The NYPD Tapes: A Shocking Story of Cops, Cover-ups, and Courage (19 page)

Such minor misconduct was usually handled the next day with some kind of low-level discipline or suspension. But the Schoolcraft affair was ramping up into a major thing, a perfect storm, an episode of cartoonish overkill.

Marino’s decision can be viewed several ways: One, he was genuinely concerned about Schoolcraft. Two, he was a micromanager and wanted to be in control in an unpredictable situation. Three, he knew that Adrian had gone to Internal Affairs and QAD to report corruption and saw this as an opportunity to discredit him. In his comments to investigators, he insisted he was merely concerned about the officer.

In hindsight, the Schoolcrafts saw something sinister in Marino’s appearance at the station house. They believe Marino was there to deal with the Schoolcraft problem once and for all.

By Marino’s account, after he spoke with Lauterborn, he stopped in Mauriello’s office to tell him that he was going to Schoolcraft’s home. The precinct commander decided to go, too. Mauriello and Marino took separate cars to the apartment. The commanding officer of the 104th Precinct, Deputy Inspector Keith Green, was already there, along with Brooklyn North and the emergency services unit. So, for one marginally AWOL officer, there was now a deputy chief, two deputy inspectors, a captain, several lieutenants, and sergeants from at least four different units outside Schoolcraft’s small one-bedroom apartment.

Marino and the others claimed later that they were concerned for Schoolcraft’s safety, but when the 81st Precinct notified Internal Affairs at 7:35 p.m. that night, the message merely said that “PO Schoolcraft will be suspended for disobeying a lawful order and for being AWOL when the MOS [member of the service] is located by Inspector Mauriello.”

Initially, Lauterborn knocked on the door. Schoolcraft didn’t answer.

Marino decided that Schoolcraft should be treated as if he were under duress. Paramedics were called. Lieutenant Elise Hanlon, a fire department paramedic, said later she was dispatched to Schoolcraft’s address on a call of a “barricaded EDP,” or emotionally disturbed person. The dispatch call certainly overstated the gravity of the situation to an almost sinister degree.

Likewise, the emergency services officers had responded to a call of a “possible MOS down in home”—also a major overstatement. Marino ordered them to make a “soft” entry into Schoolcraft’s apartment using a key provided by the landlord.

Marino, Mauriello, and most of the other bosses and officers—about a dozen police in all—followed them into the apartment.

By his account, Schoolcraft was sitting or lying on his bed in a T-shirt, jeans, and socks. A television was playing. He had taken a nap, but he had also been on the phone with Larry for much of evening wondering how to handle what he knew was about to happen. He also turned on two tape recorders, placing one in his pocket and the other on a bookshelf.

For hours, he had been basically lying on his bed as the police lights lit up the block outside. He could hear the police knocking on his door and could see them calling his cell phone, but he ignored them.

Larry had advised him to take off his clothes and lie in bed, pretending he was asleep and didn’t hear the door. He also told him to ask to go to the hospital, but not give the real reason—which was that he wanted the police out of the apartment. Adrian proposed telling the police that he has been diagnosed with cancer. Tell them you have stomach problems and diarrhea, Larry replied. And finally, they discussed the fact that Larry, on a previous visit, left a rifle under his bed.

At some point, Adrian ignored a call from Lamstein, the NYPD psychologist who placed him on restricted duty. Her message said that the situation “would blow into a much bigger mess than you want.”

The rest of the encounter was captured on the two recorders that Schoolcraft had with him. One was in his pocket, and one was next to his bed.

As perhaps a dozen police enter the apartment, Schoolcraft whispered into his recorder: “It’s 10/31/2009, ESU is here.” Tactical lights filled the room. Some of the officers were in full tactical gear. From outside the bedroom a voice called out, “Adrian, Police Department, let me see your hands. You alright?”

“Yeah, I think so,” he replied.

Marino then strode into the bedroom, the chief confronting the wayward cop, the top of the pyramid talking to the bottom. “You haven’t heard
us knocking on this door for a couple hours?” he asked, clearly irritated. “Adrian, sit up.”

Schoolcraft said he took NyQuil and fell asleep, which was not quite true, but he was trying to fend them off. “Not, why would I expect anyone to knock on my door?”

“If you hear someone knocking on the door, usually you get up and answer it,” Marino said. “You got a million people here downstairs worried about your welfare, spending hours out here. . . .”

