For example, a police officer in the Sixteenth District would routinely have his radio switch set to F-l, which would permit him to communicate with his (the West) division. Switching to F-2 would put him on the universal J-Band. A car assigned to South Philadelphia with his switch set to F-l would be in contact with the South Division. A detective operating anywhere with his switch set to F-l would be on the Detective’s H-Band, but he too, by switching to F-2, would be on the J-Band.
Senior police officers have more sophisticated radios, and are able to communicate with other senior police brass, the detective frequency, or on the frequency of some other service in which they have a personal interest. Ordinary police cars are required to communicate through the dispatcher, and forbidden to talk car-to-car. Car-to-car communication is authorized on the J-, H-, and S-Bands.
“Communications discipline” is strictly enforced. Otherwise, there would be communications chaos.
There is provision, however, for a radio room dispatcher- simply by throwing the appropriate switch-to send a radio message simultaneously to every radio-equipped police vehicle, from a police boat making its way against the current of the Delaware River through the hundreds of police cars on patrol to the commissioner’s and mayor’s cars.
This most often happens when an operator takes a call in which the calling party says, “Officer needs assistance. Shots fired.”
Not every call to 911 requesting police assistance is legitimate. Philadelphia has its fair share of lunatics-some say more than its fair share-who like to involve the cops in any number of things having nothing whatever to do with maintaining the peace and tranquillity within the City of Brotherly Love. And Philadelphia’s youth,
having watched cop movies on television to learn the cant, dial 911 ten or twelve times every day to report a murder, a body, a robbery, a car accident, anything that will cause a flock of police cars, lights flashing and sirens screaming, to descend on a particular street corner and liven up an otherwise dull period of the day.
The people who answer the telephones didn’t come to work yesterday, however-Miss Eloise T. Regis, for example, had been on the job for more than twenty years-and usually they know, from the timbre of the caller’s voice, or the assurance with which the caller raises the alarm, that this particular call is legitimate.
When Miss Regis answered the call from an excited Latino-sounding lady reporting a robbery in progress at the Roy Rogers at Broad and Snyder, she had known the call was genuine.
At 11:21, a call went out from Police Radio.
“Possible armed robbery in progress, Roy Rogers restaurant, Broad and Snyder. Unknown civilian by phone.”
Officer Kenneth J. Charlton, of the First District, then patrolling the area, responded, “One seven. In on the Roy Rogers.”
As Mrs. Fernandez was speaking excitedly with Miss Regis, there was the sound of a shot, and some unintelligible shouts.
The door to the kitchen burst open, and the fat guy with the gun came through it. He saw Mrs. Fernandez on the telephone, and when she saw him, she dropped the handset and moved away from the telephone, placing her back against the wall near the telephone.
The fat guy went to the handset dangling from the wall phone, put it to his ear, listened a moment-just long enough to be able to determine with whom Mrs. Fernandez was speaking-then grabbed the coiled expansion cord and ripped it free from the telephone.
Then he looked at Mrs. Fernandez and said, “You fucking bitch!” and raised his revolver to arm’s length and fired at her. The bullet struck her just below her left ear and exited her skull just above her right ear.
Her convulsing body slid down the wall until her knees were fully bent, and then it fell forward onto the floor.
The fat guy then brandished his revolver at the other kitchen workers. There were six: three men and three women. The fat guy had not seen Amal al Zaid when he had shoved the kitchen door open. He had done so with such force that it went past the spring stop, causing it to remain in the open position at a right angle to the doorway. Amal al Zaid was behind it, his back pressed against the wall, literally paralyzed by fear.
“In the fucking cooler, motherfuckers!” the fat guy said, waving his revolver and gesturing toward the walk-in refrigerator.
When the kitchen staff-stumbling in their haste, one of the women moaning in terror as she held both hands to her mouth-had gone inside the walk-in refrigerator, the fat guy walked quickly toward it, closed the door, and looked around the kitchen.
Holy Christ! Amal al Zaid thought. That crazy nigger’s going to see me!
The fat guy found what he wanted-a wooden-handled sharpening steel-on a worktable right behind him, picked it up, and jammed it in the loops intended for a padlock in the refrigerator door. Then he turned and started for the kitchen door.
In the logical presumption that he would be seen by the guy who’d just shot Manuela, Amal al Zaid lost control of his bladder, and momentarily forgot that he was no longer a Christian.
Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name…
The fat guy looked to the left as he made his way across the kitchen, paused briefly to look down at the body of the goddamn bitch who had called the motherfucking cops, and then went through the open kitchen door into the dining area.
Amal al Zaid finally found the courage to look through the narrow crack between the door and the doorjamb, and saw that the fat guy was working his way though the dining room, collecting wallets and coin purses and watches and rings from the customers.
The other sonofabitch was at the cashier’s station by the front door, taking the paper money from the cash register.
The fat guy finished robbing the four people at the banquette he was working, then walked toward the front of the restaurant.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” the fat guy said.
“Fuck, fuck, fucking fuck, it’s a fucking cop!” the guy at the register said, gesturing through the window.