by Jeff Nania
“There I stayed ’til the end. I was decorated a couple of times and reprimanded a couple more. I liked the people in my beat. They didn’t expect much. Most of them just wanted to be treated with a little respect and didn’t like the dirtbags that bothered their lives any more than I did. I had some rules: don’t bother kids, animals, or old folks. If you decide that you are going to victimize someone else, be aware that I will do all I can to victimize you. As years went by, people accepted my rules, and we got along just fine.”
Bill Presser was now in full reporter mode, perched on the edge of his chair, recorder going, and taking notes in a spiral bound notebook. “What did you get reprimanded for?”
“Mostly kind of humorous stuff … at least I thought it was funny.”
“Like?”
“Like one night these gang bangers started shooting at each other in a residential neighborhood. Bullets were flying everywhere, going through walls, taking out a picture window, hitting parked cars. Well, in all the shooting, the little punks never even hit each other. The safest place to be was where they were aiming. So, we rounded them all up and took them into jail. I had an ad for private firearms training in my squad box. When I got to the jail, I made copies of the ad and handed it out to the gang bangers. I told them to do the community a favor and learn to shoot better. I said it would make the neighborhood safer and reduce crime by potential reduction in perpetrator numbers. A southside social worker complained to my boss.”
“Funny, but I can see why some may have found it to be inappropriate.”
“Yeah, well, whatever. I guess you had to be there.
“Anyway, I liked my job. I enjoyed the people I worked with and the challenges of not knowing what you would see day in and day out. Things were going along pretty good. In my beat, people were not blessed with an abundance of recreational opportunities, as a result, some folks when they got a little pocket money, their first stop was the liquor store. Then they would go home and start drinking. The result was family fight calls, officially referred to as ‘domestic disturbances.’ Sometimes we would respond to eight or nine in an eight-hour shift. Some were really bad. People beating the hell out of each other, people getting shot, stabbed, and everything else.
“One time there was this guy named Fritz. On a Friday night after work, he sat down to have a few beers with his crazy wife. The drinking led to a little preliminary bickering. Fritz, a diesel mechanic, got up and walked away, went in the bathroom to take a bath. So, he’s peacefully sitting in the tub drinking a beer listening to this old radio. His wife walks in, says, ‘Fritz, I’m leaving you.’ Then she grabs the radio still plugged into the wall and drops it into the bathtub. Fritz survived, but both he and I found this display of aggression shocking.”
“You have a very strange sense of humor, John. Is that what cops do, find humor in the tragedy of others?”
“Pretty much. It’s the only way to survive. The more refined would call it a coping behavior. Look, I’m starting to feel pretty bad here, so how about I talk and you write down questions on your notepad, and we can come back to them later?”
“Fair enough.”
Family fights are part of the job no one likes. It’s usually the same people over and over again, and these disputes are dangerous for cops. Some people say they are the most dangerous. Emotions run high. Mix in drugs or alcohol and you can see how easily things can get out of hand. The best plan for a cop is to defuse the situation. Calm everybody down and then either take someone to jail or get them to leave. Whatever it takes. The story really starts with a call that came in as a domestic dispute.
It was about four o’clock in the afternoon, August 2. Hot as hell with the humidity near 90 percent. I was on a traffic stop when I heard, “579 can you break for a 1033 call?”
Ten-thirty-three is an emergency. I responded immediately.
Dispatch said, “579 we have a report of a disturbance, a possible family dispute, at Gonzalez Market, 215 Depot St. Subject is armed with a handgun and threatening.” I was less than two blocks away.
I told the traffic offender it was his lucky day, let him go, and took off for the market. I knew this family and often stopped in the store for a bottle of pop and the like. They seemed like a good family, and I couldn’t recall ever being called to the market for anything other than shoplifters and an armed robbery attempt about six months ago. I did recall that the armed robbery was only an attempt because Mr. Gonzalez had a Government Model Colt .45 he kept loaded under the counter, and the armed robber tried to scare him with a knife. Another rule broken; never take a knife to a gunfight. The perp took one look at the .45 and took off. I also remembered that Gonzalez was a military veteran and had the look of a guy that could handle himself pretty well.
