Earth Angels

by Gerald Petievich

  A police car, siren wailing, pulled up at the curb, but the detectives ignored it.

  "You heard us yell, 'Police,' right?" Black asked.

  Arredondo nodded. "That's the way I remember it, amigo."

  Stepanovich turned to Fordyce. "And you couldn't hear anything because you were using the radio at the time. "

  Fordyce was still staring at the bodies. Stepanovich touched his arm. "Isn't that right?"

  A police car with flashing lights and siren blaring squealed its brakes as it came to a stop in front of the apartment house.

  "I won't contradict what you say," Fordyce said.

  "Black and I are the only ones who know what happened at the steps," Stepanovich said to the others. "Now and forever. Is that understood?"

  Arredondo, then Fordyce nodded.

  Two uniformed officers with drawn revolvers rushed across the lawn. They stopped and stared at the bodies.

  "CRASH special unit," Stepanovich said. "We've had an officer involved shooting." He pointed to Payaso: "Put this prisoner in your car, then block off the street."

  By the time the ambulances arrived, occupants of the other apartments in the area were outside gawking, and a crowd of onlookers two deep had formed across the street.

  Stepanovich noticed Fordyce, with head bowed, move away from the others to the cypress trees, lean at the waist, and loudly vomit.

  ****

  TEN

  Harger arrived as Smokey Salazar and Greenie's wife were being taken away in ambulances. Eighteenth Street was a maze of flashing red lights, traffic stanchions, and yellow evidence tape.

  Stepanovich met Harger at the curb and led him under evidence tape to the bodies. The captain made a point of examining the dead closely, then came to his feet.

  "Do we have any problems?" he said, keeping his voice low enough so that even other policemen standing nearby couldn't hear.

  "They fired at Black and me. We fired back," Stepanovich said.

  "The shooting team will ask you why you fired so many times," Harger said. "Those people look like hamburger. "

  "They kept moving as if trying to shoot, so we continued to fire," Stepanovich lied.

  Harger gave him a brotherly slap on the shoulder. "Very good," he said. "Keep it simple."

  Later, with the area sealed off for investigation, paramedics and coroner's deputies milled about. A station wagon pulled to the curb near where Stepanovich was standing. A television camera crew and a young TV reporter, a curly haired blond man who looked like a male model, climbed out and approached Harger. Camera lights were turned on as the reporter held a microphone close to Harger's mouth and asked what had happened.

  Harger cleared his throat. "Officers of the L.A. Police CRASH Gang Task Force were on routine patrol when they heard gunshots and observed men with guns running from a residence. At that time the officers identified themselves as police officers and were fired on by three armed males. The officers returned fire. Two of the suspects were killed and one was wounded. We are not releasing the names of the dead and wounded until next of kin are notified."

  Later that night, the task force's basement office was a maelstrom of activity phones ringing and being answered, Harger escorting command level officers into his office for briefings, the robbery homicide division shooting team investigators interviewing the members of the task force one at a time. As all that went on about him, Stepanovich sat at his desk writing and editing his report, making sure it was concise and free of any equivocal language that could be attacked later by the money hungry attorneys whom he knew would represent the families of the deceased in suits against the police department. When completed, the report read as follows:

  SOURCE OF ACTIVITY:

  Acting on information received from a confidential informant, officers of the Hollenbeck Division CRASH Gang Task Force were routinely deployed in a gang crime prevention detail near the 2900 block of Eighteenth Street, a known gang area.

  ACTIVITY:

  At approximately 1910 hours officers observed known gang member Arturo Salazar, a.k.a. Smokey, and two males (later identified as Hernandez, Ralph and Nunez, Luis) approach Apartment 203 at the location carrying handguns. Believing that a crime was in progress, Officers Stepanovich, Jose, Serial #613845, and Black, C. R., Serial #992318, approached the location to investigate. At this time, shots were heard and the suspects attempted to run from the location. Believing that a crime had occurred, the officers immediately identified themselves to the suspects as police officers. The suspects opened fire on the investigating officers. Officers Stepanovich and Black returned fire, hitting all three suspects. Hernandez and Nunez were pronounced dead at the scene.

