The Fence: A Police Cover-Up Along Boston's Racial Divide (18 page)

It was true, though. Mike and Craig had indeed become the first police car.

CHAPTER 8

The Dead End

T
he lineup at the very front was now established, and it stayed that way for the remainder of the chase. Behind the Lexus were Mike and Craig, then Ian Daley, and then Dave Williams and Jimmy Burgio. In a pursuit, the lead police car customarily radioed in the route, and, for a few seconds, Mike and Ian Daley “stepped on each other,” or talked at the same time. The radio transmissions were briefly confusing and clogged, until Daley went quiet and ceded the floor to Mike.

Behind the first three Boston police cars, the lineup changed as new cars joined the lengthening conga line and others fell off. Richie Walker, for example, did decide to abandon the Peugeot and head down toward Mattapan once he heard Mike Cox describing a winding route into that neighborhood. Eventually, Walker jumped in line behind Williams and Burgio, becoming the fourth police car. Likewise, Gary Ryan and Joe Teahan of the gang unit, who’d not been directly involved for much of the chase, eventually ended up among the first half-dozen police cars behind the gold Lexus.

Kenny Conley and Bobby Dwan, meanwhile, were racing down Blue Hill Avenue, playing a hunch the Lexus was headed to Mattapan Square. Having grown up in Mattapan, Bobby directed Kenny to stick to Blue Hill as the fastest route, a nearly three-mile ride that took them up the avenue’s hills with its faraway views of the Blue Hills in the town of Milton south of Boston, and then along flat, low-lying stretches past storefronts, hair salons, churches, and cash-checking stores. Nearing Mattapan Square, they passed Simco’s on the Bridge, the famous hot dog stand from the 1930s featuring the “World’s Largest Hot Dogs,” which was a favorite of Smut Brown’s; his family’s West Selden Street home was only a few blocks away.

It was a chase whose speed ebbed and flowed. “On major streets,” said Mike, “certainly it was a high-speed chase. On small streets, it slowed down quite a bit.” Burgio noted the oddity of the Lexus sometimes using its directional signal prior to making a turn. “Probably the most courteous kid I was ever behind,” he said. Mike and Craig had a blue light flashing on the dash, but it meant nothing to the men in the Lexus. In fact, several more times police cruisers came at the Lexus head-on, and each time the cruisers pulled aside to let the Lexus go.

The number of police vehicles kept increasing—ranging from twenty to forty, depending on the officer talking—as most cops still thought a fellow officer had been shot. Many spoke later with amazement at the number of cruisers. During one stretch, Dave Williams marveled at the scene: “You could look back in your mirror and all you can see is just a sea of blue.

“I said, ‘Jimmy, damn, look at that. You’ve never seen that before, you know what I mean?’ It was like, you know, all you could see, as far as you could see looking back, was just blue lights, and we were just—just glowing.”

Technically speaking, Mike and Craig, operating an unmarked cruiser, were not supposed to be the front car. Section seven of the police department’s “Rule 301: Pursuit Driving” said: “Department policy shall be that marked units lead a pursuit, wherever practical. Therefore, unmarked units involved in a pursuit shall yield to a marked unit.” The key word in the department’s regulation seemed to be “practical.” Craig later said they became the lead car along Harvard Street “not by choice,” and that yielding would have been impractical. Their supervisor, Sergeant Ike Thomas, rejected as outrageous the notion that Mike and Craig should have pulled over or that he should have commanded them to do so. “In the middle of a twenty-minute pursuit it would have been extremely foolish on my part to interrupt a car chase that was involved in a very serious crime, to interrupt and say switch up and let a marked take the lead,” he said.

But as the chase continued toward Mattapan Square, there was some jockeying in front. Twice Craig had to call off another cruiser that was either getting too close or trying to take over the lead. “Okay, we’re the lead car; you better get away from us,” Craig said, taking the radio from Mike to call out the warning.

Minutes later, he was on the radio again: “Get behind me. Don’t hit me, please!”

