The car’s air conditioning ran full blast in a battle against fully opened window like a warm jet stream meeting a cold front. We always kept the window down to stay in touch with sights, sounds, and smells of the inner-city streets. I reached up and grabbed the neckline of the bullet proof vest under my uniform shirt. I pulled it away from my sweat soaked tee shirt and the heat hit my face like opening a brick oven door.
It was one of those hot and muggy summer nights, the kind when there is no relief even after the sun goes down. I sat in my dented police car with 160,000 plus miles on it. The K-9 vehicles were older than the rest of the fleet; I guess that was our reward for working the high crime hours, 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. in the high crime areas in Erie, Pa. But I chose this position and could opt out anytime. Well, that is if I wanted to go back to switching shifts and lose this take-home car. Although, some nights I wondered if my K-9 partner (Grand) and I might make it all the way home without the car breaking down.
Our main assignment was targeting street crimes, a.k.a. drug dealing, street violence and large unruly crowds. There were nine of us that made up the K-9 corps and I loved it. Not to mention the extra bonus of being able to work with my “raised in the housing projects” best buddy Terry. Terry was larger than life from the moment I met him. Only five years older than me, he liked to talk as though he was from another generation. Hard to believe eleven years had passed since we started the academy together in January of 1989. We became close in the academy while driving the 45-minute route to Meadville, Pa together, studying on the way, both secretly trying to outdo each other with every test score. Neither of us had gone to college, but I was proud of my 98.2% overall test score average and thought it might hold up for the high scholastic award. But I guess a 98.6% average is a little bit better, and such was the theme on graduation day as Terry collected more awards than Jesse Owens in the 36 Olympics. This included the outstanding cadet award, which he deserved, although I would never admit it to his face.
Neither of us held any rank on the K-9 Corps and even though we had a Sergeant, I and all the other members on the K-9 Corps knew in our hearts that Terry was our leader. He could spot crime or a wanted criminal a mile away and he never took a break. Man, the City of Erie sure got a bargain when they hired him. I long suspected his keen eye, and sixth sense were honed during the years running FROM the police through the alleys and along the railroad tracks near the projects he lived as a youth.
The sweat ran down my forehead as I sat in my car waiting to see if the eerily quiet night would be interrupted with the boisterous crowd from the nuisance bar spilling into the street when they closed. Grand lay sleeping in the back caged-off area, tired from a shift of barking at everything that moved. I jealously thought “how comfortable you must be, I can’t even recline my seat because of your stupid cage.” There was hardly enough room for a horse jockey up front, let alone an ex-defensive lineman.
I had not always worn the vest which was causing so much discomfort as religiously as I do now. My thoughts drifted back to that night in 1991 when we were out to dinner with Terry and his wife. I mentioned to him how hot and uncomfortable the vest was, and that I did not always wear it. The voices stopped, the beer quit flowing, and the laughter subsided. It always seemed that way when Terry was pissed about something or wanted to get his point across. I thought to myself “man, here it comes.” I had seen it before in the academy, sometimes it was standing up to argue with the instructors to prove they were wrong while the rest of us sat like quiet sheep staring at the desk and thinking “I know he’s right, but just shut up before we end up running an extra three miles in P.T. class. The routine is always the same; first, it’s the icy cold stare with his blue Irish eyes that went right to your soul. Then came the finger point along with the verbal assault; “You stupid shit!” As usual he was right; always holding the stare until you either submitted, even if you disagreed or opened yourself up for a barrage of his well thought out points because you dared to speak your mind. I would see this time and time again over the years as we watched our kids grow up together. It was one week after this tongue lashing that Terry was shot in the chest on a drug raid, the vest saving his life. I wore it like a layer of skin after that, although never really becoming used to it.
The relief of daydreaming was short lived; I was hot, my gun belt was digging in, and the leather combat boots I wore were much more conducive to a cold winter day. The 25 pounds of equipment I strapped on for work every night felt more like 50. Nothing new, just the way I felt at the end of most shifts. I am pretty sure I mentioned “I chose to be in this position.” I loved it, but my kids were getting older and the strain of the constant 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. shifts, working weekends and holidays, made me think that I needed a change. I did not anticipate that everything would indeed change over the next few hours.
