"Cop Killer - Part 2" © by John S LES

"Cop Killer - part 2" by John S LES

My drive into the city was pretty smooth.  The doorman at 15 Central Park West was already alerted that I was arriving and walked me in past security.  He knew my name and saw when I drove by the building in my electric blue, Corvette convertible before I parked it in a nearby garage.   Of course he couldn't wait until I walked back up to the building to ask me why a guy with a last name like Ferrari was driving a Corvette.  I told him quite simply,

"Hey bro, I don't have a place to park a Ferrari where I live at in Queens.  I'm only another worker bee in this lifestyles of the rich and famous building.  Hopefully while I'm here, you'll be the first and only person from around here to ask me that question today."

I had read a little bit about the building's construction and design ahead of time, but to see it close up was immensely different.  The lobby was huge and spacious.  It was even better in person than it was on paper or in photographs.  The average cost of the apartments in the building was $17 million, and this building looked every bit of that kind of clientele.

By the time I made it to Mrs. Walter's apartment, I was getting a little numb at being in awe of this building.  Her apartment had over 2700 square feet inside and was on a high floor.  The rooms overlooked the park.  It was absolutely spectacular.  Even though she was on the older side of her mid 30's, she too was just as gorgeous as her building.  Clearly from the close fitting, contour accenting black designer suit she was wearing, she definitely kept up some kind of exhaustive workout routine.  Her green eyes and short, dark hair highlighted her naturally attractive looks.

She was gracious and immediately complemented me on my suit.  "You look terrific in Armani, but don't be afraid to try a Hugo Boss."
"Ahh it's the Italian side of me.  But, I normally don't dress this way, Mrs. Walters - "
"Please call me, Linda."
"Yeah, well, Linda I normally don't dress this way.  In fact, if I don't have this suit back at the morgue by midnight, it might turn back into a teapot or something."

My comments got a good, room relaxing laughs as we got into our business discussion.

Initially Mrs. Walters seemed eager to hear what I had brought for her and her attorney, who was present in the apartment along with her personal assistant.  But, the novelty of how me and my team obtained that information, as well as the number of women, including his main squeeze, Sherman, started to wear on her.  She became a little more melancholy realizing that her 15 year marriage was over and that now she would be headed for a bumpy battle in divorce court.  The information I had given her only gave her a slight advantage.  I handed her attorney the  envelope containing a flash drive copy of the accompanying photos, cd recording and audio recordings of her husband's infidelities.

"May I call you, Gio?"  I nodded yes. "Good.  Gio, I hired three other private investigators who took months and had less than half of what you brought here to me today.  They did that because they know that I have money.  You did all of this within ten days.  You came highly recommended from a friend and I can see why.  You're tall, gorgeous and honest.  Nothing sexier for a soon to be single woman with money than a hot looking man, who's an honest entrepreneur."

"Linda, I try to make it my policy to not date my clients.  It wouldn't bode well for my business."

"It wouldn't bode well for you to flat out reject an influential woman, who hasn't been with a man in nearly a year and is singling you out to break her ice."

I immediately stood up.  "It's time for me to go, Linda.  I'll take my check?"

She walked over to her kitchen table and removed a certified check from her purse and handed it to me.  "Here's your check.  I hope that one day you will forgive me for my bad behavior and rude comment due to a broken heart and a lonely, rich life."

I looked at the check.  We had agreed for two weeks at $20,000.  She handed me a $75,000 check.
"Gio, don't be upset with me for overpaying you from our agreement too.  That is as much as the other three bozo investigators combined cost me.  You did 4 times the work that they did in way less time.  I'm compensating you for your honesty and efficiency."

When I made a sarcastic face, she quipped back, "Dammit, Gio.  There's no need to make an embarrassing moment for me more difficult.  You're an ambitious man. Can't you just figure out a way to do something positive with the extra compensation?  You've saved me millions in a divorce settlement and I'm thanking you.  No strings attached."


By the time I got downstairs, Darren had tried to reach me while in the elevator.  Normally we would have had a good connection, but he was trying to reach me via phone to phone, Skype.  When I walked outside the building our signal strength improved and I could see and hear what he was trying to tell me.

"Gio, take a look at what's going on down here, man!  The police have stepped up their stop and frisk trying to look for this cop killer.  They are tossing everyone!  There's a neighborhood guy down here on 14th Street that everyone calls 'Loco'.  The cops upset him so bad that he just came back at them with a knife in the streets.  The tension down here is crazy and the cops are making it worse!  Now they are chasing him down.  I'm going to follow this on my phone so that you can see."  Loco did refuse to put the knife down, and continued to run from the police as he menaced them and pedestrians on the street.  It was all over in 9 gunshots.

