The Fence - Dick Lehr [92]
The document contained eleven ethical canons. Canon nine, in particular, stipulated: “Police officers shall use only that amount of force reasonably necessary to achieve their lawful purpose. Excessive or unauthorized force is never justified and every officer not only has an affirmative duty to intervene to prevent such violence, but also to report any such instances that may come to their attention.”
The orders addressed flaws exposed in dramatic relief by the beating. To Mike, the words certainly looked good on paper, but what about their application? What about the lies and failure to cooperate during the Internal Affairs inquiry? Truth telling could have been a concern pursued in any number of directions—Dave Williams and Ian Daley, to name two. No one was looking at Sergeant Dan Dovidio. Even cohorts in Mike’s gang unit were vulnerable, given the fantasy about the ice-slip codified in reports that first night.
Beyond the lying, there were leads that seemed to be ignored. What about Richie Walker saying he saw a cop chasing Mike; Bobby Dwan saying he noticed a commotion by the fence involving a black cop and a white cop in uniform; Mike saying he was kicked by a white officer; gang unit officers saying Dave Williams and Ian Daley later said cops had beaten Mike; Craig Jones saying Dave Williams later had told him his partner had hit Mike; Ian Daley dramatically shutting down his interview, and Jimmy Burgio taking the Fifth? The burden of proof in an administrative inquiry was substantially less than the “beyond a reasonable doubt” required in criminal cases. Why were Burgio, Williams, and Daley still on the street? Mike wondered why they weren’t at least put on desk duty while the investigation into the beating continued.
“No one’s getting in trouble,” Mike said. The commissioner’s directives seemed like big talk, little action. The message cops could take from the absence of any real consequence was to hunker down: No one else is saying anything. I’m not saying anything.
“I was feeling more and more uncomfortable with the process,” Mike said.
By early spring, it didn’t take much to awaken Mike. He slept on edge, as if waiting for something to happen. It could be a telephone call; the crank calls had continued as February passed into March and March into April. Or it could be the nightmare in which he was helpless against police attacking his house and family. Or it could be something else. Mike was always wondering, what next?
The pounding at the front door therefore saw Mike bounding out of bed and hustling downstairs in his shorts and T-shirt. It was the middle of the night, and he didn’t want his boys or his sisters’ family downstairs waking up. Kimberly, however, was out of bed and right behind him.
Before Mike reached the landing he heard the loud crackle of police radios outside. He opened the door. Two uniformed officers stood on the stoop. Mike recognized one of them, but didn’t know his name. They were from the B–2 station in Roxbury.
The second officer, the one Mike did not recognize, spoke up. He said they’d been dispatched to the house on a 911 emergency call—a 911 call, the officer said, for a disturbance. “For a man being beaten.”
Man being beaten? Mike couldn’t believe what he was hearing. You gotta be freakin’ kidding me, he thought. Man being beaten? The beating was January 25. Woodruff Way.
The two officers seemed poised, ready to barrel into Mike’s house.
Mike didn’t say a word. He filled the door frame. It was a silent standoff lasting a few seconds. The cop Mike had recognized then recognized him, and he turned to his partner.
“Let’s go,” the cop said. The second officer, confused, hesitated. The first kept going, heading toward the cruiser parked on the street. C’mon, he called back to his partner. To Mike he said, “Sorry.”
Mike shut the door firmly. Kimberly