The Bad Shepherd Read online

  Mitch nodded but said nothing.

  “Fremont?”

  Bo shook a negative. “Dead.”

  “Damn it.”

  Bo gave his partner a long, thoughtful look. When Mitch didn’t say anything, Bo said, “Didn’t look like Mitch had much of a choice, boss. Fremont pulled on him. I conducted an initial search of the room, and we found ten bricks and ten stacks of cash wrapped in plastic. Closet had a false bottom hidden under the carpet; shit was stashed in there.”

  Hunter nodded. “Let’s wait until the evidence team gets here, gets their pictures, and we’ll do our sweep. Mitch, go have a seat.” He motioned at one of the squad cars parked on the lawn. “I need you to tell me exactly what happened.”

  Mitch nodded, said nothing, and walked over to the car.

  “He OK?”

  “He just shot someone. First time he’s ever done it.” Bo started to say something else but paused.

  “What is it?”

  Bo heard his name from across the lawn. He looked to his left where Cliff Wood was calling him and motioning to come over.

  “It’ll keep, Top.” Bo jogged over to Wood.

  Wood was standing with Dave Ellison, conducting a field interview of one of Fremont’s crew, a kid they’d identified as Maurice Cutney.

  “What’s up, Wood?”

  “Shithead here has some information you might want to hear, Detective.” Ellison folded his big arms across his chest, flexing them. He turned back to the gangbanger. “Talk. Tell him what you were just about to tell us.”

  Cutney narrowed his eyes at the CRASH officer, burning bright with big hate. He looked like he’d seen the inside of a weight room too and wasn’t going to let some White meathead cop push him around, not on his own turf.

  Bo looked at the suspect. “Well?”

  The Crip gave him hostile silence and the same eye pop he’d shot Ellison.

  “Look fuckhead, I don’t have time for this. Now, I just pulled ten kilos out of that back bedroom there. That’s a little more than simple possession. This is serious felony time you’re looking at. Plus your boss tried to kill my partner, and that pisses me off.” Bo crossed his arms and checked his watch, as if counting the seconds down.

  “Shit,” Cutney said, drawing it out long. “All I said was, Free didn’t know no Mexicans.” Cutney shifted on his feet. “He got everything.” His voice trailed off as he looked up and out to the street. Cutney’s eyes focused on something beyond the wall of people pushing up against the yellow crime scene tape.

  Bo followed Cutney’s line of sight to a car as it rolled by slowly. The car was lowered so much it practically scraped the asphalt. It was a long two-door, early ‘60s with slab panel siding and fins. There were custom slats across the grill that concealed the headlights. Bo could make out the throaty rumble of the V8 as it rolled. It was an Oldsmobile Dynamic or Super 88. Judging by the sound of the engine; he guessed the latter. The car sported a paint job that was as ostentatious as it was custom, metallic lavender body and a purple roof. Bo couldn’t make out the driver’s features. It was dusk, and he was looking at the driver through a crowd, but it was clear the driver was looking right at them. Intently. He rolled slowly, just above an idle.

  Bo looked over to Cutney. The color had drained out of his face, and his mouth hung open in a stupid, slack expression.

  “Yo, I don’t know nuthin’.”

  “You didn’t ‘know nuthin’ thirty seconds ago, shithead,” Ellison thundered. “Talk.”

  “Musta forgot,” Cutney said.

  Ellison launched into a tirade that would’ve made prison guards blush. Bo held out a hand and told him to shut up a minute. He shouldered himself in between Ellison and Cutney so he’d have the gangbanger’s full attention.

  “Who was in that car?”

  “What car?”

  “The purple Oldsmobile.” Bo pointed up the street toward the intersection with Thirty-Ninth. “It just went by. You shut up as soon as you saw it. Who was in that car?”

  Cutney shrugged. “I didn’t see no car.”

  “I’m not fucking around here.” Bo jabbed a finger in his chest. “Who was in that car?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Bo turned to Wood. “Get him in an interview room right now. He wants to play stupid; we’ll just have to wait him out.”

