Without Fear or Favor

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

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  To those blessings in my life:

  Patti, Rachael, Roger, Billy, and my brother, Bill

  and

  To the loving Memory of Reina Tanenbaum, my sister,

  Truly an angel

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  To my legendary mentors, District Attorney Frank S. Hogan and Henry Robbins, both of whom were larger in life than in their well-deserved and hard-earned legends, everlasting gratitude and respect; to my special friends and brilliant tutors at the Manhattan DAO, Bob Lehner, Mel Glass, and John Keenan, three of the best who ever served and whose passion for justice was unequaled and uncompromising, my heartfelt appreciation, respect, and gratitude; to Professor Robert Cole and Professor Jesse Choper, who at Boalt Hall challenged, stimulated, and focused the passions of my mind to problem-solve and to do justice; to Steve Jackson, an extraordinarily talented and gifted scrivener whose genius flows throughout the manuscript and whose contribution to it cannot be overstated, a dear friend for whom I have the utmost respect; to Louise Burke, my publisher, whose enthusiastic support, savvy, and encyclopedic smarts qualify her as my first pick in a game of three-on-three in the Avenue P park in Brooklyn; to Wendy Walker, my talented, highly skilled, and insightful editor, many thanks for all that you do; to Sarah Wright and Cynthia Merman, the inimitable twosome whose adult supervision, oversight, brilliant copyediting, and rapid responses are invaluable and profoundly appreciated; to my agents, Mike Hamilburg and Bob Diforio, who in exemplary fashion have always represented my best interests; to Coach Paul Ryan, who personified “American Exceptionalism” and mentored me in its finest virtues; to my esteemed special friend and confidant Richard A. Sprague, who has always challenged, debated, and inspired me in the pursuit of fulfilling the reality of “American Exceptionalism”; and to Rene Herrerias, my coach at Cal, who believed in me early on and in so doing changed my life, truly a divine intervention.

  PROLOGUE

  TELEVISION CORRESPONDENT PETE VANSAND GROANED as his driver turned onto Centre Street and they saw the seething crowd in front of the Criminal Courts Building. Both sides of the street swarmed with agitated people, as if someone had stirred up an ants’ nest in Lower Manhattan. Everywhere he looked, people were shouting—some actually shrieking in their excitement—adding to a cacophony of outraged honking as yellow cabs, delivery trucks, and passenger cars tried to navigate around pedestrians who darted back and forth across the street.

  The angriest and loudest voice blared from the small grassy park opposite the massive gray edifice. A short, cadaverous-looking black man on a bullhorn urged the crowd. “What do we want?” He cupped his ear to hear the response.

  “JUSTICE!” the crowd screamed.

  “When do we want it?”

  “NOW!”

  On the sidewalk in front of the building, a cordon of black-uniformed riot police in helmets and carrying clear polycarbonate shields stood shoulder to shoulder in a large semicircle. Their job was to keep the mass of amped-up demonstrators and curious onlookers a safe distance away from a bevy of microphones that news crews had arranged at the top of a small flight of stairs leading to the entrance. More officers, in both uniforms and plainclothes, patrolled the sidewalk outside the human barrier, on alert for danger.

  “Jesucristo!” swore Vansand’s driver, Julio Escobar, who doubled as his cameraman. “Going to be hell to park, and I got to carry that heavy-ass camera. Looks like the freakin’ circus is in town, man.”

  “More like somebody left the doors open on the Bellevue psych ward and the inmates got out,” Vansand muttered.

  “Good for ratings.” Escobar shrugged with a sigh.

  “Not for us if we don’t get set up in time.”

  “I’m not the idiot who sent us on that fluff story to Coney Island.”

  “Stupid news director,” Vansand agreed. He was growing more agitated as traffic slowed to a crawl.

  “WHAT DO WE WANT?” the speaker bellowed.

  “JUSTICE!” the crowd screeched.

