When he started complaining about the lack of real action, leaders of the group frowned. Then when he and a couple of cohorts formed the Nat Turner Revolutionary Brigade and carried out a series of robberies, they let him know that he was no longer welcome in the Bay Area. So he decided to take his show to New York City, where his mother’s sister and her son, Ny-Lee Tomes, lived. He’d get a fresh start and recruit “soldiers” for his terrorism, preaching to young black men that they were at war with white societies and that killing cops was justified as an act of war.
“You’ve seen it on the television,” he preached to small groups of five or six. “Cops are killing young black men, just like you, and they’re getting away with it because the entire justice system is set up by whites. They will kill you if you don’t kill them first. Show no pity, because you won’t get any.”
He was psyched to be practicing what he preached. The cop in Marcus Garvey Park was just the first of many in the coming race war in which he and the Nat Turner Revolutionary Brigade would play a major role.
“That was cold the way you did that pig, Anthony, cold . . .” Ny-Lee was about to go on in his effusive praise until he caught the look on his cousin’s face. “I mean . . .”
Johnson pulled the .45 from his waistband and pointed it at his cousin as he pulled back the hammer. “How many times I got to tell you, you dumb nigger, it’s Nat X! And you shut your mouth!”
“Yeah, yeah, Tony . . . Nat X. Yeah, Nat X. I’m sorry, man, don’t shoot me!” Ny-Lee shrieked.
Johnson was somewhat mollified by the terror in his cousin’s eyes. He looked over at Big George, who was smiling, and then the two women. The older one, Rose, who was Ny-Lee’s girlfriend, looked scared. But her sister, Lupe, appeared to get off on his show of force; her eyes glittered with excitement. He smiled and uncocked the gun and put it on the table next to the couch as he settled down next to Lupe. “I ain’t gonna shoot you. We blood. But you keep your damn mouth shut.”
Tomes grinned and wiped the sweat off his forehead. “That’s right, we’re blood. You’re Nat X. What you say goes!”
Lupe scooted closer to Johnson and put her hand on his knee. “You’re all man, aren’t you,” she said. “What you do?”
“Never you mind, girl,” Johnson replied as he put his arm around her shoulders, his eyes fastening on her ample bosom. “I’m just a soldier doing what needs to be done to protect our people. But you’re right, I’m all man.”
Big George fetched a couple bottles of beer from the cooler and brought one to Johnson. “You ain’t just a soldier. You’re a general . . . the motherfucking general of the Nat Turner Revolutionary Brigade.”
Johnson winced at the new disclosure but he wasn’t as ready to threaten Big George about saying too much in front of the women. Instead, he smiled and took a long pull on the beer before offering the bottle to Lupe.
Two hours later, Johnson grabbed his pistol and stood up, holding out a hand to the girl. He’d had a half dozen beers and had been smoking pot, so he staggered a little before saying, “Been a big day. Think the ‘general’ needs a massage from Private Lupe.”
Rose got up from where she’d been snuggling with Tomes and grabbed her sister by the arm. “No way,” she said. “She’s only sixteen and she ain’t going nowhere with you.”
Johnson sneered as he put the gun in his waistband and looked at the younger girl. “You sixteen?”
“Yes, but I’m mature for my age,” Lupe replied, turning angrily to her sister. “Stay out of my life, you old ho.”
Rose slapped her but was immediately knocked to the ground by Johnson. “Don’t get up, bitch,” he warned, putting his hand under his sweatshirt where the gun resided.
“Hey now, cuz,” Tomes said weakly.
Johnson’s eyes grew large at the challenge, and he turned on Tomes with a snarl. Big George also got up from his chair and started for the smaller man. “Hey now what?” Johnson demanded. “You going to let your bitch give me orders? Tell my girl what she can and can’t do?”
Tomes looked down at Rose, who was picking herself up off the floor. Her lip was split and blood dripped into the carpet. He shook his head. “Nah, she don’t mean nothing by it. Just sisters being sisters.”
