The NYPD Tapes: A Shocking Story of Cops, Cover-ups, and Courage (24 page)

In the intervening couple of weeks that follow the Schoolcrafts’ departure from the city, they continued to try to interest someone in Adrian’s story, but there were no takers, and what happened on Halloween night remained a secret.

Back in the city, several parallel investigations were taking place within the NYPD. Brooklyn North and one arm of Internal Affairs were investigating Schoolcraft. Another arm of Internal Affairs was interviewing 81st Precinct and Brooklyn North cops about Schoolcraft’s allegations. The Quality Assurance Division was quietly following up on Adrian’s charges of downgrading of crimes, checking 81st Precinct crime reports, interviewing the victims whose reports Schoolcraft alleged were buried, and formally interviewing the precinct’s commanders and patrol officers.

But neither the Internal Affairs unit investigating the allegations or the QAD contacted Schoolcraft again to ask follow-up questions, obtain more information, or clarify any statements. All he heard from them was silence. In fact, he had not heard a chirp from QAD since the October 7 meeting that kicked off the investigation.

In the meantime, internal NYPD records show that the department’s disciplinary machine was moving hard against Schoolcraft with regard to the events of Halloween night. Perhaps never in the history of the NYPD had so many resources been directed at a single wayward police officer who went home from work 45 minutes early. This fact tends to favor the Schoolcrafts’ claims of an organized and concerted effort to discredit him, but often the
simplest explanation is the one that’s right. In the aftermath of Halloween night, almost everything the department did seemed to tilt against him.

Through November, while he was technically serving his 30-day suspension without pay, the campaign started with phone calls about his status. Initially, Adrian claimed he was sick and couldn’t come back to work.

On December 1, as the 30-day suspension period ended, the strategy changed abruptly. Larry and Adrian were making their stand in a small one-bedroom apartment just off the main drag in Johnstown. What happened next was a bizarre cat-and-mouse struggle that may be unprecedented in the history of the New York City Police Department. And it was all couched in process and procedure, as if it made some kind of logical sense.

The department sent a sergeant and a lieutenant from Brooklyn North, Marino’s command, to Johnstown. They appeared outside Schoolcraft’s door with members of the Johnstown Police Department and demanded that he return to work to face disciplinary charges. Schoolcraft told them he was too ill to travel. They left. They returned the following day, and this exchange repeated itself.

NYPD records from these visits indicated Schoolcraft could be heard saying through the door, “I don’t know what to do.” He didn’t answer the door. The funny thing about these records is that they describe a series of events that are at once weird and Orwellian and even laughable, yet are conveyed in utterly serious bureaucratic language.

The police tried to get police union lawyer Stuart London to relay a message. He declined because he hadn’t spoken to Adrian. Because he refused to return, Schoolcraft was suspended again. He was, at that point, technically AWOL, which would lead to more disciplinary charges.

On December 7, Larry called the NYPD’s personnel office. He was told that Adrian had to come back to work. “He has to come back. If he does not come back, he will be listed as AWOL, and he’ll be suspended again,” a sergeant told him. “Time is precious in these instances. It’s going to put him in a bad light, once he gets suspended. They will not perceive that as being cooperative.”

On December 8, police arrived again at the apartment and banged on the door repeatedly. The officers could hear the Schoolcrafts inside the apartment, but they didn’t answer.

They noted in their reports that Schoolcraft’s sneakers had been taken inside. They could hear someone inside saying, “The car’s back. That’s what they do. They sneak around.” The NYPD knocked again and announced their presence. Someone inside laughed. In response, the police shoved a copy of the suspension order under the door.

Finally, at about 3 p.m., Larry opened the door and spoke to the officers. They ordered Schoolcraft to report to the 50th Precinct in the Bronx. Schoolcraft did not report as ordered.

Two days later, Assistant Chief Gerald Nelson signed off on charges and specifications against Schoolcraft for failing to comply with orders not to leave the precinct on October 31 and for being AWOL on December 8.

The parallel internal investigations continued. Mauriello was investigating in his precinct. The Brooklyn North inspections unit, overseen by Chief Marino and Nelson, was investigating. And Internal Affairs was investigating. And there was the QAD investigation.

