Born to Lose (13 page)

John McCall, in his home only blocks away from the location of Zanella's cruiser, happened to be listening to calls on the police band when he recognized Zanella's voice. McCall knew “Joey,” as he called Zanella, first as a schoolmate and more recently as a member of the Verona Fire Department. McCall said he heard Zanella asking Penn Hills to “call Oakmont for a possible pullover along the boulevard.” McCall also remembered Zanella mentioning Stanley Hoss, but McCall didn't recognize the name. “When I heard Joey make this call for backup,” McCall said, “I sat up and paid attention.”

At Zanella's request, Penn Hill's dispatcher Herm Trozzi notified Oakmont. Speed Buttgereit answered with his usual growl, “Oakmont Stationhouse.”

“Speed,” Trozzi said, “this is Penn Hills. Verona's Zanella called. He's following that escapee named Stanley Hoss.” Trozzi informed Buttgereit of Zanella's location and description of the Hoss car, then said, “Verona wants assistance.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Speed Buttgereit laconically replied, then hung up. Trozzi silently cursed Buttgereit's attitude—like he was always put out when just asked to do his job. As for Speed Buttgereit, he should have been up like a shot, hurrying to the roomful of officers to deliver Zanella's call for assistance. Instead—inexplicably—Buttgereit sat on the information, lamely saying later, “Hell, the boys said not to bother 'em in their meeting, so I didn't bother 'em.”

. . .

Hoss didn't think the red light would ever turn green. Fifteen seconds ago, figuring he'd been ID'd, he'd been about to tramp on the gas pedal, but then he calmed himself enough to think the cop behind him maybe, just maybe, was on his radio about something else.

Zanella hooked the radio handset onto the receiver. Herm Trozzi would notify Oakmont and Penn Hills. He knew the Oakmont Station would be full because of their arbitration meeting. A car might not be out on duty right now, but once the word was given, someone would arrive in a few minutes.

Zanella was not sure if Hoss knew he was made. Their eyes briefly met once when Hoss took note of Zanella in the rearview mirror. That meant nothing, though; any driver can't help but glance at a cop behind him.

The light turned green. Hoss moved out slowly, with Zanella right behind. Zanella then made his intentions known by flicking on his lights and hitting the siren, and with this, Hoss's uncertainty vanished. He stepped hard on the gas, Zanella doing the same. Zanella called Trozzi again.

“Herm, he took off … the car's fleeing … I'm on his tail! Is Oakmont coming?”

“Yeah, I told 'em, but I'll call again. Where are you?”

“Going through Verona, the viaduct'll be comin' up. I'll try for a pullover after we cross, maybe around Plum Street.”

“Okay, Joe, careful, careful.”

In the next instant Trozzi contacted Buttgereit in the Oakmont station. “Speed, did you send a help car to Verona?!”

Speed replied, less laconically this time, “All right, I'll tell 'em.” A surprised and angry Trozzi shot back, “You mean you
didn't
tell 'em?”

Speed Buttgereit said defensively, “I'm doin' it now,” then hung up.

Speed hurried, in his fashion, the dozen steps to the closed door of the arbitration meeting. He rapped the door once with his knuckles, then opened up. All eyes turned toward Buttgereit standing in the doorway. He announced, “Verona needs backup … a pullover around Plum Street … on the tail of that Hoss guy who escaped.”

Officer Bob Fescemyer remembered the moment. “We all jumped up. The guys who had their equipment on, who were on shift, raced for their cars. The guys who were off duty ran to their lockers, grabbed their duty belts, and we took off in cars. All of us started toward Plum on the boulevard. I mean, we had sirens, lights, and everything. We were moving. There was a sense of urgency because a cop was alone and he was pulling over an escaped convict. It wasn't a ‘signal 99'—officer in trouble—but the reported situation made you worry, and we took it as to disregard everything and get going.”

Joe Zanella's cruiser kept pace with a speeding Stanley Hoss, both cars now at the north end of town passing the war memorial, then crossing the viaduct, which would deliver them into the territory of Oakmont. It was here, while still on the viaduct, that Zanella got abreast of Hoss on the left, hoping to force a stop at Plum, the first street on the right after the viaduct crossing. Hoss may have been unprepared for Zanella's aggressive tactic, for as the cruiser was advancing on his left, Hoss was forced over to the right, a little on the berm. The cars were now over the viaduct, and Zanella hoped for a safe pullover. Yet Hoss braked his car only enough to negotiate a hard right onto Plum. Sticking close, Zanella made the same hard right. Zanella
might have thought Hoss was going to make a run for it on the back roads but the yellow Chevy in front of him braked … then stopped altogether.