  Even with the windows of the van rolled up to keep out the oppressive summer heat, Vansand recognized the strident baritone of the man on the megaphone as that of Reverend Hussein “Skip” Mufti, an “activist” Baptist minister from Harlem known more for his inflammatory politics than his work in any church. The journalist scowled. He thought he had an “understanding” with the reverend for exclusivity on interviews, but Mufti had been enjoying the current crisis by eagerly accepting every invitation from the national news shows that had flocked to Gotham. He’ll come crawling when the big dogs are gone and I’ve got the best soapbox in town, Vansand thought. Ol’ Hussein likes his expensive dinners and bottles of wine on the station’s credit card, but he’s going to have to do some serious ass kissing to get back on my good side.

  Vansand checked his Rolex. It was five minutes until two o’clock, when New York County District Attorney Roger “Butch” Karp was due to announce his decision on whether to charge an NYPD officer for shooting an unarmed black teenager a month earlier. And Karp was known for being on time. The district attorney was also known for his dislike of press conferences and the media in general. But he’d had little choice this time. The streets had been roiling ever since the shooting. A young Asian police officer, Bryce Kim, claimed that the teenager, Ricky Watts, surprised him on the stairway of a tenement in Harlem and fired a gun at him. Kim shot the teen, who had then staggered down four flights of stairs before collapsing and dying outside the building.

  According to Vansand’s sources at the NYPD, there was little hard evidence that a shot had been fired at the officer. No gun had been found on the teenager, nor had the crime scene investigators found a bullet or shell casing from any gun other than the officer’s. Only the officer’s partner and one elderly woman reported hearing two shots. A number of other witnesses, however, had come forward contending they’d heard only a single shot. Even before the shooting, the city was tighter than a 42nd Street hooker’s skirt. A week earlier, a police officer had been executed at a park in Harlem by members of a group calling itself the Nat Turner Revolutionary Brigade. That was when Vansand got his first call from someone who called himself “Nat X,” who then met with him in an abandoned building in Harlem and allowed his film crew to record his statement “as the founder of the Brigade.” Wearing a handkerchief to hide his face, and disguising his voice, the self-described revolutionary had declared that the shooting was “a justified act in the war between the police and the black community.”

  Needless to say, the police were on edge after that and so was the community. So when Ricky Watts was shot by Officer Kim, the scene at the shooting had threatened to explode into chaos. Agitators who arrived even before the ambulance had accused the police of, in the words of Mufti, “a revenge assassination of an unarmed and innocent young black male” in retribution for the cop’s murder. It didn’t help that the police who responded shortly afterward were looking to knock heads. Only the professionalism of their sergeants and commanders kept more violence from erupting.

  However, since then, several “peaceful” demonstrations organized by Mufti and others under the banner of the Black Justice Now movement had devolved into riots that included burned police cars and looted businesses, a
s well as assaults against police officers, the media, and onlookers. Mufti publicly decried the violence and called for restraint, but always with the caveat—when the television cameras were rolling—that ultimately the police were to blame for “waging war on young black men.”

  A week before today’s press conference, the New York City Council—of which Mufti was a member—passed a resolution urging Karp to “act with alacrity to right a terrible wrong that caused an innocent young man’s senseless death and restore the public’s trust in the New York Police Department and District Attorney’s Office.” Karp had responded through his spokesman that the “officer-involved shooting” was still being investigated and that no charges would be filed “unless and until the evidence warrants it, and a grand jury has returned an indictment.” The statement, or more accurately Mufti’s denouncement of the statement, set off another round of violent protests.

  The national media, sensing a story that fit their narrative of out-of-control, racist police officers gunning down innocent black men, flocked to Gotham, and Mufti seized the moment. He’d shrugged off his gentleman’s agreement with Vansand and latched on to and further sensationalized the massive media circus response. Making the rounds, he’d complained that Karp was stalling for time so as “not to anger his friends in the New York Police Department, who want this to all blow over.”