Usually on these nights, Terry and I would park together at the end of shift watching one of these troubled spots together. The time would pass as we discussed how wonderful that first sip of cold beer would taste when we got home. But tonight, I sat by myself since Terry had worked an earlier shift with a couple of the K-9 Officers to address another problem. I smiled thinking how close we had become. We and our families were inseparable. I still occasionally got the stare down and tongue lashing from time to time, but it no longer intimidated me the way it used to. And you know; I think that bugged him, oh so slightly, giving me an almost brotherly satisfaction. You know the kind I mean; like when the younger brother wins that first game of one on one, and you know from then on things are going to be a little more even.
I glanced at the faded flickering digital clock display barely visible through the scratches from shift after shift of throwing the duty bag in the front seat, 3:02 a.m. It appeared like there would be no problems at the bar tonight. A few more minutes and I could slowly start edging my car toward the city line and be even that much closer to home. I thought about how great it was going to feel to pull off that uniform along with the gun belt which held not just my weapon, but my portable radio, extra handgun magazines, pepper spray, a baton and yes finally take off that dreaded vest that now smelled like the sweaty shoulder pads I used to wear playing football. What a wonderful feeling to get that stuff off and jump into the shower or even my pool for a 4 a.m. swim. It reminded me of hitting the shower after the two-a-day football practices on hot August evenings. I reflected how much I loved that I was still part of team and I felt that same bond with my brothers and sisters in blue and our team captain Terry.
My drifting thoughts were interrupted by the crack of the radio. I recognized the officer’s voice, an officer in the patrol division who was initiating the routine traffic stop, a broken taillight. I almost laughed out loud; I do not remember the last time this old worn out, but lovable veteran had conducted a traffic stop, what was this, some sort of a rekindled spirit I wondered? Then I heard Jay, a fellow K-9 Officer, transmit that he would be out as back-up, a normal procedure. Next, the veteran officer’s familiar sarcastic tone was loud and clear over the radio. I am sure he was probably already regretting this new-found initiative. “It looks like this guy is running on foot.” “The K-9 officer is in pursuit with his cruiser.” I had heard this tone from him before. It said everything to me. In my mind it relayed to me “these guys are blowing everything out of proportion again.” “Just let the guy go, if you catch him, we will have all this paperwork to do” It also told me that he was not going with him to help when Jay caught the guy! I instinctively punched the steering wheel. I was frustrated from years of hearing this nonchalant attitude, as well as the fact that I couldn’t be farther away. This stop was almost all the way to the east City line, and I was downtown. I turned on my lights and siren as I sped that way. These stops and chases were a normal course of business on the K-9 Corps, but this one was at quitting time, and I knew it would be Jay and me doing all the paperwork well past our shift. There was also the natural protective instinct to get there before the slightly framed Jay had to wrestle this guy into handcuffs by himself.
I was about halfway there when Jay’s trembling voice came over the radio: “I’ve been shot, he has my gun” “He ran south” It was not till much, much later that we would learn the exact details. This “unarmed young man” who did not want to be taken into custody was cornered in a parking lot by Jay, his drugs and gun were still in the car. He turned, walked toward Jay with his hands partly raised and supported by arms that resembled oak trees formed by the weights in the prison he had just been released from. He walked toward Jay repeating “what” over and over again as if to say, “what are you going to do now?” As Jay tried to process these rapidly evolving, tense and uncertain actions in the few seconds that he was afforded, he had to make a split-second decision. Of course, his vehicle was as worn out as mine and the door popper to let his dog out was not working; what the hell? This criminal with evil intent in his heart. . . I mean “unarmed young man”, had now sucker punched him, taken his gun, shot him in the hip and stood over Jay thinking he was dead. He then fled, except NOW he was armed with a semi-automatic handgun and 14 rounds of ammunition.