"What the hell!  Gio, you gotta get down here!"

A little over an hour later, Darren and I were inside St. Emeric's Parish talking to Father Manuel Cabron.  He talked to us about the tension in the streets from the stop and frisk program in New York City.  He also talked about an innocent man, who is not a model citizen and a small group of cops, who aren't on a straight and narrow path of righteousness.

"No more than all priests at all parishes are perfect servants, there are a band of cops in this area who are not perfect either.  They prey upon the weakness of others to feed their own weaknesses.  They don't enforce any laws, they just use their authority to enforce their egos."

"I hear you Father.  How does this pertain to the police officer who was shot last night?"

"Gio, I've been at this parish for 6 years now.  I walk these streets at different hours.  I know the good people here and the bad ones.  I know the good cops and the bad ones.  That police officer that was killed last night was not an honest cop.  There have been many civilian complaints on him, but they have fallen on deaf ears because his uncle is a commissioner.  Their suspect, Santiago and his whole family have been parishioners at this parish.  Although this young man is not an innocent young man to life, I know of him to be innocent of this crime of murder, because he is afraid of guns.  That is why even the good people in this community here will not turn him over to the police.  Someone shot that cop, but Santiago wasn't the one."

"Father Manuel, I don't see how either me or my agency will be any good here?  The police have Internal Affairs and the citizens have all sorts of community resources and leaders here to make themselves heard.  I mean, who would my client even be?"

"Yes we the people have community resources and the police have Internal Affairs.  But everyone is only looking for their own self interests.  I know you.  You will look for only the truth.  Hopefully before more lives are lost in this tug of war.  By looking at your suit, I know that I may not be able to afford your normal rates, but I will pay you what I can?"

"No, no.  That won't be necessary, Father.  The good Lord looked out for me earlier today.  All expenses have already been covered on this one.  I between the three of us and these four walls, the people of this city are going to have to be my client.  I promise that we will look into this.  I'll try to give it two weeks and see what we come up with."

As Darren and I were walking out the door, I turned and looked Father Manuel straight in the eyes, "Manny, by any chance, you wouldn't happen to know where I could find Santiago would you?  I mean it would make things easier for me to understand, if I could hear his side of what went down last night before the police find him.  It's important that I do."

"I knew that you would, Gio.  Sometimes when things get too hot at one location, you have to move to another location that might be more in the shade.  This parish is too small for any type of sanctuary   Too many people going in and out in such a small place and lots of eyes everywhere.  But our old parish, in Queens, the one we grew up going in - "

"St. Joseph on Jamaica Avenue."

"Yes.  It's a much better place to hide children who have turned to God for help or sanctuary.  Many things can be hidden in plain sight."

"Thanks, Father."

On our way out the door, I noticed that Father Manuel's sister, Emily had just arrived at the office.  Emily Cabron was a petite and still beautiful woman.  We dated for a few months in high school.  A few months after we had broke up, she had an unfortunate incident with her next boyfriend.  He beat and raped her.  He was later shot and killed in gunfight with the police.  She was so traumatized by the incident that she started using drugs.  Within a year her her family sent her upstate to a boarding school.  That was the last that I saw of her.  We had kept in contact through only word of mouth via her brother, Father Manuel.

We traded pleasantries, she asked for my business card, but the time had come for me to go.  Darren and I got into our cars and as we exited the church parking lot, we were immediately surrounded and blocked from moving any further by about eight police cars and one Emergency Service vehicle.  The police surrounded us with guns draw and demanded that we exit our vehicles, my small Corvette and Darren from his Chrysler 300.  Before I could even speak or identify myself, I was immediately spun around and pushed against my car.  While my hands were on the hood of my car I activated the SOS recording.

"Who the is the commanding officer here?"

"You shut your fucking mouth and just tell us who you are?  What are you some kind of lawyer?"

Just as the officer said that, he felt my gun. "Gun!" and immediately seized my arms to handcuff me.  He immediately began to Mirandize me and Darren who was also carrying his licensed handgun.  Getting permits to carry handguns in New York City is an arduous task in and of itself.  But we had our permits through the agency.  Yet we had been stopped, searched and handcuffed without any questioning or respect for our rights.  I was livid, but kept my tongue as civil as possible.

