“You’re late,” the captain said, but tapped the shoulder of his man in front of Vansand. “Let them through.”
Vansand passed through the police line and walked to the area on the side of the steps reserved for the press. But there he ran into a roadblock of his fellow journalists, none of whom were willing to let him move closer to the podium with the camera.
“Come on, you print guys don’t need to film anything,” he complained to a New York Post reporter blocking his way.
“Pound sand, Vansand,” the other reporter said with a smirk. “You want a better seat, show up early. You television bastards always think you deserve special treatment.”
Vansand gave up. “There’s no dealing with idiots,” he said to Gray. He pointed at the camera. “Have you learned how to use one of these yet at NYU?”
Gray shook his head. “I haven’t taken the class yet. Sorry.”
Vansand shrugged. “No problem. I’ll do it myself.” He reached for the camera. “The union would probably go even more ballistic if I let a journalism student shoot footage anyway. Going to be bad enough if they find out I did.”
Suddenly there were shouts from the crowd on the other side of the police line. “There’s Karp,” someone yelled. “Quit protecting racist cops, Karp!”
Across the street, Reverend Mufti’s chants gained new momentum. “What do we want?”
“JUSTICE!”
“When do we want it?”
“NOW!”
Vansand shouldered the camera and started filming just as a short, balding, pear-shaped man wearing a plaid vest and round wire-rimmed glasses stepped up to the bank of microphones. Behind him stood a tall, rugged-looking man with close-cropped, pewter-colored hair—Butch Karp. On the side of the podium closest to the press corps, a large, broad-shouldered black man scowled out at the press and crowd. He appeared to be some sort of bodyguard and was clearly not happy with the circumstances.
“Good afternoon, I’m Assistant District Attorney Gilbert Murrow,” the pear-shaped man said. “District Attorney Karp will be issuing a statement in a moment. There will be no follow-up questions. Thank you.”
With that, Karp replaced Murrow at the podium. If anything, he looked even less pleased than the bodyguard to be speaking to the press. “Good afternoon,” he said. “Due to the lawlessness that has swept the streets of our city since the officer-involved shooting of a young man, Ricky Watts—”
“Murder, you mean!” someone in the crowd yelled. This was met with shouts of agreement, but Karp pressed on.
“Since the incident, the New York Police Department has conducted its investigation with its usual professionalism and thoroughness. The detectives involved in that investigation have now passed on their report to my office. I, personally, have tasked the NYPD detective squad attached to the District Attorney’s Office to continue that investigation so that a determination can be made as to whether charges are warranted against the officer. That investigation has not yet concluded and therefore no decision has been made. When . . .”
As his words sank in, an angry murmur rose from the crowd. “He’s going to let the pig off!” a woman screamed.
“No justice!” a large black man bellowed and pressed against the wall of riot officers.
“When that decision is made,” Karp continued, “it will be according to the rule of law, and without fear or favor to either party, which every citizen has the right to expect from the County of New York District Attorney’s Office. That includes police officers.”
“Everybody except an unarmed black boy!” a protester yelled.
“Although this investigation will continue as long as necessary to establish the facts, I’m told by Detective Clay Fulton, the chief of the DAO squad”—Karp indicated the large man Vansand had assumed was his bodyguard—“that he expects it to come to a conclusion soon. I ask that the good citizens of our city exercise patience and restraint and allow the system to work.”
“You’re stalling, Karp!”
Across the street in the park, Mufti, apparently made aware of Karp’s statement, picked up the speed and increased the angry tenor of his demands. “WHAT DO WE WANT?”
“JUSTICE!”
“WHEN DO WE WANT IT?”
“NOW!”
Karp looked at the media cameras. “Thank you. That is all.”
As the angry crowd pressed up to the cordon of police, Mufti changed his chant. “NO GUN, NO EXCUSE!”
“NO GUN, NO EXCUSE!” the crowd responded.