In the Lexus, Smut was now the backseat driver, commanding Tiny to take this turn or that. To get off Harvard Street, he ordered Tiny to turn right, then right again and then another right, a zigzagging southerly route taking them deeper into Mattapan. This was Smut’s turf, and he had begun to formulate a getaway plan in his mind. He knew about a dead-end street named Woodruff Way that bordered the east side of the former Boston Sanatorium, which most called the old Boston State Hospital. Smut knew the area well because West Selden Street bordered the opposite side of the wooded fifty-one acres of city land. He’d grown up riding bikes and cutting through the grounds. Woodruff Way was also one of a handful of streets that made up a housing project known as Morton Village and, as a dead end, was used by car thieves to dump stolen cars.

To get there, Smut needed to direct Tiny to the other side of Mattapan Square. But first there was a matter of the incriminating evidence in the car—the guns. While the Lexus was on Itasca Street approaching an intersection, Marquis opened his front window, cocked his arm, and tossed out one of the semiautomatic handguns. The gun bounced along the asphalt and came to rest on the lawn of a corner house.

Mike saw the projectile and was all over it. “He threw something out on Itasca!” he yelled. “He threw something out on Itasca!” Listening was a police officer named Roy Frederick, who lived a few doors down from the intersection. Frederick was off duty and up late, glued to channel 3 and listening to the amazing chase. He immediately hustled outside, looked around his neighbor’s lawn, and spotted the silver-plated 9mm Ruger. He called in that he’d recovered one of the suspects’ weapons and stayed put to secure the scene.

Seconds later, Marquis got rid of the second gun. It hit a mini-van and then landed in the driveway of 235 Itasca Street. The Lexus had shed its weaponry, but once again, Mike called in the gun’s location.

With Smut pointing the way, the Lexus kept winding its way toward Mattapan Square. During slowdowns that came with making a series of quick turns, Ian Daley thought the long line of cruisers resembled a “funeral procession.”

Police cars were all over the place, trying to catch up or figure out a way to cut the Lexus off. Donald Caisey, driving the gang unit car carrying the unit’s supervisor, Sergeant Thomas, never got in the conga line and was instead monitoring the radio, trying to stay close by. Then, in Mattapan, Caisey realized the Lexus was on the next street heading their way. He turned down the street, his siren blaring and lights flashing. He turned the car sideways with the idea of forcing the oncoming car to stop. “We were in the middle of the street moving back and forth.”

But the Lexus kept coming. “The vehicle never slowed.” In Caisey’s mind was the earlier near head-on crash on Crawford Street that ended with Rattigan smashing into a parked van. The Lexus kept coming, “so I immediately pulled out of the way.” The Lexus and the line of police cars following flew by.

Like Caisey, Gary Ryan and Joe Teahan kept working the perimeter, trying to outsmart the Lexus and anticipate its route but without much success.

It was in this stretch of the Lexus cutting back and forth toward Mattapan Square that Kenny Conley and Bobby Dwan joined the hunt. They’d roared into Mattapan and even drove past where Bobby grew up on Violante Street. The two officers were still under the impression the shooting victim was another officer, having missed the correction when it was broadcast. They raced up and down side streets; at one point they even found themselves in front of the Lexus, only to lose it when the Lexus turned down a side street; another time they found themselves a block away on a street parallel to the Lexus. Finally, they approached a main road and the Lexus drove past them. “Now we get into it,” said Kenny. Not only were they into it, they entered toward the front of the line.

“We’re heading toward Blue!” Mike called out.

“Headed toward Blue,” the dispatcher relayed. “Be advised. That car is wanted for a shooting.”

Smut had twisted the Lexus like a pretzel in and around the streets surrounding Mattapan Square, and the car was now back on Blue Hill Avenue. Smut’s plan was for Tiny to shoot north a few blocks, cut east toward the Morton Village housing project, and barrel down to their final destination—Woodruff Way. Smut told the others they were going to a dead-end street encircled by a chain-link fence. He knew kids had cut a hole in the fence to make it easier to come and go. He wasn’t sure if the hole was still there or had been repaired by city workers. But the point was to get past the fence and into the woods. “I told them to run towards the fence,” Smut said.

It was the only way Smut could think of to shake the cops. Tiny and Marquis listened carefully. Marquis had no idea where they were at this point. Smut repeated the plan to help him out. Boogie-Down got it right away; he knew the Mattapan area. “Once we get there,” Boogie-Down said, “we’re all gonna get out of the car and try to get to the fence through an open—the fence is cut open. We was gonna make it through there, and cut through the woods and come out to the other side.”