  Salazar was transported to the jail ward of the L.A, County General Hospital with multiple gunshot wounds.

  (signed)

  Stepanovich, Jose

  Serial #613845

  Stepanovich realized Harger was looking over his shoulder.

  "Fine report," Harger whispered. "Short and sweet." As Stepanovich turned to face him, Harger rested a brotherly hand on his shoulder. "The shooting team is ready for you now. I've talked with the Chief. He's very pleased with what went down, but he doesn't want it to look like the task force was staked out waiting for a crime to occur. You were staked out, but it was for the purpose of crime prevention. Prevention is the key word." He winked and cuffed Stepanovich on the shoulder.

  Stepanovich opened the door to the interview room and stepped inside. A diminutive bald man with rheumy eyes and a flaky, sun spotted scalp was sitting behind a table in front of a portable tape recorder. Stenciled on its side was: "SHOOTING INVESTIGATION TEAM." Houlihan wore a brown polyester suit and a yellowish necktie that matched the color of his teeth. He turned on the tape recorder and motioned Stepanovich toward a chair. "I'm Lieutenant Jack Houlihan from the shooting team," the man said as he shuffled some papers in front of him, though the men knew each other from working patrol in Wilshire Division a few years before. Houlihan had once studied to be a Roman Catholic priest and was well known in department circles as a consummate ass kisser. As a patrolman with less than a year on the job, he had taken out a loan from the Police Credit Union to pay the initiation fee at the Los Angeles Tennis Club in order to play singles with then Wilshire Division Captain Seth Leyva, an easily influenced dolt who promoted those officers whose names he could remember.

  Houlihan picked up a sheet of paper, slipped on half frame reading glasses, and read off the Miranda:

  "Before I ask you any questions you must understand your rights. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you. You have the right to talk to a lawyer. If you decide to answer questions, you can stop the questioning at any time to consult with a lawyer. If you want a lawyer and cannot afford one, one will be appointed to you.

  "Do you understand those rights?"

  Stepanovich fidgeted in his seat. "Yes."

  "Do you wish to waive your rights and answer questions?" Houlihan said in an emotionless tone.

  Without answering, Stepanovich took out his wallet. He removed his Police Protective League Membership card. From the reverse of the card he read: "If I refuse to answer questions, may I be subjected to discipline?"

  "Yes," Houlihan said without looking up from his notes.

  Stepanovich cleared his throat, continued to read. "Could that discipline be as much as discharge or removal from office?"

  "Yes."

  "In other words, my statement will be for internal administrative purposes only and will not be used in any way in any criminal investigation or prosecution?"

  Houlihan uttered another routine yes.

  "Then for those reasons, and those reasons alone," Stepanovich read, "I will give you a statement." He returned the card to his wallet and shoved it into his right rear trouser pocket.

  "First shooting?" Houlihan asked.

  Stepanovich shook his head. "I was in one when I first came on the department. A liquor store robbe
ry."

  "Then you should be familiar with the procedure. I ask questions. You can take all the time you want to answer."

  Houlihan touched Stepanovich's report on the table. "Your report is a little skimpy."

  "Like how?"

  "It doesn't explain why you were staked out on the location."

  "We were in the Eighteenth Street gang turf to prevent crime. Shooters from Eighteenth hit a White Fence wedding a few days ago, and we figured Eighteenth was due for retaliation."

  "So you saturated the area."

  "I thought the Eighteenth Street area was the best place to patrol because of the gang tension."

  "What did you tell the other members of the task force in the briefing?"

  "To keep their eyes open for members of the White Fence gang."

  "Officer Fordyce told me he spotted Salazar and the other White Fence gang members climbing out of their car with guns and reported that to you via radio."

  "That's correct."

  Houlihan smiled wryly. "It seems like a lot of time went by between spotting the guns and moving in to investigate. What took so long?"

  "I had to move to the location and deploy the men properly."

  "And as you were doing that you heard gunshots." Stepanovich nodded. "Yes."

