Circle of Six (11 page)

I generally tried to be at as many police funerals as I could—it was the least we cops could do for one another—and in the forty or so funerals that I had attended, Phil's, by far, had the largest turnout of police personnel I had ever witnessed. There were cops from as far away as California. The church was smallish so it was impossible to seat the thousands in attendance. There were two aisles of cops standing at attention from the church's first row of pews to the last row, down the steps, running into the middle of the street, and continuing in both directions. Three NYPD helicopters hovered in the distance. Across the street from the church, twenty white-gloved mounted cops sat stoically atop horses. Behind the hearse were twenty highway patrol cops, idling their gleaming NYPD Harleys. It was an amazing show of support—except for one thing. Mayor Lindsay and Police Commissioner Murphy weren't there. It was the first time in the history of the police department. The unwritten tradition that mayors and police commissioners attended the funerals of officers fallen in the line of duty had been upheld for more than 400 deaths up to that point. The day after Phil passed, Lindsay had
flown out to Utah for a ski trip; Murphy and his wife flew to London “on a business meeting.” Instead, Lindsay sent his wife, Mary, and his Chief of Staff Edward Hamilton. Sitting in for Murphy: acting Police Commissioner, Benjamin Ward.

Ward arrived indecently late, because he had to walk past the long line of enraged New York cops leading up to the church. Many of the officers on the steps and in the aisles of the church were 2-8 cops. He was smart, keeping his head down as he walked. The uniforms—black and white—cursed him and spat on the ground as he passed. Just before he entered the church, a 2-8 cop screamed, “You won't get away with it!”

Another yelled, “You're not welcome here!”

Those words were too kind for this man, who truly had no right to attend the funeral of a fallen hero cop, the same cop he was trying to vilify and place in the ground under a disgraceful investigation.

As Phil's coffin was led out of the church, we snapped one last salute. The only noise was the occasional whimper and sniffle. Grown men, hardened and battle-tested cops all wept openly. I'm sure they wept for Phil, and for the Cardillo family, and they wept for the rest of us, the cops of the New York City Police Department. We, the men and women of the NYPD, were embarrassed, beaten, murdered, and left out in the cold by our leaders. These were sad times.

More than 150 men from the 2-8 formed a tight semicircle around Phil's casket as it was lowered into the ground. I watched as John Haugh—front and center—pulled off his glasses to clean the lenses. His chin began to shake. He broke down and wept.

Joy Cardillo sat at the foot of the casket with her immediate family members. I can only imagine what she was thinking. I knew what I was thinking. I damn well knew what the rest of the cops were thinking. As the casket was lowered into its final resting place, the police chaplain held out his white-gloved hand for Joy. She gave the chaplain her hand, stood, and fell heavily back into the chair, crying. Bart Gorman immediately rushed to her side, kneeling down next to her, whispering in her ear. She nodded a number of times, composed herself, stood, moved to the casket, and blew a kiss goodbye. She turned and walked away, followed by her family and friends. The uniformed members of the 2-8 Precinct stood at attention and saluted as Joy and her procession walked to their waiting limousines. I was one of those men. We did not complete the salute until every car was long out of sight.

Bart Gorman knelt down next to Phil's coffin. He openly wept. “On my soul, Phil, we will never forget you, Brother, never. We will get every last boss who had anything to do with this, and we will crucify them as they crucified you, on my soul, Phil, on my soul!”

He stood, weeping, turned to the contingency of cops, all of whom were crying as well, and said, “We will never forget Phil Cardillo. We are not going to let these bastards get away with putting Phil in the ground an orphan. We will remember Cardillo! Remember Cardillo!”

He turned one last time, sobbing, “They'll pay for this, Phil. They are going to pay.”

Chief Seedman was a respectful distance away, watching as the 2-8 cops disassembled. As I approached, he stuck his hand out for me to shake, which I did. He asked, “You feeling better?”

“Physically...yes.”

“Listen to me, these disappearing acts, like the one you pulled in the hospital, they end. You understand?”

He didn't wait for an answer, “There was a guy at your door for a reason, and the last thing I need is to think you got clipped by some militant radicals. I had twenty detectives doin' floor-to-floors in that hospital.”

He pointed in my face and grinned, “Your father is a good man.”

