What Scares Cops?

“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear.”

–Mark Twain

What scares cops? I mean what really scares cops?

I guess a good general answer is: Not much.

If we want to be more specific, the answer becomes murky, more complicated. In reviewing this story in my mind before setting this account to the printed page, I think a good answer that most police officers would agree with is “the unknown.” Tactics can be taught in the academy and honed on the street with years of experience, but no matter the breadth of training and experience there come the incidents that have no safe, tactically defined approach. You master your fear, tough it out and do what you have to do.

It was a late summer evening, cool enough for a light jacket, especially after the sun had set. Mike and I were working homicide, driving west on Madison Street in the 3800 block. About 25 yards ahead of us a young man came darting out of a gangway, looking over his shoulder,  running from right to left into traffic. He reached the traffic lane directly in front of us when a very loud shot rang out from the gangway. He went face down, rolled onto his back, staring at the gangway as he tried to use his legs to push himself further away to no avail. He lost consciousness almost immediately.

Mike picked up the microphone and shouted.

“Seventy-four–o-seven. Emergency! We have an on view shots fired, man shot on the street at 3830 West Madison.”

I eased our car closer to the victim but remained about 10 yards back from the gangway. I put the car in park, positioning it to shield the victim from traffic. We paused for a moment to hear if our dispatcher had read our message. He did.

“Attention cars on City-Wide, we have a homicide unit with shots fired on the street and a man shot at 3830 West Madison.”

This was the 011^th District and we knew that in a matter of seconds City-Wide units would be on the scene with District units close behind, delayed only by the time it took their dispatcher to relay the call. We approached the victim slowly with our revolvers drawn, all the while glancing warily at the dark gangway to our right. The victim appeared to be unarmed and unconscious. A Task Force unit arrived with siren wailing from the opposite direction and positioned their car to shelter the victim from the west.

“Call an ambulance,” we shouted as we headed to the gangway.

“You guys got a description?” they called to us.

“Negative—the shot came from the gangway.”

We got to the mouth of a narrow gangway, not more than four feet wide, lined with solid brick walls on both sides for the entire length. No cover, no concealment. The smell of gunpowder hung in the air as we peered down the dim length of the now empty passageway. Mike and I slowly crept towards the rear, revolvers drawn, sitting ducks for anyone who might suddenly reappear at the far end. It seemed a hundred yards long when in reality it was probably no more than a hundred feet.  These are the moments when cops hear their own heartbeat. After an eternity the rear opened onto a narrow lot occupied by a small construction office trailer. The lights were on and the door was ajar. We approached, again very slowly, remaining on the ground level as we gently pushed the door at the top of two stairs. An older black gentleman had his back to us as he carefully hung a shotgun on the far wall. We waited until he turned towards us, empty handed.

“Police! Keep your hands where we can see them.”

“I’m okay, I ain’t did nothin’.” He looked harmless… even kindly as he responded. Maybe he was threatened by the gunman also.

Mike spoke first.

“Did you shoot that boy?”

“Yassuh, I capped that niggah’s ass. He kept messing with me. I tole him not to mess with me no mo.”

Moments later we exited the gangway onto the sidewalk. Mike had his hand on the handcuff chain as he walked the prisoner out. I carried the shotgun.

“That was fast!” commented the Task Force unit.

“Ya, we don’t fuck around,” I answered with a smart ass air of confidence and just a bit of swagger.

The scene out front had changed dramatically since we had entered the gangway. Marked squads were curb to curb. Paramedics had cut away the teenager’s pant leg and were applying a dressing to the worst area of a buckshot wound. The boy was awake and alert now laying in a puddle of urine. Perhaps he had just fainted from fright.

The distinctive wail of a lone Chicago Police siren heralded the arrival of still another unit. A homicide car pulled into the center of the milieu.

“Didn’t you get the disregard?” I asked as our cohorts from Area Four rolled down their windows.

“Yeah, we were on the south side, but we kept coming because you sounded scared.”

I looked them straight in the eye, searching for a hint of insult or sarcasm but found none. I saw instead an expression of genuine concern that cops will seldom admit to. I diverted my eyes to the pavement before I replied.

