QRT HISTORY AND LOMBARD AND CAREY

QRT HISTORY AND LOMBARD AND CAREY

By Retired Lieutenant Charles J. Key
PROLOGUE

I provided Bill Hackley (the original curator of the Baltimore Police Museum website) with the materials regarding Lombard and Carey and the inception of the Quick Response Teams because I had them for thirty plus years, and, like me, they were just getting older and not doing anybody much good. What good can these materials do? They can serve as a reminder that preserving the status quo in the dangerous business of police work can get cops killed. All of the materials concerning Lombard and Carey are a matter of public record. The documents concerning the establishing of the Quick Response Teams are not public records, but, since I wrote them and have provided them to countless other agencies, I am putting them out there. Their only relevance now is to history. The reader will note that they are signed by the, then, Acting Commanding Officer of Tactical (John Schmidt), who believed that any correspondence from his unit should be signed by him. As long as the program was approved, it didn’t make much difference to me whose signature was on it. Regardless, they document the founding of SWAT operations in the Baltimore Police Department at a time when moving ahead with new concepts was like pulling good teeth out of a really pissed off Grizzly Bear’s mouth–a chancy business at best.

Some of the heroes in the command structure at the beginning of that process were Bishop Robinson, and Joe Bolesta. Of particular note on the operational level, then and later, was Lieutenant Darryl Duggins (1901 in the City Wide Communications Tape Transcript). Duggins was a sometimes recalcitrant, always plain spoken, always forge ahead and damn the "brass," brilliant leader, and implementer of the structural minutia that makes a group of diverse and resistive personalities into a cohesive unit. Darryl was a Marine at Chosin Reservoir. Nothing else needs to be said. How do the documents concerning the founding of the QRT relate to Lombard and Carey? The one led to the other, or, rather, significantly sped up the other. In the months just prior to Lombard and Carey, Bishop Robinson, who was Chief of Patrol, convened several meetings of Tactical supervisors and the Commanding Officer of Tactical, Joe Bolesta. Bolesta was, and is, a more refined version of Duggins; i.e., a man that had the fortitude to stand up to command, but could do it without making unnecessary enemies that could hurt his goals and those of his unit. I was a sergeant in Tactical at the time (1930 and 2501 in the City Wide Communications Tape Transcript) and was assigned the task of writing the general order for the resolution of sniper, barricade, and hostage situations. I completed that assignment by January of 1976. With Captain Bolesta’s permission, I began training my squad in SWAT procedures. We worked mostly on our time with equipment we bought and used tactical procedures I had acquired from military tactics manuals, Los Angeles SWAT (In operation, by contrast, since the late 60's), New York SWAT, and other similar programs. We did all of the physical training on our own time, although the effort was something like filling up a balloon with mud. In February of 1976, Captain Bolesta sent my squad to the FBI SWAT school. On Good Friday, April 16, 1976, my squad was the only squad in the Baltimore Police Department with any SWAT training. On that evening, John Earl Williams decided to impress his girlfriend by killing a few cops.

LOMBARD AND CAREY
The entire Lombard and Carey incident lasted a little more than thirty-five minutes, but its repercussions still linger through today. I was scheduled to start training other TAC squads in SWAT tactics on Monday, April 19th. Lombard and Carey had been the first incident where members of the, then, nonexistent QRT had been deployed. Members of my squad were assigned as observers for the counter-sniper, an evacuation team, a gas deployment team, and an entry team for 1303 Lombard after Williams was forced out by cover/suppression fire fusillade. Those team roles had been learned and practiced primarily on their own time. Lombard and Carey would lay the groundwork for ensuring that training and equipping the QRT became a mandated, on-duty, part of the Department’s response to sniper, barricade, and hostage situations. Shortly before 7:00 p.m. on Good Friday, the temperature was above 90 degrees. TAC had been redeployed to the area around Lombard and Carey because Williams had called and told Communications that he planned to kill cops. Williams was a nothing person whose girlfriend (in his mind only) had told him to get lost. His attempt to impress her by shooting cops landed him in prison, where the last I heard, he has had many relationships much more "fulfilling" than the one he used as an excuse for his madness. I’m sure his role in prison is the achievement pinnacle of his pathetic life. Williams has been released now, a travesty and miscarriage of justice. Williams had briefly been in the National Guard and had received some training in weapons and tactics from them. He had also stolen some equipment from the Guard and had amassed a large quantity of ammunition and long guns. Specifically, that night he was shooting a 300 Winchester magnum, an 8mm Magnum, a 30-06, a 12 gauge shotgun, and perhaps others. After ingesting some PCP, he began his shooting spree shortly before 7:00 p.m.. His first targets were TAC officers, who, ironically, became his targets because of their redeployment to the area in response to his threats.

