Deadly Assets

by W. E. B Griffin

  Rapier then tapped on the glass monitor of the control panel. The top left screen on the third bank showed a blue shirt stepping off a sidewalk in front of two decrepit row houses with their windows boarded over. He was stringing yellow crime scene tape from the porch railing of one row house to a telephone pole across the street. The lower edge of the image included the white hood of a vehicle that had red and blue lights pulsing off it, making it obvious the video was being taken by a squad car’s dash camera. There was a line of text at the top of the frame detailing the date, time, and GPS location of the imagery.

  “Looks like drugs,” Rapier added.

  “A drug deal in Kensington! No!” Payne said, somewhat loudly and dripping with sarcasm, causing a few people to look up at him momentarily, grin, and turn back to their work. “Next you’ll further surprise me by saying it’s payback for Dante Holmes getting capped yesterday, that this dead guy’s a teen—”

  “A teenaged white male named Billy Chester,” Rapier finished. “And it’s probably not retaliation to settle scores. His buddy Dan Moss, also a teenaged white male, got collared getting off the El in Chinatown by a transit cop—they’d seen Moss on SEPTA surveillance cameras jumping the turnstile at Somerset.”

  “And?”

  “And the transit cop said Moss—after the kid stopped hugging him and crying—reported he and Chester had gotten lost, wound up in Kensington, and then got carjacked. Said after they were robbed, Chester apparently took at least three large-caliber rounds to the chest and neck.”

  Payne looked at him a moment.

  “A white teen? That’s curious.”

  “You mean unusual?” Rapier asked, but they both knew it was a statement of fact.

  [ TWO ]

  A week earlier, Homicide Sergeant Matt Payne had been approached with a proposition—“cornered,” he had claimed, but no one took the statement seriously. It was a hard argument to swallow considering (a) the person approaching had been in a motorized wheelchair and (b) who that person was.

  The fact of the matter was that Payne would have done anything for Andy Radcliffe, a nineteen-year-old who was working an internship with the police department.

  Andy had a kind, round face with gentle coal-black eyes and a full head of dark hair clipped tight to his scalp. He generally wore neatly ironed jeans and an oversized white cotton dress shirt with a somewhat worn navy blazer.

  He was a sophomore—a double major studying criminal justice and computer science—at La Salle University, in North Philly, not far from where he lived with his mother and little brother.

  Three years earlier, returning home with take-out dinner for the family, he had been robbed on the street by teenaged thugs. Not content with what little cash he had, they then stabbed him in the back. The knife had struck his spinal cord, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down.

  Even before the robbery, Andy’s life had been anything but an easy one. Yet he still managed to keep a positive attitude after the attack, overcoming as best he could the obstacles that came with the paralysis.

  Payne had found himself immediately impressed when he had met Radcliffe in the Executive Command Center, and even more when he’d heard his story.

  Andy politely had brushed off Payne’s praise.

  “What was I going to do? Not keep helping Momma and my little brother? Or, worse, become a burden to them? Momma taught me discipline, to work hard and never give up. Like my father.”

  Andy explained that Luke Radcliffe had worked as a crane operator at the Port of Philadelphia for fifteen years—until he found himself suffering severe shortness of breath. Doctors diagnosed him with pulmonary fibrosis.

  Andy had just turned ten.

  Luke Radcliffe, as he bravely fought the advancing disease, was put on a lung transplant list. But the scars quickly covered more and more of the lung tissue, and, just a week after being rushed to the hospital and hooked up to an artificial respirator, he succumbed to severe infections.

  The medical bills had been unbelievably expensive, and the cash from the modest life insurance policy Luke had taken out through the port had not lasted long. The family struggled to make ends meet, even as Andy’s mother took on extra work.

  Andy, desperate to help, finally got a job at a grocery store. It was all the then-twelve-year-old could find. He worked part-time as a shelf-stocker and bag boy after school and on Saturdays. He would have worked Sundays, but his mother cautioned him to keep holy the Sabbath, and to take time to be with family. Later, the answer had been the same when he offered to go to full-time—his mother again thanked him, but adamantly refused to let him miss any school.