“Yeah…

…well…

…maybe that’s ’cause we were scared.”

What Goes Around, Comes Around

Fast forward some fifteen years… I am a Sergeant now, working in the department’s Video Services Section. We find ourselves summoned to the mayor’s office to videotape a personal message to a charitable organization. To say we were nervous would be a supreme understatement. None of us had ever met the Mayor.  As we readied our equipment I reviewed everything that could go wrong. It was a long list. We tried to at least plan for every eventuality.

The hour arrived and we found ourselves waiting in the outer office with a sense of foreboding. This experience could easily turn into a disaster given the combination of high tech equipment and what we perceived as an impatient mayor with no tolerance for mistakes. Without fanfare the door to the inner office suddenly opened and we were ushered in with our flatbed truck full of lighting and video equipment. I scanned the unfamiliar surroundings… The mayor was sitting behind a large desk befitting the office. At the far left a young man was sitting on a straight chair leaning precariously against the wall. His tie was loose and his shirtsleeves rolled up. He looked at me and literally leapt from his chair.

“Jim, Jim Padar!” he yelled. Sensing my confusion he held out his hand. “I’m Chief of Staff here now. What are you doing here Jim?”

My mind raced as I shook his hand and explained my present assignment. I recognized from the media that he was one of the mayor’s top aides. But how on earth did he know me? I had no recollection of how I might know him. He turned almost immediately to a slightly startled mayor.

“Mayor, I want to introduce you to one of Chicago’s finest officers. Sergeant Jim Padar, a real gentleman. I met Jim at Maxwell Street Homicide when I was a City News reporter. He’s a really good man!” He was positively effusive.

The mayor greeted me cordially and I introduced the rest of my team. For our crew it was the beginning of a warm relationship with the city’s chief executive officer.

Later as we packed up for the day I chuckled to my self. Somehow, some way deep inside, the Mayor’s Chief of Staff knew that years ago I was not the one who put a condom in his coffee.

“You Saved My Baby!”

Chicago’s West Side, 1975. The radio call was a man stabbed.

Mike and I trotted in between the buildings of the Henry Horner Homes, but we instinctively slowed approaching the play lot. There was a crowd as one would expect on this warm summer evening especially at the scene of a stabbing—but the people were strangely quiet—there was clearly something else going on here. Just a few months earlier a Chicago Police Officer had been shot and killed by a sniper from these buildings. It was not a nice place to be and tonight we were the first officers on the scene.

We slowed and unsnapped our holsters, keeping our hands on our snub nose revolvers as we continued more cautiously toward the group. Our uniform was “summer homicide,” short sleeve dress shirts, ties and slacks. Our sport coats hung on the rear seat hooks in our unmarked sedan now parked at the curb on the south edge of the housing project. Our lifeline, our radio, was firmly affixed to the dashboard of the car; the Detective Division would be the last in the department to be upgraded to the new handheld personal radios.

As we got closer, the crowd took note and created a path for us. In the center of the group lay a muscular teen-ager, staring wide eyed at the sky. No one was within 20 feet of him and we stopped in our tracks when we saw why. The shirtless young black male had been stabbed in the neck—the right carotid artery to be exact—and with each contraction of his heart a stream of blood shot 10 to 15 feet from his body. He writhed about from time to time and the direction of the blood would shift slightly with each movement. The crowd would murmur and shift even further away. We snapped our holster straps closed.

“Oh shit!” Mike and I exclaimed simultaneously. No matter how many first aid movies you may have seen, nothing can prepare you for this sight in real life.

“I’ll get a compress,” said Mike as he headed back to the car.

“And call for an ambulance!” I yelled after him as I approached the young man.

In our police careers both Mike and I had witnessed people bleed out from massive head wounds or other horrendous trauma that simply could not be staunched with the 4″ gauze compresses we carried in our case. But this was different. The point of bleeding was immediately identifiable. If I could just get my fingers on that point and apply pressure until Mike retuned, he might have a chance. I wasn’t quite sure how we would apply a compress with enough pressure and avoid strangling the young man at the same time, but that was not the present problem.

