The Fence - Dick Lehr [12]
It was in May 1988, while Mike and Kimberly began planning their life together and Mike was beginning to think seriously about police work, that a man named John L. Smith Jr. sat in his car smoking crack cocaine. He was parked near Fenway Park, home to the Boston Red Sox. It was shortly after sunrise when he began driving away erratically. Two Boston police officers in a cruiser picked up his scent. When Smith drove the 1978 Cadillac through a red light, the police wanted him to pull over. But Smith took off. Soon eight police cruisers raced after him. The chase ended when Smith’s car hit a curb, a tire went flat, and the engine died. Officers jumped from their cruisers and surrounded the Cadillac. They ordered Smith to get out. Smith flopped across the front seat. Two officers shattered the front windows with their flashlights. One dragged Smith out and threw him to the ground. Smith was unarmed and limp. Three officers piled on top of Smith while others stood by and watched as he got his licking.
In the beating’s aftermath, the thirteen officers stonewalled investigators: No cop saw anything or could explain Smith’s injuries. The case of police brutality and the cover-up, which became known as the Brighton 13 case, for the number of officers involved and the station where most were assigned, would haunt the department Mike Cox was planning to join for years to come.
Mike Cox and Craig Jones, in the Tango K–8 car, returned to the club Cortee’s shortly after 1 A.M. Craig drove. They headed first to the end of a short street running right behind and below the club, “trying to get a feel, you know, if there were a lot of people up there,” Craig said. Nothing had changed since their walk-through earlier in the evening: Cars filled the parking lot, and the club scene was peaking.
The several hundred patrons inside were unaware they were being surrounded by teams of officers in street clothes from the Boston Police Department’s anti-gang unit. In the crowd was a young Roxbury man named Lyle Jackson and two of his friends, who were in a card game toward the back of the club.
Outside, Mike and Craig left their original position for a second one. They circled around and drove their unmarked cruiser down Washington Street past the club and then took the first left onto Bowdoin Street. The street went up a hill overlooking the club. In the winter, with trees barren of leaves, “you could see good down through the yards,” Mike said. Craig pulled into one of the driveways. He climbed out to see if there was an even better spot to view the club, but there wasn’t. Mike got out and took a pee.
They were in radio contact with others in the gang unit—two-man teams, such as partners Joe Teahan and Gary Ryan, which had staked out the club from various vantage points up and down Washington Street. One gang unit colleague named Donald Caisey sat in a cab on Washington Street directly across from the club’s entrance. The cab was a decoy vehicle the unit used for nights like this one. Caisey’s car had the best view.
Everyone was in place. A few minutes later Caisey radioed that two girls were in front of the club shoving each other. Mike and Craig were on their way in an instant. They didn’t want Caisey to out the surveillance cab for this. On the way, another unit radioed that one girl put something down her front, but they couldn’t see what it was.
Mike and Craig turned on their police lights and pulled up next to the girls. “What did you put down your shirt?” Craig demanded as he opened his window. The girl hesitated. “You just put something down your shirt—just give it to us.” Craig threatened to take her down to the station. The girl reached down her front and pulled out