  “Will do.”

  Bo turned around to Ellison. “What do you know about an early ‘60s Oldsmobile Super 88, purple, probably custom paint job?”

  Ellison shook his head. “Nothing comes to mind, but I’ll check with the other guys when we circle up next.”

  “Whoever is driving that scared him into shutting up just by looking at him. We need to know who that is. Now.” Bo ran over to Hunter, who was engaged in a conversation with the Southwest Division watch commander who’d just arrived on scene. “Boss, we gotta get one of these squad cars on the street. I think we’ve got a suspect.”

  Hunter turned around to Bo, obviously annoyed at the interruption. “Suspect? Suspected of what? Our perp is lying dead on the floor in there.” The lieutenant pointed angrily at the house. “We don’t have any more suspects, Bo.”

  “Lieutenant, one of Fremont’s guys was about to tell us where they were getting their coke from, and he sees this purple jig rig cruise by like it’s Sunday night on Crenshaw. That guy shot him a look, and he stopped talking immediately. Now he won’t say anything.”

  “Probably a member of the gang, and he doesn’t want to be seen talking to the police. Half the fucking neighborhood is out here already, and the other half is on their goddamn way.”

  “We need to pursue this. I think there’s something here.”

  “Do you see how many people we have out here? We’re one push away from a full-blown riot out here, and you want me to detail an officer and a squad car to go chase down a citizen because they gave our actual suspect an angry look?”

  “I know how it sounds but—”

  “That’s enough, Detective. Give Lieutenant Ramirez here a complete description of the vehicle, and he can issue an APB.”

  Martin Ramirez was the shortest of the three and had a runner’s build. He sported a bushy, black mustache that looked out of place below his thin eyebrows, aquiline nose, and close-cropped hair. The watch commander had a booming, sonorous voice that did not seem to fit the body it came from. “If he’s out there, detective, we’ll find him.”

  Bo ignored him and pressed Hunter. “Lieutenant, if it’s all right, I’ll just take a car and go after him myself. I really think we need to—”

  “No, Detective, it’s not all right. You are not leaving an active crime scene to go follow some asshole that mad-dogged you. A crime scene, I’ll remind you, that is that way because your partner just shot and killed our primary suspect.” Hunter’s voice elevated sharply. “So no, Detective Fochs, you’re not going to take a car and go after him yourself. You’re going to go into the house and do your goddamn job. Are we clear?”

  Bo stood fast, jaw quivering. What the hell was the matter with Hunter? The guy in that car was a lead. Whoever he was, he’d gotten a seasoned gangbanger to clam up with nothing more than a hard stare on a drive-by. This place was bursting at the seams with cops; what did it matter if he followed a hunch? Jesus, he’d already turned up the major pieces of evidence they were likely to find. What else did he need to do?

  “Well?” Hunter demanded.

  Bo thought about protesting again but thought better of it. He’d have to rely on the Southwest Division APB for now. “Yes sir,” was all he said.

  Bo gave Lieutenant Ramirez the description of the custom and told him he’d also asked Sergeant Ellison to talk it over with his fellow CRASH officers. Ramirez told him he’d get it out on the air right away. Bo thanked him for his help and headed back inside shooting a look over his shoulder as he went. The sky was bright orange but darkening quickly. Indigo shadows began to grow at the corners, behind the cars and beneat
h the trees. It would only get darker.

  Freddy Queen trotted up to Bo and the lieutenants as their argument was boiling down. “What is it, Freddy?” Hunter snapped before Bo had a chance to say anything.

  “It’s Deacon,” Freddy gasped, nearly breathless. He’d clearly been running all over the place.

  “What about him?”

  “He’s gone, Top.”

  KNBC TRANSCRIPT

  Aired June 25, 1981—10:10 PT

  (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

  JACK HAMMOND, KNBC ANCHOR: We’re back, and tonight we bring you the story of a dramatic police raid on the home of a suspected drug dealer in a South LA neighborhood. KNBC’s Kaitlin Everett has the story.

