The NYPD Tapes: A Shocking Story of Cops, Cover-ups, and Courage (17 page)

And then, it all came to a head four days later on October 31, Halloween 2009. “I was going to do my report to the commissioner, but we called Durk and Durk called IAB,” Adrian said. “It was going to be professional. It became a total cluster fuck.”

That morning, a Saturday, Schoolcraft arrived at work shortly before 7 a.m. He sat through roll call, listening to reminders to watch for rampaging teens in bandannas that evening, and then took his post at the telephone desk. About an hour into his shift, Lieutenant Timothy Caughey came by and asked for Schoolcraft’s memo book.

This usually was a fairly routine request, but for Schoolcraft, it held ominous undertones because he had been using the memo book to make notes about quota pressure, lack of training, threats from bosses, downgrading of crime, and questionable orders. It was sensitive material. In the context of
what had come before—the harassment, the letter to IAB, the QAD interview—Caughey’s request made Schoolcraft very nervous.

For example, on August 24, 2009, Schoolcraft had written “Sgt Sawyer swearing/yelling and belittling officers at roll call.” On October 4, he noted Sergeant Gallina saying, “All I want is one collar a month.” On October 24, he wrote that Sgt. Huffman told officers at roll call, “Robberies, don’t take 61s.”

As Schoolcraft sat with his heart racing, Caughey examined the memo book. He noticed several of what he later called “peculiar” entries and decided to make copies. It seemed to him that Schoolcraft was involved in some kind of investigation, he later told Internal Affairs. One entry that caught his eye was the name of one of Schoolcraft’s former partners, who at the time was assigned to Internal Affairs.

Schoolcraft was by that point very nervous because he knew that by keeping those notes, he had already violated one of the great unwritten rules in the NYPD. Caughey was also mentioned in his letter to Campisi. Could Caughey already know what Schoolcraft had done?

Caughey made two complete copies of the memo book. He put one in Schoolcraft’s personnel file. He left the other on Mauriello’s desk. He finally returned the memo book almost four hours later, just before noon. Caughey later made a third copy for Captain Timothy Trainor of the Brooklyn North Investigations Unit.

Schoolcraft claimed that Caughey then was eyeing him in a threatening manner. “He was standing closely to me with his hand on the gun and staring angrily at me,” Adrian said later.

This scared Adrian. Uncertain of what to do, he called Larry and told him about it. Larry immediately called Internal Affairs and the office of Chief of Department Joseph Esposito, the highest-ranking uniformed member of the NYPD.

When he reached IAB, he begged them to send someone to the precinct to intervene. “I told him what happened with Caughey, that Adrian had reported him to IAB, and now this was going on,” Larry said later. “I got a very cocky kind of ‘fuck-you’ attitude. He says, ‘He’s a big boy, he got to work, he’ll be okay going home.’ ”

The conversation with an officer in Esposito’s office went the same way. “They wouldn’t do anything either,” Larry said later. “He wouldn’t give me his shield number or his first name. He wouldn’t let me speak to a supervisor. He basically said the same thing, in other words, this is bullshit. Think about it: Adrian’s reported serious, widespread corruption, he’s being abused, and I can’t even get a supervisor on the phone?”

Larry called Adrian back and told him to go home sick. Adrian later told investigators that he left the precinct because he felt that he was being “set up” by Caughey. At 2:15 p.m., shortly before his tour ended, he told his sergeant, Rasheena Huffman, that he was going home because his stomach hurt. She was on her cell phone and asked him to wait. He dropped a sick time slip on her desk and went to the locker room to change into civilian clothes.

By Schoolcraft’s account, Huffman sent an officer to bring him back to her desk and merely asked him to switch the sick time request to lost time. Schoolcraft did so, and left, with the feeling that “something bad” was going to happen, but believing that he did nothing wrong in going home.

A police officer named Craig Rudy later told investigators that he was the one sent to retrieve Schoolcraft from the locker room. Rudy claimed Schoolcraft said to him, “Oh yeah, I know. I’m trying to get out of here. They told me I could leave, but now they’re saying I can’t or something.”