Looking through the viewfinder on the camera, Vansand wondered what Nat X was referring to when he told him that something big would happen. So far all I’ve got is what everyone else has, he thought, miffed.
Then he felt a tap on his shoulder. “Excuse me, Mr. Vansand.” The newsman recognized the voice of Oliver Gray.
“Keep the camera on me,” Gray said, and moved past him toward the podium. He then shouted, “KARP!”
From off to his right in the media crowd, Vansand heard someone yell, “GUN! HE’S GOT A GUN!” Only then did he realize what he was seeing in the viewfinder. As Gray advanced toward the podium, he raised a handgun and pointed it at Karp. The journalist also realized in that split second that because he was farther toward the podium, the other television cameras had to turn to film Gray, which meant they couldn’t capture the gunman and Karp at the same time. But he had both in his viewfinder, almost as if he was looking over Gray’s shoulder.
It all happened so quickly—Gray’s shout, the realizations, the screams of the panicking members of the press—that Vansand didn’t have time to react, just film. Nor could Karp do anything but frown as the gun was leveled at him. Fulton was the only one to react, moving to get between the shooter and his target as he reached inside his suit coat. But he was too late.
There was the sound of a shot—so loud that Vansand jumped, but not so much that he missed filming the bullet slam into the district attorney’s chest. That shot was followed by another and another impact. Karp fell back before the big detective obscured his view. A gun had materialized in Fulton’s hand, and for a moment Vansand thought the detective was pointing it at him. But when he fired, it was Gray who was struck and knocked back; a second shot drove the young man out of the viewfinder and to the ground.
People were scattering all around him when Vansand heard more shouts and reeled around. It took him a moment to refocus the camera on the protesters across the street. Many of them were standing with clenched fists raised in the air as Mufti shouted into the bullhorn.
“WHAT DO WE WANT?”
“JUSTICE!”
“WHEN DO WE WANT IT?”
“NOW!”
Vansand felt someone tug on his sleeve. It was Escobar, his face flushed with excitement. “Holy shit, you get that?”
“Oh, yeah,” Vansand said. “I got it all.” He handed the camera to Escobar and stepped toward the podium, where a half dozen people including the black detective and a petite brunette woman surrounded the fallen district attorney.
With that scene behind him, he turned to his cameraman. “Roll on me in five, four, three, two, one . . . Pete Vansand reporting to you from the Criminal Courts Building in Lower Manhattan, where District Attorney Roger “Butch” Karp has just been shot by a gunman, an NYU journalism student named Oliver Gray. More on that exclusively on WZYN this evening. Pete Vansand signing off.”
Vansand made a signal for Escobar to quit filming. He grinned. “Let’s get that on air as soon as possible. Then, Julio, mi amigo, you can rent a tuxedo,” he said, “because we’ll be going to the Emmys!”
1
A month earlier
NYPD OFFICER TONY CIPPIO FELL for the move when the teenager dribbling the basketball feinted left and then drove to the right, passing him, before going in for the easy layup. The ball rolled off the backboard and dropped through the hoop with a soft rattling of the chain net.
Cippio shook his head and high-fived the smirking teen. “Lucky shot,�
� he teased. “Bet you can’t do it again.”
“Sheee-it. I can do that all day long on you, Slo-Mo.” The teen looked around at his buddies, who laughed at his nickname for the cop.
Cippio laughed with them. “Yeah, probably.” He was twenty-eight years old and had been on the force for three years. He’d also been a pretty good basketball player on his high school team on Long Island and in community college. But these playground wizards who learned the game on the courts of Marcus Garvey Park, an oasis of grass, trees, playgrounds, and a pool in the middle of Harlem, were something else. The kid who’d just made him look like he was playing underwater was thirteen, maybe fourteen years old and could have beat anybody on his former teams.
