The Blue Executions

by George Norris

  “Good morning ladies and gentlemen. As you know by now, my name is Laurie Bando and I am the Assistant District Attorney handling this case. I just wanted to take a couple of minutes to address you before I present any witnesses today because by the end of the day this case will be in your hands.” She noted that a few of the jurors, who hadn’t seemed to be paying much attention to her as she began to speak, seemed to perk up.

  “I want you all to realize that you have a very important job. A man’s career…future…and freedom are at stake. You and you alone have the power to have him arrested and charged with murder or a lesser included charge, where he would be brought before a judge and jury to answer for his actions. The people will then have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that this man, a sworn police officer of New York City, did in fact, commit the crime that you have indicted him on.” Bando paused to let their responsibility sink in before she continued.

  “You also have the power to vote not to indict him.” She consciously nodded her head while stressing the word not; her eyes met each and every juror. “If after hearing the evidence, you feel that the police officer did not step outside the boundaries of the law, then you must vote not to indict. I wanted to address this with you before you hear testimony today because up until now, the witnesses that you have heard from have been presenting physical evidence and other non-disputable facts. Today’s witnesses will tell you what they say happened in the courtyard at 116-80 Guy Brewer Boulevard on the evening of May 13. Some of the testimony may be contradictory with other testimony that you hear.”

  She widened her eyes and pointed at the jurors with her right index finger, from left to right as they sat in the jury box. “It is up to you to decide who is being truthful and who is not. If you feel a person is purposefully lying, then you may discount his entire testimony if you deem him or her to be unreliable.”

  She once again left her comments hang there, hoping the seed was planted. Having left the jurors with the notion of lying as the last thing they heard, she decided Lance Porter would be the logical choice as the day’s first witness.

  The court officer directed Porter to have a seat in the witness chair. Once he was sworn in, Bando began the examination of the witness.

  “Good morning, Mr. Porter. Would you please state your name and address for the members of the jury?”

  After he provided his pedigree information, Bando continued. “And Mr. Porter, by whom are you employed?”

  Porter sat tall in the witness stand. Bando felt he looked confident, if not cocky. “I’m employed as a security guard at J.F.K. airport.”

  “Thank you. And for how long have you worked at the airport?”

  “A few months,” Porter replied in a low voice through what looked like a forced smile.

  “And prior to working as a security guard, what did you do for a living?”

  The smile quickly vanished. His eyes seemed to slightly narrow at her. Bando sensed she had hit a nerve. “I was unemployed before that.”

  “Okay, for how long? When was your last job before being gainfully employed at the airport?”

  Porter tugged at his olive green tie; loosening from the pale blue collar of his shirt. “What’s my resume got to do with that cop killing my man?”

  Got him.

  Bando knew that she had him on the ropes already and she was just beginning. She held a reassuring hand up to him. She knew that she needed to fight her excitement. “I’m sorry Mr. Porter. I was just trying to establish your roots in the community,” she lied. “Let’s move on.”

  “I’d like to direct your attention to May 13, 2013 at about six-thirty p.m. in the vicinity of the courtyard located in the rear of 116-80 Guy Brewer Boulevard. Were you present at that time and location?”

  “Yes, I was.”

  “Is that location in the county of Queens?”

  Porter nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Thank you Mr. Porter.” Motioning with her hand, the ADA directed the witness to speak to the jurors. “Will you please describe for the members of the jury, what if anything happened at that time and location.”

  She watched as Porter nervously licked his lips and then wiped them with his hand before beginning. “Me and my boys was hangin’ on the corner by Foch…you know, enjoying the weather and such. Then this car pulls up and this DT starts walking up on us.”

  First mistake!

  “I’m sorry to interrupt Mr. Porter, we need to be clear. What do you mean by a DT?”

  “Oh, yeah right. A DT is what we call a detective, in the hood.”

  “So you did recognize him to be a detective then?”