Somehow I got close enough to his body without getting a direct hit. I knelt next to him and placed the fingers of my right hand directly on the wound. I could feel the carotid pulsing but miraculously the bleeding stopped. With that accomplished I had time to contemplate our next move, but I didn’t have the faintest idea what that would be. I looked at his face, still wide eyed but conscious. Primal fear was the only way to describe his expression. The crowd stared silently. In the background I could hear the wail of responding sirens. What seemed like several minutes was in reality probably only seconds.

Mike, 12^th District uniform personnel and two paramedics burst through the crowd at the same time… and they stopped in their tracks.

“Oh shit,” said the paramedics as they looked at streams of blood spatter that had streaked across the concrete.

“No shit,” I muttered to myself.

They showed a light on the man’s neck and my hand.

“Don’t move your hand!” they said as they opened their case of magic.

“Flatten your palm against his neck, but don’t move your fingers. Pressure! Maintain pressure!”

Okay I’m doing that I thought to myself.

Imagine my surprise when their magic appeared to be yards and yards of Ace bandages wrapped around my hand and the victim’s neck.

“And your plan is?” I asked

“You’re coming with us,” they said. “And don’t move your fingers!”

One of the paramedics retreated to the ambulance and returned with the stretcher. It wasn’t easy but somehow they maneuvered the patient, now totally unconscious, onto the stretcher, raised it to about waist high and all of us began to glide slowly toward the street. Once at the ambulance it was apparent that I was on the wrong side for conventional transport.

“You’ll have to kneel next to him.”

I looked at the corrugated steel floor. “Not without a pillow.”

“Give the pussy a pillow,” said one of the paramedics with a glint in his eye.

“Don’t fuck with me or I’ll move my fingers.”

“Okay, okay!”

Once inside the ambulance it was all business. The one paramedic started oxygen and was attempting to start an IV line while the other was radioing vital signs to the hospital. It was the first time I recall hearing the term “hypovolemic shock” amongst other medical terms and the hospital responded in a terse exchange with the paramedic on the radio.

The silent crowd had come alive and surrounded our vehicle and began pounding on the sides.

“What choo doin?”

“Ain’t you goin a take em?”

“Go! Go! Go!” They began to chant, all the while pounding on the sides of the ambulance.

The paramedic was still struggling with the IV.

A blue and white checkered hat appeared at the sliding window on the rear door.

“Hey guys, ya gotta move. There’s too many of them here.”

“Godammit!” cursed the paramedic on the radio.

“Stand-by, we have to move!” he shouted into the radio.

He climbed into the driver’s seat and we sped a few blocks to a parking lot on the far side of the Chicago Stadium.

“If we don’t get an IV started we’re going to lose him.” he said as he climbed back with us.

“Negative on the IV” ordered the hospital. “Transport stat!”

“Give me five more seconds,” said the paramedic next to me.

And then miraculously, “Got it!”

“Let’s move!”

I had never ridden in anything other than an old fashioned Cadillac ambulance and was astounded to observe that the newer ambulances were built on a truck chassis. Every block of our ride reminded me of that fact.

At the back door of County we once again had to gyrate and contort to get the two of us out of the ambulance, my right hand and his neck remaining securely fastened together. That accomplished we snaked our way through the corridor of the Emergency Room—which strangely was not our destination. We rolled out into the hallway where an elevator took us to the second floor Trauma Unit known simply as Ward 32. I had been there dozens of times investigating various shooting and stabbings. The Cook County Trauma Unit was probably one of the most competent in the world, but this visit would be quite different for me.

If I thought the patient and I were to be immediately released from one another I was mistaken. The paramedics described the incredulous scene to the doctors and they turned to me questioningly.

“That’s right,” I said, “He was pumping 10 to 15 foot streams.”

“And that’s where your fingers are now?”

I nodded.

“Don’t move your hand.”

And they started to work their medical magic. The victim was smoothly transferred from the fire department stretcher to the trauma unit gurney. His blood pressure was perilously low, called out with a single number rather than the pair of figures we are used to hearing. “Sixty!” And a few moments later, “Fifty-five!” Pulse was rapid. There were no breath sounds in his right lung. A urinary catheter was inserted—that always caused me to shudder no matter how many times I had seen the procedure. They couldn’t start their own IV and the one started in the parking lot of the Chicago Stadium was now being used to push a unit of blood while they started a cutdown in his groin to provide for a more rapid infusion of blood.