I thought my foot would break through the metal floor as I stomped on the gas pedal. Grand, now alert, balancing on all fours, howling in perfect rhythm with the siren. I resisted the urge to go to the scene where Jay lay bleeding; I knew other officers were arriving there. Thoughts were screaming in my head “Where would this guy be headed, where can I cut him off?” This wasn’t one of the normal neighborhoods that we chased criminals through over the years. It was an industrial shop area with several acres of thick brush with two sets of railroad tracks and trees to the south, then more trees and brush before giving way to the home court safety of the housing projects. He had to be trying to make it there. That is where I would go.
My cruiser literally caught air as I flew over the railroad tracks. I just knew I had arrived there before the suspect. I parked my cruiser on the edge of the woods by the projects. He never could have got through all that thick brush and trees by now. I shut the car off to hear the sounds. The steam rose from the old worn-out engine, and the smell of overheated brakes filled the air as they were probably just one pedal push away from ever actually stopping the car again.
Then it hit me how big this area was and that we were not even close to having enough officers to set up a tight-secure perimeter. The questions over the radio started flooding into me; “Where do you want me?” “Is there a better description?” “Can I meet up with you?” It never dawned on me at the time that I was not the supervisor, or even more important “where the hell was the supervisor?” I just answered and directed the best I could, somehow, I was now in charge of this manhunt.
I sensed that this guy was still laying low in the brush, but the gaps between where officers staged were way too large. We needed more officers and there was still about three to four hours before daylight. I was also a member of the City’s SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) Team. I was the only one of our 25-man team on duty this night. Like most SWAT Teams throughout the country, we all had our full-time assignments and then were activated when needed. We were called out on average of about twice a month for drug raids, high risk warrant service and barricaded gunmen. We also trained 16-hours every month and if ever there was a time to assemble the Team, this was it. I transmitted on the radio to request that the SWAT Team be activated, and all available members called in.
Tragically, many things went wrong that night. The only street supervisor got tied up at the scene where Jay was shot. He totally forgot that we were looking for an armed man desperate to escape or if I wanted to cut him some slack (I did not), just got caught up in the moment. The next thing that went wrong was that the request I had just made for the SWAT Team to be assembled, was ignored! This should have been a no-brainer decision, but it was flippantly disregarded by the captain inside, our Officer in Charge for the night who was now going to miss stepping outside for a cigarette in his bright white shirt while his only equipment he had strap on to come to work, his handgun, lay comfortably sitting in his desk. Worse than that, it was never relayed to me or any of the officers on the street that they were not calling in the SWAT Team as requested. Officers remained on high alert, shining their spotlights with wide open eyes straining to see anything that moved in the pitch-black area with no street lighting, waiting for something to interrupt the deadening quiet as if watching a horror film.
I loved my job patrolling the streets but being on the SWAT Team was my passion. I soaked up every bit of knowledge that had been passed on to us by our Team Commander, one of the best leaders I ever worked for. What I never did get used to, was the jealousy and deep-seated resentment of a handful of officers who were not on the team, nor did they want to be on the team. We were not better than officers who were not on the SWAT Team; we were just better trained and equipped for these situations. Unfortunately, as fate would have it, this Captain was one of those officers!
Jim, an officer who had ten years more seniority than I did, met up with me asking what we should do next. I did not give his seniority a second thought, and to his credit, he didn’t either; we just wanted this guy caught. We walked down the road and the sickening realization of just how huge this area was; sucker punched us right in the gut.
We started doing the best we could, searching the edges of the woods, looking around the industrial buildings and peering into dumpsters. “Never, ever search for an armed person at night in a wooded, brushy area, always try to contain and wait till daylight.” That previous training advice echoed in my head, it was loud and clear, but what was I doing? I was searching. Oh, we didn’t go in deep, but there were so many gaps he could slip through. My hands were literally full; I had my K-9 partner Grand on a long leash, I grasped my rifle and tried to hold my flashlight. Jim stayed with me and provided cover. The questions flowed in over the radio like a roaring river. I gave out instructions the best I could. My senses were overloaded, and I was letting myself get caught up doing too much. At one point I was even climbing railroad boxcars and sticking my head and light over the top to peek inside. Not a smart move and something I would eventually train other officers to never do . . . do as I say, not as I did!