Johnson’s eyes narrowed, but he released his grip on the gun. Then he smiled. “Yeah, sisters being sisters. But bros before hos, right? Now me and little sister going to go to bed, so y’all keep it down out here, right?”
Big George laughed. “Yeah, we keep it down, while you getting it up!”
“Yeah, bros before hos,” Tomes echoed. He reached down to help Rose up, but she angrily shrugged off his hand.
“That’s good, that’s good,” Johnson said. “Get some rest. We got a meeting tomorrow night and need to plan some strategy.”
Big George laughed again and raised his beer. “Now you talking. Now it’s getting goooood!”
4
BUTCH KARP SMILED AT HIS wife, who appeared in the mirror as he fixed his tie. It was early in the morning, and the sun drenched the bedroom of their Crosby Street loft. They were getting ready for Officer Tony Cippio’s funeral. Marlene smiled back and said, “It’s always been a dangerous job, but something has changed. This targeting of police officers . . . these cold-blooded executions . . . they take it to a whole new level.”
Karp took a moment to consider her comment. He’d been targeted by assassins in the past, too, but then it was always something personal between him and the would-be killer. This was different. Police officers with no direct connection to the killers, except the uniform they were wearing, were being gunned down without provocation or warning. But he’d seen a version of it before, and so had she.
“You’re forgetting when the Black Liberation Army split off from the Black Panthers in the sixties and starting shooting cops, trying to provoke a race war,” he pointed out. “Same sort of rhetoric, same kinds of responses from the so-called leaders of the community, trying to spin it so that the police are ‘responsible’ for the violence against them.”
Marlene frowned as she applied her lipstick in the mirror. “I guess so,” she said, patting a stray hair back into her tight black curls. “Maybe it’s the reaction from the public that’s different. I think there used to be more respect for the police.”
“I think most people are still horrified. But you’re right, there has been a cultural shift since the sixties toward the police,” Karp said. “God knows, I’ve seen it in courtrooms. Juries used to believe police officers when they testified, but now it’s flip-flopped. There’s a tendency to view anything they say on the stand with suspicion.”
“No other group gets branded by a few bad apples like cops do.”
“Except maybe lawyers,” Karp replied with a slight smile. “But seriously, I think people believe that the police need to be held to a higher standard of conduct. As a society we’ve authorized them to carry and use weapons on other citizens, so long as it is within the bounds of their employment and the law. That’s a pretty heavy responsibility, and the consequences of a rogue cop stepping over those boundaries with lethal force is certainly worse, more final, than an accountant misfiling a tax return or a lawyer not responding to a motion on time. But yeah, you’re right, the vast majority of police officers joined up because they want to help their communities. Now the inflammatory rhetoric and media exploitation have made every legitimate traffic stop a potentially deadly ambush by some unbalanced person who believes the lies. It’s changed the nature of the job for police officers irrevocably.”
“Sounds like a summation, counselor,” Marlene said.
“I hope I get to use it someday on whoever killed Tony Cippio.”
They locked up the apartment and went downstairs to meet Detective Clay Fulton, who arrived in a long black limousine for the ride uptown to Harlem, where Cippio’s funeral procession would start outside the 25th Precinct on 119th Street. NYPD Chief Nick DeCasio also joined them for what would be a long, slow procession
down Fifth Avenue, through the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, and onto the Long Island Expressway to Deer Park, Long Island, where Cippio would be buried next to his brother, who had died on 9/11.
Fifth Avenue was already lined row after row with police officers in full dress uniform, who snapped to attention and saluted when, led by the Emerald Society Pipes and Drums, the car bearing Cippio’s body rolled past. As they passed, Karp studied the faces of the officers. Some just looked dazed, but many appeared grim and angry. There was a tension in their body language that made him uneasy. There was a true sense of urgency to find the killer.