  It had been because of the robbery, and his meeting the cop who worked his case, that Radcliffe found himself at La Salle studying criminology.

  Detective Will Parkman was a former marine who Radcliffe said really wasn’t the hard-ass that people presumed. He described him as “an M&M, hard on the outside, soft on the inside. His buddies call him ‘Pretty Boy’ Parkman because . . . well, he’s the first to say he’s not.” Parkman had told him about a La Salle scholarship, helped him apply for it, and then later helped him apply for the police internship.

  Rapier told Payne that Radcliffe really knew his way around computers. And Payne found he had the makings for a thorough investigator, which Andy had proved when he dug up a detail in a file that connected two critically important dots in Payne’s Halloween Homicides case.

  Andy was diligent, worked long hours, and never sought preferential treatment. Thus, when Payne had looked up from his desk in the Homicide Unit and seen Radcliffe, hand on the armrest joystick that controlled his wheelchair’s direction and speed, fluidly rolling toward him, his next words had come as somewhat of a surprise.

  “I have a favor to ask,” Andy said, “and I understand if the answer’s no.”

  “No,” Payne said immediately, intending it as a joke.

  “Yes, sir. Understood.”

  Radcliffe bobbed his head once, thumbed the joystick to the right, and, after his wheelchair pivoted, began rolling out of the cubicle.

  The look on Radcliffe’s face made Payne feel as if he had just kicked a litter of puppies off a cliff.

  “Wait!” Payne said. “What is it, Andy?”

  It was a moment before Radcliffe brought his wheelchair to a stop and spun back around.

  Radcliffe said: “At La Salle there’s a class—Criminal Justice 350: Violence in Society—that I’m taking. I got it okayed to bring the others in my class on a tour of the department . . .”

  “Sounds like a great idea.”

  “. . . if I got a sponsor . . .”

  “Upon further consideration, sounds like a really bad idea.”

  Radcliffe stared at him, then finished, “. . . and it’d be great if you could do just the Homicide part. Detective Parkman’s already agreed to be the sponsor.”

  “What? Pretty Boy? You asked him first? Why do I suddenly feel like the last kid picked for a team on the playground?”

  Payne tried to feign a hurt look. When he saw it wasn’t working, he smiled.

  “All right. Sure, Andy. When?”

  —

  The next night in the Homicide Unit, Sergeant Matthew M. Payne, wearing gray woolen slacks, navy blazer, and a striped necktie, stood before twenty-five criminal justice students from La Salle University.

  It was a fairly varied group, despite being made up mostly of males. All were nicely dressed, a few of the males even in coat and tie. While it was impossible to pinpoint their exact ethnic lineage, a dozen in the group, including of course Andy Radcliffe, clearly were African-American, with the remainder being a mix of backgrounds well representative of Philadelphia. Payne recognized signs of Irish and English heritage as well as those of Italian, Spanish, Asian, and Hispanic descent.

  What a great bunch of kids, Payne thought.r />
  “I’ve been asked to describe the makeup of crime here in Philly, with an emphasis on homicides,” Payne said. “But I’d like to ask you a question first: How many of you have had friends or family who’ve been victims of crime?”

  All but four in the group raised their hands.

  “And how many of you personally have been victims?”

  A moment later, six hands remained raised.

  Payne nodded, motioned for them to put down their hands, then said, “I’m sorry to see that, but I have to say I’m not surprised. You guys are what age—nineteen, twenty?”

  They nodded.

  “Okay, tell me: What’s generally considered the largest cause of death for people your age?”

  “Car crashes,” a tall, thoughtful-looking black male said.

  “Correct. For those age fifteen to twenty-five, cars are by far the worst. That is, pretty much everywhere but Philadelphia. Anyone want to venture a guess what it is here?”

  The group was silent, then a male voice in the back said, “Murder?”

