Circle of Six Read Free Page A

changed. I knew the area intimately, was born and bred on 123rd Street and Amsterdam Avenue, just two blocks south of where I was sitting that very moment, trying to catch this criminal. But that was a different time and a different way of life.
    My parents were the superintendents of the building, two of the few who truly cared about their residents and strived to make the conditions as nice as possible. Like most of the hard-working parents in New York City during the forties, they also took care of the neighborhood and all of its children. Now, thirty years later, I was trying to do the same, look out forthe neighborhood. Though this time, so much more was at stake. The core values and very foundation that molded me into the man I was, that same foundation that once held those families, their extensions, and those tightly knit streets together, was now being dismantled by an ideology steeped in blazing hatred. In hindsight I may have been overly naive, but I truly felt that when I caught Twyman Meyers, the hatred and all the diseased thoughts that he espoused to so many young children would somehow recede, and we would all come together like so many years before. In my heart I felt that Twyman Meyers, Joanne Chesimard, and the soldiers of the BLA were the symbols of hatred that I had to do away with. Was I obsessed with my mission? You bet. My mission was to try to turn back the hands of time. I'd soon realize how ridiculous that presumption was. That day was just the beginning of five years of hell.
    We were on the Zone-6 radio frequency, which seemed to erupt in a continuous cacophony of chatter between the cops of the ultra-busy Harlem precincts and Central Dispatch. It was a machine-gun ratta-tat-tat of coded numbers, legalese, and raw New York slang.

    2-8 Nora, got a 52 corner of 1-2-8 and Amsterdam
    Ten-four central, Nora responding, K
    2-5 Adam 52 with a gun, corner of Saint Nick at 1-2-2, units to respond
    Charlie, K
    Adam responding
    Crimes 84, K
    5 Sergeant en route, K
    All units in the 3-2, ten-ten reports of shots fired Broadway 1-4-0, K. Numerous calls, units to respond, K
    3-2 Boy
    Adam
    Charlie's en route, K
    3-2 Boy's 84, it's confirmed, get a bus, K! Get a bus, K! Guy's bleedin' like a stuck pig, K!

    It was a nonstop mélange of deadly calls twenty-four seven. Shootings, robberies, assaults, murders, and of course, the end-all, ten-thirteens. Ten-thirteen was the code for an officer in need of help. When that thirteen alarm sounded, everything in copland stopped, all focus was on the radio for the coordinates. However, when the thirteen was phoned in via 911emergency police operator, it often turned out to be an unfounded call. The first unit to respond would immediately contact central and designate the call as a ninety-x-ray (unfounded job), ceasing further response from units who were certainly traveling at breakneck speeds through harm's way to help. These fake ten-thirteens were phoned in for a number of reasons, though, generally non-malicious ones—prank callers just trying to break the balls of a few cops. Still, some had criminal intent. For instance, say an OP—like the one I was on that day—had been burned or discovered by a wanted man—like Twyman Meyers—and he needed to move from one safe house to another without being seen. He could easily call in the bogus ten-thirteen at the opposite end of the precinct and pull guys just like us off our spots. It was good business to keep the cops off guard, and most of the salty perps knew exactly where the precinct boundaries were, allowing them to send us to the opposite end of Harlem. So when Central got the call that morning, before I moved, I was going to be cock-and-balls sure that it was a confirmed ten-thirteen.
11:41:20 A.M .
    A ten-thirteen call was made to the 911 operator, or Central Dispatch. What you are about to read are the identical transcripts of the thirteen in question. This was the beginning of the end for many people. One