SEVEN SHOTS

AN NYPD RAID ON A TERRORIST CELL AND ITS AFTERMATHBy JENNIFER C. HUNT

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS

Copyright © 2010 The University of Chicago
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-226-36090-4

Contents

PREFACE: STUDYING THE POLICE........................viiACKNOWLEDGMENTS.....................................xxiNYPD ORGANIZATIONAL CHART, 1997.....................xxiiiRANK AND THE CHAIN OF COMMAND.......................xxvIntroduction........................................11 Rookie............................................332 10–1........................................383 Seven Shots.......................................764 This Is Going to Hollywood........................1015 Blood Trail.......................................1236 Ricochet..........................................1447 Top Cops..........................................1678 Friendly Fire.....................................2049 9/11..............................................234CONCLUSION..........................................293EPILOGUE............................................323APPENDIX: METHODOLOGY...............................327NOTES...............................................335BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................347INDEX...............................................353

Chapter One

ROOKIE

KEITH RYAN DIDN'T ALWAYS PLAN TO be a cop. He didn't know Emergency Service existed until after he joined the force. It wasn't that police work didn't interest him. He'd grown up mesmerized by TV shows like Dragnet and Car 54, Where Are You? After Ryan graduated from Brooklyn College, he tried several jobs before joining the department. He followed his mother's wishes and tried being a teacher. He didn't want to disappoint her by pursuing his secret dream of becoming a cop. She had no love for the police.

A left-leaning equal rights and antiwar activist, Mrs. Ryan shared the views of a lot of the youth who came of age in the 1960s. She also had personal reasons for distrusting police. When Ryan was a boy, the screaming inside the house would sometimes get so loud that the neighbors would call 911. Time and again, his father would open the door, welcome the cops into the kitchen and offer them a drink. Together they would sit nursing wine or beer and commiserating about the moodiness of women. In those days, domestic violence wasn't viewed as a crime but a private matter between husband and wife. Besides, the police could see from the furniture built with his fine craftsman's hands that Mr. Ryan was a hard-working European immigrant who provided for his family. So the cops didn't pay much attention to the little boy locked in his bedroom or the bruised face of his small, young Puerto Rican mother.

Keith Ryan was the firstborn of four children. He has one brother and two sisters, all of whom have families and successful careers. Ryan was the only one of the siblings who was routinely beaten by his father. This puzzles him still. He imagines his father was jealous of his mother's love for him. Ryan thinks his father was ashamed of the craterlike scar punched in the side of his son's face, just above his cheekbone, a remnant of a tumor he barely survived at birth.

Ryan grew up in a blue-collar neighborhood in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, among hard-working families of Irish, Jewish, and Italian decent, with a few wise guys and their brash young children peppered in. He did well in school, excelled in sports, and had plenty of friends. Focused and self-contained, he didn't get into fights like some of his peers. The only time he might challenge some guy was if he threatened one of his siblings.

Grandparents from both sides of his family were generous people who helped him grow strong and survive the battles inside the house. Ryan recalls with fondness a kind and beautiful aunt. He remembers the rich, musty smell of her perfume and the warmth of her dark brown eyes. His mother was the backbone of the family. When he was small, she'd dress him up in a suit and take him to the park. He recalls the cool breeze and the warmth of the sun on his cheeks. A loving, intelligent woman, she tried to take care of her children and instill in them a sense of self-worth and independence. "I am what I am because of her," Ryan explained.

A smile lights up his face when he envisions the kindly eyes of the neighbor who raised pigeons, not the noisy pests that litter the parks and contaminate the city's air conditioners, but the sleek multicolored homing pigeons that are born and bred to race. He loved watching them spiral up into the sky, free of any encumbrance but the band they wore on their leg. He liked their loyalty, their long flights home from anywhere. He got a kick out of watching them lay their eggs and seeing the babies emerge. When he was eight years old, Ryan approached his neighbor and asked if he could buy a pigeon. The man told him no but offered instead to take him on as an apprentice. From that day on, he treated the boy like a son. Keith sat with his neighbor's family at dinners to celebrate racing events. When one of their pigeons won, Keith proudly stepped on stage and picked up the trophy.

Ryan recalls the first pigeon he owned, a half-blind, banded bird from Holland that he rescued from the steeple of the church. He named the bird the Dutchman and nursed him back to health until his father took him away. Keith thinks his father let the bird go but deep down knows that he killed him. A bird with compromised vision can't survive alone.

His parents divorced when Keith was eighteen. By the time he was twenty-one, he had built his own pigeon coop in the garage behind his mother's house. "I would go and get lost for hours. I felt safe there," he explained. I saw a film of Keith as a young man working in the coop. The camera caught him at his best angle, highlighting his bone structure and unblemished left check. His body was long and lean, like a runner in peak condition. His face looked intense, solemn, and fiercely handsome.

* * *

In 1986, Keith Ryan took the test to become a New York City police officer. He graduated from the Police Academy in 1987 and was sent to the 7-9 (79th) Precinct in Brooklyn, a neighborhood that was so bad that "people with guns were afraid to live there." After his probationary year was complete, he transferred to Coney Island. It didn't take more than a few weeks on patrol before he realized that policing was a natural calling that would always claim his heart no matter how bad things got or what fate had in store.

I know cops today who view such devotion as a symptom of the Stockholm syndrome. The department holds its officers hostage for a twenty-year term with the promise of benefits and a pension. In time, the cops become attached to their keeper, forming a painful bond. Uncertainty, petty tyranny, and punishment come to be viewed as signs of caring; the smallest gesture of human kindness is mistaken for love. I don't mean to suggest that love and kindness do not exist in the New York Police Department. There are plenty of wonderful bosses who treat their men with warmth, dignity, and respect. The men respond with loyalty, working hard to make their bosses shine in the face of superiors. The problem mostly lies in the system. Few curbs exist to stifle the actions of bullies who "kiss up and kick down." One bad boss can wreak havoc with a cop's career. A group or consecutive series of them can tear his life apart.

I am insufficiently cynical to believe Keith Ryan was...