I was embarrassed at having had my father explain away my absence. “This Inspector Mitchelson, he gonna shit on my head? I need to wear a helmet?”

Seedman pulled a cigar out of an expensive leather holder. He lit it and dramatically blew out a column of thick gray smoke. “One of Ward's. He's harmless. Forget him. You, you're going back to the BLA. You need men, you call my office and I'll assign them to you.”

I was confused. I had already assembled a bunch of shields from central Harlem, all solid cops already asses-and-elbows into all of the BLA's players. “What about the guys I already have?”

Seedman started to walk toward his car. I followed. “It's just you, Randy. Those guys are going back to their old units, and some are coming into the bureau.”

He stopped. I stopped. He said, “They wanna fuckin' clean house. You know what this administration thinks of the BLA.”

He walked up and stopped short of his car and looked directly into my eyes. They pierced like bullets. I suddenly felt all of Seedman's power. “And you know what
I
think of the BLA. If you need detectives I'll try to
pull the ones you already had working with you.”

“Where do I turn out of?”

“Where you belong, the 2-8. Any fives you write, any intelligence you gather, any potential collars you're gonna make, come through my office.”

He pulled the car door open, “How many days you need?”

“A week, Sir.”

He shook my hand once again and got in the car. As his sedan pulled away, I reflected on the last time I had a one-on-one like that with him—1968, the 1-7 Precinct, midtown Manhattan—the irony of it all was that that meeting was over a murdered cop as well—John Verecha. After the Albert Victory and Robert Bornholdt case, Seedman met me at the precinct, and on the spot elevated me to the rank of detective, second grade, just like that. He turned and disappeared out of the detective squad, nothing else said. Some things never change.

I was now alone in the cemetery, and alone on the job—no partners, no backup. Haugh had told everyone to return to the precinct. He had an announcement to make. Back at the 2-8, there was already a large contingency of news crews. Inspector John Haugh stepped out onto the precinct steps. He was composed, but he had a glazed-over look in his eyes. He unfolded a piece of plain white paper, and read.

“When Patrolman Cardillo was killed, he was doing his job properly. That is the only issue here. All we wanted was a clear unequivocal statement during the week, as he lay in the hospital, or when we were waking him, saying that he was in the mosque.” He pulled his glasses off quickly and wiped them down with a handkerchief, “in that mosque doing his job, and doing it properly. I don't like leaving this job and the men. My father was a cop for thirty-two years, and my father-in-law was a patrolman for twenty-seven years. The job has always been in my family. The most important thing isn't if we catch Patrolman Cardillo's killer. What is important is that his wife and his children firmly believe that he was doing the right thing, and he was.”

He slowly folded up the paper, placing it in his parade jacket. He leaned in and said, “Somebody had to say it, and I did. That's it.”

He turned and walked back into the 2-8 Precinct. Bart Gorman then yelled from the top of the precinct steps, “If the brass won't stand behind you, if you know that you're not going to be supported afterward by the
brass, then you can't take any action in the street whatsoever.”

He then went into the precinct, followed by the rest of the 2-8 uniform presence. I was stunned. It was widely known that John Haugh was a career cop. Seeing the golden boy of the NYPD retire because of the job's treachery was going to hit the guys hard, especially the men in the 2-8. They'd lost a brother, been betrayed, and now they lost a father. Where was their guidance going to come from? And who'd be able to make this atrocity right? Gorman had just thrown down the gauntlet in a not-so-veiled threat. By saying “no action can be taken in the street whatsoever,” he basically stated to the job that the cops were going to run themselves.

Ward and Rangel demanded the police turn a blind eye to predatory behavior at the scene—assaults and subsequent murder—well, that's exactly what they were going to get. Zone-6 was about to explode.

One week later, I reported to the second floor of the 2-8 Detective Squad. Upon my, what I had hoped to be, low-key return, I noticed attitudes and demeanors had changed dramatically.

Upon entering the precinct muster room, I was taken aback by a large painted mural on a prominent wall. It read, “Remember Cardillo.” I knew before Haugh's abrupt departure, he had given the okay for this not-so-oblique memorial. It was painted the night of Phil's funeral. This wasn't just a commemorative painting, lamenting the life of a lost cop. This was a call against the injustices brought on every member of the NYPD by the leaders. No future precinct commander could come into the 2-8 and remove something so sacred to the men. It would lead to certain rebellion. Even after Haugh's departure, the mural remained untouched.