  Payne nodded solemnly. “Unfortunately, yes. Homicides are the top killer for that age group in Philly.”

  There was a murmur, then the same voice in the back, his tone now incredulous, said, “But why?”

  “That’s a very good question. One I wish we had an answer for—then I wouldn’t have to work so hard.”

  That triggered polite laughter.

  Then, toward the front, a light-brown-skinned female with short dark hair raised her hand to shoulder level and said: “Thanks to the media, it’s not exactly a secret that you’re known to get into shoot-outs. Weren’t you just cleared in that shoot-out on the casino boardwalk?”

  Payne thought that she probably was Puerto Rican.

  He smiled.

  “You don’t beat around the bush, do you?” he said. “You’re going to make a great cop.”

  There were chuckles.

  “No offense intended, Sergeant Payne,” she said. “I’m just curious about deadly force—that is, Officer-Involved Shootings—how the process works?”

  Payne nodded.

  She doesn’t look like she’s trying to corner me, he thought.

  But she knows the proper terminology. Better be careful, Matty . . .

  “Fair question, for which I have a fair answer. Let me say, first of all, Honor, Integrity, Service—that’s our police department’s motto. I believe devoutly in it. I took my oath to protect the city, protect its residents, and uphold the law and the United States Constitution. To do that, you have to embrace honor and integrity and service.”

  He saw nodding in the crowd.

  “An Officer-Involved Shooting, or OIS,” he went on, “is when a police officer, either on duty or off, discharges his or her firearm, either intentionally or accidentally. Each year, among our seven thousand–plus officers, there’s an average of fifty Officer-Involved Shootings, with about ten of those resulting in the officer killing the bad guy. It’s important to note that every OIS death in the last decade has been found to be righteous.”

  “Righteous?” a male, who looked, and sounded, like he was of Polish stock, asked.

  Payne remembered him as one of the six whose hands remained up when he asked if anyone had been a crime victim.

  “Justifiable,” Payne said. “Proper.”

  “Then the bastard had it coming!” the male blurted.

  “Kuba!” the olive-skinned female next to him said.

  “If you’ll forgive my French, sir,” Kuba added, smiling.

  Payne forced back a grin.

  “Everyone makes choices, and some are fatal ones,” he said. “Okay, so fifty Officer-Involved Shootings is a very low number considering (a) that there’re every day about ten thousand calls to nine-one-one asking for police assistance and (b) that the bad guys are quick to wave weapons when police arrive on the scene.”

  “That’s what happened to me,” Kuba said. “The bastard . . . sorry . . . the bad guy robbed me at gunpoint when I was waiting for a SEPTA bus in West Philly.”

  “You didn’t get hurt?” Payne said.

  “No, sir,” Kuba said, shaking his head. He glanced at Andy Radcliffe and added, “Luckily.”

  Andy acknowledged that with a nod.

  “You were lucky,” Payne said, paused for a moment, then went on: “All right, so after an OIS, the case gets sent to the district attorney’s office to determine that the shooting was within the framework of Pennsylvania state law. There’s also a police department investigation, one separate from the DA’s and conducted by the Use of Force Review Board following the DA’s decision. The Use of Force Review Board is made up of department heavy hitters—the deputy commissioners from Patrol Operations, Office of Professional Responsibility, Organizational Services, and Major Investigations. They determine whether or not department procedures and policies were followed and if there should be disciplinary charges, or maybe training, or even changing department policies.”

  “What about CPOC?” a male who looked to be of Asian descent said.

  Payne looked at him, nodded, then addressed the group: “Everyone familiar with the Citizens Police Oversight Committee? It’s exactly as its name suggests. Made up of five citizens appointed to represent all citizens, CPOC offers valuable suggestions to the police department, generally through the city council. Its members, who are not sworn officers or prosecutors, are not able to make professional investigations of an OIS, or for that matter any other official activity in the department.”

  After a moment, the dark-haired woman raised her hand again.

