New York Chief of Detectives (13 page)

Pat’s adrenalin was getting pumped up, because he knew you could never predict how these things would end. His worries were soon realized.  

“South Eddie Central, ten thirteen shots fired. My partner has been hit. I’m out of the pursuit. Have my assist cars take the lead.”

“South Charlie Central, I’m taking the lead, and I’m now behind the suspect vehicle.”

Pat and Dickie were headed toward the chase with lights and siren on. Cold chills were running up Pat’s spine as he heard the alert repeated on the city-wide channel.

“All units confirmed ten thirteen shots fired, officer down, South Charlie and other Mid-Town units are in pursuit of a red Ford Escort License Ida Sam John -239, K.”

“South Charlie Central, the suspect is circling blocks. There appear to be two white males in the car. They are on 42nd Street now.”

The “Pop! Pop! Pop!” of gunfire could be heard in the background of the radio transmissions. 

“South Charlie, shots fired. I’m creating some distance, but still have the suspect vehicle in sight. It looks like he’s heading for Times Square!”

“ESU Sergeant Central. I’m at the Times Square Precinct standing by and I’m hearing multiple gunshots.”

“ESU Sergeant, ten-four.”

There was a dead silence on the radio for a few seconds that seemed like an eternity to Pat O’Connor. Then the silence was broken by the voice of the ESU Sergeant.

“ESU Sergeant, Central.”

“ESU Sergeant, go ahead.”

“Suspect vehicle has crashed in Times Square. We have shots fired with two suspects down. We need a bus and notify the Manhattan Watch Commander.”

Pat was impressed with the calm demeanor of the ESU Sergeant.

As Dickie drove Pat into the Times Square area, it was completely filled with NYPD vehicles, FDNY Trucks and EMS vehicles. As Pat got out of the Chrysler, he saw the ambulance leave the scene with the suspect.

Pat approached a Mid-Town Captain. “What do we have, Cap?”

“It’s an ‘effing’ cluster, Chief. ESU drilled these two guys with the MP5 and they crashed. Passenger is DOA, but the driver is still barely alive and on the way to Belleview in the bus.”

“Any of our guys hurt?”

“Not here, Chief, but Frankie Greene from Mid-Town South caught a couple of slugs in the chase. I don’t know his condition, but he’s also at Belleview.” 

“Let’s get this scene locked down, Captain. Because of where we are, we’re going to be in media hell pretty quick. Block it off, get everyone away from the car, and get the officers involved out of here.”

“Yes sir, Chief, will you make notifications?”

“I’ll handle Chief Abernathy and the Commissioner, and you can notify your command.”

“Thanks, Chief.”   

CHAPTER 26

Friday, April 9-Day 8

Times Square

Borough of Manhattan, New York

0220 Hours

Pat
looked around at the growing sea of emergency vehicles. Against the backdrop of the Times Square glitter, it made quite a show. The first news trucks were showing up, and it had only been ten minutes since the crash. The noise was deafening with the frequent “whoop, whoop” of sirens, FDNY air horns, blaring radios, and uniformed officers shouting at onlookers to get back.

Pat sat down in the Chrysler and rolled up the window. He called Chief of Department, Charles Abernathy, first. Abernathy always seemed jealous of Pat’s relationship with the Police Commissioner.

“Good morning, Chief, this is Pat O’Connor.”

“It’s almost three o’clock in the morning, Pat. What’s so important?” 

Wishing that he had just called the commissioner, Pat replied. “We’ve had an incident in Times Square involving a chase and a shooting. One of our Mid-Town officers was shot, and ESU killed one suspect, with another one that’s probably ‘circling the drain.’ They’re both at Belleview.”

“How did all of this come about?”

“The suspects were driving a car with the plates off of Tony Rodriguez’s police car.” 

“Thank you Patrick, I’m sure you want to notify the commissioner yourself. I’ll be getting dressed. See you shortly.”

“Thanks, Chief.”

Pat called Commissioner Longstreet and briefed him on the details.

“How serious is our guy, Patty?”

“I have no idea, Commissioner. This is all still unfolding.”

“I’ll check on that as soon as I get off the phone.”

“Patty, I’m just glad that we have caught the perps that killed Tony.”

“It’s way too soon to know that, but we’re treating it as a possibility.” 

“They had the tags off of Tony’s car and have shot yet another cop. It has to be them.”

“I’m not that certain. It just doesn’t feel right yet.”

“Okay, Patrick O’Connor never accepts the obvious, does he?”

“Not without evidence to back it up.”

“I need to call the mayor and get this bureaucratic nightmare started.”

Pat ended his call with Longstreet, and his phone started vibrating again.

“Pat O’Connor.”

“Good morning, Pat. It’s Mike Wilson.”

“Good morning, It looks like it worked.”

“Worked is not the word I was thinking of. I just got called at home by the FBI Director, wanting to know about the NYPD shooting a terrorist in Times Square who was wanted by the
Bureau. I’ve never talked to the Director on the phone before. This is a cluster that’ll have my head on a platter. I knew I shouldn’t have done this.”

“Before you talk yourself into bureaucratic paralysis, don’t forget that these perps made this happen, not the FBI or the NYPD.”  

“It won’t matter, Pat. I’ll be chasing the people who cut those little tags off the mattresses in Butte, Montana. We have to talk.”

“We are talking, Mike. I’ll be at the scene for a while.”

“You’ll have company soon, because the director has ordered me to have a squad from the JTTF respond.”  

Pat called Bryan Flannery.

“Flannery.”

“Good morning, this is O’Connor.”

“Are we having fun yet, Chief?”

“Grins and giggles. What’s your status?”

“I’ve sent task force members to the Times Square incident as they’ve been freed up, and we’re just about wrapped up here at the armory. What do you need?”