The Lexus took a series of rights—a right onto Norfolk Street, a right onto Morton Street. They drove past the intersection of Smut’s West Selden Street and then took a right onto Woodmere Street. They’d entered the Morton Village housing project.

Every move the Lexus made, Mike radioed it in.

“Norfolk coming up to Morton,” he yelled.

“Right onto Morton!” he said seconds later.

The dispatcher passed along the locations.

The chase was past the fifteen-minute mark and had covered about ten miles. For all the police power brought to bear, the Lexus had outrun the police and was now honing in on its exit plan. The adrenaline was rushing for those several dozen officers directly involved in the pursuit as well for the officers throughout the city listening to it. Despite the intensity and shouting, however, the transmissions at this point were breaking up.

“Where are we?” the dispatcher yelled. “Where are we?”

Mike replied, but his words were lost in the static and wailing sound of police sirens. Only fragments of sentences made it through.

“Projects,” Mike yelled. “Woodmere.”

Mike and Craig knew where the Lexus was headed. They knew it the moment they’d turned into the housing project. They’d worked the area and knew the layout of the streets—that a couple of streets looped, one to the left and the other to the right, and then met at the entrance to the dead end of Woodruff Way. They even knew about the hole in the fence; they’d chased car thieves who’d escaped on foot through it. Knowing all this, Mike and Craig could sense the chase was coming to a climax.

The dispatcher yelled, “Where are we?”

Only two words from Mike were audible: “Woodruff Way.”

There was more static and a collision of voices.

“Just the lead car!” the dispatcher yelled.

Mike broke through. “Woodruff! Woodruff!”

Mike’s voice was gone, then back to add that Woodruff Way was a dead end.

Then Mike was screaming: “Getting ready to bail!”

They were his last words.

Mike and Craig followed the Lexus making a right turn onto Woodruff Way. The road went downhill about a thousand feet to a cul-de-sac enclosed by a chain-link fence. The circular dead end was about thirty yards in diameter. Marking the end were seven steel posts in the ground, beneath a single streetlight.

The Lexus was screeching to a stop beneath the streetlight in the middle of the circle. Mike and Craig were no more than a car’s length behind. Mike’s heart was pounding. “You know you’re about to run, and you just get prepared to do that. Gather up whatever you need to run, whatever you’re gonna have, whether it’s your flashlight or your radio or your firearm.” He had been involved in police chases before, but nothing like this. “It seemed like an eternity.” He was also feeling confident they had finally reached the “gotcha” moment. Immediately behind them were a slew of cruisers: Ian Daley in his, and Dave Williams and Jimmy Burgio behind Daley. Richie Walker had managed to get into the cul-de-sac behind Williams and Burgio. There was a bottleneck of police and emergency vehicles at the entrance to Woodruff Way, and in the next handful of cars after Walker were Joe Teahan and Gary Ryan, and Kenny Conley and Bobby Dwan.

Mike knew the numbers favored the cops. “It was such a long, long chase, and I knew there were several officers behind us, so I felt pretty good about being able to catch these people.” For Mike, this was the moment—what being a cop was all about, split-second action, his life on the line and the public’s safety at stake. The men in the Lexus, he said, “had shot someone—that certainly makes you want to catch them.”

The four doors of the Lexus popped open even before the car came to a stop. Craig wanted to trap the driver inside, so he steered the Crown Victoria cruiser to the left side of the Lexus. Craig slammed on the brakes. Mike pushed open his door. It hit the Lexus. The two cars were that close. Tiny Evans jumped out from behind the steering wheel while the Lexus was still rolling. He ran around the front of Mike and Craig’s cruiser toward one of the housing units on the left side of the dead end.

Ian Daley began braking directly behind the Lexus, while Dave Williams went to the right to complete boxing the Lexus in. But he skidded on an ice patch and lost control of the car. The cruiser scraped the two open doors on the right side of the Lexus and then smashed into a steel pylon.

Boogie-Down jumped out from the right side. He’d taken only a few steps when he was knocked down by the skidding cruiser. In front of Boogie-Down, Marquis met the same fate. Marquis jumped out, but when he put his feet on the ground, “I was hit immediately.” The two, scraped and bruised, began crawling on their stomachs across the asphalt between their car and the police cruiser.