At any given moment there were four or more persons working on him, the medical terms being thrown about by doctors and nurses alike sounded like foreign language to me. I understood enough to know that they suspected that internal bleeding may have drained into his plural cavity causing the right lung to collapse. They called for a chest tube to be inserted immediately next to where my right elbow was positioned. I shifted away a few inches, but I couldn’t move any further. The incision and insertion without anesthetic resulted in a low moan and some movement on the patient’s part and I took that as an encouraging sign. But when the tube was finally inserted bright red blood flowed out, confirming internal bleeding.

“Clamp it! Clamp it!” someone shouted. “We need to get more blood into him.”

Every step was a balancing act but slowly I began to get the general impression that the plan was to prepare him for transport to the operating room. A vascular surgery team had been assembled and was in place. How far would I go, I wondered silently.

Suddenly they were concentrating on the ace bandages around my hand and his neck.

“Don’t move your hand until we tell you!” Maintain pressure!”

They started to unwrap several feet of blood soaked elastic bandages.

“Okay… when we tell you… remove your hand and step away.”

I checked the path behind me and nodded my head.

“Now!” shouted the doctor.

I pulled my hand away and stepped into the pathway behind me without looking back at the patient. We had been joined together for well over an hour. As I flexed my hand and elbow, he and his gurney were disappearing out the door on the way to the OR. I found a wash station at the back of the Trauma Unit and scrubbed with a Hexachlorophene impregnated sponge for several minutes. While I was drying, Mike appeared at my side.

“Where’s that 4″ compress I sent you for?” I said with mock indignation.

“Go fuck yourself,” he responded. “Can we leave now, doctor?”

We laughed and the medical people still in the trauma unit shot us a look.

I had blood on my shirt and I was sure there had to be some on my trousers. We only had about 90 minutes left on our shift.

“Let’s go in to the office. I’m going to ask to be excused so I can go home and cleanup. Do we have any idea who this guy is?”

“I know who he is,” said Mike facetiously. “Wiggins. Larry Wiggins. He’s 19 and he lives in the Henry Horner Homes.”

“Well I’m glad you were doing something useful while I was… tied up.” We both laughed again.

Back at our Maxwell Street office, Mike started typing a Serafini Report, an unofficial note detailing what we knew, in the event Wiggins expired before we returned to work the next afternoon.

I headed home to shower and throw in a load of laundry.

•  •  •

For the next two days we immediately checked on Larry Wiggins’ condition when we arrived for work. The first day post-op they carried him as “critical.” The second day he got a half notch upgrade to “critical but stable,” a meager improvement.

We attempted some interviews at the Henry Horner Homes but the attitude toward the police was several steps beyond hostile. The offender was nick-named “Pookie” and we got a general physical description, but nobody would identify him beyond that. We enlisted the help of a robbery detective from our adjoining office. He was an encyclopedia of ghetto nicknames. Problem was, he told us, there were about a dozen Pookies on the west side. But with Larry Wiggins very slowly improving, he began to drop lower on our priority list. Homicide was the game and our Maxwell Street unit had earned the nickname “The Murder Factory” the hard way. Wiggins was alive and improving—time enough to interview him in person in a week or so.

The third day when we arrived for work, there was no need to call the hospital. The sergeant handed us a report from our morgue man reclassifying the Wiggins Aggravated Battery to Homicide/Murder. Larry Wiggins had expired suddenly during the early morning hours. The autopsy listed his cause of death as “Cerebral Thrombosis secondary to Traumatic Laceration of the Right Carotid Artery (Stab Wound). In short, Larry had suffered a stroke from a blood clot that had probably originated from the site of the knife wound. That put Larry back at the top of our priority list for the evening.

After roll call we trekked over to the Henry Horner Homes once again, but this time we went directly to the apartment where Larry had lived with his mother and sisters. As we entered, the mood was quiet and somber. A girl I would later learn was Larry’s younger sister turned to her mother.

“Mama, this is the detective I told you about,” as she nodded toward me.