  “So,” she said, “you’re saying that’s ten bad guys killed by an officer each year in Philly? When the overall murder rate averages one a day? I don’t mean any offense by this, either, but it’s remarkable you haven’t shot more than you have, Sergeant Payne.”

  Payne looked at her a moment, then noticed everyone’s eyes on him.

  Here it comes, Matty ol’ boy—that sounds uncomfortably close to the impossible-to-answer question of: “So, sir, have you stopped beating your wife?”

  “Yes! I mean, no! I mean . . .”

  He avoided answering by digging into his coat pocket. He produced some folded sheets of paper, flipped to the second one, and handed it to Andy Radcliffe.

  “This is the most recent Philadelphia Murder/Shooting Analysis,” Payne announced. “Andy, how about you read the intro, and I’ll then get into the numbers.”

  Andy looked at the sheet, then cleared his throat, and began: “‘The FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program establishes all guidelines and procedures for the submission of crime data to the State Police UCR. Murders are counted at the time Homicide investigators determine that, after investigation, there in fact has been an intentional killing of a human being by another. Clearances of murders occur when at least one person suspected of committing the murder is taken into police custody for prosecution. Clearance rates are determined by taking the total number of murder clearances for the year and dividing that number into the number of murders counted for that same period. Clearance rates are currently averaging fifty percent.’”

  He looked up at Payne, who then looked at the group.

  “Any questions about that?” Payne said.

  He saw heads shaking; there were no verbal responses.

  “Okay, let’s talk about who’s involved in these homicides,” he then said. “Of those murdered, nearly ninety percent are male, sixty percent of that aged eighteen to thirty-four, seventy-five percent if you look at eighteen to forty-four. And of all those killed, seventy-five percent are African-American.

  “The department’s Twenty-second District—North Philly, Broad Street to the Schuylkill River, headquartered at Seventeenth and Montgomery—gets the dubious honor of handling the most murders citywide, one in ten. But the Twenty-fourth and -fi
fth and the Twelfth and Thirty-fifth and -ninth are right behind it.”

  Andy Radcliff said, “That’s pretty much anywhere but Center City.”

  “That’s correct. But Center City certainly isn’t immune. Now, seventy-five-point-eight percent of homicides happen outside. No day is really any better or worse than another, although Saturday, Sunday, and Monday nights edge highest.”

  “Why not Friday?” a voice called out.

  Payne shrugged.

  “There’s really not a lot of difference. Friday rates eleven percent versus sixteen percent for each Saturday, Sunday, Monday. A third of those murders clock in—or clock out, as the case may be—between twenty-hundred and twenty-four-hundred hours. About one in four are murdered after that, twenty-four-hundred to oh-four-hundred.”

  “Midnight, the witching hour,” Andy Radcliffe said. “Small wonder the Homicide guys on the Last Out shift are the busiest.”

  “And why they don’t get much sleep,” Payne said, “considering they chase the leads night and day until they catch them or the trail goes cold. As for when the fewest murders occur, it’s the period from oh-eight-hundred to twelve-hundred.”

  “Late morning. They must be sleeping in then,” a female who looked to have Irish traits said.

  There were chuckles in the group.

  “That,” Kuba said in a stage whisper, “or getting cozy with their bitches.”

  That triggered loud laughter.

  Payne shook his head, but he grinned and then went on: “Almost half are categorized as the result of an argument. A distant second, around ten to twelve percent, are listed as ‘Drugs’ and about the same number are marked ‘Unknown.’”

  “Wouldn’t there be a lot of crossover there?” the tall, thoughtful black male said. “I mean, a lot of those arguments have to be drug-related.”

  Payne nodded. “No doubt. There could’ve been drugs involved earlier, then a later argument triggered the killing. Fighting over territory is a prime example.” He paused, then went on: “And ‘triggered’ is somewhat appropriate, as the cause of death by far is gunshots. More than eighty percent. Knives come in at just shy of ten percent. After that it’s blunt force trauma and strangling. Anyone want to take a stab, so to speak, at when those numbers change dramatically?”