Without Fear or Favor

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  The leader leaned over and grabbed Cippio by his shoulder and turned him over onto his back. The officer lay gasping, bubbles forming in the blood on his lips. “Please, I have children,” he croaked.

  “And now they ain’t got no daddy.” The shooter aimed at the officer’s head and pulled the trigger again.

  There was a shout, and the three men looked in the direction it came from. A black police officer was running toward them with his gun drawn.

  The leader snapped off a shot in his direction, but the officer didn’t swerve or deviate. He sighted down his gun as he ran but didn’t pull the trigger.

  “Let’s go,” the leader yelled. They all took off, running past the stunned teenagers on the basketball court, their game stopped, their lives forever changed.

  Tyrone Greene left the others and ran to the fallen officer. “Officer Tony! Officer Tony!” he cried, kneeling down to cradle Cippio’s bloody head. He looked up with tears running down his face as the officer ran up.

  “This is a ten-thirteen, I got an officer down,” Eddie Evans screamed into his microphone. “Get me an ambulance! Now, goddamn it!” He gently touched the teen’s shoulder. “Move aside, son, let me help him.”

  Tyrone Greene did as he was told but remained on his knees next to the officer, who applied pressure to the chest wound. “Please, God, don’t let him die,” the teen sobbed.

  “Come on, Tony, stay with me, man,” Evans urged his partner. “Fran needs you. The kids need you. I need you.”

  However, no prayers or pleading helped. As the cop and the teen knelt side by side, the light left the dark eyes of Officer Tony Cippio; he gasped one last time, shuddered, and died. His partner continued CPR, but it was no use. He put his arm around the shoulders of the sobbing teenager. Together they shed tears. Then Evans cupped his hands on the side of Cippio’s head. Leaning down toward him, Evans pledged, “Tony, no matter how long it takes, I will find the killers and ensure that they get their justice.”

  2

  BUTCH KARP LOOKED AT THE tan federal agent with a crew cut sitting across from him and tapped the manila file folder lying on the mahogany desk between them. “Okay, Espy, from what I understand, this group”—he flipped up the front cover and glanced at the first page—“the Nat Turner Revolutionary Brigade, has been making threats against law enforcement based on the media-driven false narrative that cops are running amok, gunning down innocent black men and not being held accountable.”

  Espy Jaxon nodded. “That’s about the gist of it. I’m bringing this to your attention now, just like I did Chief DeCasio at the NYPD, because of a credible threat to law enforcement in New York City.”

  “How credible?”

  Scratching at his short pewter gray hair, Jaxon shrugged. “We don’t know much about this particular group other than we believe they’re responsible for a series of armed robberies and at least one bank job in San Francisco that included the attempted murder of a police officer who was moonlighting as a bank guard. There seems to be some affiliation to other black nationalist groups in the Bay Area, including one thought to have pulled off the fatal shooting of two officers in San Jose last month. The Brigade, as they’re now affectionately known by those of us watching out for them, made statements through the media praising the murders—called them ‘casualties of war’ and the only way to protect the black community from the police.”

  “Given today’s political climate, that probably goes over well with the demagogues like our own Reverend Mufti who, if I remember right, labeled the murders ‘regrettable but inevitable’ the night it happened,” a short, pear-shaped man standing near the bookcase on the other side of the room chimed in.

  The speaker was Gilbert Murrow, technically an assistant district attorney, but he didn’t try cases and instead served as Karp’s office manager and spokesman for his media-averse boss. He looked more like an accountant with his wire-rimmed glasses and penchant for plaid vests and pocket protectors, but he was sharp and media savvy. “So you think they’re coming to New York?”

  “From what we understand, they’re already here,” Jaxon replied. “One of our sources in Harlem sent us a printed ‘revolutionary manifesto’ calling on the black community to, in their words, ‘spread the flames of righteous revolution’ from coast to coast.”

  “If I can ask,” Murrow said, “what is your interest in all of this? I thought you ran a small independent counterterrorism agency, taking on Islamic extremists and such. Are these guys tied to ISIS or Al Qaeda?”