  Others in the Black Justice Now group had used even less restraint and accused the district attorney of plotting a cover-up with the NYPD brass. Nat X had arranged another interview with Vansand. “The oppressors of the white state have carried out an open season of murder against black men. Therefore, they, and anyone who supports them, white or black, are legitimate targets of the Nat Turner Revolutionary Brigade.”

  As if that wasn’t enough, three police officers, including a lieutenant, had been arrested and charged with murdering one of Mufti’s colleagues, Imani Sefu, and the attempted murder of Mufti himself. The reverend’s clout with activists and the media nationwide had skyrocketed, and he was enjoying every minute of his near martyrdom.

  Vansand knew Karp was stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Even though he’d moved swiftly to indict the officers, Mufti and others had been even quicker to exploit the accusations as proof that the system was racist and corrupt. And no matter what decision Karp reached regarding the Ricky Watts case, one side or the other was not going to like it, and the city would be rocked with violence and, perhaps, the further spilling of blood. But Vansand also saw it as a much-needed personal opportunity.

  Graduating college with a television journalism degree some twenty-five years ago, Vansand, whose real last name was Potts, had been tall and handsome in that innocuous television sameness, with a pleasant voice. He landed a job working as a weatherman for a station in Des Moines. Popular with female viewers, he’d worked his way up from weatherman to weekend anchor to the daily evening news anchor, and he even won a regional Emmy for coverage of a tornado that had wiped out a small farm town. The actual reporting had been done by others, and he’d just supplied the face and voice for the script. But it was enough to get the attention of RealNews, one of the big network television newsmagazines.

  RealNews had made him a star on the national scene, where he’d become known for his “ambush” journalism and willingness to slant stories in whichever direction he perceived would give him the best ratings. But that was all in the past. He’d fallen prey to the ravages of age, which moved at an accelerated pace in the TV news business. Seemingly overnight, he developed a paunch around his midsection and a wattle beneath his once firm chin that along with the puffiness under his eyes had resisted the best efforts of a plastic surgeon.

  Two years earlier, RealNews had let him go with a retirement party and the Rolex, which reminded him daily of when he’d commanded that kind of money and prestige. He missed both, though he landed what most television desk jockeys would have considered a prime job with a New York City station. The owners hoped his name and former national prominence would result in better ratings, even if he was getting a little long in the tooth. They’d created the “Vansand Action Team” that consisted mostly of himself and Escobar and dispatched him for “special reports” that ranged from hard news to that day’s hot-dog-eating contest at Nathan’s in Coney Island.

  He dreamed of the story that would get him back to the big time, where he could then fade gracefully to television news dotage. Like they do at 60 Minutes, he thought ruefully but with some hope. He firmly believed that could happen, now that the story was New York City on the brink of the worst riots since Los Angeles exploded in 1992 after the Rodney King decision. He knew he wouldn’t be able to keep it all to himself; it was getting too big, and the national media, including RealNews, had more resources and time to devote to it. But he was determined to do whatever it took to stay out in front.

  Although he’d been disappointed that Reverend Mufti had been about as loyal as a prostitute at a Shriner convention, it was no great surprise. But Vansand had something the other news teams didn’t: Nat X. Several times since the Ricky Watts shooting he’d called in advance to tell Vansand and Escobar where to position themselves for the best footage of the scripted violence that erupted during the protest marches. Just that morning, Nat X had told him that “something big is going to go down at Karp’s press conference.”

  “Like what?” Vansand had asked, thrilled at the insider information.

  “Ain’t going to tell you, my man,” Nat X replied. “Can’t trust no white man with that kind of information. But I got it set up for you. Make sure you take Oliver with you and keep the camera rolling on him.”