Joe, too, forcefully stopped, leaving ten yards between the two cars. He left his lights flashing but cut the siren. The sighting only minutes ago, followed by first an easy pace, then a high-speed chase, and now a quick end, had all come about so suddenly that perhaps both participants were a little spent. Hoss sat motionless. Joe radioed Herm Trozzi. “Herm, I made the pullover, I'm just onto Plum.”

There were some people around. Old Ben Tarr was wiping off a car he'd just washed at his service station. He'd heard the siren and now stood with a towel in his hands looking at the two cars. Hoss might have noticed shoppers in the Foodland parking lot to his left, across the street. He also might have seen a man and a teenager working in an auto body shop directly to his right. Zanella would have recognized the two as Theodore Sokol and his boy, Teddy.

Herm Trozzi radioed Zanella, who had not mentioned any backup arriving. Trozzi said anxiously, “Are you out of the car, Joe?”

Joe replied, “I'm getting out now, Herm.”

Theodore Sokol was still hunched over a fender, banging out dents, when he heard his boy hollering, “Looks like Verona is giving somebody a ticket,” and then, “Ticket, hell! He's drawing his gun!”

“I figured my son was kidding me and went to look. I saw the officer—it was Joe Zanella—out of his car. He was holdin' his gun in his right hand down to his side. He left his car door open but he's out from behind the door, walkin' toward the other guy.”

Joe Zanella had been momentarily stymied. He had the yellow Chevy stopped right in front of him. Still sitting in his own car, he looked to the left and back a little toward the boulevard, then gazed straight up Plum. He saw no Oakmont cars coming, and nothing from Penn Hills. He couldn't even hear a siren. In his brief career, Zanella had pulled over his share of cars by himself, and every cop he knew did the same. Working alone, they had to. But Joe knew this situation could be more dangerous. Standard operating procedure demanded a call for backup. He had done this … but where was the backup?

More seconds passed by. Zanella saw that Hoss had not turned off his car; he could decide to make a real run for it any time. Or maybe Joe simply felt foolish sitting any longer in his cruiser. Whatever the reason, Joe unlatched his door and got out of the car. He'd go for the arrest. He also carefully slid his five-inch-barreled .38 from its holster.

Meanwhile, Stanley Hoss had picked up the gun beside him on the car seat. He gripped the J. C. Higgins .22 caliber, put his finger on the trigger, then let it rest in his lap. Hoss sat very still, barely turning his head to use the sideview mirror, keeping tabs on the cruiser and the cop inside. Since the stop, no other cars had gone by on Plum. It was quiet. The seconds ticked by interminably. Hoss was baffled. The cop didn't seem to be doing anything. What's he waiting for?

But then Hoss saw the cruiser's door open. The cop was getting out and moving with a purpose. Hoss still did not turn around but kept his eyes on the mirror, watching the man in uniform stride toward him.

“Get out of the car with your hands up!”

Hoss leaned out the driver's side window, straining to twist around to face the policeman. In the same motion, Hoss pointed the revolver over his left shoulder. It was 4:44 P.M. when the two shots were fired. The first bullet whizzed by Joe's head; the second crashed into his chest.

Old Ben Tarr was as dumbstruck as one could be when he heard the gunfire and saw Joe Zanella fall to the ground. He watched the yellow Chevy speed away up Plum Street, then ran into his service station, telephoned the police, and hurried to help the fallen officer. Several others had already gathered at the scene.

Theodore Sokol was one hundred feet away when he heard the popping sounds. He tried to get a better view of the driver, crouching down since he was “worried he might shoot at me.” After yelling to his son to help the patrolman, Sokol tried to call Oakmont. When he couldn't get through, he called Plum Borough, a district near Oakmont.

