Without Fear or Favor

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  “Yes, sir,” Cippio said with obvious pride.

  “Specifically, the NYPD Medal of Honor is, and again I quote, ‘awarded for acts of gallantry and valor performed with knowledge of the risk involved, above and beyond the call of duty.’ ”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “He ran into that building knowing there was a good chance he would not be coming out?”

  “Yes, sir.” This time Cippio’s response was hardly more than a hoarse whisper as he tried desperately not to crack.

  “To try to save other people,” Karp continued. “To protect and serve?”

  “Yes, sir. That was my boy . . . ,” Cippio said in a near sob. “That was both of my boys.”

  “And where is your son Vince Jr. buried?”

  The question seemed to hit Cippio like a bullet to the chest. His shoulders slumped, his head hung, and his body shook. It took him a full minute to bring himself under control, and when he spoke, his voice was high and tight.

  “We never received his remains . . . none were identified. Nevertheless, his mother and I made sure that he had a proper funeral with a Memorial Mass and placed a gravestone at the cemetery site on the family plot.”

  Karp gave Cippio, who was breathing hard in his grief, a few more moments to gather himself. “Tell us about your son Tony.”

  Cippio let out a deep sigh and shook his head. He smiled slightly. “He was a good kid, sensitive. He was always bringing some stray home. He has a dog, Wink, he found while on patrol, probably the scruffiest, most obnoxious mutt you’ll ever meet. But he loved that damn mongrel, and it loved him right back. Even now, every time Wink hears the door open, he runs to see if it’s Tony come home.”

  The man’s voice broke as he said “home,” and it took him a few moments before he could go on. “Tony was a good boy, believed in Jesus, knew his catechism front to back way ahead of the other kids, even his brother. We thought he might be a priest. But he met Franny in high school and it was love at first sight.”

  Pausing, Cippio looked back toward the gallery where his son’s widow sat in the front pew behind the prosecution table. She dabbed at her eyes but smiled at her father-in-law.

  “He was straight A’s in high school, a pretty good basketball player,” he continued. “But after what happened to his brother, we were hoping he wouldn’t be a cop. Things were changing on the streets, worse than even the hard times in the sixties. No respect. Not from the criminals, not from the public. But after his brother died, there was no way you could stop Tony from joining the force.”

  “You mentioned that times were changing on the streets,” Karp said. “Did you worry more about Tony than, say, Vince Jr. or yourself?”

  Cippio nodded. “Back in the day, you might get in a shootout during a robbery or trying to apprehend some violent guy, even get shot by some hothead in a domestic violence dispute like my brother. But now a police officer pulls somebody over for a traffic violation and has no idea if it’s a deadly ambush, some guys looking to shoot a cop for no better reason than he’s wearing the uniform. They’re hunting police officers and except maybe in the past with the Black Liberation Army—”

  “Objection!” Nash shouted, jumping to her feet. “Your Honor, may we approach the bench?”

  “Of course,” Kershner said.

  When Karp and Nash reached the sidebar at the judge’s dais, the defense attorney hissed her objection. “This was discussed at a pretrial hearing, Your Honor. There would be no attempt to link my client to the actions of the Black Panthers or Black Liberation Army. I know this witness was admonished not to bring it up, and yet the district attorney, and Your Honor’s compliance, with all due respect, led him down this path. I object and I move for a mistrial on the grounds that the witness’s illegitimate and egregious ignoring of the judge’s prior ruling will prejudice the jury.”

  “The witness simply made reference to a historical fact, and all of Ms. Nash’s revisionism won’t change it a bit,” Karp responded. “The linkage to the defendant may well exist in his alleged mind.”

  Again Kershner’s lips twisted as she considered the objection. “I don’t see that this slip rises to the level of declaring a mistrial; however, I am going to sustain the objection and instruct the jury to disregard the witness’s statement. And Mr. Karp, you will direct your questions away from this topic and onto the current matter. Am I clear?”

