Legacy and Redemption (6 page)

Tommy Galvin sat at the precinct desk entering an arrest in the
command log
when he heard one of his rookies trying to raise central. While he didn’t yet recognize his cop’s voices, he did note that the cop seemed to be nervous. Still, having been a cop for as long as Galvin had, he knew that many rookies sounded nervous until they became more comfortable speaking on the radio. To be on the safe side, Galvin grabbed his radio and tuned up the volume.

“Six-Seven training post to central!”

Galvin recognized the urgency in the cop’s voice and also noted that he sounded as if he was running. He quickly got up from the desk, snatched his radio and a set of car keys from the desk in front of him. Galvin jogged out to the parking lot as he then transmitted on the radio, “Six-Seven Training Sergeant to Central.” Before the dispatcher could acknowledge his transmission, Galvin continued. “See if one of my foot posts has an emergency message.”

*

Jamal Walters sat alone in the driver’s seat of the stolen Lexus. He’d taken the car at gunpoint less than a week ago and used it in the commission of several gunpoint robberies since. Walters, who had been paroled from prison six months earlier, had been robbing gas stations and fast food restaurants to sustain his heroin addiction.

As he sat on line of the drive through restaurant, Walters realized that his life had not been kind to him. He glanced at his reflection in the rearview mirror. His bloodshot eyes and pocked marked face made him appear a lot older than his actual age of thirty-eight; his hair, nappy and unruly. Walters recognized that his life was once again spiraling out of control.

Up until two weeks ago, Walters hadn’t used heroin in seven years. The six to twelve year prison sentence for armed robbery had something to do with him getting clean, but still, he’d been proud of himself for avoiding temptation and staying clean once he’d been released—up until last Friday night anyway. A house party in Brownsville had taken his sobriety with one sniff from a two inch straw.

Walters looked down at the passenger seat. There were three envelopes of heroin and a hypodermic needle ready for use. On the floor were numerous empty envelopes which had fed his disease over the past five days and nights. Walters started to wonder if he would be able to pull himself out of the hole that he found himself sinking deeper into by the day. He knew that if he were to get caught, even just for possession of the heroin, he’d be going back to prison to serve the other five years which he owed to the state. If he got caught for the armed robberies, a life sentence was not out of the question. He decided that he wouldn’t go back to prison—no matter what the cost.

His life seemed worthless to him at this point. His wife and children had moved to South Carolina while he was in prison. They stopped writing to him years ago. The last correspondence that Walters had received from his wife was asking that upon his release from prison, that he leave the family alone. She requested a divorce which he agreed to; he even allowed another man to adopt his children.

There were still two cars ahead of Walters. He unfastened his seatbelt and stretched his legs out. He adjusted the nine millimeter handgun in his waistband to allow him access to the money in his front jeans pocket. He counted the money—nine dollars. This would be the last meal he’d be buying until he committed another robbery, he figured. He glanced back down at the heroin. At least his fix for tonight had already been procured.

Walters glanced up at the menu, contemplating his order, when out of the corner of his eye, he saw the two cops inside the restaurant. He noted that they got up from their seats and ran towards the door. Sensing the danger, Walters rammed the car in front of him as he tried to get off the line. His attempt had failed and interlocked the Lexus’ bumper with the SUV in front of him. With no other means of escape, Jamal Walters flung the door open and fled on foot.

*

When Timothy Keegan and Andre Thomas arrived at the drive through line they observed the driver side door of the Lexus wide open and the vehicle itself, pinned against an SUV. The driver of the SUV—a well dressed woman in her early thirties—pointed up Utica Avenue at the man fleeing on foot. Keegan and Thomas immediately set out on foot after the man, who had nearly a half block lead on them. As Keegan ran, he held his radio in his left hand and broadcast his first radio transmission. He continued to run as fast as he could but did not get a response from the dispatcher. He put the radio up to his mouth again when he heard Sergeant Galvin’s transmission; “Six-Seven training Sergeant to Central. See if one of my foot posts has an emergency message.”