  “Not that we know, Gilbert, though there is always the concern that these domestic terrorists—which is really what they are—will link up with some foreign group like ISIS. But the rhetoric coming out of the Nat Turner Revolutionary Brigade is more black liberation nationalist—secular and race-oriented—than theological ideology based on an extremist interpretation of the Qur’an. However, if both groups see a mutual benefit to their goal of accomplishing political change through violence in the United States, then they may be willing to forget any differences and work together.

  “As for why I and my people are involved, as you probably know, we were created to be independent of other federal law enforcement and counterterrorism agencies. We . . . I . . . answer only to one person, whose name I can’t divulge but he keeps the others off our backs so that we can operate freely. Even the White House isn’t clear about our function, and so far we’ve flown enough under the radar to avoid interference from that direction.

  “We do jobs the others may consider to be too big, or too political and bureaucratic to handle, or when there are questions of how the others are doing their jobs. We’ve uncovered some people within those agencies actually working against the national security for political or personal reasons. To be honest, we were asked to look into this because the current leadership of the Department of Justice and the FBI are too worried about politics to want to appear to be targeting black ‘activists,’ which is how they categorize even those with the most violent tendencies.”

  Jaxon turned back to Karp. “As for how credible this particular threat is to law enforcement in New York? We’re worried that they’re escalating—both in the rhetoric and with this shooting of officers in the Bay Area.”

  Whatever Jaxon was going to say next was interrupted by a knock on the door and the appearance of Clay Fulton. In the days that followed, Karp would think repeatedly about the timing of Jaxon’s visit and Fulton’s angry face.

  “Excuse me,” the big detective said, nodding to Jaxon. “Nice to see you, Espy.” Turning to Karp, he said, “There’s been an officer-involved shooting in Marcus Garvey Park; one officer was killed.”

  Karp frowned. While the shooting of a police officer in New York City was a significant event for the DAO, and one that he would monitor closely, it was not unheard of and would not have necessitated an unannounced visit from Fulton. There had to be something else.

  “It appears to be more than the normal line-of-duty shooting,” Fulton said. “Apparently, the suspect had been making threats to shoot police officers as a political statement. According to witnesses, the officer was confronted by three men—black, mid- to late twenties, early thirties—in Marcus Garvey Park. He’d gone to play basketball with some of the local teens while his partner waited in the car.”

  Karp and Jaxon exchanged glances. “We were just talking about this possibility.”

  “Yeah, and with what’s been happening around the country, I’m thinking it’s going to blow up in our faces,” Fulton said. “The media will be all over it. I’m driving up to Harlem now and thought you might want to join me.”

  “Absolutely,” Karp replied. “Who’s there from the office now?”

  “Kenny Katz picked it up. He was the ADA on call.”

  THIRTY MINUTES LATER Karp and Fulton arrived at Marcus Garvey Park, which stretched from 120th Street to 124th Street, between Mount Morris Park West and Madison Avenue. The first thing he noticed was the large gathering of police office
rs at the entrance, far more than would have been needed to secure the area or investigate the crime scene, which would mostly be done by plainclothes detectives and CSI technicians.

  Those gathered recognized him as he exited the car. “Go get ’em, Butch,” one of the uniformed police officers shouted. “Don’t let these murdering scumbags get away with this!”

  “Frickin’ animals!” someone else yelled, and others joined in.

  “They deserve a hot one in the head! Make ’em pay, or we will, Butch!”

  Anger and a desire for revenge tinged their voices and was writ large on their faces. He nodded to a couple of officers he recognized but kept moving with Fulton into the park.

  The crime scene was taped off, surrounding a bright red stain on the sidewalk. Karp looked around. He noted the basketball court and the teens who stood numbly watching. Here and there, outside the crime scene tape, small knots of locals gathered and talked quietly or stood solemnly off by themselves. While most appeared sad or worried, not all were friendly, and he wondered if any were there to report back to the killer.

  “Where’s the officer’s partner?” Karp asked.

  “Over there, name’s Eddie Evans.” Fulton pointed to a uniformed black officer sitting with his head down on the hood of a car parked on the grass. Several officers stood near him, one with a hand on his shoulder.