The commanding officer did finally approach after we were handcuffed.  He began asking us questions in a more calmer tone.  Once he read our ID cards, permits, and licenses, he then asked for our permission to search our car because they were looking for Santiago.  They had heard that he could be hiding in the church or being sneaked out in the trunk of someones car.  I refused the search, which was being conducted anyway without even waiting or accepting my approval or denial.  As I looked around, I recognized some of the plainclothed cops from DeLorenzo's Anti-Crime unit from the news interviews.

"Sergeant, you must be kidding me?  After me and my associate have been stopped without cause and handcuffed like this, you expect me to turn around and give you the okay for searching my car - which you're men are doing anyway?  Tell you what Sgt. I'm betting that as we speak there are phone calls being made by my office to the Commissioners office, my attorney, the Civil Complainant Review Board, and my cousin, who's Chief of D's.  You can't solve one problem by creating another."

He looked at me hard. "I don't know who you are, but you're talking a big game.  I don't know if you have the juice to back it up."

I looked at his name tag, "Sgt. Brennan I don't think you have enough time to start working your way back up from meter maid.  This whole thing has the right spirit, but it's being done the wrong way.  We are war veterans, working as private investigators with authorized permits to carry our guns.  We would have cooperated had you just stopped and asked us what we were doing here.  You and everyone here preempted us from being cooperative and violated our civil rights - plain and simple.  What's your probable cause?  Two cars leaving the parking lot of a rectory?  You know, when me and my partner were overseas, even we would have to answer to someone for treating civilians like this."

"Santiago could have been snucked out in one of your cars."

"Oh really?  Well, since you and your team have been sitting on our cars the past hour and a half, just how did we sneak him into our cars?  Our cars were parked out in public view - in broad daylight?  How did we sneak him out?  Do you think we brought him out in our coat pockets?  This is harassment."

At just that same moment, the Sgt received both a radio broadcast from a Lieutenant Simmons and a phone call on his cell from a Captain Dunlap.  Marti had received my SOS transmission in the office and put in a conference phone call with a live broadcast of this stop/frisk and conversation to a friend at the CCRB, our attorney Aliyah, my cousin Alex and another friend at police headquarters.  Within seconds the handcuffs were immediately removed and all search of our vehicles stopped.  Only then did we receive a more polite and respectful line of questions.  I used the moment to get me and Darren into the teeth of the 14th precinct by advising Sgt. Brennan that we should move the conversation to the confines of his precinct building and if I could speak with Lt. Simmons when we got there.

Two hours later, Darren and I would wrap up our day in a closed door conversation with Lt. Simmons, Sgt Brennan, a couple detectives and Aliyah.  The police again blamed the whole stop and search of me and Darren on some neighborhood junkie who had claimed that we were there to hide Santiago.  In addition, Santiago's older brother once also hid at St. Emeric's to avoid being arrested for beating a man with a bat.  He had gotten into a street fight with a guy with a knife, but he had a bat.  The bat won.  But he still had to go to through the legal process. Instead he chose to hide in the church for three days before he voluntarily came out.

 NYPD brass was not about to wait three days to see if a younger Santiago was involved with killing a cop and was now hiding out in the church.  They were not going to allow anyone to sneak Santiago out of the church.  Unfortunately for them, the police task force unit that was set up to find Santiago had gotten their information about 12 hours too late.  Neither Darren nor I updated them.  But, what I  did establish in that meeting was that people in the community had asked Father Manuel to reach out to us to investigate dirty cops.  Lt. Simmons was quick to point out that IAB investigates dirty cops.

"Yes Lt., that may be, but investigating a police officer who has family with big hooks down at One Police Plaza, might prove to be a career shortening move for your average IAB detective.  After what happened today with this civilian Loco and based on how Darren and I were stopped - I can see why people in this community have a growing mistrust of the very police officers they are suppose to trust."

"Let me tell you something Gio - I know all about you, your father and your family.  Your father retired from this job.  I had an occasion to work with him many years ago.  When you were born this city averaged nearly 2000 murders a year - not including all the attempted murders.  Now we average less than 100 murders.  This city is a much safer place than when you were born.  Your sarcasm is pissing me off and pissing on the time that men like your father and uncles put into this job.  Or perhaps you missed all of that while you were gone overseas?"

"'A large reservoir of good will was under construction when I left the Police Department in 1994.  It was called community policing.  But it was quickly abandoned for tough-sounding rhetoric and dubious stop-and-frisk tactics that sowed new seeds of community mistrust.'"