  “Oh, this is very much the current matter,” Karp replied.

  “Very well,” Kershner said with disdain. She shook her head and turned to the jury. “Defense counsel objected to a remark from the witness alluding to crimes that may have been committed by others more than forty years ago that have no bearing on this trial. You will disregard those remarks. I sustain the objection. Mr. Karp, you may continue.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor.” Karp turned back to Cippio. “Sergeant Cippio, what sort of police officer was your son?”

  “Objection. The witness was not his son’s superior officer, nor did they ever work together,” Nash said.

  “Your Honor, if I may set the table for the foundational basis for this line of questioning,” Karp said.

  “Go ahead,” Judge Kershner said tersely.

  “Sergeant Cippio, in your role as a patrol sergeant, did you come into contact with a large number and variety of police officers, some of whom you supervised but some you didn’t?”

  “Yes, hundreds, probably thousands.”

  “And there were good officers and bad officers?”

  “Yes, some were definitely better than others. Most were good.”

  Karp nodded. “I imagine that among the attributes of a good officer would be such qualities as knowledge of the law, perhaps expert marksmanship, courage might be another, and dedication to service. But what else might constitute a good officer?”

  “Well, I’d say having good people skills,” Cippio replied, turning to the jurors. “Police officers are placed in a lot of situations and have to deal with a lot of different people. So it helps to have the right attitude going in.”

  “And what is that ‘right attitude’?”

  “With the best officers it’s that they want to help people; they see their role as protecting and serving their communities, just like it says on our patrol cars.”

  “And in your capacity as a patrol sergeant, you had the opportunity to note whether an officer had good people skills or did not?”

  “Yes, many times.”

  Karp looked at Kershner. “Your Honor, I’d like to submit Sergeant Cippio as an expert in observing the demeanor of police officers and what differentiates a good police officer from a bad police officer, and ask you to overrule counsel’s objection.”

  Kershner raised an eyebrow but nodded. “Overruled. The sergeant can speak to this matter.”

  Turning back to Cippio, Karp continued. “In your expert opinion, was your son, Officer Tony Cippio, a good police officer?”

  Cippio nodded. “He was everything you would want in an officer. Brave, courteous, knew the law . . . But most of all he liked people and wanted to help. He wanted to make a difference in their lives. We often talked about the job, and even after a long week, he’d be all jazzed up. But usually it wasn’t about some arrest he’d made or exciting event; usually it was something he did that made a difference in someone’s life. He talked about wanting a better world not just for his kids but other people’s kids, too. And he was an optimist; he thought he could turn around the way people seem to be viewing cops by showing them what a good officer was like. That’s why he was playing basketball with those kids.”

  As Cippio spoke about his son, Karp glanced back at the defense table. Nash sat listening with her elbows on the table, her chin propped up on her fists, expressionless. Johnson slouched in his seat, looking around the courtroom as though almost anything else interested him more than the witness’s testimony.

  “Yes, he was a good police officer,” Cippio said, and hung his head.

  Karp gave h
im a moment, then spoke softly. “Sergeant Cippio, on the night your son was murdered, did you receive a telephone call from the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office?”

  Cippio nodded and wiped at his eyes. “Yes,” he croaked. “I was asked to go to the morgue.”

  “Were you already aware of what had happened to Tony?”

  “Yes. A couple of my guys had come over to the house to deliver the news so that I wouldn’t have to get it from a telephone call or the television.”

  “Did you in fact go to the morgue?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry, Sergeant Cippio, I know this is tough, but what were you asked to do at the morgue?” Karp asked gently.

  “I was . . . I was . . . ,” Cippio stuttered before pulling himself together and looking at the jury with a tear-stained face. “I was asked to identify the body of my son Tony.”

  “And were you able to do that?”

  Cippio looked down again. A few of the jurors were now also wiping at their eyes and sniffling into tissues. “His face . . . his face was a mess because that animal shot him in the head. But he was my boy, my little Tony.”