  “Yeah…I mean no.” He licked his lips feverishly. “What I mean is I know that he is a DT now. I mean a detective.”

  Bando, realizing she had just scored her first points against the witness, looked over to the jurors, hoping it had not been lost on them.

  “And since the incident, have you learned the detective’s name?”

  “Yeah, his name’s Detective Galvin.”

  “Thank you, please continue.”

  “Well, this Detective Galvin just came over to us and started grabbing up on my boy, Darrin for no reason. At the time I didn’t know he was a detective.”

  Bando felt the back peddling was obvious; that could only help Tommy. “For the record, do you know Darrin’s last name?”

  “Yeah, Jackson.” Bando could sense Porter start to relax once again. That could work to her advantage if he got too comfortable.

  “Thank you Mr. Porter. Were you and Darrin alone at the time of the incident?”

  Nah, my other boys was there too but they ain’t coming today because they afraid of what the po-lice will do if they testify against them.”

  Touché; a point for him.

  Bando was sure that the line had been rehearsed. “Please continue.”

  Porter smiled, most likely satisfied with himself for working the line into his testimony, felt Bando. “So Darrin starts running from this guy and the guy is chasing him. Then the dude pulls out a gun and he’s threatening Darrin with it for no reason. Me and my boys was all scared. We didn’t know what the hell was going on. Then Darrin sees the gun and just stops running. We was all afraid the dude was gonna cap him. Then the guy, Detective Galvin, hits Darrin over the head with the gun. Darrin wasn’t even fighting. The guy just hit him. Then when Darrin fell to the ground and the guy just kept beating on him.”

  She noticed Porter seemed to get angry at first, and then he began to fight back tears—crocodile tears, she was certain. “Then the cop puts the gun right to Darrin’s head. Somehow Darrin turned to the side just as the cop tried to shoot him in the head.”

  “Thank you Mr. Porter. Can you tell the members of this jury, did you see where the bullet struck if it did not strike Mr. Jackson?”

  “Yeah, it went straight into the ground, two inches from my man’s head.”

  “Okay, please continue.”

  “Yeah, so then the DT rolls Darrin onto his stomach and handcuffs him. After he handcuffed him, the cop starts beating on him again with his walkie talkie.”

  Porter shook his head in disgust. “Man, we from the hood, you wanna fight one on one, that’s cool man, bring it on. We can man up. But my man was handcuffed, hands behind his back and this cop was just beating on him.”

  Bando took the editorialism in stride. “How many times would you say the officer struck Mr. Jackson in the head with his walkie talkie?”

  “I don’t know, but it was a lot.”

  “In total, if you could give your best guess, how many times do you think Detective Galvin struck your friend in the head?”

  Again shaking his head, Porter looked down, “Man, I don’t know. It had to be at least a dozen times.”

  Bando heard the gasp of an older African American woman on the jury. She glanced at the jurors—some shook their heads with disapproval, others didn’t give any indication of their thoughts but just sat quietly and listened. They were a bi
t harder to read, thought Bando. “Please continue, Mr. Porter. What happened next?”

  She watched as Porter seemed to be holding back tears. His voice cracked as he began. “My man went into convulsions.” Porter looked down, and then buried his face into his hands. He took a deep breath, looked at the jury and continued. “I was beggin the DT to do something…to help Darrin. Then he looks at me and says ‘shut up nigger or you’ll be next’.”

  Bando heard more audible gasps from the jury box. Bando could feel the ire from many members of the jury at the mere mention of the word. The race card; nice touch. That was even more effective than the crocodile tears. That was okay she felt; he scored a few points, but now it was her turn.

  She did her best to seem sympathetic. “Mr. Porter, can I get you a glass of water before we continue or would you like to take a short recess?”

  “No ma’am. I just want to get this over with.”

  “Mr. Porter, would you please tell the members of the jury how long you have known Mr. Jackson.”

  “Like forever. He was like a brother to me.”