Two minutes passed and I notified dispatch I was on the scene. I stopped a couple of doors down from the market and started to approach the store. I could hear yelling and screaming coming from the open front door. I heard a male shout, “I am going to kill you, you no good piece of shit.” I got on my portable radio and called for backup. The dispatcher, ten miles away securely protected in the concrete and glass of the HQ tower, acknowledged and starting sending the troops.
I drew my gun, a Sig Sauer P226, nine millimeter. I kept my gun down along my right side as I approached the front door of the market. I couldn’t see anything through the windows. They were covered with advertising, and on the inside shelves stacked with products were up against them. The fight was still raging inside but no shots, at least not yet. There was a small area next to the front door that I could use for concealment while I surveyed the situation. What I saw was not good. Gonzalez had the gun pointed at a male in his early twenties—Damien Callahan, a bad actor I had seen around the neighborhood—a real punk with jailhouse tattoos up and down both arms bringing trouble wherever he went. The old man was in a rage and yelling at the guy in half Spanish, half English. The punk was giving as good as he was getting, and I got the gist of things. Gonzalez’s daughter was pregnant, and this piece of shit was the father.
I knew his daughter was a good kid about fifteen or sixteen. She worked at the store and was always polite. Sometimes we talked about her plans once she graduated high school. She wanted to be a nurse or a teacher. I also knew that she was the only child and the pride of the hardworking Gonzalez family. I entered the store.
I called out, “Mr. Gonzalez, it’s me, John Cabrelli. You need to slow down a little bit. I’m here. I can take care of this guy for you, but you have got to put down the gun. If you don’t put down the gun, someone is going to get hurt here. Maybe him, maybe me, maybe you. Put the gun on the floor behind the counter and walk around the end over here to me.”
I could hear the cars coming in the background, sirens yelping. Cops are a strange bunch, willingly driving a hundred miles an hour toward trouble. My radio was constant; chatter crackled as every patrol car anywhere close said they were responding, including the shift sergeant and precinct commander. It is amazing how a cop can be up to his ass in alligators and still hear the radio traffic.
I walked in a few feet further, and I could see that Mr. Gonzalez’s eyes were wet with tears.
I could also see that he did not have the hammer cocked on his old Colt; the hammer has to be cocked for the first shot. From his military service Gonzalez surely knew this. Things were looking better.
The punk had a sneering smile on his pockmarked face. He looked high. “Mr. Gonzalez, please put the gun down. This is not so bad yet, but if you pull that trigger, things are going to get a lot worse. You’ve got a wife and daughter, and they need you. You’ve got a store here, and you have a life. Don’t let this guy take that away from you. Just put the gun on the floor and walk away from it.”
Gonzalez looked at me, gun still pointed at the punk. Pure sorrow in his eyes, the kind only a parent can feel when their child is in pain.
He said, “This vermin raped my daughter. She is going to have a baby. He is the father.
He gave her a ride home from school and he raped her. He took my little girl. He took away her life. He came here to tell me to give him money, and if I did he would never bother us again. He has killed my daughter in her heart.”
At that point the punk laughed. Some crazy kind of mean laugh. My brethren and sistren had arrived and stood outside the door, guns drawn. It seemed like the temperature in the room was 150 degrees. Mr. Gonzalez was trembling. He looked over at me and then started to put the gun down on the counter.
“On the floor, Mr. Gonzalez, not on the counter. On the floor.” He put the gun down on the floor and sat down on his stool behind his counter and began to weep.
Callahan laughed again. I took my Sig and hit him as hard as I could in his smart-ass mouth, knocking him to the floor with blood running down his chin.
