Glover. The informant was interviewed by detectives from the 16th Division Homicide-Assault Squad. Under questioning, he admitted that the robbery (which had not been previously reported) was eighteen months old and had been perpetrated by a youth approximately five feet eight inches tall and fifteen years of age.
Patrolmen from the 103rd Precinct reviewed files at the Queens
County Narcotics Bureau in the hope of finding Add Armstead, Eloise Glover, or Clifford Glover mentioned as a suspect. When their efforts failed, they rechecked the files for references to two former boarders in the Glover home. Other policemen checked to ascertain whether Tony Minutello (Armstead’s boss) had an arrest record or might be linked to the sale of stolen automobile parts. Minutello was “clean.” An anonymous source telephoned the 103rd Precinct and reported that “the real Clifford Glover” had died three days after birth. The boy shot by Shea, the caller said, was a child who had been shipped to New York by a cousin of Eloise Glover “for welfare purposes.” Despite its irrelevance, the lead was pursued with negative results.
After a week of intensive investigation, only two pieces of potentially helpful evidence had been uncovered. And these were virtually useless.
On Sunday, April 29 (the day after the shooting), a retired policeman named Joseph McKeefery reported to police that he had found a plastic imitation pistol in a lot several blocks from the shooting site. A Good Humor salesman, who had been walking his dog at the time of his discovery, McKeefery told investigators that he had decided to stroll down New York Boulevard “after hearing about the Officer Shea incident.” The gun was vouchered at the 103rd Precinct station house, and McKeefery was thanked for his interest.
The second piece of evidence was more intriguing. On Monday, April 30, while draining a sewage catch basin on the northeast corner of Dillon Street and 112th Road, a three-man police team under the direction of Detective Henry Sephton found a metal starter’s pistol in a pile of dredged-up silt. But as ballistics experts quickly noted, the gun was incapable of firing live ammunition. And in any event, it had been found in a sewer directly opposite the direction in which Armstead had fled according to Shea’s own testimony.
“Keep trying,” PBA Trustee Charlie Peterson urged when informed of the negative results. “There has to be something out there that will substantiate Shea’s story.”
However, as dozens of policemen worked on Thomas Shea’s behalf, a second, very different investigation was unfolding.
On Tuesday, May 1, Albert Gaudelli (Chief of the Queens County Homicide Bureau) returned to the District Attorney’s office from a ten-day Caribbean vacation. Born and raised in Queens, a graduate of Manhattan College and New York Law School, Gaudelli had joined the DA’s office in 1968 in the belief that it would be the quickest route to trial experience. Married, the father of three infant children, short and pudgy with a large nose bent slightly to the right, he wore gold-rimmed glasses and sported a thick black mustache. His hairline had receded prematurely, leaving him almost completely bald save for a thick fringe of curly black hair around the edges of his cranium.
At age thirty-four, Gaudelli was both committed to his job and politically ambitious. Newsworthy cases seldom escaped his notice. His first act upon returning to work and learning of the case was to telephone John Guido.
Short and stocky with thinning gray hair, Guido had been on the police force since 1946. A decent man, he also happened to be one of the most hated cops in New York. Since 1972, Guido had been Commanding Officer of the New York City Police Department’s Internal Affairs Division, the sole function of which was to investigate allegations of police misconduct. In the wake of the Knapp Commission hearings on police corruption, the number of cops assigned to Internal Affairs had grown to more than two hundred.
“I need your help,” Gaudelli told Guido three days after the shooting. “I can’t let regular cops from the 103rd Precinct handle this case for several reasons. One, it wouldn’t be fair to turn them loose on a brother officer who’s their friend. Two, no matter what happens, they’ll be accused of covering up. And three,” Gaudelli paused, “the charge of covering up might not be so far from the truth.”
As he had done with so many other “dirty” cases, Guido accepted the task. The following day, he placed two subordinates, James Skennian and Mark Frances, in charge of the investigation.
