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A red light began to flash on one of the control consoles in the radio room of the Philadelphia Police Department.
Foster H. Lewis, Jr., who was sitting slumped in a battered and sagging metal chair, a headset clamped to his head, threw a switch and spoke into his microphone. "Police Emergency," he said.
Foster H. Lewis, Jr., was twenty-three years old, weighed two hundred and twenty-seven pounds, stood six feet three inches tall, and was perhaps inevitably known as Tiny. For more than five years before he had entered the Police Academy, he had worked as a temporary employee in Police Emergency: five years of nights and weekends and during the summers answering calls from excited citizens in trouble and needing help had turned him into a skilled and experienced operator.
He had more or less quit when he entered the Police Acad emy and was working tonight as a favor to Lieutenant Jack Fitch, who had called him and said he had five people out with some kind of a virus and could he help out.
"This the police?" his caller asked.
"This is Police Emergency," Tiny Lewis said. "May I help you, sir?"
"I'm the attendant at the Penn Services Parking Garage on Fifteenth, behind the Bellevue-Stratford."
"How may I help you, sir?"
"I got a white lady here says there's been a shooting on the roof and somebody got shot and says to send an ambulance."
"Could you put her on the phone, please?"
"I'm in the booth, you know, can't get her in here."
"Please stay on the line, sir," Tiny said.
There are twenty-two police districts in Philadelphia. Without having to consult a map, Tiny Lewis knew that the parking garage behind the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel was in the 9^th District, whose headquarters are at 22^nd Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.
He checked his console display for the 9^th District and saw that an indicator with 914 on it was lit up. The 9 made reference to the District; 14 was the number of a radio patrol car assigned to cover the City Hall area.
Tiny Lewis reached for a small black toggle switch on the console before him and held it down for a full two seconds. A long beep was broadcast on the Central Division radio frequency, alerting all cars in the Central Division, which includes the 9^th District, that an important message is about to be broadcast.
"Fifteenth and Walnut, the Penn Services Parking Garage, report of a shooting and a hospital case," Tiny Lewis said into his microphone, and added, "914, 906, 9A."
There was an immediate response: "914 okay."
This was from Officer Archie Hellerman, who had just entered Rittenhouse Square from the west. He then put the microphone down, flipped on the siren and the flashing lights, and began to move as rapidly as he could through the heavy early-evening traffic on the narrow streets toward the Penn Services Parking Garage.
Tiny Lewis began to write the pertinent information on a three-byfive index card. At this stage the incident was officially an " investigation, shooting, and hospital case."
As he reached up to put the card between electrical contacts on a shelf above his console, which would interrupt the current lighting the small bulb behind the 914 block on the display console, three other radio calls came in.
"Radio, EPW 906 in."
"9A okay."
"Highway 4B in on that."
EPW 906 was an emergency patrol van, in this case a battered 1970 Ford, one of the two-man emergency patrol wagons assigned to the 9^th District to transport the injured, prisoners, and otherwise assist in law enforcement. If this was not a bullshit call, 906 would carry whoever was shot to a hospital.
The district sergeant, 9A, was assigned to the eastern half of the 9^th District.
Highway 4B was a radio patrol car of the Highway Patrol, an elite unit of the Philadelphia Police Department which the PhiladelphiaLedger had recently taken to calling Carlucci's Commandos.
As a police captain, the Honorable Jerome H. "Jerry" Carlucci, mayor of the City of Philadelphia, had commanded the Highway Patrol, which had begun, as its name implied, as a special organization to patrol the highways. Even before Captain Jerry Carlucci's reign, Highway Patrol had evolved into something more than motorcycle-mounted cops riding up and down Roosevelt Boulevard and the Schuylkill Expressway handing out speeding tickets. Carlucci, however, had presided over the ultimate transition of a traffic unit into an allvolunteer elite force. Highway had traded most of its motorcycles for two-man patrol cars and had citywide authority. Other Philadelphia police rode alone in patrol cars and patrolled specific areas in specific districts.
Highway Patrol had kept its motorcyclist's special uniforms (crushed crown cap, leather jacket, boots, and Sam Browne belts) and prided itself on being where the action was; in other words, in highcrime areas.
Highway Patrol was either "a highly trained, highly mobile anticrime task force of proven effectiveness" (Mayor Jerry Carlucci in a speech to the Sons of Italy) or "a jack-booted Gestapo" (an editorial in the PhiladelphiaLedger).
Tiny Lewis had expected prompt responses to his call. EPWs generally were sent in on any call where an injury was reported, a supervisor responded to all major calls, and somebody from Highway Patrol (sometimes four or five cars) always went in on a "shooting and hospital case."