  In order to give the witness more time, Karp walked over to the prosecution table and looked down at his yellow pad, which contained his notes regarding this witness. He then walked slowly back over to the witness stand to pour a glass of water from a pitcher and handed it to the grieving father.

  “Thanks,” Cippio replied. He took a sip and set the glass down before reaching for a tissue and blowing his nose. “I can go on.”

  “Sergeant Cippio, at some point after your son’s execution, did you receive a visit from Tony’s partner, Eddie Evans, and Detective Clay Fulton from my office?”

  Cippio’s face hardened. “I did.”

  “Can you please explain to the jurors the purpose of that visit?”

  “Yeah.” Cippio turned to the jurors. “Several police officers had tried to recruit Eddie to participate in a plan to murder a so-called black activist.”

  “Had they already carried out another such plan?”

  “It was my understanding that they were suspected of arranging for the murder of a man named Imani Sefu, who was being held in the Tombs at the time.”

  “The Tombs? You are talking about the Manhattan House of Detention for Men located adjacent to this building?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “But it was your understanding that the officers intended to commit another murder and were trying to get Evans to go along with the plan?”

  “That’s my understanding, yes.”

  “Is Eddie Evans a black police officer?”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “So why would these other officers try to recruit him to murder a black activist?”

  Cippio shrugged. “Because he was my son’s partner and they thought he might want revenge. Also, the leader, Lieutenant Jack Gilliam, told me later—”

  “Objection, hearsay,” Nash said.

  Karp had anticipated this objection from Nash, even though it played to her Big Lie frame defense that Gilliam and his alleged fellow police conspirators were part of an effort by law enforcement to silence critics. But he responded, “Your Honor, I’d ask that the witness be allowed to answer. For the record, Lieutenant Gilliam will be testifying later to this same issue. It’s important for the jury to understand and hear testimony regarding the entire nature factually of the transactional, contextual basis of the limited aspects of these acts.” He then handed the court and defense counsel a legal memo prepared by Katz on point regarding this legal matter. He asked that it be marked in order People’s Exhibit 25 for identification.

  Kershner read the memo and looked at the defense table. “Ms. Nash, do you have any legal argument in response to the district attorney’s legal argument?”

  Looking like she’d been struck, Nash hemmed and hawed before she addressed the court. “Your Honor, I’d like to, uh, um, time to prepare my own memo.”

  “Well, do you have anything to say now in response?”

  “Uh, no, um, maybe tomorrow I’ll have a memo.”

  Judge Kershner just shook her head and said, “I’ll allow it, Mr. Karp, subject to your stated limited purposes. The witness may answer the question.”

  Karp glanced over at Katz, who had a wide grin on his face. He nodded to Cippio.

  “As I was saying, Gilliam said he hoped that if Evans participated, it would convince other black officers to join in.”

  “So this wasn’t just a whites-against-blacks conspiracy on the part of these other officers?”

  Cippio frowned. “Well, I think two of them, Joe Satars and Johnny Delgado, are a couple of racist pieces of crap, excuse the language. But I think Gilliam had simply had it with these attacks on police officers. He told me—”

  “Objection, hearsay,” Nash said.

  “Same argument, Your Honor,” Karp replied. “Goes to foundation.”

  “I’m going to sustain the objection,” Kershner replied. “You can ask this of Mr. Gilliam himself when he takes the stand.”

  Karp moved on. “Evans rejected their initial effort to recruit him?”

  Cippio nodded and then explained how his son’s partner became suspicious that the other officers had carried out their plan when Sefu was murdered in the Tombs. “That’s when he contacted the DAO. Then Eddie and Detective Fulton came over to my place and asked if I’d go undercover.”

  “Why did you agree to help?”