Born and brought up in the Bronx, fifty-seven years old, Skennian had been a cop for twenty-seven years. Before joining Internal Affairs, he had commanded the city’s 1st Division Homicide Unit, where he served as point man in the Department’s investigation of the murder of mobster Joey Gallo.
Frances was eleven years Skennian’s junior but had served on the force since 1947. Tall and heavyset with black hair and brown eyes, he was among the most relentless and intense investigators on Guido’s staff.
“Mark Frances is like a meat grinder,” a colleague once said. “He’s a machine.”
Guido assigned Skennian to the case because the former homicide commander “knew about murder.” He chose Frances because “Mark was a particularly aggressive investigator.” Together, the three men conducted one of the most thorough investigations in the history of Internal Affairs.
“Technically,” Gaudelli remembers, “Frances was the junior man on the case. But in reality, it was his baby. He was all over the place.”
Frances was driven by his belief that Shea and Scott were lying. To prove it, he toiled like a man possessed. Working nonstop ten-hour days, he gathered every scrap of information on the two men that existed within the Department. He broke down Shea’s arrest record by race and interviewed the black suspects. Each of Shea’s past partners was questioned with regard to racial incidents they might have witnessed. Every bar in South Jamaica was checked to determine whether Shea or Scott had been drinking on the night of the shooting. Tapes of police radio transmissions on the morning of April 28, 1973, were transcribed and evaluated.
Next, Francis interviewed the police witnesses who had spoken with Shea on the day of the shooting.
“Don’t you think it’s a little strange,” Frances asked Sergeant Joseph Kennedy, “that Clifford Glover was shot square in the back?”
“I’m not here to analyze what happened,” Kennedy answered. “I can only tell you the facts as I heard them.”
“Do you really believe that Walter Scott could have driven around the block and run into the lot in time to see the shooting?”
Kennedy repeated his response, which was hardly surprising. Frances had expected little or no cooperation from Shea’s brethren.
“Let’s face it,” he told Gaudelli later in the investigation. “Right or wrong, most cops in this city identify with Shea. At the time of the shooting, he wasn’t drunk. He was on duty. He was a cop trying to do his job.”
One week after the shooting, accompanied by eleven men from Emergency Services, Francis, Guido, and Skennian surveyed the increasingly infamous lot. Three days later they returned with Add Armstead and asked him to retrace the route he had taken on the day of the shooting. Then, keeping in mind the revolver that had been recovered at the Pilot Automotive Wrecking Company, Frances instructed Armstead to run from the lot to Pilot, enter the shop, go to the shelf where the gun had been kept, and run back to the spot on Dillon Street by the lot where he had flagged down the passing police cars. Armstead complied, and Frances ran beside him with a stopwatch in his hand. Midway through the experiment, Armstead collapsed from an attack of asthma and was unable to continue.
On the morning of May 15, 1973, Frances, Guido, and Skennian returned to the lot again. This time, they came with a videotaping crew and ten additional cops.
As the cameras turned, four men playing the roles of Add Armstead, Clifford Glover, Walter Scott, and Thomas Shea reenacted the Shea-Scott version of the shooting.
One patrolman, playing the role of Walter Scott, drove his car 240 feet down New York Boulevard and 100 feet up 112th Road, while Frances, imitating Shea, chased two suspects 150 feet into the lot. The first cop then jumped from his car and rushed 130 feet to a point near the chain-link fence where the shooting had occurred.
“It just doesn’t work,” Frances said when the re-creation was complete. “There’s no way Scott could have seen the shooting.”
“Scott couldn’t have seen the shooting!”
It was one thing to make that statement and another to prove it. The latter was the task of the Queens County District Attorney’s Office, which, politely speaking, was in a “state of transition.”
Frederick Ludwig had instructed Gaudelli to move slowly on the case until a clear public consensus emerged. Meanwhile, black community leaders were clamoring for the appointment of a special prosecutor. And fed up with Ludwig’s handling of the matter, PBA President Robert McKiernan had wired Governor Nelson Rockefeller, suggesting that the Acting DA be removed from office.