As time passed, it seemed the NYPD was looking for anything it could find with which to charge Schoolcraft. Until October 31, Schoolcraft’s Internal Affairs file showed few allegations against him. From December 2 though July 20, 2010, another 14 allegations were logged in IAB, most of them having to do with his failure to show up for work.

On December 12, Schoolcraft applied for public assistance, food stamps, and housing assistance with the Fulton County Department of Social Services. When the department learned of this, they moved to block the application and eventually charged him administratively with fraud for applying for benefits even though he was technically still employed. The initial complaint, records show, was made by Lieutenant Timothy Caughey, the same guy who Schoolcraft filed a complaint about with Internal Affairs four months earlier—and the same guy who was allegedly menacing Schoolcraft on October 31.

Though it was perhaps puzzling to the NYPD, Schoolcraft strongly felt that he was in danger if he returned to work anywhere in the NYPD or moved back to his apartment in Queens. He and his father seriously discussed the possibility that police would kick in his door and once again drag him off.

On December 11, according to a recording, IAB Sergeant Robert O’Hare and Johnstown police officers banged on his door a cartoonish 186 times in
one 15-minute period while shouting things like, “Adrian we know you’re in there. Open the door.”

O’Hare shouted through the door that he just had some paperwork for Schoolcraft to sign so he could start receiving a paycheck again. O’Hare was obviously frustrated and finally gave up. As they left, he told a Johnstown cop, “Sorry to bother you with this nonsense.”

From the other side of the door, Adrian and Larry listened and whispered back and forth about what to do.

And so it went into the new year. Adrian and Larry hunkered down in the apartment, watching the long driveway for the unmarked cars, living in cramped circumstances, going back and forth over what to do next. Again and again, plainclothes lieutenants and sergeants made the long drive to Johnstown from the city and knocked on Schoolcraft’s door: five times between January 8 and January 16, 2012. Not only did they pound on the door, they watched the apartment from dark-colored SUVs, sometimes two at a time, one parked near the apartment and one at the entrance to the complex’s long driveway. They looked into the windows. They watched his parked car. Publicly, the NYPD later said this was only to try to get him to come back to work, but internally it was viewed as surveillance.

What the NYPD was portraying as routine attempts to serve Schoolcraft with papers seemed utterly sinister and disturbing to Schoolcraft and his father. They didn’t leave the apartment without checking for the surveillance. They made videos of the unmarked police vehicles and took photographs of the cops. They were basically prisoners in the apartment.

On January 12, the specificity of the surveillance became almost ridiculous, as police noted, “The light from a possible fish tank has been turned on and a shadow of person was observed through the glass.”

A January 13 memo from an IAB cop to the NYPD unit that handles internal prosecutions of officers read, “Surveillance and observation were performed on his residence. It’s becoming a game of cat and mouse now and we just need to see him outside of the residence in order to notify him.”

The same day, the case was reassigned to IAB Group 1, or the Special Investigations Unit, which handles allegations against high-ranking members of the department.

A January 17 memo read, “They surveilled the residence for 8 hours and PO Schoolcraft did not leave the residence. On Friday, my Lt. spoke with Larry Schoolcraft and he would not cooperate with our efforts to notify PO Schoolcraft to return to duty.”

On January 20, Captain Trainor emailed the department prosecutors: “5th attempt to notify schoolcraft. They perform observations for 5 hours before knocking on his door. In addition, we have already consulted with TARU [Technical Assistance Response Unit] regarding their ability to make/alter caller ID. They have the capability to do so. Our next attempt will be to try and call his cell phone from a masked number.”

Later, they talked about using TARU to conduct video surveillance to get Schoolcraft to return to duty.

The arrival of TARU in the story was in itself bizarre. TARU is a unit that conducts surveillance and also uses video cameras to monitor protests and other large gatherings. Its work is also important to anti-terror efforts. During the 2004 Republican Convention, there was a major controversy over TARU officers brazenly videotaping protesters on the streets. During a major protest in Harlem against police brutality in the 1990s, the unit provided a live feed of the protest to police headquarters. The fact that TARU was being brought into an employment dispute seemed to be more proof that the NYPD was treating Schoolcraft differently from any other supposedly wayward officer.