“Oh sweet Jesus!” she shouted as she took about three steps and put me in a bear hug. “You saved my baby! You saved my baby!” She sobbed as she held tight to me.

Didn’t she know? Hadn’t they told her? Her son had been dead now for well over 12 hours. I held her tight, not knowing what her reaction was going to be, but she had to know the truth.

“Ma’am! Ma’am!” I put my mouth close to her ear. “Larry passed away early this morning.”

She released me and put her hands on each of my arms just above the elbow.

“Don’t you understand?” she said. “You gave him a chance, oh Lord, you gave him a chance!”

I stared dumbly at her as she regained her composure.

“Jesus put you there so we would could see him and tell him we loved him… and say good-bye. You did that for us.”

“Yes ma’am,” was all I could say.

“We’re looking for Pookie,” I added lamely after a short pause.

She stood straighter and stronger, taking on the persona of the tough, resilient black matriarchs that I had seen so often in the ghetto.

“We know Pookie,” she said. “We’ll bring him in to you.”

“Mrs. Wiggins, that’s our job. We don’t want anything happening to you… or to Pookie.”

She smiled, indulgently I thought.

“His mama and I—we bring him in to you—ain’t nothin’ goin to happen to him. We be doin’ the right thing.” Her tone left no room for argument.

Two hours later an entourage arrived at the Maxwell Street Homicide office with Pookie in tow. He was a big young man, but with his mama at his side he looked meek and bedraggled. They stayed at the office while we took statements from Pookie and several witnesses. The Assistant State’s Attorney from the Felony Review Unit arrived, reviewed the case and approved murder charges.

It was well after midnight when we called for Pookie to be transported to the lock-up. The two mamas, Larry’s sisters and two witnesses left together. Everybody’s lives had changed the past few days, but the mamas walked out arm in arm, solid and straight. In a very real sense, they had each lost a son to ghetto violence, but no pair of mothers ever appeared more resolute in adversity.

Christmas Mass with the Police

Christmas morning in Chicago never really dawned. The dark orangey skies reflecting the sodium vapor lights remained a dark gray when the timers finally killed the street lamps. The thick clouds allowed the temperature to sneak above freezing for the first time in two weeks and the heavy snow cover actually started steaming a bit adding to the overall dullness of the day. By 10 AM the dawn finally gave up and the day settled into the dreariness of a dark, cloudy winter day.

The marked twelfth District squad and the unmarked detective car pulled to the curb in front of the Mercy Home for Boys and Girls. The century old building appeared to loom ominously in the background. There was no call that brought them here this morning, rather Christmas Mass to be held in the small second floor chapel, officiated by the Police Chaplain.

The four men gingerly exited their vehicles and cursed silently as they attempted to navigate the high piles of soot black snow that lined the streets. The homicide detectives and uniform patrolmen nodded to one another in a silent, grim greeting of sorts. The detective in the black trench coat cursed aloud when he slipped and fell against the salt laden squad, leaving a white swath of salt on the side of his coat.  The detective in the rumpled Colombo trench coat laughed and in a distinctive, slow, hoarse voice said, “See, you gotta have a tan coat da’ the winter.”

“Yeah, aren’t you the Beau Brummel of the police world,” his partner replied.

They climbed the stairs to the room where the ambiance was a bit warmer. The place of worship seated forty without breaking out folding chairs. It was a simple chapel, with small stained glass windows at the front and rear. There were no Christmas decorations but the edge of the altar bore a blue and white checkered band matching that of the police hats. The ceiling held a battery of black box Fresnel stage lights, barn doors and scrims, belying the fact that one of the chapel’s primary uses was for videotaping the Mass for shut-ins. However, on the second and fourth Sunday of each month and each Christmas and Easter the Chicago Police Chaplain held the “Police Mass.”

The priest, in street clothes, moved easily among the gathering group, exchanging greetings and an occasional emotional hug. Retirees, spouses, and off-duty police with pistols at their waist mingled and exchanged Christmas greetings. This morning there were a bit more on-duty officers than normal; the district officers in full street uniform, tactical officers in jeans with their black safety vests festooned with star, name tag, radio and extra magazines of ammunition and of course the two detectives who sat at the very rear of the chapel. For many of the on-duty officers it would be their only chance to attend a religious service for Christmas.