On May 9, Rockefeller responded by announcing the appointment of New York attorney Michael Armstrong as the new Queens County District Attorney.
Born in Manhattan, educated at Yale College and Harvard Law School, the forty-one-year-old Armstrong was a perfect choice. As an Assistant United States Attorney, he had been a first-rate prosecutor. Five years of private practice on Wall Street had endowed him with a reputation as a topflight legal mind. But Armstrong’s most important credential was his two-year tenure as Chief Counsel to the Knapp Commission investigating charges of police corruption.
“I like cops,” Armstrong once said. “There are very few things I’d rather do than sit down in a bar and have a drink with one.”
But the fact remained that, when warranted, Armstrong could be tough on cops. And the media knew it. Behind his light blue eyes, brown hair, and Tom Sawyer appeal was a man of integrity and iron resolve.
Taking command, Armstrong found the Queens County DA’s office in chaos. “Most prosecutor’s offices are underfinanced and understaffed,” he told a colleague. “But things here are ridiculous.”
As Armstrong saw it, the root of the problem was that, under Thomas Mackell, staff members had been poorly selected and badly trained. Political affiliation had outweighed merit in the hiring process. Novice assistant DAs had been sent into court with inadequate supervision.
The statistics told the story. Throughout New York City, two-thirds of all persons actually tried on felony charges are convicted. In Queens, the total for 1972-1973 was hovering near 50 percent. Worse, in cases where felony charges had been reduced to misdemeanors, the conviction percentage in Queens stood at 29.7. This is in a county where most jurors were thought to be “law-and-order types” with a tendency to convict.
To counteract these deficiencies, Armstrong established a hiring review board whose members were forbidden to inquire into an applicant’s political preference.
Training seminars were set up for the office staff. But most significantly, Armstrong moved quickly to import or elevate capable attorneys to high-level positions. Two of these personnel changes were to have a direct bearing on the case of Thomas Shea.
As his first act in office, Armstrong asked John Keenan (Chief of Homicide in the Manhattan DA’s office) to become his Chief Assistant. Born in New York, a graduate of Fordham Law School, the forty-three-year-old Keenan had been a prosecutor for sev-enteen years. He was, in Armstrong’s words, “the best prosecuting attorney I’ve ever known.”
Next, Armstrong elevated Joan Carey (a thirty-three-year-old Assistant District Attorney) to the post of Deputy Chief of Homicide. Tall and slender with shoulder-length blond hair, perfect teeth, and a nose like Candice Bergen’s, Carey had graduated from New York Law School in 1968 and been hired by Mackell the following year. Aware of her status as a “token woman,” she had nonetheless persevered and won respect from the office’s seventy male lawyers as a first-rate attorney.*
As Armstrong took control of the District Attorney’s office, the grand jury probe into Clifford Glover’s death was already under way.
In truth, Shea’s arrest had been a largely symbolic act. Further prosecution of the case hinged on the willingness of the grand jury to indict. Starting on May 2 under the direction of Albert Gaudelli and his assistant, Alan Parente, the grand jurors heard evidence in the case. One by one, witnesses told their version of events. On May 17, Parente escorted the jurors to the lot to enable them to place the testimony in better perspective. Slowly, the evidence was accumulating. But the crucial question remained, “What will the District Attorney’s office ask the grand jury to do?” Without pressure from above, it was unlikely that the grand jury would indict.
As Gaudelli and Parente formally presented the case, the task of gathering facts for a final recommendation by Armstrong and his staff fell largely to Joan Carey. Escorted on various occasions by John Keenan, Harold Cannon, and Mark Frances, she interviewed dozens of witnesses and visited the lot ten times.