  Vansand had frowned. Oliver Gray was his intern, a young black journalism student at NYU whom Nat X had asked Vansand to take under his wing a week earlier. “He’s the cousin of a friend of the female variety,” Nat X had said, “if you know what I mean. She’s going to be grateful, I mean really grateful, if you do this for me. He’ll act as a middleman between me and you, too.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” Vansand had responded. “I don’t have an intern budgeted and I don’t know if the station . . .”

  “Figure it out, Pete,” Nat X told him. Then his voice grew cold. “I’d consider it a personal favor, but if you can’t do it, I’m sure some other television station could use a bright young man like Oliver.”

  So Vansand had met the young man at the station. Thin and scholarly-looking, Oliver Gray seemed nice enough. Well-spoken and polite. The station hadn’t objected to Vansand taking on an unpaid intern, and Gray had tagged along with the Vansand Action Team all week.

  That morning when Vansand arrived, Gray was already waiting for him. The young man seemed excited and nervous at the same time. He repeated Nat X’s promise that “something big” was going to happen at Karp’s news conference. The newsman had gone into the morning’s news-planning meeting crowing about the scoop he anticipated. But the news director insisted the team cover the hot-dog-eating contest first. “We need something light between all the heavy stuff,” the director, who wasn’t even as old as Vansand’s son by his second wife, said. “You’ll have plenty of time to get back for the press conference.”

  However, the director had not counted on a traffic jam coming back over the Brooklyn Bridge that had Vansand cursing as Escobar pulled up to the area of the street that had been cordoned off for the news vans. All the spots were taken, and a beefy traffic cop waved for them to keep moving even after Escobar pointed to the MEDIA sign in the front window.

  “Pull up to the joker, and I’ll give him the old Pete Vansand charm,” Vansand said.

  Escobar did as told. Rolling down his window, Vansand smiled at the cop. “Hi, Officer, WZYN News here. We’re a little late arriving, so can we squeeze in behind the other news vans?”

  “No room, move on,” said the man, whose name tag identified him as Officer McKinnon. “You guys were all told to show up an hour ago.”

  “How about one for the home team? I�
�m Pete Vansand.”

  “I don’t care if you’re the mayor of County Cork. Move along or I’ll have your vehicle towed.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Vansand swore. “The press conference is about to start. Come on. I’m sure you’ve seen me on the evening news and special reports by the Vansand Action Team.”

  Officer McKinnon leaned over and studied Vansand’s face as if seeing him clearly for the first time. He smiled, his Irish blue eyes twinkling. Vansand smiled back, relieved. But then the cop frowned and shook his head. “No, don’t believe I’ve ever seen your mug,” he said. “But you’re on the evening news? Well, I’ll tell the missus when I get home tonight that I met a famous man. Now move along.”

  Vansand slumped. “Fucking moron,” he muttered.

  “What was that, Pete, old buddy? Was there something you wanted to say to me?” Officer McKinnon smiled again, only this time there was nothing friendly about it.

  “I was just saying what a paragon of the law you are,” Vansand replied before turning back to Escobar. “Oliver and I will get out here and take the camera. Go find a place to park and then come find me.”

  “You sure?” Escobar asked, looking in the rearview mirror at the young intern, who was staring out at the crowd on the street. “It’s damn heavy. Plus the union won’t like it.”

  “Oliver can handle it,” Vansand replied. “Can’t you?”

  Gray turned back toward the other two. He seemed to be sweating despite the air-conditioning. “Um, yeah, sure,” he said. “I can help.”

  “Right,” Vansand said. “And what the union doesn’t know won’t hurt them, right?”

  Getting out of the van under the watchful eye of McKinnon, Vansand opened the side door for Gray, who picked up the camera with a grunt and stepped out. Returning the cop’s glare, the pair walked back down the block to the cordon of police officers and the site of the scheduled press conference. Vansand led the way up to a police captain who was standing behind his men. “Pete Vansand,” he said, holding up the credentials. “WZYN. This is my intern, Oliver Gray.” Gray held up the press card issued to him by the station.