At one point, during all of this I requested that the Pennsylvania State Police helicopter be asked to respond. They could be here within an hour and had a fully equipped infrared radar system that could pick up body heat and enormous spotlights to light up the area. SWAT had trained alongside them and these fine men always stressed they would drop anything at a moment’s notice if ever needed to help one of our own. Yep, one more request for the captain to ignore and tighten that demotion noose a little tighter around his neck. I do not think we will ever comprehend why these decisions were not made.
All of this played out for about an hour and a half, sometimes seeming like seconds and at times like an eternity never really grasping that the SWAT was not coming (most were in bed sleeping, unaware that this was even going on). Adding to the chaos we had to stop a train and now it sat idling on the tracks.
I think everything sort of hit home when I climbed a 30-foot pile of mulch in the middle of the tracks so that I might have a better look around. I pointed at a blue light, “is that the helicopter?” “I think I hear them.” I said to Jim. “No that’s a radio tower and you are just hearing the train.” he tiredly responded. I saw the expression of despair on his face. I glanced at my exhausted K-9 partner who had searched and done everything I commanded him to do, his high prey drive stretched to the limit. Selfishly I never even thought to reward him with a drink of water like cowboys do when they take care of their horse before themselves. My clothes were soaked with sweat and covered with burrs from all the ill-advised searching. I remember commenting to Jim: “I feel like we are in Vietnam and the commanders are ignoring our requests for more firepower.” His look of I’ve have ten more years of dealing with this crap than you do kid, said it all. It also explained why he was willing to take a back seat to my commands.
Let’s regroup I suggested. I went back to my car, got Grand some water, and advised everyone that we should just wait for SWAT and the helicopter. Never coming to grips with the fact that they should have been here by now as my overload of adrenaline had whisked away any thought of time like sweeping the dirt under a rug. My next thought was to call Terry and let him know what is going on. After all, he was even more overprotective of our partners than I was, and he needed to know Jay was shot or the guilt would haunt him over and over. I was so drained it did not even dawn on me that he too was SWAT and should have already been called. He answered the phone and as I began to explain the situation to him, he interrupted “Yeah, I heard about Jay, I guess it’s all over and the guy is long gone, I spoke to the captain (I will not say what he really called him.” “What the hell are you talking about?” I asked. He could not believe it when I filled him in on the details. Terry’s next call was to the captain to tell him he was coming in. Can you believe it; The captain said he was not needed! But in typical Terry fashion, albeit with no staring blue eyes over the phone, although I know they were glaring loud enough to be seen on the other end; he explained, or should I say, demanded that he was coming in. The reluctant captain agreed knowing he was on the losing end of this debate with this patrolman just as like the instructors were back in the academy days.
We had been on scene about three hours when Terry arrived. Somehow, he got dressed, got his dog in the car, and made the 25-minute drive from home in, oh, I would guess about a total of fifteen minutes. I explained everything to him as I leaned in his cruiser, those blue eyes looking in disbelief as he observed my disheveled uniform. At the same time, I debriefed our internal affairs commander who was now on scene. I selfishly took some pleasure of leaning in to directly address Terry and making the Internal Affairs Inspector hover behind me to hear everything, but I give him credit, he was on scene. Ironically, I had learned this game from Terry, but never played it with the bravado and as naturally as he did. The inspector was good man, but I was losing my patience with the Command Staff tonight for the lack of decisions.
I was still filling Terry and the Inspector in on the details when a patrol officer named Paul approached me. He called me by name, “Les, I have a woman who has to walk down this street to get to work, what should I do?” The street being the road we were using as the west side of our very loose perimeter. I thought to myself: My God there is a commanding officer right here, why are you asking me? But it was not Paul’s fault, this was the command structure that informally transpired that night and I just responded, “Okay, but walk with her and stay on the west side of the road.” I did not take the time to assess that this officer was only in partial uniform as he had been on an assignment that night staking out an area being hit by vandals and in the darkness, he would not be immediately recognized as a police officer.