As for the rest of the story, the transcript of the tapes and photos will tell it. All of the officers were shot within the first nine minutes of the inception of the incident. They were evacuated from the line of fire within forty minutes, and the incident was over in less than an hour–39 minutes, actually. There were numerous heroes on that night, starting with, of course, Jimmy Halcomb, a Marine veteran. A hero not just because he gave his life, but because he, like nearly two hundred other cops responded to the call of cops taking fire. He and the officers who were wounded (Jimmy Brennan, Art Kennel, Neal Splain, Calvin Mencken, Roland Miller) were trying to stop Williams and did what cops do by profession and calling–they ran into the mouth of the dragon when others were running away. Also, off-duty Homicide Detective, Nick Giangrazo (forgive the spelling), who ran from a position of safety across Lombard Street into the killing zone, helped put Jimmy Brennan in a van and drive him from the scene. Brennan had been dragged behind the van by his friend and fellow Western District Officer, Doug Bryson, during a hail of gunfire. He had lain there bleeding from the time the incident began, but was kept alive by Bryson who had applied direct pressure to Brennan's gaping, gushing wounds in his elbow and side. Then there was Mike Hurm from TAC and Frank Stallings from the Western, who pulled Halcomb out during the barrage of cover/suppression fire. On the communications tape, Duggins can be heard asking me to provide a barrage of cover fire so he could take a gas team across Carey St. to a house across from 1303 Lombard. Since I had sent an evacuation team–Rummo (TL), Siebor, Schillo, and Hurm–down for Halcomb, I told Duggins I would coordinate it with their retrieval effort. Unlike the chaos of the previous half hour, when 2501 ordered cover/suppression fire, it started immediately, and ceased immediately, almost exactly one minute later, when I ordered a cease-fire. After the deafening gunfire, the silence was a remarkable change from the previous chaotic, uncontrolled communications. 2501 also ordered any streetlights shot out that were illuminating the gas and evacuation team’s efforts. Cops being cops, that order was broadly interpreted to include streetlights. a block or so away from Carey Street, where Duggins was crossing with the gas team and the evacuation team was trying to retrieve Halcomb. It was, unfortunately, too late because Officer Halcomb had died instantly, but the efforts of Hurm and Stallings were no less courageous. The reality was that all of the officers who responded that night did so selflessly, and without concern for their personal safety, and with the one overriding motivation of helping brother officers. The coward Williams decided that dying by multiple gunshot wounds wasn’t in his future after all and called communications to beg for his life. I had reset the command post’s position to Baltimore and Carey, because its original location (Hollins and Carey) was taking ricochets from either from Williams or officers who mistakenly thought Williams was on the north side of Lombard.

Communications called me and asked that I call them via land line. The radios in those days had weak signals, so I had to ask a Western District lieutenant to listen up for me while I went inside a laundry mat to use the pay phone. The Communications supervisor told me Williams wanted to surrender and asked how he should do that. Normally, he would have been directed to walk with his hands up to a place where cops were behind cover and could safely take him in custody, but I suspected that if he walked out and didn’t immediately go prone, there was a good chance he would be shot. He did that, and, although the house hadn’t been cleared, a number of officers ran to him and dragged him away. Luckily, he was the only shooter.

