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Observations of An Ex-Cop in La La Land |
 ANDY MURCIA |
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of TheColumnists.com
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Did you ever wonder what went on before or after some
idiot decided to shoot it out with the police? This is a true story. It all happened to me and my partner one 4 to midnight shift when we were cops for the Chicago Police Department. I was a rookie police officer, newly assigned to the 2ND police district. This district is so dangerous, priests wear bulletproof vests while hearing confessions. The “gang bangers,” as the children are called here, use our police station at 48th Street & S. Wabash, for target practice. They shoot at us from their high-rise public housing project apartments, located on that part of State Street, which is anything but the “great street” Sinatra sang about in "Chicago." If they hit the gum ball on top of the squad car, it’s an automatic extra pull on the malt liquor! |
I was partnered for the first time with an officer named Bob Pepsi, who was in his mid 40s. I knew nothing else about Bob. I'd seen Bob talking with another cop before roll call, so I asked the other cop to fill me in on Bob. He told me Bob had been a terrific homicide detective, but had asked to be assigned back to uniform duty. Bob was a veteran of the force and here I was just several days out of the police academy.
As soon as we got in the squad and went up on the radio, we got a call saying: “See the body in the third floor apartment at 48th street and Calumet. Citizen will meet you. Wagon enroute.”
We were led to the third
floor apartment in an old tenement building by a man who told
us he was the dead man's nephew. We found the body of a black
man, about 71, lying on the bathroom floor. There were no signs
of foul play. Judging by the fact that his zipper was down, his
penis was out of his slacks and there was urine present that
had missed its mark, it looked as if the poor old guy suffered
a heart attack while taking his last leak.
This was a routine call, a “natural,” the term we used
for a person dying of natural causes. We collected the old man’s
personal effects and started our paper work as the wagon cops
carried the man out for the trip to the nearest hospital to be
officially pronounced dead. His next stop would be the Cook County
Coroner’s morgue.
Just as we were leaving the flat, a white woman in her late 30s came running up the stairs, yelling “Daddy, Daddy!” She was an imposing sight: About 6 foot 1 and very thin, wearing red cowgirl boots. She stopped us and asked where her “Daddy" was?
Was she referring to the black gentleman who lived there? She yelled, “Hell, yes! He’s my Daddy.”
I told her where they'd taken him and gave her the coroner's phone number. She demanded his wallet and personal effects. Not knowing exactly who she was, we refused. She claimed her “Daddy” always kept a hundred dollar bill in his wallet. I advised her that whatever was in the wallet, would still be there, but that she’d have to go through proper channels to get it. (However, I remembered there wasn't any $100 bill in the wallet.) She became angry with us and, under her flood of abusive name-calling, we left her.
We filed our report, properly receipted the dead man's property, and resumed patrol. Judging by the police radio dispatcher barking out non-stop assignments to all beat cars, we were in for a busy night.
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At left, with his parents at graduation from the Police Academy; at right, on duty at a Chicago parade. |
We handled about 18-19
other calls, made several arrests, then, as the clock ticked
closer to 11:30, we started our slow roll towards the station.
We got as far as 48th Street and Calumet, about three blocks
from the station house, when three rapid-fire shots rang out.
We hit the floor of the squad car, thinking we were being fired
upon.
Bob radioed our position, and what we had. We peeked our heads
up a little and saw two men coming out of an old building. One
was helping the older, fatter gent, who was pumping blood out
of his belly. A police wagon arrived first and took the wounded
man to the hospital.
Meanwhile, we called for units to cover the rear of building as we were going in the front. The wounded man's companion, who turned out to be his son, pointed us up to the flat where the shooting had occurred. We got to the third floor landing, leaving the son behind on the first floor. Bob took one side of the doorway to the flat and I took the other. Guns drawn, we banged on the door, yelling, “Police! Come out with your hands up!”
My heart was pounding,
but I was ready for whatever was coming. Just then we heard a
faint, elderly woman’s voice inside say, “Just a minute
officer.” We heard three dead bolt locks slowly being undone.
Bob and I holstered our guns, thinking the son had pointed us
to the wrong door. We didn’t want to give the old doll a
heart attack.