Moments later, while I was still talking with Terry, the frantic voice screamed on the radio “Les, I think I might have the suspect here” “This guy came out of the weeds.” Later I would hypothesize that the suspect thought he could blend in and walk off behind this couple walking down the road, then realized he was cop. Terry sped off in his cruiser toward them before I could finish my sentence. I looked; my car was about 75-yards away. I sprinted to it, and it seemed like I was running a mile, I could not get there fast enough. I am pretty sure I had put the car in gear before I even hit the seat. They were still about 100 more yards away. I did not think you could get a cruiser to go from zero to 70 miles an hour in 100-yards, but it is possible.
As I exited, I could hear Terry shouting the correct commands we had been trained over and over on the SWAT Team “Get on the ground!!!” We always put the suspects on the ground, you could control everything that way. I heard Paul’s untrained and unsure voice “Put your hands up.” It was still pitch black with no streetlights and I guess we all jumped out of our cars with no flashlights. I strained to see, almost willing my eyes to have night vision “what the hell was going on?” As I got closer, I saw Paul leaving his feet to tackle the suspect. Almost simultaneously, Terry fired his weapon. My initial thought was “Oh my God he just shot Paul” who had dived in front of him. Paul and the suspect tumbled into the darkness down a slight hill full of high weeds. Crown Vetch was the type and name of the weeds, something that would forever stick in our minds. A barrage of shots immediately followed, I could only see muzzle flashes and I thought Terry and Paul were in a crossfire shooting at the suspect between them. I instinctively turned to duck behind my cruiser door for cover, only to discover I was not near it anymore. I had been moving toward the shots without realizing it or even to this day, remembering moving. As fast as you could pull a trigger, I heard the shots being fired and I swear I was trying to sink into the asphalted road behind a four-inch curb for cover. I strained to see what was going on. Later the Internal Affairs Inspector said I was moving toward the gunfire which I also cannot remember doing, but I must have, as I now stood on the sidewalk at the top of the slight embankment. I saw the suspect face down, but still squirming. I could not see Paul, but there was Terry struggling to stand up. He looked up at me, those icy cold blue eyes now in a state of shock and said “Les, I’m shot.” Then out of my mouth came the most stupid words I have uttered in my life. These were the words that my best friend and I would reminisce about time and time again. And those words were “did he have a gun?’ then the response in typical sarcastic Terry bravado, those blue eyes snapping back to normal: “He fucking shot me!”
This brought me back into reality. My perception because of the slight delay behind Terry when I arrived was that Terry and Paul had been shooting at the suspect in crossfire and I could not see anything but muzzle flashes. Paul’s radio transmission of I think I might have the suspect had laid the groundwork for the formulation of my thought process. Another lifelong training lesson of why different officers, just like witnesses of a crime may have different perceptions. Only later did we learn that the untrained Paul had thrown his own gun to the ground and tackled the suspect when he drew Jay’s handgun from the sagging waistband of his gym shorts. Paul’s finger was blown off as the suspect fired his first shot. The suspect rattled off 13 shots after that as fast as one could fire them. Paul had rolled off after he was shot. Terry could only aim and shoot at the blinding muzzle flashes when he saw them. He could not see the suspect or Paul and had to wait for each muzzle flash to he knew what he was shooting at; even though each time there was a muzzle flash a bullet was headed in his direction.