“Alright, sit down. Steve?”

Mauriello now appeared. “What happened today?”

“I wasn’t feeling well. I left.”

Mauriello, skeptical: “The sergeant told you to stay.”

“The sergeant didn’t say anything. She was talking on her cell phone,” he replied.

“What do you mean? You can’t just walk out of the precinct.”

“Alright, well, I’m fine,” Schoolcraft said.

“Well, you’re going to come back to the precinct with us,” Mauriello said.

“If I’m forced to. It’s against my will,” Schoolcraft responded.

“Against your will? Okay, this is how we’re going to handle this. Get your stuff on. We’re going back to the precinct.”

“I’m not going back to the precinct,” Schoolcraft insisted.

It became a battle of wills, and Mauriello stepped out of the room, allowing Captain Lauterborn to take over.

“Adrian, you’re going to go back to the precinct.”

“For?”

“Because we’re going to do it the right way. You can’t just walk out of a precinct.”

“What’s going to be done if I go to the 8-1?”

Lauterborn and Schoolcraft went back and forth and then over whether he had the right to go home 45 minutes early without authorization. Lauterborn wanted to investigate why he left. The exchange was tense, but Adrian was calm and steady under the high-pressure circumstances, according to his voice on the recording.

Lauterborn accused him of just slapping a sick slip on Huffman’s desk and leaving.

“I didn’t do that, she’s embellishing,” Schoolcraft replied.

“Get your clothes on, we have to go back,” Lauterborn said.

A lieutenant named Gough from the Brooklyn North Investigations Unit demanded that Schoolcraft return to the precinct.

“You’re coming with us,” Gough said.

“Am I under arrest? Have I been charged?”

“You’re not under arrest,” Gough said. “You’re being ordered back to the command though. Are you refusing?”

“Why?”

Gough: “I don’t have to give you an answer. I am a supervisor in the New York City Police Department.”

“I’ll go against my rights, my will,” Schoolcraft said.

Schoolcraft reluctantly stood and began to look for his shoes. His dad then called. Adrian filled him in. “Who’s in the apartment?” Larry asked. “Everyone,” Adrian replied.

Larry may have advised him to say he was sick, because Schoolcraft sat back down and said he wasn’t feeling well. Gough summoned the paramedics, who had already arrived. The apartment was thick with the sound of police radios.

All of that for one officer who went home a little early.

Lauterborn, on the phone with Larry, said Adrian was going to the hospital, but he wasn’t not sure which one. “He’s not feeling well,” he said.

A paramedic then arrived in the bedroom. Adrian told him, “I was just having stomach pains. They’re embellishing this.”

The paramedic moved to check his blood pressure. Meanwhile, Marino entered the room and learned that Schoolcraft had said he was sick.

Marino accused him of disobeying an order. Schoolcraft denied it, and Marino’s voice thickened with annoyance.

“Yes, you did. Listen to me. I’m a chief in the New York City Police Department. You’re a police officer, and then you have umpteen people out here standing in the rain, and don’t tell me you don’t hear them knocking on your door, and they call your cell phone and you hang up.

“So this is what’s going to happen, my friend. You’ve disobeyed an order, and the way you’re acting is not right in the very least.”

Schoolcraft interjected, “Chief, if you woke up in your house . . . ”

“Stop, stop right there,” said Marino angrily. “Son, son, I’m doing the talking right now, not you.”

“In my apartment.”

“In your apartment.”

“What is this, Russia?”

“You are going to be suspended,” Marino said. “That’s what’s going to happen. You can go see the surgeon if you’re sick. We’ll give you all the medical attention that you need. At the end of it. You’re suspended son.”

The tape captured the sound of the blood pressure monitor inflating. “Your pressure is like sky-high. 160 over 120.”

“I’ve been feeling shitty all day,” Schoolcraft said.

Marino was hovering at the doorway of the bedroom, a few feet from the bed. On the tape he could be clearly heard faintly murmuring, “He’s an EDP. This cop’s got an attitude.”

This statement suggests that Marino had already concluded Schoolcraft was emotionally disturbed before even talking with a medical professional. Schoolcraft had jousted with Marino, but he hadn’t raised his voice, cursed, or shown any violent tendencies.