There were many flaws in the Department’s response to Lombard and Carey. Communications’ discipline was practically nonexistent. Officers gave conflicting information concerning the location of Williams, which resulted in officers firing on officers. Contradictory information concerning the removal of wounded officers resulted in Jimmy Halcomb being left where he fell for over twenty minutes. Again, Halcomb was killed immediately, but that didn’t change the fact that his location should have been identified and a rescue effort mounted much more quickly. The command post, 2501, was implemented and manned only by a rookie sergeant who gave all of the orders until 1303 Lombard had been declared secure by the entry team. Two colonels were on the scene (Avara and Watkins), but neither gave orders, responded and/or stayed at the command post until after Williams was forced out by a couple of hundred shots into his house. After Williams  was forced out, Watkins ordered all units, including 2501, to standby. He wanted all the district officers to return to their posts and tactical officers to remain on the scene. I broadcast to Watkins that I needed the officers to remain to protect and secure the scene until we had cleared Williams’ house–at that point it was unknown if there was more than one shooter or that Williams was, in fact, the shooter. Watkins responded again with his order for patrol officers to go back in service. After hearing that order, the unknown Western lieutenant with me at Baltimore and Carey told me he and his men would stay there as long as I needed them. Also, showing his brass mettle, Bolesta–again, a captain–told KGA to have the officers remain on the scene to protect the crime scene per general order. When KGA asked Bolesta if he was aware that unit 11 (Watkins) had ordered them back in service, Bolesta replied, “I’m aware of that.” After the house was cleared, I walked down to where Halcomb had lain. While standing over the blood soaked sidewalk with Captain Bolesta, Colonel Robinson walked up. He had tears in his eyes. He asked us, “How can I prevent this from ever happening again?” Bolesta told him, “Sign the Sniper/Barricade General Order.” Robinson did that, but, because of bureaucratic stalling by other command members, the actual publishing of the General Order wasn’t accomplished until October of 1977–for whatever reason a day or so after I was promoted to lieutenant. As a final and somewhat eerie note, the streetlight above where Halcomb had died had been shot during the cover/suppression fire, but it didn’t fully extinguish until Robinson walked up to where Bolesta and I were standing. Over the years there has been much criticism concerning the handling of Lombard and Carey. The main reason why it occurred the way it did, however, was the failure by the Department to recognize the need for a specialized team and disciplined response to such incidents well before the efforts of Bishop Robinson and Joe Bolesta. After all, there had been many similar incidents around the country and several such incidents in Baltimore prior to April 16th. Old line thinking, petty interdepartmental rivalries, and a drag-them-out-by-their-hair mentality dictated the entire response spectrum to situations like Lombard and Carey. I wish that I could say that Good Friday, April 16, 1976, changed all of that, but it would take many years for any true change to occur and, even then, not a whole hearted change. In addition to honoring the cops that were there that night, the posting of these materials is meant to stand as a stark reminder of what can happen when a police department loses, or, more accurately, never finds its ability to give the same weight to issues vital to officer safety as it does to its crime reduction mission, or now, DEI concerns. In the past crime reduction has trumped all other concerns. Today, the certain eventuality of terrorist attacks in this country should compel the Baltimore Police Department to ensure that all of its officers are well prepared to meet such challenges. It is an absolute that Baltimore Police Officers will thrust themselves into the breach, with or without proper training, with or without appropriate guidelines, and with or without necessary equipment. They will do so, and some will pay the price like Jimmy Halcomb, Jimmy Brennan, Roland Miller, Art Kennel, Neal Splain, and Calvin Mencken did on that hot night in April. It is incumbent on the Baltimore Police Department to provide them with the tools, guidelines, and training they will need. The tragedy of Lombard and Carey demands that.

Finally, I didn’t know what I was going to do with the documents that I had until I came across Bill Hackley’s website, which is now under the watchful and dedicated eye of Detective Ken Driscoll. I was much impressed by Hackley’s dedication to memorializing the Baltimore Police Department’s rich history and the huge amount of work he put into the effort. Driscoll, who sacrificed his health in the service of the citizens of Baltimore, has carried on and expanded Hackley’s work. I can think of no better way to have the story of Lombard and Carey told than to entrust it to Ken Driscoll. I know he will do it justice.

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