Terry could not just indiscriminately spray bullets, he had to try and make each one count, not something criminals worry about when they scatter bullets like a farmer spreading bird seed. The bullets tore through Terry’s flesh. One bullet went through his knee taking out the ligaments and one zipping through his thigh. Then the one striking his left hand, yes this was the left hand he injured in accident a couple years prior. The same hand that the doctors reattached his thumb to after the accident. The bullet blew apart his fused wrist. The hand he had worked so hard to rehabilitate to so he could come back to the job he loved, the job that he was great at. The hand was now useless, it dropped to his side, and he stumbled losing his balance in that damn Crown Vetch, regrouping, struggling to stand as he methodically returned fire with one hand . . . waiting for the next muzzle flash knowing the next bullet was coming his way slash through the next part of his body sculpted by the years of weightlifting and boxing, but that was the only way he knew where the target was. Terry hit the suspect with four of the eight shots he fired, an amazing statistic for police shootings and even more incredible under these conditions.
The suspect was still moving with his hand’s underneath him. Holy crap, does he still have the gun I thought when I pounced on his back like a Cheetah on his prey. I tried to pull his hands behind his back, my hands now wet with blood, slipped off like trying to hold a bar of soap. I tried again and he resisted. Now covered in his blood, my clothes soaked as if I was bleeding, I desperately forced all my weight on him to hold him down. I still had not seen a gun and needed to get his hands out from under him. I struck him on the side of his head unknowingly breaking my finger. Finally, one arm handcuffed, then the other. Other officers arrived to help, they rolled him over and there was the gun, the one taken from Jay, the one that was used to shoot Jay, Paul, and Terry. The gun laid there, the slide locked back and empty of its fourteen rounds as if saying if I only had 30 more rounds, I would still be shooting. It was in fact Terry’s courageous and justifiable use of deadly force that had stopped this suspect, the one that started out as an unarmed young man, from shooting others.
My attention was now back to my buddy, he looked it at me while emergency medical responders tended to his wounds: “You have to be the one to tell Renae (his wife).” Well, it probably was not the smartest thing I had ever done, but along with all the other not the smartest things I had done that night in the name of getting the job done and considering the stress I had been privy to that night. But I jumped in the overheated cruiser and drove to his country home fourteen miles away. Let me just say I broke the record time that Terry had just set while driving in. But before that, when I was running to the car, I noticed paramedics working on Terry and Paul and officers were standing by the cuffed suspect. I grabbed a firefighter by the bulky sleeve of his protective jacket and led him to the wounded suspect as we were short on paramedics. My exact words were “It will not break my heart if this guy dies, but he needs medical attention.” Contrary to popular belief, we are ethical men and women and have a moral obligation to render aid. We stop using force when compliance starts; and alone in the dark it was just us and him before the medical responders would arrive, anything could have been done, but that is not who we are. Now, time to set the Daytona speed record.
I stopped his son in the driveway as he stood waiting for a ride to his summer job. Yes, the same son who I comforted after he and I witnessed Terry’s accident when his hand was demolished the first time. I pulled him up to the house. I entered the home where I usually spent at least one of my nights off every week with my friend. This is the house where our families shared many meals and attended summer picnics. Renae, who like my wife had just saw the morning news clip with the lead in “Three Erie Police Officers shot more after the break.” My wife’s worry and terror would last a little longer. Renae saw me and yelled “I do not want to hear your voice!” Into the cruiser on the way to the hospital we went putting a few more high-speed miles on the cruiser during the never-ending shift.
July 07, 2000, our lives changed forever that night. Terry was forced to retire due to his extensive injuries. Sometimes I feel guilty because the incident eventually led to a promotion for me. I ran the new training unit and provided all officers, not just SWAT with some training and tactics that might just save their life one day. I would hold Terry as the epitome of how one should act in a police officer involved shooting incident. I also became the SWAT Team Commander and fulfilled my passion in police work. Many things improved for the Department after that, other than losing one of our finest officers to an early retirement. But no worries, we eventually hired another 20 or so officers that would equal what we lost in one. The suspect was sentenced to prison for most of the rest of his adult life and should be recovered from his injuries.
Terry and I remain just as close as ever, and every now then we will bring this night up, oh maybe not every single detail and now more laughs than tears, although they still flow every July 7th, but each time we reminisce it will always include the infamous question; “Did he have a gun?” and the response complete with these glaring blue eyes “He fucking shot me Les.”