  "Then the suspects came running out of the apartment."

  "Right."

  "Who shot first?"

  "They did."

  "Which one?"

  "It was dark. There was a fire flash and a blast. We shot back."

  For a moment Stepanovich relived rushing into Greenie's apartment and seeing Greenie on the carpet with his wounded wife. If he'd stopped the White Fencers before they reached the apartment, she wouldn't have been shot. And afterward in court, if the judge had found him justified in believing a crime was going to occur and thus had acted legally, he would have sentenced them to a couple of months in county jail for carrying concealed weapons. When they had been released, they would surely return to Greenie's apartment and the same thing would have happened. Besides, Stepanovich told himself, Greenie and the White Fencers brought it all on themselves. A little girl had been killed.

  Nevertheless, for the first time since the shooting had occurred, Stepanovich felt the same revulsion he had experienced during his first days in the interrogation tent in Duc Loc. Master Sergeant Herb Longacre, a deliberate, taciturn man, with a neat crew cut, had hooked up a young Vietcong prisoner's testicles to an electric generator to make him tell the location of his base unit. The prisoner took six terrific jolts without saying a word and then died. Longacre quietly dragged the body out the back of the tent and buried it in the jungle. Though the incident was never mentioned again, every time Stepanovich saw Longacre he'd recall the incident. If Longacre so much as came into the mess hall when Stepanovich was eating, he'd stop eating and leave. Finally, though, by the end of Stepanovich's combat tour, Stepanovich had gotten used to Longacre. He disliked him but found he could accept him because even if he was a ghoul, he had survived six combat tours in Vietnam, had come to understand the Vietcong and be able to predict their actions. No one was as effective as Longacre at gathering intelligence and thus saving American lives. And in Vietnam, nothing else had any meaning except survival.

  "Looking back at the situation from the point of view of an LAPD supervisor, is there anything you would do differently, knowing what you know now?"

  "No," Stepanovich answered to the well-known trick question.

  Houlihan made some notes on a police issue yellow pad. Then he asked the same questions over again, phrasing each in a slightly different way. Stepanovich took care to answer each question exactly as he'd answered it previously. With the questions completed, Houlihan reached into his shirt pocket and took out a tube of lip balm. "Didn't you say Officer Fordyce and Officer Arredondo were in the street when the shooting occurred?"

  "I believe so."

  "So they should have been able to see who shot first."

  "You'll have to ask them," Stepanovich said.

  "I did. They said they couldn't tell."

  Houlihan took a handkerchief from his suit jacket pocket. He unfolded it and blew his nose loudly. His index finger ran down a page and stopped on some notes. "The suspect who survived said you and Black failed to identify yourselves as police officers before you opened fire. Stepanovich maintained eye contact with Houlihan, but didn't answer. "Did you hear what I said?"

  "What's the question?"

  Houlihan coughed nervously. "Did you identify yourselves...?"

  "I identified myself by shouting, 'Police officers! Drop your weapons!'

  "And Black?"

  "Is that a question?"

  Houlihan's face turned an Irish pissed off red. "Did Officer Black identify himself before...?"

  "I don't recall what he said. At that moment people were shooting at me, and I was in fear of my life and firing back with a shotgun."

  Houlihan smirked. "It takes both hands to fire a shotgun. How did you show your badge and fire your weapon at the same time?"

  "My badge was in plain sight, clipped to my belt as I recall. So was Black's."

  Houlihan looked like it was Christmas morning and there was nothing under the tree. As he returned to his notes, Stepanovich glanced at his wristwatch. He'd been in the interview room for more than an hour.

  "Is there anything you wish to add?" Houlihan asked.

  Stepanovich said no.

  Houlihan turned off the tape recorder. "I remember you from Wilshire Division."

  "It's been a long time."

  "Just between you and me, this shooting looks like it's within policy guidelines."

  Because Stepanovich didn't trust Houlihan any farther than he could throw him, he just nodded amiably rather than reply and thus have his reply recorded.

  "So I'd say you have nothing to worry about."

  "Is there anything else?"