We were all set to make our apologies when the door slowly opened
and we saw her: A very tall white woman pointing a gun straight
at us. Without saying a word, she rapidly fired three shots!
Fortunately, her aim was bad. This wasn't the sort of shootout you see in the movies, although Bob and I probably looked a lot like silent movie Keystone Kops as we retreated, falling down the stairs to the second floor landing, still trying to get our guns out of our holsters. We landed in a pile, Bob on top, firing a couple of his .38’s, followed by me with my .357. We hit the single ceiling light bulb and knocked down a lot of the old plaster around the shooter's doorway. In the confines of a stairwell, the noise sounded like a war zone. In the dim light, we couldn’t get a clean shot at her, but we kept firing just to keep her hemmed in, so she couldn’t shoot us.
We could see her shadow whenever she came close to the doorway, putting her hand out to fire her automatic. So, while Bob covered me, I crawled up along the wall on my belly. Bob steadily fired shots above the door, knocking more plaster down. When I got there, I stuck my gun into the doorway where I figured she was standing and fired three shots just as she fired two. Once again, I retreated back to the lower landing. As I kept my eye on the doorway going backwards down the stairs, I saw the shooter tumble out the doorway. When Bob first saw her coming out, he fired twice, thinking she was going to shoot me. Then she fell onto the landing, face down. We could see at least four entrance and exit wounds. She was hit at least four times--in the chest, throat, mouth and leg. She was dead, but her motionless body still leaked a massive amount of blood.
As the homicide detectives arrived on the scene, they nodded their respects to Bob Pepsi. I knew I was in good hands. If you're a rookie, involved in your first shooting, you want to have a former homicide detective like Bob as your partner. Bob knew the ropes and taught me well. I could see the regard the on-scene detectives had for him. The Deputy Inspectors--we called them the “empty holster” guys--arrived afterwards to make sure we'd done it all by the book. Thanks to Bob’s experience, we had.
It was only after the shooting that we recognized the dead shooter as the same tall woman who claimed to be the dead man’s daughter earlier. As I looked at her red cowgirl boots, I wondered how ironic it was that we'd dealt with her on both the fist and last jobs on this shift. We'd completely forgotten we had been to this apartment earlier, right after roll call.
After interviewing the man we'd left downstairs--he was the son of the man shot--we learned what went on between the time we handled the natural D.O.A., and the time we handled the man shot at this same location. (The wounded man survived, by the way.)
Seems the tall female was “Linda Deputa.” She had spent some years in a Texas prison for an armed robbery conviction. She was also a prostitute who would not only turn tricks, but also rob her customers. She had met the old man just two weeks prior to his death from the heart attack. Seems he liked her coochie a lot, as he moved her in with him, giving her a set of keys to his apartment.
After Bob and I left Linda that afternoon, she got drunk and took the old man’s car for a ride. She was subsequently arrested for drunk driving and booked at our station. She called the dead man’s brother to come bail her out. He got her out so she could let him into his dead brother’s apartment. He wanted to get the documents he needed to arrange his brother's burial. At first she refused, but then decided to take him there. Linda, the deceased brother and his son all arrived at the dead man’s apartment. Linda got a bottle and had some more drinks. Then she started telling them about the dead man’s business.
Seems he was a criminal, too. He'd been buying stolen property from local thieves and addicts. He kept his swag securely locked up in a closet. At some point, the brother convinced Linda to open the closet so he could get the “papers” to bury his Bro. As Linda opened the closet with the stolen property in it, she argued it was all hers. Fearful the brother would seize it all for himself, Linda grabbed one of the many pistols, turned and fired three shots at him. His son quickly helped him get out of the flat and down to the street where Bob and I met them.
The only fact I left out until now was the actual day this shooting occured. It was December 24th--Christmas Eve. I've thought about this incident almost every year since it happened. Every Christmas Eve I remember how lucky I was to survive my first shooting--to be alive today with my wife and son in a home filled with love. It's the gift, as they say, that just keeps on giving.
© 2002 by Andy Murcia.
The photos are from the Murcia family collection. All rights
are reserved. The artist's illustration is from IMSI's Master
Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506,
USA.
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