The Witness (Badge of Honor 4)

What is known is that three (or four) of the perpetrators (almost certainly including Abu Ben Mohammed, and probably including Hector Carlos Estivez and Muhammed el Sikkim) went to the Credit Department on the first floor and

(a) Removed approximately four hundred eighty dollars in bills and coins-in-rolls from the cashier’s cash drawer.

(b) Broke into the interior compartments (three) of the safe. The safe itself was open at the time the robbery began. There was no cash in the safe.

(c) Emptied the contents of a wastebasket (mostly waste paper) into the safe and set it afire.

Sometime during this period, Mr. John Francis Cohn, forty-nine, of Queen Lane in East Falls, supervisor of the Maintenance Department of Goldblatt & Sons Credit Furniture & Appliances, Inc., apparently entered the building via a door on Rodman Street, the narrow alley at the rear of the building. This self-closing door was closed to the public and was normally locked. Mr. Cohn had a key.

Apparently, Mr. Cohn then descended to the basement of the store by the stairwell between the freight and passenger elevators. He then uncrated (or completed uncrating) a special, demonstration model Hotpoint washing machine, constructed of a plastic material so that the interior of the apparatus was visible, and, using a hand truck, put the machine onto the freight elevator.

He then apparently ascended to the second floor, where he had received instructions to install the machine in the Washer and Drier Department.

He moved the machine to the rear of the second floor, and then apparently became aware that there were no salespeople on duty. (Or possibly wished to ascertain precisely where he was to set up the machine.) He then got back onto the freight elevator and descended to the first floor, and opened the door and the elevator gate.

At this point, apparently, he saw the perpetrators and attempted to flee by moving the elevator. At this point, the perpetrators saw him, and at least two of them then fired their weapons at him.

Mr. Cohn was struck by four bullets, two of .38 Special caliber and two of .45 Colt Automatic Pistol caliber. Three additional .38 Special caliber and one additional .45 ACP bullets were later found in the woodwork of the elevator.

Mr. Cohn fell inward into the elevator.

The perpetrators then entere

d the stairwell and went to the third floor. They reported to the others that they “had blown away a honky motherfucker on the elevator,” and that the cash register had contained “only a lousy five hundred fucking dollars.”

A conversation, within hearing, but out of sight of the victims, was then held, during which one of the perpetrators announced he had found an inflammable fluid and soaked some carpet with it, and that he was going to “burn the fucking place down, and the honkies with it.”

Another perpetrator was heard to say, “It’s time to get the fuck out of here.”

The perpetrators then, without further discussion, apparently ignited the inflammable fluid that had been poured upon a stack of carpet, descending to the first floor by means of the stairwell between the freight and passenger elevators, exited the building via a fire door in the rear of the building opening onto the alley (Rodman Street).

Opening of the fire door set off an alarm, which both caused bells mounted on the front and rear of the building and in the finance and executive offices to begin to ring, and was connected with the Holmes Security Service. A Holmes employee then

(a) Telephoned the Police Radio Room,

(b) Attempted to telephone the Goldblatt Building to verify that the alarm had not been accidentally triggered, and on failing to have anyone answer the telephone,

(c) Contacted a Holmes patrol unit in the area, informing him of the triggering of the alarm in the Goldblatt Building.

The Radio Room of the Philadelphia Police Department is on the second floor of the Police Administration Building at Eighth and Race Streets in downtown Philadelphia.

“Police Emergency,” the operator, a thirty-seven-year-old woman named Janet Grosse, said into her headset.

“This is Holmes,” the caller said. “I have a signal of a fire door audible alarm at Goldblatt Furniture, northwest corner, 8th and South.”

The call from Holmes Security Service was treated exactly as any other call for help would be treated, except of course that Mrs. Grosse, who had worked in Police Radio for eleven years, seemed to recognize the voice of the Holmes man and made a subconscious decision from the phrasing of the report that it was genuine, and not coming from someone who got his kicks sending the cops on wild goose chases.

“Got you covered,” she said, which was not exactly the precise response called for by regulations.

Eighth and South streets, Mrs. Grosse knew, was in the 6th Police District, which has its headquarters at llth and Winter Streets. She looked up at her board and saw that Radio Patrol Car 611 was available for service.

She opened her microphone.

“Six Eleven, northwest corner, 8th and South, Goldblatt’s Furniture, an audible alarm.”

RPC 611 was a somewhat battered 1972 Plymouth with more than 100,000 miles on its odometer. When the call came, Officer James J. Molyneux, Badge Number 6771, who had been on the job eighteen years, had just turned left off South Broad Street onto South Street.

He picked up his microphone.