“Send a team to Belleview. The perp who’s alive is unconscious, and I want someone with him around the clock. Also, we need a status report on Frankie Greene, the cop who was shot from Mid-Town South.”

“I’ll take care of it, Chief.  Mike and Mary are here now. I’ll send them. Do you think that these are the guys who killed Tony?”

“I’m not sure yet. For some reason it just doesn’t feel right, but it’s just a gut feeling. Of course all the crime fighters at One PP want these to be the killers.”

“I’ll put my money on your gut feeling.”

“It’s just experience, Bryan.”

Pat got out of the Chrysler and approached the Mid-Town Captain again.

“Let’s make sure that we get everyone away from this car, Captain. We need to de-escalate this and slow things down. I have teams responding to process the car. We need to be able to work without having CNN looking over our shoulder, and we’re soon to be invaded by the brass from One PP.”

In less than half an hour, Mike Wilson was on the scene in his blue raid jacket with big, yellow letters “FBI” on it. Pat quickly motioned him over.

“Good morning, Mike,”

“There’s nothing good about it. You just don’t understand the Bureau.”

“I probably understand it better than you think. When something like this happens, it is assumed somebody did something wrong. In this case, you’ve done nothing wrong, and neither has the NYPD.”

“But I put these tags in the terrorism database and now we have an NYPD cop shot, a perp dead and another one in critical condition. I’ve been called by the Assistant FBI Director in charge of the New York Office, and he’ll be here shortly.” Mike said, wearing a worried expression.

“We’ll assemble everyone in our command bus, and I’ll do the talking. Don’t say a word, Mike. I’ll only tell the truth. You just need to stop worrying, and be happy that two armed thugs, who were into shooting at cops, are no longer a threat. These perps made the decision to take on the NYPD, and they lost. The FBI had absolutely nothing to do with that decision or this shooting.”

CHAPTER 27

Friday, April 9-Day 8

Times Square

Borough Of Manhattan, New York

0400 Hours

By
0400 hours, Times Square was crawling with FBI Agents, Rodriguez Task Force members and most of the top NYPD brass. Pat asked that all of the brass from both the NYPD and the FBI meet with him in the NYPD command bus. Longstreet approached Pat.

“I’ve asked DCPI Nancy Peters to join us, Patty. The public information office is getting calls from all over the world. This is now the lead story on CNN, referring to it as NYPD having a blazing shoot-out with possible terrorists in Times Square.”

“That’s ridiculous, Commissioner. We don’t have anything to support that.”

“It might not be a bad spin. The NYPD will have won again against yet another terrorist threat. The mayor will love it, and New Yorkers will be proud. Nancy thinks it would work.”

Pat was starting to steam and walked away from the commissioner to collect his thoughts. After a few seconds, he walked back.

“I want you to listen very carefully to what I’m going to say, Commissioner. We’re not going to spin anything! We’ll tell what facts we can regarding this event, and we will absolutely not try to make this some kind of terrorist incident unless evidence is developed that supports it. This is not a political incident, and I can’t stand by and let it become one!”

“Why do you have to be so obstinate? In this city, everything is political.”

“That’s because you allow it to be political. If you look at the history of NYPD Police Commissioners, more commissioners have been replaced for getting on the wrong side of politics, than anything else. That’s why we tell the truth and nothing more. Your DCPI can do what she wants, but it’ll be the truth that she releases. Are we on the same page, Commissioner?”

“I’ll trust you on this, Patty, but even though you’re right, it might not please the mayor.”

“Quite frankly, I don’t give a damn if it pleases the mayor or not.”

As the commissioner walked into the command bus, Pat’s phone began to vibrate.

“Pat O’Connor.”

“Chief it’s Bryan. I have good news, bad news and worse news.”

“What now?”

“The good news is that Frankie Greene will be fine. One bullet lodged in his vest and the other one is a through-and-through in the right arm with nothing broken. He’ll be sore, but he’ll fully recover. The bad news is that the perp from Times Square is unconscious and might even be brain dead, according to the doctors. They’ll run tests and keep us posted. I have uniforms guarding him in ICU, and Mary and Mike should be coming to your location.”

“So what is the worst news?”

“The stupid kid, Marcus Johnson, from Queens, with the dog bite has escaped from the hospital.”

“Now, how did we let that happen?” Pat said with an irritated edge to his voice.

“Nurses told the cops he was sedated and would probably sleep all night. The cops were at the nurse’s station doing what cops do best and during those flirtatious moments, he got out of bed and hasn’t been seen since. We looked at security videos and it looks like he just walked out the front door. The BOLO alert should be going out soon, but we haven’t found him.”

“Make sure you notify the command of the officers that were guarding him. I want them to hold paper!”

“Yes sir, Chief!”

CHAPTER 28

Friday, April 9-Day 8

Times Square

Borough of Manhattan, New York

0430 Hours

Pat
walked into the command bus. It smelled of hot coffee, and it was packed. In addition to the commissioner, Chief Abernathy was there along with IAB Chief Harry Doogin and OCCB Chief Ray Capese. Mike Wilson was there with Roger Whittington, the Assistant Director of the FBI in charge of the New York Office. The Deputy Commissioner for Public Information, Nancy Peters, was there scanning the bank of television monitors. Mike Logan and Mary McDonald were seated in the back.

Pat grabbed a cup of coffee and looked at his watch. It was 0430 hours. Looking at the television, he saw CNN starting a broadcast with breaking news. “We have breaking news from New York. We have received unconfirmed reports that there has been a shootout with terrorists in Times Square, involving FBI Agents and New York City Police Officers. It is reported that at least one person is dead and a New York City Police Officer has been shot. We have crews on the scene, but most of Times Square is barricaded by the police at this time. The FBI has not made a statement.”