Meanwhile, Internal Affairs continued its probe. The gun found by Add Armstead under the seat of an abandoned car and kept by him at the Pilot Automotive Wrecking Company was traced to a South Carolina employee of the United States Bureau of Sports and Wildlife, who said that it had been stolen from the glove compartment of his car several years earlier. On May 11, 1973, Detective Nat Laurendi of the New York County DA’s Squad administered a polygraph examination to Armstead. Four key questions were asked: (1) Did you have possession of a gun when you left for work on Saturday morning, April 28, 1973? (2) Did one of the policemen call you a black son of a bitch? (3) Did Clifford Glover pass you a gun at any time that morning? (4) Were you going to work at the time of the shooting?
Armstead’s answers were consistent with his earlier statements. Laurendi reported that, in his professional opinion, the witness was telling the truth. The results were not surprising. Prior to the police-administered examination, Gaudelli had secretly brought Armstead to a private lie-detection expert for similar questioning—just in case.
Searching for every possible clue, Michael Armstrong and his staff studied transcripts of the April 28, 1973, police radio transmissions and station-house interviews. Grand jury testimony was analyzed and evaluated. Finally, Armstrong, Keenan, Carey, Gaudelli, and Tom Duffy (the newly appointed head of the DA’s Appeals Bureau) caucused on a final recommendation.
Community pressure for a murder indictment was enormous. Shortly after Armstrong had taken office, a group of black businessmen and elected officials had visited him to urge that Shea be dealt with harshly.
“Remember,” one of the men warned. “Your appointment as District Attorney runs out in December. We’ll be around for the fall election.”
“That’s nice,” Armstrong responded. “But I won’t be. I’ve already notified the four major parties that I won’t be a candidate. I’m here to clean up the mess that’s been left behind; that’s all. This case will be prosecuted like every other. I’m not about to indict some cop for murder just to placate the black community.”
Against this backdrop, the deliberations progressed. Several factors weighed in Shea’s favor. The shooting had not been a cold-blooded, premeditated act. Shea hadn’t been cruising the streets of South Jamaica at five o’clock in the morning, looking for someone innocent to kill. The clothing worn by Armstead and Glover resembled that worn by the taxi robbers. Also, contrary to Armstead’s testimony, Armstrong and his staff considered it highly unlikely that Shea had exited from the car and fired his gun before the suspects ran.
However, these points were relatively minor compared with the evidence against Shea. Walter Scott’s claim of having witnessed the shooting and gun transfer was implausible. Rather than act like a guilty man, Armstead had flagged down the first police car he saw following the incident. Shea had several other questionable incidents on his record. And most important, Clifford Glover had been shot square in the back.
“Forget about Scott,” Armstrong summed up. “Forget about Shea’s past shootings. Forget about Add Armstead. That boy was shot in the back while he was running away. Shea engaged in the all-too-common police practice of shooting a fleeing black suspect from behind. If he had killed a crook, he probably would have been awarded a merit citation. But it turned out to be a ten-year-old boy. He broke the law and, if we make an example of him, it will deter other policemen from doing the same thing. Under the New York State Penal Code,” Armstrong concluded, “Shea can be charged with murder or manslaughter. We have to decide which one.”
As the District Attorney’s office continued to deliberate, the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association augmented its support for Thomas Shea. On Tuesday, May 8, at the PBA’s monthly meeting, President Robert McKiernan addressed the 350-member delegate body.
“We have a good legal program,” McKiernan said. “Anytime a policeman is arrested for conduct in the line of duty, we handle the defense. Normally our legal staff is equal to the task, but this is a special case. Never before in the history of New York has a cop been arrested for murder.**
“Jim Cahill is a good lawyer,” McKiernan continued. “But because of the importance of this case, he has suggested that we go outside the PBA and retain expert counsel. A motion has been made that the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association authorize retention of an attorney to represent Thomas Shea. The cost will run somewhere in the neighborhood of ten thousand dollars. I ask each of you to do for Thomas Shea what you would want done for yourself under similar circumstances.”
