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“Officer Lewis,” he said, “you will now go stand by the hood of the car until a police wrecker comes to haul it off. If you somehow could convey the impression that it has a mysterious malady, fine. But in no event let anyone touch it, much less get inside.”
“Yes, sir.”
Assistant Special Agent in Charge (Criminal Affairs) Frank F. Young came into the morning Senior Staff Conference ten minutes late.
“Sorry to be late, Chief,” he said as he took a chair at the table that butted against Special Agent in Charge Walter F. Davis’s desk and made a vague but unmistakable gesture of dismissal to Special Agent F. Charles Vorhiss, who had been filling in for him.
Davis waited until Vorhiss had left the room before replying, “It’s all right, Frank, we know what difficulty you have getting up before noon.”
Not quite sure whether Davis was cracking witty or had some other agenda, Young said, “I was just having the most fascinating conversation with Agent Matthews, who was out carousing until the wee hours.”
“With the cops, you mean?”
“In the FOP,” Young said.
“We were, just coincidentally, talking about the police,” Davis said, and slid a copy of the Philadelphia Ledger across the desk to him. “Have you seen this?”
“No,” Young said, and since he suspected he was expected to, he read the front-page story.
* * *
ASSASSINS GET PAST
POLICE TO MURDER
WITNESS AGAINST ILA
By Charles E. Whaley
Ledger Staff Writer
Albert J. Monahan, 56, was shot to death before his wife’s eyes early this morning at his home in the 5600 block of Sylvester Street according to a highly placed police official who declined to be identified.
Monahan was shot with a small-caliber weapon, according to the same police official, when he opened his door to an assassin who had somehow gotten past three officers of the “elite” Special Operations Division that was charged with his round-the-clock protection.
Staff Inspector Peter F. Wohl, commanding officer of the Special Operations Division, which was formed, reportedly at the orders of Mayor Jerry Carlucci, late last year to combat the growing crime in Philadelphia, was “not available to the press” for comment.
Monahan, who was employed by Goldblatt & Sons Credit Furniture & Appliances, Inc., was scheduled to appear before the Grand Jury next Monday. Assistant District Attorney Farnsworth Stillwell was to seek an indictment for murder against six men for a shooting death during a robbery at the South Street furniture store. Monahan reportedly had positively identified seven men presently being held in the Detention Center as being involved.
“Prosecution now seems unlikely,” the police official said, “with the death of Mr. Monahan, and Mr. Stillwell off the case.” He was apparently referring to the appointment, announced today, of Stillwell to the staff of the state attorney general in Harrisburg. (See “Governor Names Stillwell As Corporate Crime Prosecutor,”).
Police have thrown up a barrier of silence around the incident. Police Captain Michael J. Sabara, deputy commander of Special Operations, the only senior police official willing to speak officially to the press at all, would say only that “the incident is under investigation and no information can be released at this time.”
Sabara also refused to discuss rumors circulating throughout the Police Department that the Justice Department is investigating Officer M. M. Payne, Inspector Wohl’s administrative assistant. During the arrest of the eight men charged in the Goldblatt robbery, Payne shot to death one of the alleged bandits, Charles David Stevens. It has been said the Justice Department is investigating allegations that Payne, who has something of a reputation for being too quick to use his pistol, exceeded Police Department criteria governing the use of force. If the allegations are true, Payne could be charged with violating Stevens’s civil rights, a federal offense.
* * *
“Jesus!” Young said. “I wonder how that happened?”
“How about gross incompetence?” Glenn Williamson, A-SAC (Administration), asked rhetorically.
“I would think it’s a case of having underestimated the opposition,” SAC Davis said. “What do we have on the ILA? Did you check with Washington?”
“There’s three of them,” A-SAC (Counterintelligence) Isaac J. Towne said. “One in New York, one in Chicago, and one in Berkeley, California. There is no known connection between the three, and no known connection between any of them and anyone in Philadelphia.”
“Have we got anybody in with them?”
“In all three. That’s where we got what I came up with.”