The transformation in the cops' behavior was astounding. The NYPD at the time was an explicitly para-militarized organization. A superior officer was greeted with a sharp salute.
Yes, Sir
and
no, Sir
were commonplace when speaking to a superior officer. Questions were answered truthfully, and commands were followed without hesitation. These protocols were inviolable and adhered to for a number of reasons—discipline, chain of command, and accountability. Of course, the men saw this as scalding hypocrisy since the kingpin bosses hadn't exhibited a single one of these on or since April 14. And so, patrol's subversive backlash began.

I entered the 2-8 just as the four-to-twelve tour was
turned out
, or sent on patrol, by the precinct's new commander, Inspector Hamilton Robinson. I'd met him a number of times and was impressed with his benign approach to work, and to command. The men, however, viewed his advent to the 2-8 as another slap in the face, and another cave-in to Farrakhan's demands—Robinson was black. And in spite of his previous accomplishments, good or
fair, he was going to have to earn the respect of the 2-8 cops and prove he wasn't Murphy's lackey, period. What I witnessed that afternoon was residual blowback and a scary portent of times to come.

When they got up to leave, the men passed the desk where Robinson was standing, never looked him in the eye, and as opposed to snapping off a sharp salute, each unit individually raised his nightstick, tapped his shield, and said, “Remember Cardillo.”

Gone was the aura of respect and law and order. The men were beleaguered and angry, stuck in a perpetual state of bereavement. They were also noticeably top heavy with excess weaponry, none of which was authorized by the job. These veteran combatants were not taking any chances on the street.

Harlem cops were seasoned—quicker than other street cops—returning jobs and picking up new ones as they came in. They were well-versed in the fine art of finessing complainants into dropping nonsensical charges, which only pulled sectors off the streets, creating backlogs in the zone—well, not anymore. Farrakhan flexed his muscles,
One PP
(One Police Plaza) flexed theirs, and now patrol was going to flex its own. Every nonsense call would be answered, filled, and processed.

They wouldn't respond to any jobs unless backup was available. They wouldn't return a job until every last piece of paper was completed, no shortcuts. This had been put into play the evening of Phil's funeral by the collective delegates in Zone-6. It was the prequel to the promised slowdown. This was the warm-up act for a citywide shutdown, the showstopper.

Headquarters had already gotten wind of the slowdown and they feared the worst, more riots during the hot months in Harlem.

As I made my way to the Detective Squad, I was besieged by well-wishers, mostly the uniform cops of the 2-8. After the niceties, everyone drilled me with questions about the rooftop run-in I had had with Mitchelson. Rumors had gone wild, something like I'd be on trial soon for allegations of behavior unbecoming of an officer, disobeying a direct order, and even striking a superior officer. That's how it was. Cops from all over the city were communicating through the rumor mill, via the department mail. The interesting thing about the mail—post Cardillo—every envelope coming from Borough Manhattan North was stamped in bright red ink, “Remember Cardillo.” This simple message helped keep the wounds open and strengthen resolve for the slowdown. Much to the embarrassment of the borough commander, it went on for years.

A flurry of communiqués were sent out to all Manhattan North precincts, “Anyone caught defacing department mail is subject to immediate dismissal.” Upon receipt of this memo, much to the delight of the cops, stamped boldly in bright red ink, on the top right hand corner was “Remember Cardillo.”

My old desk was waiting for me in the 2-8 squad. First DT to greet me—Elwood Ambrose—my old homicide partner.
Amby
was a big man with as big a heart. Coming from proud, southern black roots, he commanded an enormous amount of respect, and not only from the cops who were lucky enough to partner with him. The street gave him the street
juice
he demanded. Amby was the type of detective who could work a stolen gem case in Manhattan's haughty silk-stocking district, and just as easily work a triple homicide in central Harlem. He was also a powerful player in the Detective Endowment Association—the detectives' union—so his finger was always pressed to the pulse of the 3,000 strong Detective Bureau. Amby liked people, enjoying all levels of conversation. He was a voracious reader, could complete
The New York Times
crossword in half an hour, and above all else, he was one tough detective. Goddamn, did I miss working with him.