  As Karp approached, the other officers stepped back. “Officer Evans,” he said, extending his hand, “I can’t tell you how sorry I am for what happened here today. You okay?”

  The officer looked up, and Karp could see his eyes were red and welled with tears. “No, sir, no, I am not,” Evans said quietly. “But thank you for asking. This is my fault, you know.”

  Karp furrowed his brow. “How do you mean?”

  “I should have been with him. That’s what a partner does, he’s got your back. But I was too damn lazy.” Evans shook his head. “Tony didn’t have a mean bone in his body. He just wanted to play ball with some kids, show them that a police officer could be their friend.” He gestured toward the crime scene tape. “Then this happens.”

  “I know it’s natural to want to shoulder the blame,” Karp said, “but I don’t see how this one falls on you. From what I understand, he was murdered in cold blood, no warning . . .”

  “Yeah, but this wasn’t no confrontation out of the blue,” Evans growled. “Those animals were waiting for this. A chance to kill a cop when his guard was down . . . and his partner wasn’t paying attention. Tony was in the wrong place at the wrong time; he didn’t do nothin’ to deserve this. Now he’s got a widow and a couple of young kids with another one on the way, who won’t ever know their daddy, or what a good man he was.”

  “I expect that you and others who knew him will make sure his children hear about that,” Karp said.

  “I will, but it’s not the same.” Evans wiped at his eyes. “Don’t worry about me, but go check on that kid over there. He warned Tony about the killer and saw it all go down.”

  Karp followed his gesture to a nearby picnic table. He saw Assistant District Attorney Kenny Katz listening in as a detective talked to a young teen, while another teen and an older woman looked on.

  Again, the others stood back when he approached and knelt down on one knee to come face-to-face with the young teen. “Hello, I’m Butch Karp, the district attorney here in New York County,” he said. “I’m sorry this happened and that you had to see it.”

  The boy looked at him and nodded but didn’t say anything. He seemed to be trying to hold himself together.

  “This is Tyrone,” the woman said and patted the other boy on the shoulder. “And this is Maurice. I’m the boys’ grandmother, Nevie Butler.”

  Karp stood and held out his hand, which the woman shook. But when he tried to offer it to Maurice, the youth looked away.

  Turning his attention back to Nevie Butler, Karp asked, “I know this has been a trying day, and that Tyrone has already been questioned by Mr. Katz and Detective MacCallum here, but would you mind coming down to the DAO and letting me take a statement from Tyrone?”

  Butler looked around nervously. “I want to help, Mr. Karp, don’t get me wrong. But there’s people around here who would not be happy about Tyrone talking to the police.”

  “He ain’t got to say nothin’ to you,” Maurice suddenly spat.

  His outburst earned him a smack to the back of his head from his grandmother. “Show some respect, Maurice,” she said, then looked back at Karp. “Somebody’s been filling the heads of young men like Maurice here with hate and anger. I’m old and it don’t matter what happens to me, but I have to look out for these boys. Maybe tomorrow, if you wouldn’t mind, we’ll take the subway down to see you when nobody’s watching.”

  Karp nodded. “I understand and that would be fine.” He handed her a business card. “That has my direct line on it. Call when you’re on the way.”

  As the old woman and her grandsons walked away, Karp wondered who it was that was filling young men’s heads full of “hate and anger.” And what they had to do with Tony Cippio and Espy Jaxon’s warning.

  3

  ANTHONY JOHNSON JR. TOOK THE stairs two at a time to the sixth-floor apartment. He could feel the blood pumping through his body like an electric current, pulsing brightly with each heartbeat. Every breath made him feel stronger, more alive than he’d ever felt before.

  The moment he looked into that cop’s eyes and heard him beg for his life—“I have children”—felt like the moment before sexual release. Then pulling the trigger had consummated the ecstasy of killing another human being. And not just any man, a fucking cop. Not only that, but now he was a hero. He’d done what he loved to do anyway, only now everybody was going to look up to him.