The motion carried unanimously. Several days later, a forty-eight-year-old trial lawyer named Jacob Robert Evseroff was retained as counsel.
Tall, good-looking with a full head of black hair graying at the temples, Jack Evseroff had learned his trade as an Assistant District Attorney in Brooklyn. With ten years’ experience as a prosecutor and twelve in private practice, he was an acknowledged master. Whatever the occasion, his mood was proper. Depending on the requisites of a given case and jury, he could be flamboyant, hard-hitting, deferential, mean, or utterly charming.
“Jack Evseroff has lots of polish,” one colleague said. “But it’s been put on over a very hard exterior. When he hits, it’s like being whacked on the head with a block of shiny marble.”
Fast on his feet, blessed with a reddish complexion that gave him a perpetually healthy look, Evseroff somehow also managed to look Irish. “Jewish smarts and Irish charm,” one cop noted. “It’s an unbeatable combination.”
Evseroff’s clients had run the gamut. Early in his career, he represented a six-foot six-inch Black Muslim who appeared in court dressed in a black cap and flowing gown to defend against a charge of narcotics possession. Mobster Joseph Colombo and Colombo’s reputed successor, Vincent Aloi, were also clients, as was basketball fixer Jack Molinas. But Evseroff had made his reputation by defending cops.
On April 19, 1971, distraught over the breakup of his marriage, a policeman named Jack Guarino wrote a suicide note before killing his wife: “Bury us together. We had a Camelot. It’s got to end as Camelot did in destruction.” Guarino, by his own admission, then shot his wife six times on a public street, reloaded, fired five shots into a witness, carried his wife’s body to their car, drove home, placed the corpse on a bed, and went to sleep beside it. An all-male jury returned a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity after an impassioned defense by Evseroff.
Peter Droner was a retired police sergeant. On an evening walk through Times Square, he became embroiled in an argument with a street peddler and kicked aside the man’s wares. When the peddler retaliated with his fists, Droner pulled a gun and fired three shots, killing the man instantly. After four hours’ deliberation, a jury found Droner not guilty.
Time after time, Evseroff had successfully defended policemen accused of wrongdoing. But in none of his cases had he represented a client as notorious as Thomas Shea. And none of his previous clients had killed a ten-year-old boy.
In the second week of May, Evseroff and Shea met for the first time. In truth, the attorney was less concerned with his client’s problems than with his own. Several months earlier, Evseroff’s second wife had left him, taking his two sons to Florida. Since then, by his own admission, the attorney had “lived on martinis and Valium.” Then, on the night of Friday, April 27 (hours before Clifford Glover was shot), Evseroff returned home from work and was met by armed robbers, who ransacked his house and left him bound with wire, stuffed in a closet.
Now, in a strange way, Jacob Robert Evseroff and Thomas Shea represented salvation for each other. Shea’s plight gave Evseroff a much-needed mission, something to work for. And Evseroff promised Shea a defense.
“My name is Jack Evseroff,” the attorney said when the two men were introduced. “My father immigrated to the United States from Russia. I fought in Europe during World War II. I’ve been a criminal lawyer for twenty-two years. I want you to tell me about the case, and then we’ll decide whether we like each other enough to work together.”
“What do you want to know?” Shea asked.
“Why don’t you tell me a little about yourself.”
“There’s not much to tell,” Shea answered. “I’m a cop. I’ve been on the force for twelve years. Once, I thought I might want to be a sergeant or a lieutenant, but you have to pass a written exam for promotion. Some people have the ability to take tests; others don’t. I don’t.”
“Are you married?”
“Yes.”
“Children?”
“Two daughters.”
The two men spoke for several hours. At day’s end, a bargain was struck.
“I’d like to represent you if you’ll have me,” Evseroff said.
“I’d rather have you than F. Lee Bailey,” Shea answered.
On the afternoon of June 12, 1973, the inevitable occurred. Evseroff received a telephone call from John Keenan, Chief Assistant to the Queens County District Attorney.