Rudy: “They’re looking for you at the desk.”

Schoolcraft: “OK.”

Rudy later said it appeared Schoolcraft was in a hurry.

According to Huffman’s account to investigators, Schoolcraft ignored her order to remain in the precinct and just left. She said she told Schoolcraft he couldn’t go out sick without approval. When she told him this, he replied that he wasn’t going to the hospital and walked out of the precinct office. She ordered him to return. He did not. “He seemed to be on a mission to leave,” she later told investigators.

Huffman told Captain Lauterborn, who followed Schoolcraft to the parking lot, but he had already left.

Mauriello walked into the station house at about 2:15, just after Schoolcraft had left. He learned of his departure from Sergeant Huffman.

Lauterborn then spoke with Mauriello. Lauterborn later told investigators he felt Schoolcraft’s behavior was “abnormal,” and claimed he became “increasingly uncomfortable as time passed, and he heard nothing from Schoolcraft,” the Internal Affairs report says.

As Lauterborn tried to locate Schoolcraft by phone, Mauriello called his boss, Assistant Chief Gerald Nelson, the commanding officer of Brooklyn North, and told him what was happening.

Chief Nelson later explained to investigators that he told Mauriello to follow the Patrol Guide. Nelson disclosed that he had previously talked with Mauriello about Schoolcraft. He said Mauriello had told him Schoolcraft was an officer who didn’t want to work.

Lauterborn then called Lamstein, the NYPD psychologist who had placed Schoolcraft on restricted duty. According to the IAB report, she told him she did not believe that Schoolcraft was an immediate threat to himself or others, and that his firearms were removed from him because of emotional distress caused by anger issues and resentment against the department.

Schoolcraft had gone home 45 minutes early, which was not really a big deal in the great scheme of things. Then Lauterborn learned from his longtime psychologist that Adrian was not a danger to himself or others.

Lauterborn called Larry Schoolcraft and left a message. He then made the key decision that caused the dominos to begin to topple. He sent Lieutenant Christopher Broschart to Schoolcraft’s home in Glendale, Queens. Broschart rang the doorbell. There was no answer.

Broschart called again to say he heard footsteps in the apartment. Lauterborn told him to keep knocking. Knowing Schoolcraft was inside, Lauterborn later told investigators he became more concerned. He decided to go to the apartment himself and went out to the parking lot.

Mauriello called Nelson again to tell him that he had learned Schoolcraft was at home.

Larry called Lauterborn back that evening. According to Lauterborn’s account to investigators, Larry was “angry and agitated.” Lauterborn claimed that Larry alleged a “conspiracy against his son and threatens to have the captain fired.”

Lauterborn claimed he told Larry he needed to speak with Adrian before his concerns could be allayed. “Tell your son to open the door and speak with Broschart so we can all be at ease,” Lauterborn said.

At this, according to what Lauterborn told investigators, Larry said, “You don’t want another Lieutenant Pigott, do you?” This was a reference to Lieutenant Michael Pigott, who committed suicide in October 2008, unable to cope with the public attention he received after he ordered a mentally ill man to be shot with a Taser, and the man fell from the top of an awning and fatally struck his head.

Obviously, Lauterborn was suggesting that Adrian’s own father thought he could be suicidal, thus justifying a larger response at the Glendale apartment.

Larry then abruptly hung up the phone, Lauterborn claimed.

What Lauterborn didn’t know was that Larry was recording the conversation, and much of what Lauterborn told investigators was contradicted by the recording, reproduced here for the first time. First of all, from the tone of his voice, Larry was calm and measured during the discussion. He was not “angry or agitated.” He didn’t allege a conspiracy against Adrian. He didn’t threaten to have the captain fired. He didn’t hang up on Lauterborn. He didn’t mention Lieutenant Pigott’s death.

“I didn’t say anything that would make them think Adrian was suicidal in any way,” Larry said later.