"What is that?  Some idealistic rhetoric from the 1960's?"

"No, Lt.  Those were the words of the then former and now present Police Commissioner, Raymond Kelly back in 2000.  Now that his views have apparently changed.  All I want to know is, who's watching the people that are supposed to be watching over this city, to make sure they are doing the right thing?"

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"You know Lt, I was on the job too, if even for a minute.  I know that Anti-Crime units work in sets of 2 or 3 or a whole team of people.  What was DeLorenzo doing out there on the streets, going after a perpetrator with no backup?  Where was his partner, Lt?"

"That's none of your business.  That's police business."

"Yeah, well I wonder if I look hard enough I wonder if I'm going to find out that part of the reason that DeLorenzo died is because he's a hot head - can't do anything wrong - type of cop?  I wonder if I'm going to find out that because of his family hooks in the department - no one has laid the hammer down to correct him along the way?  In fact, I'm betting that his hands off grooming has ultimately led to his death and that there's people on the streets lined up to expound on his misdeeds to me and the media, based on all this community trust the department has been putting in the bank for a rainy day."

"Sure, go listen to the testimony of a skell.  You're an embarrassment to your father's good name."

"Funny, Lt., I was treated like a skell today all while wearing a $3,000 suit and earning a honest living.  The people are beginning to wonder just who are the skells?  The hoodlums on the street, or members of this department?"  As I stood up, I took one more shot at rattling his cage, "And for your information, my father is embarrassed - but only from the way things are being handled on this job by loafers who were good at taking promotional tests but, couldn't handle themselves on the street without a badge and a gun."

"Ms. Mitchell can you kindly escort your clients out of my precinct before I have them arrested as pollution.  Be advised, if they break any laws regarding police business I will be seeing you sooner than later."

Outside the precinct, Aliyah tore into me, "Gio, just what the hell were you trying to do up there?  Get us all locked up for Jay walking or spitting on a curb?  Come on use your head!"

"I was using my head, Aliyah.  What I did up there is only the beginning.  They want to rattle cages around here.  Let's see how they react when someone rattles their cage?  Yesterday we had a cop killed.  Today we have a man shot dead on the streets holding a knife.  Then Darren and I get handcuffed like common criminals for doing nothing but exiting a church.  And let's not forget that right now I have a priest who's more afraid of the police than he is afraid of neighborhood hoodlums.  Something just isn't right."

"Fine, Gio.  But if you're going to disturb a hornet's nest, you're suppose to do it while they are sleeping, not while they're out flying around carrying guns."

Darren shook his head in agreement as I gave him a sarcastic look.  "Oh so you're agreeing with her now?  You weren't smiling when they were frisking us and searching our cars?"

"That's because at the time I was pissed.  But I wouldn't want to agitate a Lt right in his own precinct."

"Yeah well, I did that to see how far this dirty cop theory goes.  He's their boss.  Whether he knows or doesn't know who's dirty, he's still going to lead us right to them.  Once he goes blow some steam in front of them about me - I'm sure we'll be hearing from them."

We all got into our cars and headed our separate ways.  Darren went back uptown to his condo in Harlem.  Aliyah back to the Upper Eastside, and me back to Queens.  I already had Marti and Grace start pulling as much public information that they could get online about the 14th precinct Anti-Crime unit.  I needed all of their names.  I also told her to give Edge a call.  We would be needing his technological expertise on all the members in that unit.  Wherever the public information ended and classified information began, Edge could find it and give us that information.

When I pulled up into my driveway, I could see that an object had been placed on my doorstep.  I couldn't tell what it was until I got closer.  When I did, I could see that it was a dead rat thrown on my stoop.  Perfect.  Whoever that person or persons that did this, didn't know was that my house was surrounded by hidden camera's along with motion sensors, and an alarm system.  I checked my computer system inside and all was functioning well.  I didn't bother looking at it becauseI knew it was all already saved, and downloaded to a back up system.

My sister Bianca lost her husband to a car accident.  It had been a couple of days since I spoke to her son, my nephew Michael.  Instead of watching video, I gave him a quick call before it got any later.  Above all things, family mattered in my family.  When Michael lost his father, Michael, senior, all of the men in our family from both sides made it our business to check in on him.  Moreover, since Bianca was closest to me, it was I who was going to be his surrogate father until she was able to move on.

Tomorrow would be another day.  After I found that rat on my stoop, I forswore that everyone behind that rat was going go down.