  (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

  KAITLIN EVERETT, KNBC REPORTER: Details are sketchy at this point, but what we do know is that at approximately 5:15 p.m. three gunshots were fired in the 4000 block of Second Avenue in Jefferson Park. Police officers, who were hiding outside the home, responded with weapons drawn. Moments later they had four young Black men in custody, and the fifth man, twenty-four-year-old Lorenzo Fremont, was dead.

  (END VIDEO CLIP)

  EVERETT: The Los Angeles Police Department spokesman I spoke to earlier said he couldn’t comment on an ongoing investigation, but eyewitnesses tell me Lorenzo Fremont was a suspected drug dealer with ties to a local street gang. I’m told this was an attempted sting operation and that they believed Mr. Fremont had a large quantity of narcotics on him.

  HAMMOND: Kaitlin, did the police explain why they shot and killed Fremont?

  EVERETT: No, they only said that the Department was investigating the matter internally, as they do every officer-involved shooting. But eyewitnesses say with the increasingly violent gang activity in this neighborhood, they believed a shootout with police was only a matter of time.

  (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

  MARVIN CARTER, EYEWITNESS: No, I’m not surprised they shot him. I mean, that’s what they do, right? Always rollin’ in here, knocking down doors and whatnot at whatever hours they want. Middle of the night, you know? Jackin’ people up for whatever. Just a matter of time before they shoot someone. I mean, I was robbed two times last year, and where were they then?

  (END VIDEO CLIP)

  EVERETT: For now, Jack, we don’t have many answers; we just have a man whose life was tragically cut short at twenty-four. Back to you.

  HAMMOND: Thanks, Kaitlin. And now to sports where Tom Hughes has an exciting finish for the Dodgers’ series.

  FROM THE LOS ANGELES TIMES EDITORIAL SECTION

  June 26, 1981

  “More Shoot First and Ask Questions Never From the LAPD”

  by Bill Symonds

  Yesterday’s shooting of twenty-four-year-old Lorenzo Fremont in his Jefferson Park home during a narcotics “sting operation” is just another incident of Police Chief Daryl Gates’ six-gun policing. Time and again we hear about another impoverished, inner-city Angelino struck down at the hand of a police officer sworn to protect them. In this case, undercover police entered Fremont’s home, attempting to purchase narcotics from him. When Fremont produced a weapon, police officers lethally shot him.

  I’m not defending Fremont’s drug dealing, if that is in fact what he was doing. But I can’t help but believe that there was another way to resolve this situation without violence. We know that there were at least five officers waiting outside because they rushed in as soon as shots were fired. Knowing his backup was just around the corner, the undercover officer couldn’t have felt threatened by Mr. Fremont. This begs the obvious question, why did the officer feel the need to fatally shoot his suspect?

  Allow me to offer a suggestion. He shot because he believed he had every right to do so. Chief Gates has established a culture of zero accountability, which encourages police officers to take the law into their own hands. Let us not forget his words after Eula Love. “The shooting was in policy.”

  FROM THE LOS ANGELES HERALD-EXAMINER

  June 28, 1981

  “Public Pressure Mounting in South LA Shooting”

  by Stan Erickson

  Criticism continues to build follow the June 25th shooting of Lorenzo Fremont, 24, by Los Angeles Police officers. Community groups and several South LA churches have joined the chorus of voices demanding the city’s police commission review the department’s use of force policies.

  “Too many, too often,” Jerome Willis, 47, a spokesman for Stand Up! a Compton-based community action group, stated. “When did it become OK for six armed cops to break into a man’s home and gun him down? When did that become acceptable?”

  An LAPD spokesman stated that an Officer Involved Shooting team had been convened and would determine whether the shooting were within departmental guidelines.

  A representative from Mayor Bradley’s office called the situation “unfortunate and avoidable” and said that the mayor and the Police Commission were examining the event.

  While authorities maintain that Fremont, twenty-four, was a dangerous narcotics dealer and gang member, his family paints a picture of a thoughtful, dedicated son who left school early to help his single mother make ends meet.