  Cippio’s eyes narrowed. “Because I was a police officer sworn to uphold the law and protect people no matter what the color of their skin or what they said, even if I didn’t like it. My sons were the same. But these . . . these pieces of crap, they didn’t just commit murder, they tarnished the badge my sons and I and all those other members of my family wore with pride and with honor. I was happy to help.”

  Karp then led Cippio through the events leading up to and after the attempted murder of Reverend Mufti. As he prepared to finish his questioning, Karp asked, “Can I ask what you think personally of Reverend Mufti?” He looked back at the gallery, where Mufti’s followers scowled though the reverend himself remained expressionless.

  “Personally? I think he’s a jerk,” Cippio said. “I think he makes a living by playing on people’s fears and prejudices. I think him, and other anticop blowhards, twist the truth and stir things up so that sooner or later some sociopath with a gun kills a cop because he’s been persuaded that it’s the right thing to do.”

  “Do you hold him responsible for the death of your son Tony?” Karp asked. Now Mufti was scowling angrily, too, though he also looked embarrassed.

  Cippio turned to look at the reverend. “Maybe not specifically,” he said. “I don’t think he told anybody, ‘Go kill Tony Cippio in Marcus Garvey Park.’ But words have power and they can be used to make people do things that harm other people. So yes, in a way, I hold him and others like him responsible for the death of my son.”

  Karp let it sink in for a moment. “And yet you risked your life to save him and catch the killers of Imani Sefu.”

  “Yeah,” Cippio said. “I did.”

  “Why?”

  “Because once a cop, always a cop . . . I took an oath to protect and serve. It was the right thing to do. It’s what my son would have wanted me to do.”

  Karp turned to the defense table. “No further questions. Your witness.”

  Nash quickly gathered herself and marched over to the witness stand. “Mr. Cippio,” she said, “we are all sorry for what happened to your son.”

  “You don’t sound sorry,” Cippio retorted.

  Stunned, Nash took a moment to recover. “Well, I am,” she said. “But I also have a job to do and that’s to save an innocent man from false accusations.”

  “I understand you have a job to do,” Cippio agreed.

  “Thank you. Now, Mr. Cippio, were you present in Marcus Garvey Park when your son was confronted and shot?”

  “No, I
wasn’t.”

  “So you don’t have any direct eyewitness knowledge as to what actually occurred before the shooting?”

  “Correct.”

  Nash nodded and moved on to the undercover operation. “Would you say that the murder of Imani Sefu and the attempted murder of Reverend Mufti were racially motivated?”

  Cippio shrugged. “I think Satars and Delgado are racists based on the things they said when I was around them. But Gilliam—”

  “So these attacks were racially motivated?”

  “In part, yes,” Cippio agreed.

  Nash crossed her arms as she strolled over in front of the jurors. “Are there a lot of racists in the New York Police Department?”

  “I wouldn’t say a lot. But like any part of our society, there are some.”

  “Are you a racist?”

  “No, I am not,” Cippio said with a frown.

  “So you might not know the prevalence of racism in the department?”

  “I guess not an exact number or percentage. But police officers work with all sorts of people of every race and ethnicity, and there are very few reported incidents.”

  “Might that be because people of color would be afraid to report these sorts of incidents to the police?”

  “Only because of guys like Mufti,” Cippio shot back.

  Nash’s eyes opened wide for a moment, then she scowled. “Isn’t that a racist comment?” she accused.

  “No, it’s the truth. Guys like him have made people afraid of the police.”

  “It has nothing to do with the police themselves?” Nash suggested sardonically.

  “There are bad apples in every barrel,” Cippio conceded. “But good cops want to get rid of the bad cops even more than citizens do. They give us a bad name and make it even harder to do an already tough and dangerous job.”

  “So do you blame activists, like my client, Anthony Johnson, for the murder of your son?”

  “Not exactly.” Cippio leaned forward, his back straight and his demeanor ramrod firm, and looked right at Nash. “I blame activists for setting the scene. I only blame your client for the murder of my son because he pulled the trigger.”