Behind the rows of officers, residents and tourists had also gathered to watch the funeral procession. Most were respectful and some of them had tears rolling down their cheeks, waving as if saying goodbye or simply holding a hand to their mouth. In Harlem, most of those faces were black and the vast majority seemed sad, a few even crying. But here and there small groups held up antipolice signs or raised clenched fists as they shouted slogans behind the wall of police officers who withstood the provocation in stony silence. Karp wondered how long that patience would hold.
Someone calling himself Nat X had appeared on a television interview claiming responsibility for Cippio’s execution, calling it an “act of war by the Nat Turner Revolutionary Brigade on behalf of the oppressed black community.” The man wore a balaclava mask and black ball cap that hid his features; he’d also spoken through a voice changer. Without much hope, Karp asked Gilbert Murrow to request a copy of the unedited version of the interview, as well as to talk to Peter Vansand, the journalist who’d conducted the “exclusive.” As expected, both requests were turned down. The long ride to Long Island gave Karp plenty of time to think about the murder of Tony Cippio, and no one seemed to feel like talking much anyway. DeCasio was a man of few words in the best of circumstances, but he’d sat stone-faced and silent, staring out the window, as did DeCasio’s wife and Marlene.
As the procession crossed 110th Street, Karp noticed Tyrone Greene standing at the corner holding a new basketball in his hands and crying. His grandmother stood behind him with her hands on his shoulders. Karp recalled their meeting at his office the day after Cippio was murdered.
NEVIE BUTLER HAD called in the morning, saying she could bring the boys in that afternoon.
“When I get off work. I’m a nurse’s aide at an old folks’ home—they call it ‘assisted living’ now, but there ain’t much living going on there.”
Karp had offered to send a car or pay their cab fare, but she insisted on taking the subway, explaining, “Folks around here won’t talk as much.”
Karp asked Fulton and ADA Kenny Katz to be present at the meeting. Tyrone had apparently opened up to Katz somewhat following the shooting, and he thought a familiar friendly face might counter his and Fulton’s, two big men with countenances that could make dogs howl. “We’ll meet in the conference room,” he said.
Karp’s receptionist, Darla Milquetost, had shown the three in when they arrived. “Please have a seat,” she said, pointing to the chairs around the table. Butler and Tyrone sat, but Maurice remained standing. “I ain’t sitting down with the po-lice,” he said sullenly.
“Maurice, sit your insolent butt down,” his grandmother demanded, glowering at him.
Karp interceded as he and Katz sat, too. “It’s okay,” he said. “He can stand if he wants. Actually, Maurice, I’m the district attorney, but Clay Fulton is a detective with the NYPD. We’re just trying to piece together what happened at Marcus Garvey Park yesterday when the officer was killed, and we want to locate the man or men who did this.”
“I ain’t got nothing to say to you,” Maurice replied, and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Y’all just out to kill black men. We have to fight back to defend ourselves.”
“MAURICE!” Butler scolded. She turned to Karp. “He’s been getting his head filled by evil, ungodly men preaching hate and violence. I apologize, Mr. Karp.”
“No need to apologize. We’re not here to force Maurice to talk if he doesn’t want to.” Karp turned to Tyrone. “But would you mind if I ask you a few questions?”
Tyrone looked at him, then his grandmother, who nodded, and back to Karp. “Am I in trouble?”
The question surprised Karp. He smiled and shook his head. “Not at all. From what I heard, you acted very bravely and tried to help Officer Cippio.”
At the mention of the officer’s name, the boy’s eyes filled with tears and he hung his head. “He was a nice man. He gave me . . . us . . . a new basketball. I warned him not to go near those men.”
“I want to ask you about those men,” Karp said. “But let’s start at the beginning and sort of walk us through what happened, starting with how you met Officer Cippio.”
Taking a deep breath, Tyrone began. He told them how Cippio had started showing up to play basketball. “At first we thought he was just doing it for show, but I think he liked to play with us. He was pretty good, too, even though I called him ‘Slo-Mo.’ ” The boy grew silent and tears fell on the table.