It didn’t help that he was in uniform and weighed down by his wide belt with its accoutrements of handcuffs, Taser, and handgun as well as a bulletproof vest on an evening when it was still ninety degrees with 75 percent humidity at six o’clock. Oh, who you kidding, he thought, he’d have beat you with that move if you were wearing your birthday suit and he was handcuffed to a boulder.
But Cippio hadn’t asked to play with the teens to show off his basketball skills. The brass at Harlem’s 25th Precinct were big about patrol officers connecting on a personal level with the community. “Get out of the cars and show them what nice guys you bums are,” the duty sergeant had said with a grin.
So even though he knew it would feel like he was playing in a sauna while wearing a wet suit, Cippio parked his squad car on 120th Street and got out when he saw the teens on the court. “You coming?” he’d asked his partner, Eddie Evans, an older black officer with twenty years on the force.
“No, you go right ahead, Larry Bird,” Evans had said, smirking as he shook his head. “I’ll stay right here and keep an eye out for bad guys while you’re off making a fool of yourself with those mini–Michael Jordans out there. Just don’t pull a muscle in your groin, or your wife will blame me for your poor performance between the sheets.”
“Don’t be worrying about my performance,” Cippio replied with a laugh. “Fran’s plenty happy, and I got two kids and another one on the way to prove it.”
“You sure they’re yours?”
“Up yours, Evans. Just because you’ve been put out to pasture by Gloria doesn’t mean the rest of us have been.”
“Hell, that woman can’t get enough of me, which is the reason I’m going to park my big black rear end right here and rest up so that I can keep that smile on her face.”
“Uh-huh,” Cippio said. “Just try not to let anyone steal the car with you in it. You’re already enough of an embarrassment to the department.”
Cippio popped the trunk of the car and took out the brand-new basketball he’d purchased the previous evening.
“What you got there?” his partner had asked when he’d brought it to work that afternoon.
“Just a little something for my homies in the park. Last time I played hoops with them, they were using a ball that looked like it was about to pop.”
As Cippio walked across the street into the park toward the basketball court, he noticed the three black men sitting on a picnic table off to one side. They appeared to be in their late twenties or early thirties and were watching him. They didn’t look friendly, and this made Cippio nervous. Relations with some members of the black community were strained following several highly publicized officer-involved shootings around the country that spring. While in a couple of these instances even other cops were questioning whether the shootings were justified, it didn’t seem to matter what the facts were, or that in several prominent cases it turned out that the “victims” had been violent felons. The media was all about playing up the narrative that racist cops were running amok and shooting innocent, unarmed black men. The story line had been picked up by so-called community leaders, including Reverend Skip Mufti in Harlem, who never missed a chance to bash cops whether to the press or speaking as a member of the New York City Council.
As he glanced at the hard-eyed men, Cippio had more reason than most cops to be cautious. In the Italian-American Cippio family, there were only three honorable careers for a male: become a priest, join the military, or join the force. Most chose the latter, but it came with a price. He’d had an uncle and a brother killed in the line of duty, the first answering a domestic violence complaint and the second running into the World Trade Center to rescue civilians after the 9/11 attacks.
However, Cippio was determined to not show his nervousness. He nodded and smiled at the men, neither gesture returned, before stepping onto the basketball court. There he was welcomed with a little good-natured ribbing and genuine appreciation for the new basketball by boys too young to be caught up in the politics of hate.
A half hour later, the young officer announced that he had to leave. “And just when I was about to go on a shooting streak.”
“A missing streak, you mean,” said the teen who’d beat him with the layup. He reluctantly handed the ball back to the officer.
“You keep it,” Cippio said. “It’s the neighborhood ball. You take care of it, but everyone gets to use it. Right?”
The teen’s face lit up. “Yes, sir, I’ll take good care of it.” He held out his hand. “Thank you.”
Cippio shook the teen’s hand. “It’s Tyrone, right?”
“Yes, sir, Tyrone Greene. Remember that name, you can say you knew me when I’m in the NBA someday.”