On January 20, 2010, an entry in the IAB file noted that a Sergeant Minogue spoke with a Lieutenant Crisalli “regarding the subject officer filing a complaint with the Queens District Attorney’s office.”

The following day, the IAB investigator spoke with Captain Trainor and attempted to contact Queens prosecutor Michelle Cort. Again on February 10, 2010, he tried to contact Cort.

The Schoolcrafts didn’t know this as they made another attempt to interest the Queens District Attorney’s office. Internal Affairs records show that on January 20, Schoolcraft called Michelle Cort to follow up with her on calls that Larry had made on November 1 and November 6. He told her he had a recording and evidence related to his complaint. It is notable that Cort had apparently done nothing since those initial calls. They scheduled
a meeting for January 22, two days later. A lieutenant from Internal Affairs would also attend.

Cort later claimed in a conversation with Sergeant O’Hare from Brooklyn North Investigations that she had to cancel the meeting. On January 25, she asked Schoolcraft to forward copies of his evidence to her for review. She claimed she received nothing from the Schoolcrafts and told O’Hare that “without Schoolcraft’s cooperation, any investigation by her office could not proceed forward.”

Schoolcraft called again in February. This time, Cort told him she had called Internal Affairs but didn’t receive a return call and figured “it had been dealt with,” according to Larry Schoolcraft. The Queens District Attorney, apparently not interested in the case, disappeared from the story for more than a year.

On January 27, the Schoolcrafts took their first tangible step toward moving to sue. They collaborated on what’s known as a “notice of claim.” Under city rules, anyone contemplating a lawsuit against a city agency must notify the city comptroller’s office within 90 days of the incident that is at the heart of the litigation. It’s basically a place saver.

Their notice of claim was filed just within the 90-day deadline. In the document, the Schoolcrafts alleged that the NYPD and Jamaica Hospital violated Adrian’s civil rights, slandered him, libeled him, subjected him to cruel and unusual punishment, and damaged his character. They also alleged that Adrian’s rights were violated in that his confidential medical information was revealed.

On January 31, another cartoonish note was written, this time from the commanding officer of Brooklyn North Investigation to the First Deputy Commissioner: “Investigators arrived and positioned themselves near the entrance. Sgt. O’Hare utilized binoculars for additional visual assistance. At 1355 hours, Sgt. O’Hare and Sgt. Minogue observed Schoolcraft in a white t-shirt moved the living room window shade and look about. He appeared again at 1431 hours wearing a white t-shirt and what appeared to be grey sweatpants.”

Meanwhile, records show Internal Affairs was secretly subjecting the Schoolcrafts—who, by the way, hadn’t been charged with a crime—to the
full investigative treatment as if they were perps. They checked their criminal history through the New York Statewide Police Information Network. They sealed Adrian’s locker in the 81st Precinct. They ran them through a state terrorism database. They requested records on each from the FBI and the National Crime Information Center, which collects the names of crimes and criminals across the country.

Even more disturbing, the police issued Adrian and Larry NYSID numbers, which are unique ID numbers generally assigned to people who have been arrested or are imprisoned. Amusingly, the search lists Adrian’s height as seven foot two.

They also ran Larry’s vehicles going back to 1985, including his 1994 tan Nissan Altima and a 2000 Ford Windstar minivan, and looked for traffic violations and parking tickets.

They wrote memos about newspaper articles that appeared. They also included ten pages of vicious, derogatory, and anonymous comments about the Schoolcrafts from a newspaper website in Johnstown, obviously from people who had an ax to grind with the Schoolcrafts. The comments were written in 2008, long before Adrian was on the police department’s radar. One comment described Larry as a “lawsuit happy leech sucking off yet another victim.”

They visited Adrian’s Queens landlords, Theodore and Carol Stretmoyer, and reported that Schoolcraft was behind on his rent. They went to the Johnstown post office and got a copy of the change of address form that Schoolcraft filled out.