Karp leaned toward Tyrone. “I’m sure he’d like to be remembered that way by you.”
Tyrone looked up and smiled slightly. “Yeah, he was funny and he cared about us,” he said, but grew serious again. “I told him to stay away from those men.”
“Let’s talk about them. Why did you warn him?”
Tyrone shrugged, looking at his brother, who scowled. “ ’Cause they been talking bad about the police in the neighborhood. They’ve been saying that the police is the enemy. Maurice went to one of their meetings—”
“You what?” Nevie Butler turned angrily toward her grandson. “When I get you home . . .”
“Shut up, Tyrone,” Maurice shouted, and started to advance toward his brother. But Fulton, who had positioned himself behind the younger boy, stepped forward. His face said all Maurice needed to stop in his tracks.
Tyrone shook his head. “I ain’t lying for those men, Mo. They ain’t our friends. Officer Tony was my friend.” He turned back to Karp. “Maurice told me they talked about shooting police.”
Karp narrowed his eyes and looked over at Maurice, who flushed and hung his head. “Do these men have names?”
“I know one of them who used to live near us,” Tyrone said. “His name is Big George. He’s a giant and he’s mean, but I don’t know his last name. He wasn’t the guy with the gun, just with him. The guy with the gun calls himself Nat X, but that’s not his real name.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because he told us he was just using that name because of Nat Turner, who he said led a slave uprising a long time ago that killed a bunch of white people in someplace like Virginia.”
“So were Nat X and Big George two of the men you were warning Officer Cippio to stay away from?”
“Yes, them and another guy. They were sitting on a picnic table, watching us. I told Officer Tony that they were bad, and he said he’d be careful.” The boy’s head swung slowly back and forth. “It didn’t matter. He tried to walk past them, but they got in his way.”
“How do you know that?”
“I was watching. He was walking back to his car, but they saw him and got up from the picnic table. Then they got around him. He tried to get past, but Big George stepped in front of him. That’s when . . . that’s when . . . the other one with the gun shot him.”
Tyrone led Karp through the horror of watching the officer gunned down in cold blood. Karp had already seen the statement from the Medical Examiner’s Office and expected the ballistics report soon; he wanted to know how the boy’s recollection of events would match the facts.
Karp asked, “Have you seen Nat X close up?”
Tyrone nodded.
“Can you describe him for us?”
“Yeah. He tried to talk to us on the basketball court. He’s kind of tall and skinny. He’s got little, like, craters all over his face and a mark above his eye.” The boy touched his skin above his right eye.<
br />
“A mark? You mean a scar?”
“Yeah, a scar that looks like part of a circle.”
Karp noted the boy’s eye for detail. Eyewitness accounts, especially in a traumatic situation, were often inaccurate. To ensure trustworthiness, information needed to be corroborated by other relevant facts, or other witnesses, but some were better than others, and Tyrone seemed to have exceptional recall. “Did you see the gun he used to shoot Officer Cippio?”
Tyrone nodded. “Yeah, I seen it pretty good,” he said. “He was still holding it when he ran past us. It was all silver and had a white handle.”
“A white handle?”
“Yes, a shiny white handle.”
“Do you know much about handguns, Tyrone?”
The boy looked at his brother and then his grandmother. “Some.” He shrugged.
“A child can’t grow up in Harlem without seeing guns,” Butler explained. “It’s a shame, but it’s also the truth.”
Karp nodded. “I couldn’t agree more, it’s pretty sad. So is there anything else you can tell me about this gun, Tyrone?”
Tyrone bit his lip. “Well, it wasn’t a semi.”
“You mean a semiautomatic?”
“Yeah. It was more like a cowboy gun.”
“A cowboy gun?”
Katz, who had brought his laptop to the meeting, interjected. “Give me a few minutes and I can create a photo gallery of different kinds of handguns on my computer.”
Without Fear or Favor Page 4