Backup burst in and cuffed the punk. They went for Mr. Gonzalez, but I stopped them. Rules are rules, but this guy was going to walk out the door and get in a squad with what was left of his dignity. They dragged out the punk, and Gonzalez and I walked out to the sidewalk. I put him in the back of my car, not knowing I had just made the biggest mistake of my life to date.
The now-handcuffed gang banger was standing on the sidewalk, putting on a show for the growing crowd. “You got no reason to arrest me, man. I didn’t rape nobody. She was doing it with everybody. I ain’t even the father! I was just trying to borrow some money. I want a blood test. You need to lock old man Gonzalez up and send him away for trying to kill me. I’m the victim, man. I got hit in my mouth. I want to make charges against that cop. Police brutality, man. It ain’t right. He hit me for no reason.”
Just then a woman screamed, and I looked up. I had momentarily forgotten about the gun, which I had left on the floor. Fifteen-year-old Angelina Gonzalez stood in the doorway of the store with her father’s Colt. This time the hammer was back. She fired once; I drew and fired twice.
I think the technical term for it is akinetopsia, when time slows to a crawl during a crisis situation. That’s what happened to me; the echo from the gunfire seemed to go on forever. I saw the ejected shell casings from my gun skip across the sidewalk. I could hear voices but couldn’t make out words. My vision was clear, but everything seemed to be a blur. I saw Angelina rock back on her heels and fall against the doorframe of the store. Her big brown eyes just looked at me, and it looked like she was smiling. There were two crimson blossoms growing where my bullets had struck her chest.
I turned around to see Damien Callahan lying on the ground, holding his upper arm. Mr. Gonzalez had his face pressed against the glass of the squad car window, contorted as he screamed.
My fellow officers, guns drawn, were looking for another shooter. Others were staring at me.
I walked toward little Angelina Gonzalez with my gun drawn, training taking over. I needed to make certain that the threat had been neutralized. I saw her pretty face and realized what I had done. I decocked my Sig Sauer and secured it in my holster, and reentered the real world. All hell was breaking loose around me.
Julie Jones from the Northeast Precinct was screaming into her radio, “Shots fired, shots fired! We need an ambulance.”
Dispatch was responding, clearing the air for all but emergency traffic and acknowledging that the paramedics were en-route.
People were rushing to the aid of the punk and to the aid of little Angelina Gonzalez.
Callahan was screaming in pain. Angelina said nothing.
I don’t know how much time passed, but it seemed only seconds before the area got very crowded.
Ambulances and the shift commander arrived at the same time. The fire department paramedics were immediately busy with the punk and Angelina.
The shift commander was busy with me, “What the hell happened here, John? Jesus Christ. Did you shoot that girl or the guy? Who is the guy in custody in your squad?”
I started to respond, and then I stopped just to take a breath. Just when I was ready to start again, the shift commander told me to stand by. He walked over to talk to the precinct sergeant. During their discussion, the commander kept looking at me, then looking down. He came back, and told me not to say anymore until we got to headquarters. Then he called for a crime scene unit and directed other officers to secure my car, take my prisoner to headquarters, and wait for detectives to get a statement.
“Get in my car, John. We’re going to head into HQ for your statement.” Standard procedure in any police shooting.
We pulled into the parking area in the basement of the joint city-county building. As usual, it was all hustle and bustle: cops checking in, cops checking out, a couple of deputies leaning against a car trunk talking to a city cop. We pulled in and it all stopped. In a police department, general bad news travels fast. A possible bad shoot travels at warp speed. No one knows what to say. Everybody thanked God it was not them involved.
We walked to the basement elevators and, as the commander pushed the button, the doors opened. Standing there were two of the investigators from Internal Affairs, better known as the Rat Squad.
Police agencies need to have an internal investigation division. It is not a pleasant job to have, although I believe that most cops are exonerated in investigations. Most IA guys I have met have been fair. These two guys, Captain Herbert Kuehnin and Detective Martin Dumas, were not fair. They loved their job, and they were convinced that every cop was guilty of something, and they had no love for me.