The priest disappeared into a make-shift sanctuary at the front of the chapel and emerged moments later in his robes. He stood in front of the altar.

“Good morning,” he said quietly.

The congregation was busy chattering amongst one another.

“Good morning,” said the priest a bit louder than before. No reaction.

“Role call!” shouted the priest, in his best Watch Commander voice. The group laughed and took their seats. As they did so, the Chaplain beamed. These were his people… this was his flock. He had married them, baptized their children, ridden the streets with them, and prayed with them in emergency rooms across the city as one of them lay wounded or dying. His chest almost visibly puffed with pride as he surveyed the room.

“Let’s take a moment to quiet our souls before we proceed.”

The two uniform officers keyed their radio briefly.

“Twelve-twelve, hold us down for lunch at the Mercy Home.”

“Ten four twelve-twelve, you’re down for lunch.” That would give them some thirty minutes without a radio assignment. The tactical officers and the detectives were on a bit looser leash, generally not subject to assignments from the dispatcher but they kept their radios on and on low volume.

“Before we dare go on, let us call to mind our sins and ask forgiveness,” said the priest.

The chapel was totally quiet until the radios broke the silence.

“Twelve-sixteen, cars in twelve and cars on city-wide, we have a man with a gun at 2323 West Lexington, no further information.” That was about a mile and a half from the tiny chapel.

From the very back of the chapel came the unmistakably growly drawl of the detective.

“Guess what he got for Christmas?”

The Mass continued and almost as if on cue, at the next momentary silence the radios in the room burst to life again.

“Attention cars in twelve and on city-wide, we now have shots fired on Lexington.”

“They must be opening the rest of the presents.” Same voice… from the rear of the chapel.

The tactical officers got up quietly and exited the side door, the rapid pace of their boots echoed on the stairway.

“Attention cars in twelve and on city-wide, one more time, we now have a man shot at that Lexington address, that’s 2323 West Lexington.”

The uniformed officers exited the south chapel door, the detectives exited the opposite side door.

“Twelve-twelve, cancel that lunch, we’ll take in Lexington”

From the opposite hallway, “Yeah dispatch, this is homicide 7403, tell our office we’re heading for that Lexington scene.”

The priest paused for a long moment. Less than five minutes into the service, the radios, along with their officers, had left the building, the sirens now fading into the distance.

The Chaplain resumed, “Let’s take a moment and pray for our people on the street this Christmas morning…”

I Hate Fires

Being a cop brings you to the scene of fires from time to time, mostly for traffic control which can be supremely boring at best, or cold and wet at worst. Worse even than that however, are those rare instances when you arrive at the scene of a fire before the fire department. If it is an occupied residential building, it is incumbent upon you to initiate some sort of rescue attempt until the pros arrive.

Now I’ve never pretended to understand the science of firefighting anymore than firefighters understand the mechanics of running into a building where there have been gunshots fired. Fires are probably more complicated than men with guns. Police officers and firefighters are different animals with different training and comfort levels in the scenarios where they have chosen to make their livelihood. Many police officers, to be sure, have received accolades and official lifesaving awards for rescuing people from burning buildings. Me? While I have succeeded in rescuing perhaps as many as two dozen people from burning buildings during my career, I have received nothing but reprimands—both written and oral—as well as causing myself great discomfort and scaring myself half to death. I hate fires.

It was March 29^th, 1968, a brisk early spring day. My partner Tony and I were working days in the 18^th District. When we climbed into our beat car at 8:30 AM, it was sunny with a temperature just easing out of the forties. The sun warmed the car rapidly so we hung our jackets on the hooks in the rear seat. Because we anticipated wearing our jackets whenever we left the car, we turned the cuffs on our fresh long sleeve shirts under one time. If the day wasn’t too messy, the cuffs would remain clean and we could get one more day of wear before laundering the shirt.

We took a few radio assignments, dutifully donning and buttoning our jackets each time we left the vehicle.