Meanwhile, the paramedic said, “I gotta tell you, you gotta go to the hospital with that kind of pressure. I can’t in good faith leave you here with that kind of pressure. You understand that, right? We’re all looking out for your best interests. It’s a different job. I need to look out for you. So my suggestion is you need to come with us. Alright? Alright, he’s going to go. Jamaica, right?”

Schoolcraft said he wanted to go to Forest Hills Hospital, where he normally went.

Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Lieutenant Elise Hanlon, who was listening, said, “I think Jamaica would probably be a better choice.”

Schoolcraft gave his age, 34, and the paramedic said, “A 34-year-old man should not have a pressure that high.”

“Forest Hills,” Adrian repeated.

Then the paramedic made a mistake. When Marino asked how high his blood pressure was, the paramedic told him—a violation of federal medical confidentiality laws.

Adrian was angry: “Can you share medical information with them?”

The paramedic backpedaled. “I’m only telling them the blood pressure. I’m not saying who.”

“Can you share that with them?” Schoolcraft repeated.

The paramedic said, “I’m not using your name, sir.”

“I’m in the same room, in my apartment! Thanks for looking out for me,” Schoolcraft said.

Schoolcraft rose and left the apartment, bound for the hospital. He walked downstairs and reached the ambulance. When he realized he would be taken to Jamaica Hospital, he balked. “I’m RMA,” he said, using the acronym for “refusing medical attention.” The significance here is that Schoolcraft, like any citizen, had a right to refuse treatment and couldn’t be forced to go to the hospital unless he was in dire straits, close to death.

He turned around and walked back up the stairs to his apartment.

By Mauriello’s account, he saw Schoolcraft go outside and then abruptly turn and run back inside.

After three minutes of silence on the tape, there was the sound of footsteps entering the apartment again. Lauterborn stuck his foot in the door and pushed his way into the apartment.

“You refused a lawful order to begin with and you’ve gotta come back and straighten it out,” the captain said.

“I don’t feel good,” Adrian said. “I’m laying down. I have high blood pressure, stomach problems.” He called to the other officers sarcastically, “Go ahead, get yourselves a drink out of the fridge if you want.” He talked to his father on the phone: “Fuck, I got like three chiefs in my apartment.”

The police supervisors gathered in the living room and whispered, according to Schoolcraft’s notes.

Lauterborn told him to get back in the ambulance.

“I’m going to lie down in my own bed,” Adrian said. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Yeah you have,” Lauterborn said.

“Ok, go write it up, file it,” Schoolcraft said.

Lauterborn replied, “We will.”

“You don’t need me there,” Adrian said. “Write that I disobeyed an order from Sergeant Huffman. Write up whatever you want.”

“Now it’s a matter of your health,” Lauterborn said.

Then Marino interceded again for the final act in the sordid little drama. Keep in mind that Marino had already remarked that Schoolcraft was emotionally disturbed.

“Listen to me, alright, son, hit the light in here. Right now, EMS is saying that you’re acting irrational. This is them. Not us. And that if you don’t go to the hospital . . . ”

“Yeah, you’re whispering in their ear,” Adrian replied.

Marino’s voice tightened. “Listen to me.”

“Chief, do what you gotta do,” Adrian said.

“Listen to me . . . they’re going . . . ”

Schoolcraft interrupted. “Do what you gotta do. If I have a heart attack, strap me up.”

Marino’s voice rose. “Listen to me, son, they are going to treat you as an EDP. Now you have a choice. You get up like a man and walk into that bus like a man or son, they are going to treat you as an EDP, and that means handcuffs and I do not want to see that happen to a cop.”

Adrian, sarcastic, repeated, “Like a man. Do what you got to do.”

“I don’t want to see them cuff you and bag you,” Marino said.

Adrian said, “If I have a heart attack . . . with your inspections whispering in EMS ear.”

“Listen, son, they’re not whispering to anyone. They’re here because they’re doing their job. You’ve caused this.”

“I didn’t cause anything.”

“You have caused this. Now you have a choice. They’re saying you have to go to the hospital. That’s EMS. They are trained medical professionals. If you don’t go—”

Adrian asked, “Why are they talking to you?”

“If you don’t go, then you aren’t acting rationally, and they say now they are afraid you are emotionally disturbed. So you have a choice. You get up, you put your shoes on and your coat and go to the hospital and
get looked at. You said you don’t feel good. You said your blood pressure is high.”