“Captain, we will take it from here,” Kuehnin said, and with no further explanation he grabbed me by the arm and took me over to the elevator, basically pushed me in, and then he and Dumas hit the button for the ground floor. That was where all the interview rooms were. When we got out, I saw the deputy chief standing there talking to the assistant district attorney on duty. They both turned and looked at me. The A.D.A., a friend of mine, looked down at his shoes.
“John, let’s go into interview room two over there. Can I get you anything? Coffee, water?’’ asked Kuehnin.
“No, no I’m good,” I responded.
I sat down across from the two internal affairs guys. Kuehnin looked iron clad serious; Dumas looked positively giddy. Another chance to take a cop down.
Kuehnin started, “John we have got to cover some bases here, so let’s get that done. Just so you know, no one is accusing anyone of any wrongdoing. Everything that happens here will be recorded both in voice and visual. The recording is already on. We follow this procedure to make certain that events that transpire in this room are accurately recorded.”
“Yeah, go ahead. I got it.”
“First of all, I would like you to take your gun and put it in the evidence bag laying on the table. Handle the gun by its grip and make certain to keep your finger away from the trigger.”
I looked across the table and could see that Dumas was drooling and ready for anything that may happen before the evidence bag was sealed.
“Do you want me to unload it, Captain?” I asked.
“No, just make sure it is decocked.”
I put the gun in the bag and sealed it.
Dumas slid another bag toward me and said, “Now your other gun, Cabrelli.”
I reached down toward my ankle and removed a short barreled Smith and Wesson Chief’s Special .38 from an ankle holster. I put it in the next bag and sealed it up.
“Anything else, Cabrelli?”
“Nope, that’s it.”
“Mind if I check?”
“Yeah, as a matter of fact I do mind. I’ve got nothing else, Dumas.”
He glared at me.
“Let it go, Martin,” the captain said. He continued, “Okay then, let’s get started. As I stated, we will be recording this interview. The recording will be maintained in the evidence vault until this matter is resolved and will be available to you and your counsel should the need arise. You are required by conditions of your employment to answer my questions as part of your report. Any information obtained during the course of this interview pursuant to depa
rtment policy and rules cannot be used against you in a criminal proceeding. You are required to answer my questions, but you are protected under the U.S. Supreme Court decision Garrity v. New Jersey.
“You are being questioned as part of an internal and/or administrative investigation. You will be asked a number of questions concerning your official duties, and you must answer these questions to the best of your ability. Failure to answer completely and truthfully may result in disciplinary action including possible dismissal. Your answers and information derived from them may be used against you in administrative proceedings. However, neither your answers nor any information derived from them may be used in criminal proceedings, except if you knowingly and willfully make false statements. You retain the right to invoke your constitutional right against self-incrimination, at any time, without fear of employment repercussions. Do you understand what I am telling you, John?”
“Yes, Captain, I do.”
“Are you ready to proceed?”
“I guess so. Yes, I am ready.”
“John Cabrelli, I am Captain Herbert Kuehnin of the Internal Affairs Division. With me is Detective Martin Dumas, also of Internal Affairs. I am going to ask you to recount the situation that occurred at Gonzalez Market today to the best of your ability. I will ask questions of a clarifying nature as I need to. This is your opportunity to set the record straight and give an accurate account of the events that led to the shooting of Damien Callahan and Angelina Gonzalez, injuries sustained by Damien Callahan prior to the shooting, and the arrest of Roberto Gonzalez. The inquiry will proceed along these lines and may venture into other areas that I determine are germane to this inquiry. After this interview you will be required to write a formal report further detailing the situation. Are we ready to start, John?”
“Yeah, let’s start, and we will see how this goes.”
I knew I was guilty of something. Technically what, I didn’t know. But I had killed Angelina Gonzalez, and no matter what the circumstances, it was a crime against God.