At about noon, the chatter on our radio picked up as the 1^st District began to mobilize traffic control beat cars and foot posts for a department store fire on State Street. Wieboldt’s and Montgomery Ward reported fires, very quickly followed by Carson’s. Three simultaneous fires within a two block area quickly became a major incident as fire equipment sped into the loop from all directions. But outside of seeing fire equipment stream south through our district en route to the loop, units from our district were not affected. That is until the dispatcher paged our car.

“1822, take the fire at 636 North State—fire is not on the scene.” That was bothersome. Normally the phraseology would have been “…fire is en route.”

Tony caught the subtle alteration in semantics and looked at me, “Of course they’re not en route—they’re all downtown!” We knew our Fire Department was amog the finest in the country but common sense told us at this moment in time we would be on our own at whatever we found on State Street.

We were only a few blocks away and in moments we were at the fire. A street level restaurant was burning but the waiters, cooks and customers were standing on the sidewalk. An adjacent stairway led to apartments on the second and third floors immediately above the storefront. We parked the squad several doors away to avoid obstructing the fire equipment and we dashed from the car. As we approached the stairs, panicked people coming down called to us.

“There’s still people up there!”

Tony and I ran up the stairs and began pounding on doors. There was smoke in the stairwell, but things were tolerable. We led several people down to the safety of the sidewalk.

“Mr. Lee! Mr. Lee! He’s till up there. Third floor rear, he works nights… he must be sleeping.”

Tony and I headed up the stairs for the second time and on the third floor we pounded on the rear apartment door and screamed the best we could in the ever increasing smoke. Mr. Lee finally opened the door, a small Asian man, still sleepy eyed. In seconds we had him safely out on the sidewalk in front of the burning building.

And then we did something incredibly stupid.

A hysterical woman approached us.

“My puppies, my puppies!” she screamed. “They’re on the third floor front, in a box in the living room.”

“What kind of box? Exactly where is it?”

“It’s just a cardboard box on the floor in the living room.” Tony and I headed to the stairwell for our third trip.

“And my parakeet!” she yelled as we disappeared into the smoke.

As we passed the second floor landing we could hear snapping and popping from the front apartment. The smoke was rapidly becoming extremely uncomfortable. No fire units were yet on the scene. In the third floor apartment we quickly located the tiny puppies and the parakeet. We headed downstairs, Tony carrying the box of puppies and me following with the bird. Somehow, even then, I realized the image of a cop fleeing a burning building with a birdcage was not exactly heroic. I should have grabbed the puppies.

When we reached the second floor landing things were not good. Smoke and heat were streaming up towards us and the crackling sound was even louder than before. The only comfort was the sound of the first fire unit finally arriving out on the street. As we headed down the last flight of stairs, a portion of the stairwell wall broke away, tumbling into the restaurant which was now a raging inferno. We had no choice but to make a dash for it. Two seconds later we were on the street turning the parakeet and puppies over to a woman who was now sobbing uncontrollably.

The only good thing about our third trip out of the building was that there was no media present to snap a picture of the dramatic bird cage rescue. The news types were all downtown covering the trio of department store arsons that ultimately caused over twenty million dollars in damage.

As we coughed and blew the black soot out of our noses I glanced across the street and saw our District Commander standing quietly in civilian clothes. I gave a quick report to the Battalion Chief, telling him I thought we had everyone out of the building, A hose was in position but not yet charged and a ladder company was moving their unit into position in front of the building and firefighters were preparing to climb up to the roof. We could feel the intense heat from the middle of the street. Tony and I walked to the far curb to catch our breath, calm down and watch from a safe distance. Our Commander had left the scene.

Several minutes later our field sergeant approached us.

“Hey guys, go into the station and report to the Watch Commander.” He would want a written report no doubt, to give him background to initiate a department life saving award.

Once in the Watch Commander’s office we immediately noticed the pink form-sets on his desk. SPAR forms. Summary Punishment Action Reports.

“The Commander wants you two disciplined.”

“For what?” we asked incredulously.

“Your sleeves were rolled up.”

“Oh for chrissake,” I said. “Let us talk to him. We just rescued a whole shitload of people from a burning building.”

“Were your sleeves rolled up?”

“Well, turned under once,” I said looking down at my sleeves now smudged with soot.

“Then you better not talk to him… he saw you and he is really pissed. Just sign the SPAR for a written reprimand and it’s over with. Don’t make it any worse by challenging him.”

