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“Hold on, RJ. I think this dude’s a cop. He seen us both. You gotta do it now.”
Now the crazy guy was using logic. And he wasn’t wrong. I’d have been willing to forget about RJ, but I needed to check out his friend “Tight” regarding the homicide a block away.
That wasn’t going to happen, though. I swallowed and had a quick thought of each of my children. When you have ten kids, you can’t spend a lot of time on each one as your life flashes before your eyes.
RJ was ready. He used his left hand to steady the gun. He started to squeeze the trigger.
CHAPTER 5
AT A MOMENT like that, facing a gun, there’s no telling what will go through your head. I was hoping for a miracle. And I said a quick prayer. It wasn’t specific or particularly elegant. Just a Please help me, God. At least I think that’s what I prayed.
Then it happened. A car coming from a side street onto this main road squealed its tires. It wasn’t long or really loud. But it was enough. Just enough.
Both men looked over their shoulders to see what had caused the noise. Just a basic reaction, like an instinct. It was a gray Dodge racing away from us.
I took my chance. A movement I had done in training more than a thousand times. I shifted slightly. Reached back quickly with my right hand. Flipped my coat out of the way. Took a firm grip on my Glock semiautomatic pistol. Pressed the release on my holster and slid the pistol out. It felt natural because of all the practice. The idea that a human would be in my sights didn’t really come into the equation.
Just as my barrel came to rest, pointing at the robber’s chest, I shouted, “Police. Don’t move.”
I aimed at RJ because he had his pistol out, although I thought the other man was going to be the real problem. But RJ steadied his hands and brought the barrel of his pistol back toward my face. I squeezed the trigger of my own pistol. Once. Twice. I knew I’d hit him center mass.
The young man’s arms lowered and the pistol dropped from his hand. It made a loud clank on the hood of my car, then slid down to the asphalt. RJ followed a similar path, staring at me the whole time as he tumbled to the ground.
My natural inclination was to follow the body to the ground with my pistol. I don’t know why. It’s not like cops are in so many shootings that we get used to them. Each one is traumatic and devastating in its own way.
As soon as RJ hit the asphalt, I realized he posed no more threat. Now I had to deal with Tight, who was already rushing backward, away from me. He fumbled for the pistol in his belt line, and I fired once. Then he spun and sprinted away. I didn’t know if I’d hit him or if he’d dropped the pistol. The only thing I could think about was the young man bleeding on the street right in front of me.
I let the crazy man in the fur-trimmed jacket run away.
I dropped to one knee and immediately checked the pulse on the young man I’d been forced to shoot. Blood was already pumping from his chest and filling the indentation at the bottom of his throat. I opened his ratty coat all the way and ripped his Jets T-shirt right down the middle, then used part of the T-shirt to help stop the bleeding.
I quickly reached into my pocket and fumbled for my phone. I hit 911. As soon as the operator came on I almost shouted, “This is Detective Michael Bennett. I am on Third Avenue near 146th Street. I need immediate assistance. I have shots fired, a man down, and require an ambulance ASAP.”
I ignored her other questions and went back to working on young RJ. I held the folded T-shirt rag directly on the bullet hole, hoping to stem the bleeding. Blood soaked the cuff of my shirt and speckled my chest. People started coming out of the bodega and some of the apartment buildings.
A young black woman kneeled down to help me. She said, “I’m in nursing school. Let me keep pressure on the wound.” She wasn’t panicked and kept a very calm tone.
That helped me focus. I kept saying to the young man, “Hang in there, RJ. Help is on the way.” About a minute later, I heard the first in a storm of sirens heading our way.
It wasn’t until paramedics stepped in and took over the first aid that it really hit me what had happened. I could have been killed. I should have been killed. And I had been forced to use my duty weapon. It was the last thing I’d wanted to do. It’s the last thing any cop wants to do. But I didn’t regret it. I couldn’t. Not when I hugged my kids tonight.
And now all I could do was stare helplessly as paramedics did everything they could to save this young man’s life.
CHAPTER 6
AS MORE PARAMEDICS and squad cars arrived, I simply walked down the street a short distance and plopped onto the curb. I had nothing left. I wasn’t even ready to call Mary Catherine. I just stared straight ahead into the empty street. I noticed everything from the rough asphalt patches over potholes to the random Three Musketeers wrapper blowing in the light breeze. It felt as if the city had gone silent.
Even though the paramedics were still busy, I knew RJ was dead. My mind raced, but I couldn’t settle on a single thought. I vaguely realized it was some sort of shock settling over me. It’s a common occurrence after a police shooting.
It had all happened so fast. Virtually all police shootings do. I’d acted out of instinct. Now I had to let things take their course.
All I knew at the moment was that I couldn’t leave the scene. I just wanted to sit here with my thoughts. Silently I prayed, Dear God, have mercy on this young man’s soul . I thought about calling my grandfather, Seamus.
Then I heard someone shout, “He did it.” It didn’t register immediately, then someone else said it. I looked up and over my shoulder to see a small group of people facing me.
A heavyset African American man of about thirty-five pointed at me and shouted, “That cop shot RJ for no reason. He murdered him.”
I let him talk. It never did any good to speak up. People had to vent. This neighborhood had fought to shed its reputation from the 1980s. Crime, especially homicides, was down. Cops could only do so much. Neighborhoods and the people in them had to decide to change. And this one had. I could understand some misplaced anger over a shooting.