  "Off the record," Houlihan said in a conspiratorial tone, "I take my hat off to you for wasting those assholes."

  Without acknowledging the remark in any way, Stepanovich stood up and left the room.

  Payaso was sitting in the interrogation room with his right hand handcuffed to a reinforced eyebolt protruding from a heavy wooden table. He’d been released from the county hospital earlier in the day, and the bandages covering his wounds were itching furiously under his black Sir Guy shirt. To alleviate this suffering, he'd tried sniffing some paint Smokey had brought with him, but rather than perking him up, it had only made him lightheaded.

  Across the table sat a pig-eyed cop who'd introduced himself as Detective Black.

  As Black filled in the blanks on an arrest report form, Payaso stared at a large mirror on the facing wall. Because he'd heard whispers coming from behind the mirror during the booking and interviewing process of previous arrests, he assumed the mirror was made of one-way glass so the cops could watch one another mind fuck the people they arrested. For this reason he stared at the mirror and made a face.

  "There's nobody behind the mirror," Black said without looking up from the paperwork.

  "If there is," Payaso said to the mirror, "they can kiss my motherfuckin' ass."

  "When was the last time you were arrested?" Black asked in a fatherly tone.

  "I don't remember."

  "Who is your nearest relative?"

  "All that shit is in my package. I been arrested twenty three times."

  Black looked up at him with a hooded glance. "Whose idea was it to hit Greenie today?" he said in a nonthreatening manner.

  "I don't know nothing about hitting no motherfucker," Payaso said. "My homeboys and me was just riding around, and one of 'em asked to stop to see somebody. So that's what I did."

  "Which one asked to stop?"

  "I don't remember."

  "Who were the homeboys in the car with you?"

  "You killed 'em. Take their fingerprints."

  "What were their names?" Black said calmly. Payaso could tell he was
starting to lose his temper.

  "I only know 'em by nicknames."

  "What are the nicknames?"

  "I forget."

  "Why did you stop on Eighteenth Street in front of Greenie's apartment?"

  "To pick up a baseball mitt. We was going to Hazard Park to play some baseball."

  "I guess it must have been a real shock to you when all the shooting started.

  "Like for real," Payaso said, fingering the handcuff on his wrist.

  Black took out a package of Camels and offered Payaso one. Payaso shook his head. Black tapped the pack on the heel of his palm and lifted out a smoke. "How long have you been out of the hospital?" he said, lighting up.

  "Since this afternoon."

  Black turned his head and expelled smoke. "If someone had shot me, I'd get back at 'em. I have the huevos to go after them. No matter what. That's just the way I am. I'd go up against 'em the minute I got out of the hospital."

  Payaso knew enough not to reply.

  "I'd get me some boys and go running. If a man won't stick up for his rights, he's nothing but a goddamn puto. Right?"

  "Like for real."

  "Who furnished the guns?"

  "I don't know nothing about no guns."

  "Whether you believe this or not, I respect you and your homeboys for going up against Greenie. He's a rotten prick."

  Payaso remained expressionless.

  "There's no need to be uptight," Black said. "You have nothing to worry about. See, what happened is history. It's over and done, and there's not a damn thing anyone can do to change it. You may not believe it, I'm only asking these questions because I'm curious. I swear to God."

  "You're asking because you want to put a case on me."

  "Wrong. You didn't shoot anybody. And there's no law against driving a Chevrolet."

  Payaso felt anger welling inside him, oozing from under his bandages. The cop sitting across the table was suddenly all the cops who'd arrested him from the time he was nine years old: white cops, black cops, juvie cops, Chicano shit eating Catholic School mother's-boy cops the uniformed prick robots who frisked him, handcuffed him, led him about from cell to interrogation room, from courtroom lockup to the sheriff's sour smelling felony bus, to the van that took him to Chino prison. They were the ones who made him eat Los Angeles County Jail watery oatmeal, beat him for talking back, beat him for not talking, and beat him for talking out of the corner of his mouth to the dude in the next cell. "You know what I mean," he said, holding his temper in check. "Like for real."