  He enjoyed making people suffer. Felt empowered by taking a life, which he’d done five times already. Two were members of a rival gang when he was just thirteen years old. He’d ambushed them as they sat on the front porch of a neighborhood home. Anthony had known them since grade school, and they were surprised when he pulled the gun and shot them in their heads as they tried to get away. Knowing there’d be few consequences because of his age, he’d openly bragged about the killings until his arrest.

  Then, less than a month after his release from eighteen months in juvenile detention, he murdered an old woman in her home. Woke her up in the middle of the night, then raped her as he smothered her with a pillow. That one got him tried as an adult, but the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office had let him plead out to sexual assault and burglary. It cost him two years in prison, but he’d made good use of that time by getting indoctrinated by black nationalist inmates so that when he got out he had a cause to go along with his viciousness.

  Shortly before coming to New York, there’d been a crack whore who complained and hit him when he told her that he wasn’t going to pay for the services she’d just rendered. He slit her throat, watching, fascinated, as she bled out. But no one cared about a hooker, and there’d been no consequences. In fact, it had been the best killing until the cop.

  Had the motherfucker’s life in the palm of my hand. The thought jumped into Johnson’s hyped-up brain just as he reached the sixth floor. Standing there to catch his breath, he relived the moment, pulling the trigger of an imaginary gun pointed at an imaginary cop on the ground. The real gun—a Smith & Wesson .45 revolver with a mother-of-pearl handle—was tucked into the waistband of his pants beneath his sweatshirt, the stainless steel cold against his skin. I made him afraid. Made him whine like a bitch.

  Johnson could hear that the party had already started in the apartment. Someone had cranked up the gangsta rap. He smiled as he grabbed the doorknob. Whatever bitch he ended up with that night, she was going to pay. His sexual appetite was going to be insatiable . . . and rough. He opened the door and walked in.

  A cloud of marijuana smoke greeted him as two men and two women turned to look at him. They smiled as one. The women, sisters named Rose and Lupe, start
ed throwing him come-hither looks. They didn’t know what he’d done—he’d sworn the men to secrecy on pain of death—but they knew it was something special.

  “It’s my maaaaaaaan,” bellowed one of the men, Big George, a three-hundred-pound behemoth who acted as his bodyguard. The giant crossed the room and they engaged in the ritualistic handshaking with an extra measure of respect that hadn’t been there that morning when Big George had questioned if he was “all talk and no action.”

  They hadn’t known each other long, only since Johnson had moved to New York City from the Bay Area a few weeks earlier to live with his cousin, Ny-Lee Tomes, the third man in the room. Making up for his lack of intelligence with a natural tendency toward violence, Big George had been taken with Johnson’s anticop rhetoric. He had a rap sheet as long as his massive arms and no love for law enforcement.

  Johnson had recruited Big George, and along with Tomes began holding a series of clandestine meetings with some of the younger men and teenagers in the neighborhood, preaching the black nationalist gospel. But when the revolution seemed to be composed of nothing more than angry speeches, Big George had started questioning Johnson’s place as the Nat Turner Revolutionary Brigade’s leader in New York City.

  “I knew you could do it all along,” Big George said, cementing Johnson’s supremacy.

  Johnson smiled. Secretly he was afraid of the police. His father had been a retired police officer when he’d impregnated Johnson’s mother. He’d left them when his son was eleven, but not before he let the boy know, “I see right through you. You’re an evil little bastard and no good is going to come of you.” Johnson had shrugged. No matter how much the old man beat him, he continued to set fires and torture small animals, and he lied as easily as he breathed. There was a word for it that he learned as he got older and counselors, especially in juvie, tried to reach him: “sociopath”. He wore it like a badge of honor.

  After he got out of prison for raping the old woman, he’d joined up with the New Black Panther Party in the Bay Area, read The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and adopted the language of exclusionary black nationalism. Smart and a natural when it came to expressing his ideas, especially among his poorly educated peers, he enjoyed his growing reputation as a firebrand and “activist,” even speaking at several rallies on college campuses. But he soon got bored with “just jawing”; in his opinion, the Panthers weren’t violent enough. They talked too much about getting political and not enough about taking the fight to the streets, particularly against cops.