  Bando began setting the trap. “So you two grew up together then?”

  Porter shook his head. “Nah, I shouldn’t have said forever; it just seems like that, because we were so close. I’ve known him for years though.”

  “Thank you for the correction, Mr. Porter. Could you please tell the members of the jury, where you first met Mr. Jackson?”

  Porter didn’t immediately answer. The soft, sympathetic look on his face eroded into a harder, more authentic look, Bando felt. His eyes hardened and narrowed—she knew she had him. “Mr. Porter, did you need me to repeat the question?”

  “I met him in Greenhaven.” He said it in a quiet, yet stern voice.

  “Thank you Mr. Porter. When you say Greenhaven, would you please tell the members of the jury what Greenhaven is?”

  His jaw tightened—a vein bulged in his neck. He answered through clenched teeth, “Prison.”

  “So you met Darrin Jackson in prison. Is that correct?”

  Porter sucked his cheek against his teeth, making a smacking sound. “What the fuck does it matter where we met; how does that have anything to do with that cop beating my man to death!?”

  “Mr. Porter, I’m going to ask you to calm down and please answer the question.”

  Porter shook his head. “Fine; I met him up north, in Greenhaven Correctional facility—a prison. Is that what you want to hear?”

  It was. Bando just glanced at the jury as she answered. “The only thing I want Mr. Porter is the truth.” She once again focused on the witness. “So you have told the jury that you met Mr. Jackson in state prison. Would you please now tell us why you were in prison?”

  He let out a clearly intentionally loud breath of air to show his annoyance. “They said I committed a robbery.”

  “An armed robbery,” Bando corrected.

  “Yeah, an armed robbery.” Bando noticed the beads of sweat forming on Porter’s forehead when they caught the room’s florescent lighting at the right angle.

  “You stated that ‘they said you committed an armed robbery’ but didn’t you in fact plead guilty to robbing a gas station at gunpoint?”

  Porter’s anger was clear—it had to be evident to even the most inattentive of jurors. “Yeah, I pled guilty. I didn’t want to take a chance on blowing trial and doing twenty years, so yeah, I pled guilty.”

  “Thank you. Now you previously testified that Mr. Jackson was like a brother to you. Would you please tell us what his street name was?”

  “He ain’t got no street name,” Porter asserted.

  Exactly what I hoped he would say.

  Bando had been doing a masterful job of walking the witness into trap after trap. His denial of Jackson having a street name opened the door for her to bring both of their arrest records into evidence in order to impeach his testimony. “Mr. Porter, according to over half a dozen police reports, it lists his street name as C.B.S. On two of his drug related arrests, you are listed as a co-defendant with the street name ‘Black’. Do you deny any of this to be true?”

  Bando knew he wouldn’t deny it. The tattoo on his right forearm—Black—would be all she would need to point out to the jurors to prove him a liar. “Yeah, alright, people be calling him C.B.S. sometimes.”

  “Can you please tell us what C.B.S. stands for?”

  “Can’t be stopped,” he answered in a low and defeated voice.

  Bando nodded approvingly. “Thank you for your honesty, Mr. Porter.” She briefly paused. “Mr. Porter, do you know why Mr. Jackson ran from Detective Galvin on the evening of May, 13?”

  “Cause the dude was chasing him. He didn’t know he was a DT.”

  Bando looked directly at the jury box before speaking. “Are you sure that’s the reason? Maybe it had something to do with the thirty-four ziplock bags of crack cocaine found at the scene?”

  Regardless of how the witness would answer the question, Bando knew she scored big with it. She observed quite a few of the jurors begin to slowly nod as if a light bulb had just gone off in their heads.

  “Nah, that’s bullshit. Darrin didn’t sell crack. That DT planted that there to save his ass,” Porter strongly rebutted.

  “When you say Darrin didn’t sell crack, do you mean he didn’t sell crack since the two times you got arrested together for selling it?”