“Probably saw me with the goddam parakeet,” I muttered

“What?”

“Never mind.”

It was our first formal department discipline.  Did I mention how much I hate fires?

•  •  •

Several years later and a promotion to detective found me working out of Maxwell Street Homicide. Homicide detectives don’t get assigned to traffic control at fires but there were occasions where we found it necessary to visit fire buildings after the fact to investigate deaths by arson. I found that far preferable to actually being inside burning buildings.

It was a cold February night around 2 AM as Mike and I headed back to the Maxwell Street Headquarters to catch up on some typing. As we were northbound on Morgan, approaching our office from the south, we saw flames in the first floor apartment just three doors south of our building.

“7407 emergency,” we paged the City-Wide Two dispatcher.

“All units standby, 7407 go with your emergency.”

“Yeah, squad, we have a residential three story building fire at 1341 South Morgan, looks to be occupied, fire’s not on the scene—we’re going in.”

We jumped from our unmarked squad without waiting for a response.

As Yogi Berra would say, “It was déjà vu all over again.”

We dashed up the five or six steps to the vestibule door which was locked. We each carried an expired credit card in our front pocket but Mike was first with his. He jimmied the latch in about 10 seconds, 10 precious seconds. Once inside the hallway we felt the door to the first floor front apartment. Hot! We hesitated just long enough to hear a distant siren, probably from the fire station at 1123 West Roosevelt. Leave this door for the pros, we thought as we started pounding on the other doors, gradually working our way up the stairs to the third floor.

Sleepy people started appearing. The smoke this time was worse and only intensified as we reached the top floor. As soon as we satisfied ourselves of a response from each apartment, we turned to head back down the stairs into the ominous heat and black billowing smoke roiling up from the first floor. Things had deteriorated rapidly and now Mike and I had serious doubts about our ability to get ourselves out of the building safely. What to do? Well… if you’re paying attention, the Lord sends angels in many forms.

“Office!” screamed a heavyset black lady. “Ya’ all come through here,” she said as she motioned to her third floor apartment. “We be goin’ out the back way!”

Well… that’s probably covered at the Fire Academy in Basic Firefighting 101; you do not have to exit the same way you came in, but I never had that course at the Police Academy.

As we went through her apartment, the air became cooler and less smoky and when we got to the back porch, the crisp, cold air was positively refreshing. We made our way, coughing heavily, down and to the front of the building as the Fire Department was charging their first line.

“Are you guys the coppers who went in?” yelled a fireman.

We nodded, still coughing, unable to speak.

“Lieu! The cops are accounted for!” he called over his shoulder.

The Fire Lieutenant was heading into the building as we walked over to the Battalion Chief who was being briefed by another fireman.

“Hey,” my voice was surprisingly raspy and I spoke between coughs. “We didn’t get into the first floor front.”

“We’re in there now,” said the Chief. “Damned space heaters!”

Our car was blocked by fire equipment so Mike and I walked around the corner and up the long flight of stairs to our office on the second floor. At the top of the stairs was the men’s room. We stopped and splashed our sooty faces with cold water and blew an unbelievable amount of black out our noses before we headed back to the homicide office.

“You guys are in deep shit now,” announced our cantankerous and paranoid midnight sergeant.

“How’s that?” we asked with genuine surprise.

“I don’t know what you’re up to, but the First Deputy’s Office just called and asked for the name and star numbers of the detectives on 7407. I’m tellin’ ya, whatever ya done, you’re both in shit now. I gave them your name and star numbers… and I’m not covering for you!”

“Sarge, we just got a dozen people out of a burning building down the block. Downtown will probably be expecting a report from you nominating us for a lifesaving award.”

“That’s all bullshit. I’m not covering for you no matter what you did!” he sputtered.  He was turning beet red and we thought he might stroke out so we found typewriters as far from his office as we could and started typing up some old cases.

The incident would rate a line or two on the 24 hour report for the department brass, but without any further input from our supervisors it would die there. Our sergeant would spend the rest of the early morning hours locked in his world of paranoia muttering about the trouble we were facing.

Did I mention to you? I hate fires.