Malcolm X_ A Life of Reinvention - Manning Marable [283]
Sara Mitchell was struck by the actions of Malcolm’s disciples, who clustered around his body: “‘Maybe he can still make it,’ they told each other and his wife, Betty. And together, they tried to beg him, pray him, will him back to life.” Mitchell later complained, “After the gunfire ceased, terrible minutes passed and still there were no policemen on the scene.” Although one of the city’s major medical centers was only several blocks away, no ambulance arrived at the Audubon, which is why Malcolm’s own men had to run to the emergency room to pick up a gurney. Several women “steered [Malcolm’s] dazed wife outside and gathered his four little girls to be taken home. Only then did policemen come inside.” MMI and OAAU members were outraged when the police finally showed up. “Their appearance was so ridiculously late,” Mitchell recalled, “that one tearful woman yelled and waved them aside, saying, ‘Don’t hurry; come tomorrow!’ ”
“When the shots rang out,” James 67X recalled, “Benjamin . . . dived down to the floor. I then walked out. . . . People were up on the stage, Malcolm was laying down, and I saw the life go out of his body.” A film taken of the assassination’s aftermath shows James kneeling over Malcolm and apparently removing something from the body. Then, inexplicably, without giving orders to subordinates or assuming command, he promptly walked through what remained of the disoriented crowd, passed by several police officers who were just arriving, and left the building. James 67X would claim years later that his immediate intention was “to shoot [Captain] Joseph” in retaliation.
Patrolmen Gilbert Henry and John Carroll had been assigned to the smaller Rose Ballroom, the farthest distance from the shooting site. When the sounds of gunfire erupted, Henry frantically attempted to call for police backup, but “couldn’t get an answer” on his walkie-talkie. Both officers scrambled toward the Audubon’s entrance, the only direct route into the main ballroom, but they were blocked by hundreds of screaming, jostling people fleeing down the main stairwell into the street. In the chaos and confusion, it was impossible for the two officers to identify a fleeing assailant.
At approximately 3:05 p.m., less than two minutes after the shooting, Lieutenant Bernard Mulligan of BOSS learned that Malcolm had been shot. NYPD detectives Henry Suarez and Kenneth Egan were immediately dispatched to the crime scene.
Several minutes later, the two men arrived at the Audubon, where they were met by several other officers desperately attempting to restore order. Informed that Malcolm had been taken to Columbia Presbyterian, Suarez and Egan promptly went over to the hospital, where they consulted with NYPD detectives Ferdinand “Rocky” Cavallaro and Thomas Cusmano of the 34th Precinct. The officers jotted down the names of all those who had gone to the hospital from the ballroom; they also learned that although the assassination had occurred only ten minutes earlier, a wounded suspect, “Tommy Hagan,” was already being interrogated at the 34th Precinct. At 3:14 p.m., doctors told them that Malcolm had been “dead on arrival” upon reaching the emergency room.
At the hospital, Egan and Suarez secured the personal items found in Malcolm’s clothing. They carefully cataloged them: “One 1965 Red Diary which had been in his breast pocket, had 3 bullet holes; one tear gas pen devise [sic] ‘Penguin’ with two TG-4 cartridges for same, one of which was in the pen for immediate use.”
By 3:35 p.m., Cavallaro and Cusmano had returned to the Audubon, where they learned that one of the probable murder weapons, a sawed-off J.C. Higgins