Keegan responded; “Foot pursuit central! Male black, black t shirt, blue jeans shorts, white sneakers.” He tried to be as precise as he could by giving a detailed description of the male and his clothing. He put the radio back in its holder, confident that he’d given a clear description. Keegan ran as fast as he could and was making up quite a bit of ground. He was pulling away from his partner as quickly as he was gaining on the fleeing male.

Keegan had closed the gap to within about ten feet as the male made the corner of Church Avenue. It was apparent to Keegan that the male was starting to tire, and Keegan would have his hands on him in no time. What was not apparent to Keegan was that the man was reaching into his waistband for the nine millimeter as he reached the corner.

*

Sergeant Tommy Galvin repeatedly asked for the location of the foot pursuit with no response from the officer. Galvin was frustrated. With half of his footposts along Linden Boulevard, and the others along Nostrand Avenue, Galvin was forced to blindly choose which location to go in since the officer had failed to put a location over the air. As the two locations were in opposite directions, making the wrong decision could be costly.

Galvin’s heart was beating a bit faster as he raced towards Linden Boulevard. He picked up his radio to give direction to the cops in the field. “Central, show the training sergeant responding to the vicinity of Linden Boulevard to check on the footposts at that location. Have a sector respond to Nostrand Avenue to check on the footposts over there.”

“Six-Seven, Sector Adam, we’ll check the posts along Nostrand.”

Galvin could hear the sirens screaming in the background of the radio when anyone transmitted. As he got closer to Linden Boulevard, he could also hear them from the other responding units as well. When Galvin reached Linden, he saw two of his footposts holding their radios to their ears. He pulled up next to them and opened the window as they walked toward the location of Keegan and Thomas’s posts. “Where are the other two guys?”

Ken Williams was the first cop to respond. “We don’t know, Sarge. They just went to meal a little while ago.”

“Any idea where they were going for meal?”

“No, Sarge.”

Galvin shook his head. “Okay, get in. Let’s go find them.”

*

Jamal Walters had made a poor choice in his direction of flight. Had he fled on Linden Boulevard, there were many short residential blocks ahead where he could have fled into the backyards and hid from the police. Instead, however, he ran along Utica Avenue. The block—a very long one—was a commercial strip of attached storefronts. There was nowhere for Walters to hide. His only chance was to turn on to Church Avenue, but it seemed that his body was failing him. He could no longer run as quickly as he did in his youth, and he could hear the footsteps of the cop quickly closing in just as he reached the corner.

His life in shambles, and the almost certain return to a prison cell for a very long time as his destiny; Walters made a decision. He wouldn’t go back. He’d heard the term suicide by cop, and that was okay by him. He decided that the cop was going to catch him within a matter of moments so his only option for freedom would be to kill the cop. If he did and got away, that would be great. If the cop shot and killed him, that was also an acceptable conclusion to what had become a tortured existence.

Walters, almost out of breath, slowed down just a bit. A feeling of calmness came over him as he was accepting of his fate, regardless of the outcome. He reached into his waistband and firmly gripped the handgun. He turned to face the oncoming cop, leveled the nine millimeter at the cops face and calmly pulled the trigger.

*

Timothy Keegan was probably in the best shape of his life. Utica Avenue was a long block and gave Keegan the ample that he needed to close the distance between the two of them. Keegan realized that he was now too close for the man to hide from him in any backyards once he had turned the next corner. While the chase was not over just yet, Keegan felt a sense of satisfaction as he believed his first arrest was imminent.

That feeling quickly vanished, as one of sheer terror took over, when the man spun around on Keegan with a gun in his hand. Keegan’s jaw suddenly tensed up; sensing the danger. There was little time to do anything more than react. The gun was brought directly up to Keegan’s eye level. Keegan shielded his face with his left arm and continued his charge.