“I understand that you represent Thomas Shea,” Keenan said. “Michael Armstrong and I would appreciate it if you could drop by our office later today.”
Evseroff went quickly, alone. Armstrong and Keenan spoke with him briefly.
“The grand jury has returned an indictment against your client,” Armstrong said. “There will be an arraignment tomorrow. Obviously the press will be out in full force. We have an extremely volatile situation in South Jamaica, and I’d like to avoid a scene which might anger the community or the cops. We think the best way to accomplish this is to see that the case is accurately reported. Towards that end, we’re planning a press conference for tomorrow. It will be short and to the point. I’m hoping you’ll limit any statement you make to the facts. If we don’t all cooperate to keep this professional, there’s no telling what might happen.”
“What’s the charge?” Evseroff asked.
“Murder.”
At noon on June 13, 1973, Michael Armstrong announced the indictment of Patrolman Thomas Shea on a charge of murder.
“This case,” the District Attorney pledged after reading the indictment, “will be decided in the courts, not in the press or on the streets. Anyone interested should understand that it’s going to be tried in court. It will not be helpful for anyone, no matter whom, to try to bring pressures to bear, because this can only harm a fair adjudication.”
“What about Shea’s partner?” a reporter asked.
Since the day following the shooting, Walter Scott had been assigned to clerical duty at Queens Borough Headquarters.
“Walter Scott has not been indicted,” Armstrong answered. “However, he is suspended from the force as of noon today.”
As Armstrong answered questions, Shea moved to the arraignment part of the Queens County Supreme Court Building, where he pleaded “not guilty” to the charge of murder. Then, with Evseroff at his side, the patrolman headed for a side door.
“Wait a minute,” Evseroff challenged. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Out the back,” Shea told him. “There are a million reporters on the courthouse steps.”
“That’s right,” Evseroff said. “And you’re going to show them all right now that you don’t have horns. Those photographers want a picture, and they’ll get it one way or another. You can be on the front page of the Daily News with your hand over your face looking like a thug, or you can walk out front, hold your head high, and let people see you’re a human being.”
“Okay,” Shea said. “You win.”
Slowly, the two men pushed their way through the throng on the courthouse steps.
“Mr. Evseroff,” a reporter asked. “What do you think of the way the District Attorney’s office has handled the case?”
“I have every confidence that Mr. Armstrong and the people of Queens will give us a fair trial.”
“Do you think your client will receive special treatment because he’s a cop?”
“All we seek is a fair trial, free of political pressure or racial bias.”
“That’s what you say,” another reporter pressed. “But isn’t this really a racial case?”
“Mister,” Evseroff shot back, “it’s only a racial case if people like you make it one.”
“But isn’t it true that, if this incident had occurred in Scarsdale, there wouldn’t have been any shooting?”
“If this incident had occurred in Scarsdale, the boy wouldn’t have had a gun.”
Reaching the edge of the crowd, Evseroff and Shea climbed into a PBA car and disappeared down Queens Boulevard. Their primary source of news gone, the reporters rushed to the home of Add Armstead and Eloise Glover. Armstead was at work, but Mrs. Glover was there to meet them.
“I just want justice to be done,” she said. “I feel the grand jury did the right thing by indicting him. My son was innocent. He was shot down in the street. I don’t feel strong anymore,” Mrs. Glover added. “My son’s gone, and I miss him.”
* John Keenan later became Special Prosecutor for the State of New York and, following that, Chairman of New York City’s Off-Track Betting Corporation. Joan Carey became a judge of the Criminal Court in Queens.
** Fourteen months after the death of Clifford Glover, it was discovered that in 1924 a policeman named Robert McAllister had been indicted and tried for murder in the killing of an unarmed suspect. Acquitted after twenty-three minutes of jury deliberation, McAllister was subsequently promoted to the rank of Deputy Inspector. However, during the time the Shea case remained active, neither the media nor any of the participants were aware of the McAllister matter.