Indeed, the recording, which was made at 7:40 p.m. that evening, confirmed the inaccuracy of Lauterborn’s characterizations. This was not a small thing, because Lauterborn’s view of what happened became a key justification of how Adrian was treated later that night.

Lauterborn explained to Larry that Adrian had gone home sick without authorization, he couldn’t be reached by phone, and he wouldn’t answer his door.

“I have to talk to him to settle out what’s going on and he has to come back,” Lauterborn said. “The situation with Schoolcraft is that he has his guns removed for unknown reasons, I don’t know if this is a carry over from that. I need him to go back.”

“This can’t be settled tomorrow if he comes back to work?” Larry asked.

“We have people standing outside his house, and in approximately an hour, we’re going to do a citywide notification search for him, and this is going to get more serious as the night goes on,” Lauterborn said.

At this, Larry laughed incredulously. “OK, captain, I’m at a little bit of a loss here. You said he wasn’t feeling well and he left? I don’t understand what’s the concern.”

“There’s much more involved,” Lauterborn said. “He just walked out. There’s ways of doing this and he knows that.”

Larry said, “I don’t understand why tonight, what would it matter? As long as he was okay why would he have to come back tonight?”

“I don’t know that he’s ok. Do you know he’s OK? Have you talked to him?”

“Earlier, when he went home sick,” Larry said. “He told me he was going home, and he said he would call me when he got up. . . . Again, I don’t understand why he would have to come back tonight.”

Lauterborn: “He has no firearms. There’s issues that he has none. That’s for confidential medical reasons. As far as I know if a doctor takes your firearms, you have some unstable situations. I don’t know what his motive is for leaving the way he left. I need to talk to him one way or the other. We gotta resolve things. This is not a situation that will wait until the morning.”

Larry asked, “Captain, are you concerned for his safety or the safety of others?” This was an interesting question, because in legal parlance, it formed the basis of whether police can take special action against someone. It also suggested that the Schoolcrafts were already aware Adrian could be (unfairly) labeled emotionally disturbed.

Lauterborn: “I’m concerned for his safety more than others and then to figure out why he did what he did. If you’re working, and a worker says I’m going sick, see you, that’s a little unusual.”

Larry: “You just need to talk to him on the phone?”

Lauterborn: “No, in person. It’s a whole different ballgame now. . . . Mr. Schoolcraft, this is going to get to a larger scale event, like I said. When the bells and whistles go off, it’s going to be a citywide search for Adrian Schoolcraft.”

“Ok, and what’s the purpose of that?”

“Because we don’t know what kind of condition he’s in,” Lauterborn said. “When someone just gets up and leaves and is already on special monitoring, we don’t know what he’s capable of.”

“I didn’t know he was under any special monitoring,” Larry said.

“He has no firearms and he’s seeing a psychologist, a doctor, every six weeks. that’s special monitoring, no? I just got off the phone with his doctor.”

“So in other words, if he talks with his doctor and it’s alright with her, then everything’s OK.”

“No, no, no, no. That’s not OK. That’s not going to be the end of it. That’s not the way this is going to work.”

“Tell me, how is it going to work?”

“I have to talk to him one way or the other. . . . Like I said, the situation is going to escalate. The night goes on. Nobody is going in or out of that house that he lives in because there’s police all over it. The car is secure, too. I don’t know what he’s going to do. If he’s in the house, we’ll eventually make our way in.”

“Is he under some kind of arrest?”

Lauterborn said no. “We’re on the property already. Some time we’re going to enter the property.”

Larry tried to reassure the captain that Adrian was fine. “Captain, I can assure you as his father, at 2 p.m. this afternoon, he called me, he told me he had a stomach ache, he was going to go home and go to sleep. I said call me when you get up. He sounded fine to me, and I’ve known him for 34 years.”

“I understand that, I wish I could take your word for it ‘cause I’d just leave it as it is right now,” Lauterborn said.

In other words, the train was leaving the station, and Larry wasn’t going to be able to stop it.