In the final few feet, when Keegan was close enough and no shot had yet been fired, Keegan grabbed for the gun with both hands and drove his shoulder into the man’s midsection. The two men tumbled backwards to the ground with Keegan landing on top.

*

The force of the impact against the ground had knocked the wind from Jamal Walters.
The fucking safety; I forget to take the safety off the gun,
a frustrated Walters realized.

Still, he knew that the fight was not over. The impact with the ground had caused the gun to spring free from his hands, but it only fell about two feet away. Walters focused on nothing but the gun as he spun around from under the weight of the cop and grabbed it with his right hand.

The cop once again grabbed with both hands at Walters’ gun hand. Walters did his best to fend the cop off with his free hand, his knees, and his feet. Walters was then able to gain better control of the gun and slid the safety to the off position with his thumb. Walters now had a firm grip on the gun and had been managing to do a decent job of keeping the cop at bay. He placed his finger on the trigger, waiting for the opportunity to shoot the cop. Every time that he managed to twist his arm and slip away, even for a second, the cop once again grabbed him.

*

Keegan knew that the man was no longer trying to get away, but rather trying to end his life. He could hear the sirens, as well as Andre Thomas running up to help, but he knew that he still had to keep the man’s gun hand from breaking free of his grasp. It wasn’t easy. The man was wiry, and the sweat on his arms made him slippery. The man had broken the grip twice, and Keegan buried his head to the opposite side of the man’s body until he was once again able to control his arm.

The third time that the man wiggled free was just as Andre Thomas reached the fight. Thomas kicked the man in the head just as the shot was fired.

*

Tommy Galvin’s mouth went instantly dry when he heard a single gunshot in the distance. He futilely drove the car up and down Linden Boulevard where Police Officer’s Timothy Galvin and Andre Thomas were assigned. There was no sign of either of them. Galvin realized that the two rookie officers in his backseat probably hadn’t even recognized the sound to be a gunshot. Galvin began frantically driving up and down the side streets, seeking his officers, who he now believed may be in a life and death situation.

*

Once the shot had been fired, Timothy Keegan and Andre Thomas managed to wrestle the gun away from the man, knocking it from his hands. Once disarmed, the man still squirmed and resisted arrest, but was no match for the younger and more physically fit officers. He was quickly overpowered and placed under arrest. With the man now in handcuffs, Keegan looked over to his partner. “You okay, Andre?” through shallow breath.

“Yeah, I’m good; you?”

Keegan nodded as he caught his breath. “Never better.”

Keegan looked at the handgun on the sidewalk then at the bullet hole on the Honda minivan parked on the corner behind him. Keegan realized that it had been a close call…too close. Still, he was proud of himself. He felt that his father must have been there looking over him.

Keegan and Thomas stood the prisoner up so that they could search him better and make sure that he had no other weapons on him, just like they were taught in the police academy. Keegan could hear his Police Science instructor’s voice in his head; ‘
Don’t stop searching after you find a gun—there may be a second one as well.’

The man was now compliant in every manner. As Keegan was searching him, the man looked Keegan in the eyes. They were sad; his spirit clearly broken. “Officer, why couldn’t you have just killed me?”

Keegan ignored the comment. The man may have been depressed for having been caught, but Keegan was elated. He had just effected his first, of what he knew in his heart, would be many arrests throughout his career. He was proud of himself and knew that his father would have been as well. Keegan picked up his portable radio. “Six-Seven Training Post Eight to central; be advised I have one under. Can you have the training sergeant respond?”

It was then where Keegan’s pride morphed into embarrassment. “Where the fuck are you!?” was screamed into the radio.

He knew it wasn’t his sergeant’s voice; it was one of the sector cars who had been desperately trying to find them since he broadcast the foot pursuit. Keegan had been so careful to broadcast a good description that he forgot something even more important—to let the units in the field know your location when you’re in trouble. It was a lesson that Keegan was sure to never forget.