  Chapter Ten

  Deacon was gone.

  The Rockstars ran Deacon’s prints through the National Criminal Information Center database.

  They sent photos to FBI and DEA. They said don’t just look at your suspect books.

  They put an APB out on a ghost.

  In the days after the shooting, each member of the squad met with the department’s Officer Involved Shooting team. OIS held detailed interviews of the officers present and any eyewitnesses. They reviewed the Medical Examiner’s report and thoroughly inspected every bullet in the shooting officer’s weapon. They compiled this in a final report for the Shooting Board, who would determine whether the shooting were “in-policy” or “out-of-policy.” The union attorney already advised Mitch that an out-of-policy decision would likely carry criminal charges.

  They managed to keep Mitchell’s identity out of the papers for three whole days before the leak cost him his anonymity. When his name hit, Mitch became the new poster boy for excessive force. Civil rights groups and community organizations flocked to the banner of Fremont’s death, another streamer on the inglorious banner of LAPD abuses of the citizens it was supposed to protect. The story led the evening news broadcasts for the last three nights, but it was the editorials that drew blood. Few were objective; none were unbiased; and at least one called Mitchell a murderer. The department had yet to issue a response other than the standard ongoing investigation line that only sparked the argument that they had something to hide.

  The Chief then appeared on a local Sunday talk show earlier that morning to tell the department’s side. When he explained that Fremont was a suspected drug dealer and the center of a major narcotics investigation, the program’s other guest, a Black community activist and known firebrand, accused the chief of assuming that every Black man in South LA was a drug dealer and a gang member. The chief calmly asked the guest to explain the large quantity of drugs they found at the home, but the damage was done. Cold, hard logic would never score as many points as flaming rhetoric. The guest ignored that accusation entirely and simply countered by saying this was just another Eula Love.

  Two years before, a thirty-nine-year-old widower named Eula Love assaulted a Southern California Gas Company worker while he was attempting to shut her service off. It’d only been six months since she’d paid a bill. The gasman returned later that day hoping she’d calmed down, was taking a nap, or was just gone. Eula Love emerged from her house, screaming incoherently and brandishing an eleven-inch kitchen knife. LAPD Officers Edward Hopson and Lloyd O’Callahan responded to the scene. Love hurled insults and profanity at the officers. O’Callahan attempted to peaceably disarm her, and she swung at him. People tend to forget the reach a foot-long knife has. Officer Hopson opened fire to defend his partner. O’Callahan drew and fired to defend himself. At that point, it was instin
ct and training. They’d told her to drop the weapon; they’d attempted to remove it from her possession; they advised her again to drop it. They did what the book said.

  Love went down with eight bullets in her, dead before she hit the ground. The Police Department Shooting Board and the District Attorney cleared O’Callahan and Hopson of any wrongdoing, declaring it a righteous shoot. The media blasted the police for shooting a Black woman. Chief Gates took every opportunity to defend his officers’ actions in public, and that only fueled the media frenzy.

  Captain Hilliard, the Narcotics Division CO, told Hunter early that morning that the outcry was all “Eula Love.” All the public was choosing to know was that six cops kicked down a door in Southwest LA and shot and killed a Black man. The papers reported the size of the seizure and that it was part of a sweeping investigation into a major drug distribution network, but the rhetorical genie was out of the bottle.

  It went unsaid, but each of the Rockstars wondered what would be worse: Mitchell’s shooting being found in policy or out.

  Fochs moonlit, spending his off-duty time running down the lead on the Super 88. He knew something was there, something he couldn’t shake. He didn’t buy Hunter’s explanation that it was just some old Crip and that Cutney didn’t want to be seen talking to the police, not when Cutney’s other option was to be charged with a drug conspiracy. Bo called the DMV and pulled the registrations of the Super 88s between ‘60 and ‘65. He had them pull the Dynamics’ as well because he remembered from his patrol days they shared the same body style and both were very popular with the low-rider and custom clubs. Bo worked down the list.