“Tyrone Greene, eh? I’ll remember. I hope you play for the Knicks, and then you can get me courtside seats. Just remember, my name’s Tony Cippio. I’ll expect to pick up my tickets at will-call your first game.”
The teen smiled again. “You got it.”
Cippio began walking back to his squad car, but he hadn’t gone far when he heard a voice behind him. “Officer Tony.” He turned to see Tyrone trotting up to him, the basketball under his arm.
“Yeah, Tyrone?”
“Did you see the men over by the picnic table when you was coming here? . . . No, don’t look at them,” the youth said, turning in another direction as if still talking about the basketball game. “I don’t want them to know I’m talking about them.”
Cippio caught on and followed his gaze to the basketball court. “Yes, I saw them. What about it?”
Tyrone passed the ball back and forth between his hands. “They don’t like police officers,” he said.
“Yeah, they didn’t seem real friendly,” Cippio said. “I can’t help that, but I hope you like police officers. Most cops are good men, and you can count on them, like you can count on me. There’re always a few people who aren’t going to like us, but I can’t spend a lot of time trying to figure out why not.”
“No, you don’t get it,” Tyrone said. “I mean they really don’t like police officers. They tell me and my friends that the police are making war on black people and that they’re here to protect us. They say we need to join up with them. My older brother, Maurice, went to one of their meetings and he said they was talking about shooting police.”
Cippio frowned. “Do you know their names?”
Tyrone laughed as if the police officer was teasing him, but his eyes were serious. “No. Not really. The leader calls himself Nat X.”
Cippio pretended to playfully reach for the ball. “You know where he lives?”
“All over the place, on couches and shit. He’s not from around here. My brother said he’s from the West Coast. He just showed up a few weeks ago and started having meetings. He says he’s here to help us, but me and my friends don’t like him; he just wants us to be all angry and do bad stuff. We don’t listen to him, but some people do. Just be careful near them, okay?”
Cippio nodded. “Yeah, okay. Thanks, Tyrone. I think you’re more of a man than someone like that any day. I appreciate you letting me play some hoops with you.”
The youth stepped back with a wide grin. “You call that playin’ hoops? My granny plays better than that. But you can come back.”
As Cippi
o made his way back to the squad car, the three men at the picnic table got up and began to walk toward him. “Evening, gentlemen,” he said, all of his senses on alert.
“What you doing harassing them little niggers, White Meat?” the tallest of the group said, his face set and his eyes dark and hard.
“Just playing a little ball,” Cippio said, aware that the other two were spreading out around him.
“Uh-huh,” said the tall man, apparently the leader by the way the others seemed to be waiting for him to act. “Making friends with the little niggers while they’s young so you can shoot ’em easier when they get older. That it?”
Cippio looked him over, taking mental notes. Pockmarked face. Scar above his right eye. Retro-Afro hair. Thin but muscular. “I’ve never shot anybody. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to my patrol car.” He made a move to go around the leader, but one of the other men stepped in his way. Cippio’s eyes narrowed. “You’re impeding a police officer. If you don’t want to be arrested, move out of my way.”
The larger man lifted his chin defiantly. “Make me move, White Meat.”
“You ain’t wanted in this neighborhood,” the leader said.
“It’s my job,” Cippio replied, and reached for the radio microphone on his shoulder, praying that Eddie Evans, sitting in the squad car fifty yards away, was watching.
“Not no more it ain’t,” the leader said, stepping back. As he did, he reached behind his back and pulled a gun from his waistband and pointed it at the officer’s chest.
Cippio had just enough time to note that the stainless steel .45 caliber revolver had a mother-of-pearl pistol grip. The first slug from the Teflon-coated, armor-piercing bullet tore through his Kevlar vest and partially severed a blood vessel leading into his heart. He turned as he fell and lay on his stomach, mortally wounded.
Without Fear or Favor Page 2