  “I’m telling you, he don’t hustle no more…neither do I. I have a good job now. We all make mistakes when we’re young.”

  “Okay Mr. Porter, we will get back to your job but please watch your language,” Bando warned. “You stated that you’re employed as J.F.K. Airport as a security guard. Is that by a private courier or by the airport security?”

  “I’m employed by the airport.”

  “Thank you again Mr. Porter. I have one final question for you.” Bando walked to her desk and retrieved a folder. She opened the folder up, taking out a file in which a photo of the witness was clear to the jury. She read through Porter’s rap sheet. “Just so there is no confusion on the matter, are you employed at the airport under the name Lance Porter, Lionel Perrin, Jamel Bennett or any other names that you may have used in the past?”

  Porter was clearly agitated. His lips tightened; his nostrils flaring. “So that’s how it is right! Okay fine. I work there as Lance Porter. Is there anything else I can help you with Miss A.D.A.?”

  “No, thank you Mr. Porter; the witness is excused.

  *

  Porter stepped down from the witness stand. He was furious. He wanted nothing more than to punch the ADA in the face but he knew that he couldn’t. Instead he gave her the dirtiest look that he could muster up. He took a mental note of the court officer walking in his direction to make sure that he didn’t attack the ADA. He walked past the jurors and looked at them. “This is some real bullshit they got going on here. You can believe that.”

  Porter flung the door open; slamming it against the wall as he left. In his anger, he never noticed any of the next witnesses seated on the bench, including the head of security at J.F.K. International Airport who was about to testify that he did not now—nor did he ever have a Lance Porter on the payroll.

  Porter noticed the two detectives standing in front of the exit where he was headed. He didn’t think anything of them, as the courts had hundreds of detectives present every day. As he got closer to the door, they blocked his way. He turned over his shoulder to see two court officers walking up behind him. Are you kidding me, now what?

  The first of the detectives spoke to him. “Mr. Porter, it seems that you have an open warrant for possession of marijuana. Please place your hands behind you back.”

  Porter first smiled and then laughed. He complied with the officer’s direction—it wouldn’t be the first time he was in handcuffs—probably not the last either. The charge itself was nonsense. He knew that he would be out by the next morning if not later this afternoon. Once he was handcuffed he looked at the officer. �
�You guys ain’t playin on this one, huh?”

  The detective’s said nothing in response but instead walked him to the waiting unmarked car to take him to the nearest precinct for processing.

  *

  Bando was getting ready to call the next witness. She wondered how Porter had liked the surprise she had arranged for him. She wished that she could have been there to witness his arrest but knew that it would not have been prudent to do so. He should have paid his marijuana fine like everyone else does.

  When the court officer walked back in the courtroom, he gave her a thumbs up. She knew that all had gone according to plan.

  The presentation to the Grand Jury was going exactly as planned by Bando. She had successfully introduced the criminal records of the defendant and the eye witness; she had proven Porter to be a liar who did not have a job and had even done a good job with Charlene Waters. Bando was happy that the grandmotherly witness had admitted to observing a fierce struggle and not a one-sided beating as Porter had testified to.

  With the last of the eyewitness having testified, Bando decided to recall the Crime Scene detective back to the stand. Bando had willfully omitted certain pieces of evidence from his first round on the stand. “Detective Breen, I’d like to remind you that you are still under oath,” she began. She handed him a set of photographs. “Detective, are you familiar with this picture.”

  He assertively shook his head. “Yes Ms. Bando, I am. I took these pictures of the area where the decedent’s body was and the surrounding pavement where he lay.”

  “Can you please look at the photos, including the close ups of the pavement next to where Mr. Jackson’s head would have been. In those photographs, or even your own independent recollection, do you see any markings that would be consistent with someone firing a handgun into the ground?”

  Breen sorted through the pictures, one at a time. “There are no markings anywhere that would indicate a firearm was fired into the ground.”