Jim Fusilli
The Guardians
Tim Foley
His stepfather was a cop, and Luther Addison became one, too, determined to address the indignities the old man suffered. A prideful shell now-racking coughs led to finding a dark spot on his lung-W.E. Addison was fading rapidly, down to a fragile hundred and six pounds from a rock-hard one eighty-five. So the burly young cop chose to keep his plan a secret from his loving family.
But as he entered the living room of his parents’ little colonial in Cambria Heights, Queens, he found his stepfather already knew. Same as it ever was: No corner of his mind escaped the man’s insight since he began courting Lucy Addison when Luther was five years old.
“Running for president?” W.E. Addison asked. The stereo was off, and his rocking chair didn’t move.
“Organization needs a president,” the son replied lightly, trying to cut the tension. He’d already given the Entenmann’s to his mother, kissing her plump cheek as she prepared the cassoulet.
“We don’t need the organization,” W.E. said, staring ahead, shoulders high, his elbows on the chair’s curved arms.
Luther removed his blue clip-on tie. “Come on, Pop. Let’s not-”
“That’s Sergeant,” he replied sharply. “Given the topic, it’s Sergeant Addison.”
The son sat in his mother’s seat, lifting the TV Guide from the soft cushion and dropping it on the coffee table next to his eight-point service hat.
He clasped his stepfather’s frail forearm. “Should’ve been Lieutenant Addison. Precinct Commander Addison.”
“Maybe so,” the old man said. “But NYPD doesn’t need-”
“Levels the playing field, Pop,” he said softly.
“Says you’re black, not blue.”
No, Luther thought, as he stood to turn on a Hank Jones album. Says we’re black and blue.
The Times placed it inside the Metro section, but the Post allowed the story to scream on page one: “Activist Cop in Teen Shooting.”
Her Anthony was a sweet child who took his sister to Saint Helen’s every Sunday morning, cried Rose Ciccanti, near collapse in the picture the tabloid ran next to her son’s junior prom photo. “How could they do this to my Anthony?” she wailed. “My only son.”
According to the Post, Philip Altomonte, a cousin, said, “They want everything, and they’ll kill you to get it.”
What Altomonte, who was known throughout the neighborhood as Fat Philly, actually said was, “These spooks want everything, and now they got cops who’ll kill you to get it.”
On the day the story broke, neither paper, nor the Daily News for that matter, mentioned that Anthony Ciccanti Jr., a k a Little Flaps, spent eighteen months in Bridges Juvenile Center in the Bronx for his role in a scheme to rob winners in the parking lot at Aqueduct. Could’ve been worse: Their third victim was a cop who skipped duty to hit the track with a tip. The cop was carrying, but he let the crew lift his eight hundred dollars so he wouldn’t have to explain why he wasn’t on patrol.
In January, jug-eared Ciccanti was released to the bosom of Howard Beach, where the Gambino crime family reigned.
Three months later, he was dead near a Dumpster at the United Postal Service facility in Brooklyn, a short drive from his parents’ white brick house on 160th Street.
TV crews descended on the Ciccanti home, where flowers were stacked against a plaster Madonna behind an ornate fence. Their reports, which led the news at six o’clock and again at eleven, featured an ID photo of a light-skinned black man with green eyes and a smattering of freckles across and around his nose. He was identified as Luther Addison, president of the Guardians Association, a fraternal organization for black cops.
No photos of the other three policemen at the scene, all of whom were white, were provided to media. By the following morning, when the Post ran the charmless picture on its front page, it was widely believed that Patrolman Addison shot young Ciccanti, though his department-issued Glock 19 hadn’t been fired. The victim had been struck three times by rounds from a Cobra FS- 32, a classical throw-down piece. Addison didn’t carry one.
Two patrol cars had responded to the call to the UPS site, which sat on the Brooklyn-Queens border. One rolled from the 106 in Howard Beach, the other from the 75 in Brooklyn’s East New York neighborhood.
Andy Hill, an oily, permanent-boil-on-his-butt cop, was behind the wheel of the car out of Howard Beach. The other car was driven by Joe Dalrymple, who graduated with Hill from the Academy when his “always by the book, college boy, Malcolm XYZ” partner was still in high school, back when W.E. Addison was walking a beat in oven-hot Crown Heights or directing traffic at JFK, yellow slicker doing little to ward off waves of freezing rain.
In a moment of candor, Dalrymple once told his young black partner that Andy Hill was an opportunist, and connected. “His pockets never don’t jingle,” he explained with a knowing wink.
Though they’d been all over the 7-5, Internal Affairs wanted him at 1PP. Addison knew there would be photographers-Mayor Koch was holding hands in Howard Beach and calling the black activist cop on the rug would play big-so to dodge the gauntlet, he took the R train to below City Hall, stayed underground, and entered One Police Plaza via its loading dock, where two Guardian Association members were in the doghouse, along with a redhead named Restovich who discharged his firearm into a Pac-Man machine at a bar in Bensonhurst.
IAD seemed surprised he looked so composed, his polyester blues pressed to a guillotine blade’s edge.
Addison studied the stuffy, wood-paneled conference room as he dropped a manila envelope on the long table. He’d half expected they would do it in a box at the First Precinct, maybe cuff him to a soldered-on ring. The other half of his expectations was that this was all foolishness that would pass with an insincere apology after the real shooter was revealed.
“Luther Addison,” he said, adding his badge number as he sat.
On the way in, he passed framed photos of President Reagan, Mayor Koch, and Commissioner McGuire, bracketed by the Stars and Stripes and the flag of the State of New York.
The two IAD detectives were white too.
“Where’s your union rep?” asked Alderman.
“Maybe the Guardians don’t provide a rep or a lawyer,” said Zachary.
Addison looked at his wristwatch. “Eight seconds,” he said. “Took you eight seconds to flip the card.”
“Yeah, well, you knew Ciccanti was white when you shot him,” Zachary said. He was good looking, boyish with sandy brown hair and crisp-cut jaw; an unlikely choice for the bad-cop role. Maybe he wasn’t ready for any part of it: Slamming the Guardians confirmed IAD wasn’t recording the interview.
“Check my ten card,” Addison said. “I don’t carry a Cobra.”
Zachary, again: “You the kind of guy who puts everything on the ten card, Addison?”
“That’s Officer Addison,” he said sharply. “Given the topic, it’s Officer Addison. And, yes, every gun I own is listed on my ten card.”
“Hard case,” Zachary muttered as he left his chair.
“Officer, we’re just trying to piece it together,” Alderman said, tapping his middle finger on an accordion folder. “I mean, it’s a tough one, right?”
“It became tough when someone went to the media,” Addison replied. “You’re going to have to undo that and face the cover-up charges.”
“Not if we make you for it.” Zachary.
“I don’t throw down,” Addison said. “I don’t shoot unarmed kids.”
“Says…”
“Anyone you interview.”
“Long as he’s black.”
Addison shook his head and, quoting Reagan, said, “There you go again.”
Alderman said, “You told your CO you didn’t draw-”