“I seen somebody stick a pistol out the window and squeeze off two shots,” young Teddy Sokol said. “The policeman staggered and fell across the left front of his car. He was on all fours on the road and I tried to lay him down. He groaned a little bit. I put my jacket over him to keep him warm, then somebody got a blanket. Dad came up to help. He picked up Mr. Zanella's service revolver and put it on the front seat of the cruiser. The gun wasn't cocked in a position to shoot.”

Across the street at Foodland, Mr. Mario Santone, his wife, Esther, and a friend, Inez Stockhausen, were leaving the grocery store when they noticed the police car stop the yellow Chevy. They heard the shots and got a good look at the shooter. Older and quite frightened, the three thought they should stay put—knew they should stay put—to tell authorities what they saw, but Mario Santone overruled this impulse to do their civic duty by telling Esther and Inez that the shooting looked to him like a mob hit and saying they'd better not get involved. They proceeded to their car and left the area.

The decent actions of Ben Tarr, the Sokols, and a few others all took place within moments after the shooting. What followed this initial civilian response would develop into the most intense, widespread dragnet in the annals of Pennsylvania law enforcement.

John McCall, who had been listening on his ham radio set to Zanella's transmissions, was finishing up a sandwich when “out of the blue I hear, ‘Policeman shot!' I ran to my bedroom, grabbed my service revolver [McCall worked police auxiliary], jumped in my car, and I was down the road.”

Because Zanella had put out a description of the car, McCall knew what to look for. On his way to the scene, McCall slowed at side streets to see if he could spot the yellow Chevy. “I had my gun laying on the damn seat,” he recalled, “'cause I figured if I saw that Chevy, I knew what I'd do.” When McCall approached the scene of the shooting, he noticed that the police cruiser's lights were still flashing, the passenger side door was open, and the car was parked mostly on the roadway, right across from Lewis Lumber and Squire Garove's office. McCall went straight to the police car. “Joe was layin' there.”

Unaware of the actions of Ben Tarr and the Sokols, McCall later said, “There was nobody taking charge, people just standing, so I got in the patrol car to call for help. I grabbed the mike and pretty quick got Penn Hills dispatch and said, ‘Get an ambulance down here right away: a policeman's been shot.'”

More people gathered at Plum Street. Many driving by stopped their cars to see about the commotion. Everyone was anxious about the ambulance getting there. O'Neil's Funeral Home, a quarter-mile from the scene, had an ambulance, so finally someone ran to the place and an O'Neil driver brought their ambulance over. Joe was put on a gurney and placed in the back. No one knew if Joe was wounded and unconscious, or dead.

Verona to Base: Would you notify Pittsburgh hospital that the ambulance is here now? They're picking him up and they're gonna send him in…. Open everything up!

Before receiving any calls from the scene, Herm Trozzi was aware of none of the desperate goings-on at Plum, but he did get a call from car 101, whose occupant asked, “Is Verona having any difficulty at all?”

Control to 101: I don't know but you might want to head that way 'cause he's just getting out of the car now with that man and that car.

Herm Trozzi waited. The radio was silent for the next two minutes. Then Trozzi heard the excited voice of Dennis Schaal, a high school kid who had been walking along the railroad tracks by Plum when he heard gunfire and watched a yellow Chevy speed away. Schaal ran for all he was worth
to the scene, knelt down beside the officer and gently lifted the man's head. “I looked at the policeman's face. His eyes were closed and there were bits of gravel stuck to the one side of his face. I laid his head back down, then jumped into the police car to call someone.”

Herm Trozzi heard that most dreaded message: “We have an officer down here! He's been shot!”

Trozzi [into open mike]: Ho! Ho! [very alarmed.] Okay! Officer needs help. Verona needs help at Plum Creek. Any officer respond!”

The taped transmissions of police actions surrounding this grave emergency showed great initial and continuing response but also revealed the confusion, frustration, miscommunication, and chaos that can attend such matters.

On the tape is heard a very loud and excitable, “Whoa!” Then: “It's 4:48. This just happened! … At Plum in Verona … No, check that … in Oakmont.”

108 to Control: I'm goin' in direction of Plum, Herm.

Another call: Who got shot?

Rapid-fire transmissions: Somebody got shot!?

Control [Trozzi yelling]: 64, ah, 64 Chevy. Ohio license plates!

101 to Control: Copy, we're on the way.

Control: Car's heading up Plum Crik toward Penn Hills. He just shot the Verona officer.