At A Crossroads A catalyzing encounter between a criminal and a hero

December 15th, 2015

by Lani Chan

Reverend Vernon Williams and Bishop Popeye C.G. Whittingham walk over a footbridge off the East

River where Officer Randolph Holder was shot and killed on October 21st, 2015.

Around 8:30p.m. on a chilly October evening, police officers watching East Harlem

from the rooftops of the East River houses—known as ‘vertical patrollers’—spotted violence on the ground. They radioed: 11 shots fired.

Their colleagues in plainclothes below, Officers Randolph Holder and Omar Wallace, responded to the scene of the shooting. Two men fled up on either side of FDR drive.

The N.Y.P,D. arrested one of the two around E 111th Street. At 8:41pm, the other suspect, Tyrone Howard, had run to 106th Street, where he displayed his firearm to a biker and stole his bike. By 8:43pm, Howard had reached E 120th Street.

There he encountered Officers Holder and Wallace, who identified themselves as police officers. He jumped off his bike. He ran up the footbridge with the officers close on his heels. He turned, pointed a .40-caliber Glock at Officer Holder’s forehead, and shot once.

In response, Wallace shot Howard in the leg and the buttocks. Howard managed to throw his gun into the river. Less than fifteen minutes later, Officer Holder was transported to Harlem Hospital in critical condition. At 10:22 pm, doctors pronounced him dead.

He was 33.

In the days following, Holder’s death became part of a larger public story about East Harlem. A Guyanese immigrant, a five-year veteran of the NYPD who had patrolled the East Harlem housing developments for his entire time with the department, had met his fate at the hands of a drug trafficker, a resident of East River houses, with a rap sheet dating back 16 years, a criminal who had somehow evaded prison time and was on the run, hiding with a girlfriend, on that October night. Holder was the fourth officer shot in the line of duty within ten months – the worst run of police fatalities since 1989. Once again, NYPD Commissioner William Bratton and Mayor Bill de Blasio comforted a grieving family and posthumously promoted an officer to detective. They held a familiar-sounding press conference. The #BlueLivesMatter hashtag resurfaced. Flowers appeared in front of the precinct, and the press waited outside all day to see who would arrive next to light a candle or place a bouquet. Public discourse wavered around the question of blame. Some pointed fingers at the mayor, who was elected on the platform of law enforcement reform. But investigative reports raised doubts about the role of Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Patricia Nuñez, who, at a sentencing in July 2015, reportedly allowed Howard to avoid jail time by entering a diversionary drug rehabilitation program.

De Blasio was not reluctant to shift blame to the judge: On November 12th, the mayor and Commissioner Bratton, reviewing Howard’s rap sheet and history of violence, said that they saw no reason why Howard should have been on the streets, adding that Howard was ‘the poster boy for not being diverted.’ Nuñez defended herself, saying that she was not made aware of the extent of Howard’s criminal history. He had been exonerated in one or two key cases and so those matters did not appear in the file that would have influenced the judge’s decision in sentencing. Clearly Howard was someone who had slipped through the cracks. (PHOTO: an officer places a candle at the small memorial for Randolph Holder in front of the headquarters of Police Service Area 5.)

In East Harlem, there was a different debate about blame. The debate involved accountability, family, and the justice of compensation for an immeasurable loss. Holder was a provider in a large, complicated

family of immigrants. How would they manage his death? And how would the wider community assess responsibility?

Howard had been free at the time of the shooting on $35,000 bail, ten percent of which his aforementioned girlfriend had posted as collateral. Was the girlfriend to blame? Or was Holder’s death yet another casualty of the housing development climate, where the tension between the cops and residents was rigid, where murders had risen by 75 percent during 2015, compared to the year before? Holder died in an area plagued by white on black crime, black on white crime, and now a shocking instance of black on black officer crime.

None of this mattered to Randolph Holder’s family. They had lost a beloved son, fiancé, brother, and uncle. His death marked the city; it also reshaped an immigrant family still finding its footing in New York.

Randolph Holder’s lineage in policing traced to the Guyanese Police Force, where his father and grandfather served. He grew up in Georgetown. His mother died of cancer when he was 17. Randolph was left to take care of his younger brother, Kelon. Three years later, the Holders’ house burned down. Randolph moved to New York to join his father, who had obtained a permanent residence visa.

Holder took a job at Toys ‘R’ Us as a security officer and joined the NYPD Police Academy. “He always wanted to be a police officer,” his father recalls. “He was well trained, and well taught, well disciplined. I was very proud of him when he joined the NYPD, because it is one of the greatest police forces in the world. I was honored.”

Javier Casavedo, Holder’s partner for the five and a half years he was an officer, was in the car with him nearly every day. They talked frequently about how they could make an impact with the kids in the housing developments, he said.

“It’s a tough command, because we deal with the youth- a lot of young kids involved in gangs,” Casavedo said. “Sometimes, we’d sit in the car and try to figure out why so many developments would have certain problems with another development. It’s been going on for so many years. Jefferson Houses don’t like East River houses… it could be because this kid looked at me the wrong way. Or just because you’re from this development, I don’t like you.”

Randolph was stationed in PSA 5, one of the city’s most dangerous areas. As an officer patrolling the East Harlem housing developments in plainclothes, he made 125 arrests and was recognized for exemplary performance on six different occasions. He hoped to become a detective.

“We loved what we did,” Casavedo said. “We loved what we did.”

Tyrone “Peanut” Howard was a special case. A notorious player in the East River houses drug trade and longtime member of the East Army gang, he had a history of run-ins with the law. Yet he always seemed to elude serious time. He was admitted to a jobs program instead of juvenile hall as a youthful offender. He skipped sentencing for selling drugs to an undercover cop, then was found selling near school grounds in the same neighborhood, yet was allowed to serve the two-year sentences concurrently.

After a shooting in 2009, a former business partner received 40 years but Howard was exonerated. He went free.

In 2011, Howard was found with 22 bags of crack cocaine on him, and requested the drug treatment in exchange for prison time. Initially, he was turned down; Justice Ellen M. Coin of State Supreme Court learned of his connection with the shooting in 2009, and deemed him too dangerous to remain on the streets. Still, he was able to negotiate his way out early, and was back in the neighborhood by April 2014.

He was picked up for another drug offense and had his court date in July. It was then that Justice Nuñez gave him the sentence that would place him at the scene on October 20th, 2015: “Don’t disappoint me,” she said while releasing him. On November 12th, after Randolph’s killing, Howard was indicted on the drug charges he had convinced Justice Nuñez to let him evade. He stood in the courtroom, shaky from his gunshot wounds to the buttocks and leg, while Justice Nuñez, still livid over being made a scapegoat in the shooting, made clear that the justice system would never consciously allow a violent criminal roam the streets freely. She sentenced him to the maximum length of time for the drug trafficking charges: Twelve years. “Mr. Howard, you disrespected that act of mercy that was given to you,” she said. “Yesterday you received mercy. Today you will receive justice.” He would come back down from prison upstate to answer to the murder and other charges from the night of October 20th. “He’ll never see the light of day,” said Rev. Vernon Williams, a peace activist on the scene the evening of the shooting.

On October 28th, Detective Randolph Holder was promoted to detective. On October

29th, he was brought back to his home city of Georgetown, in his native Guyana, to be laid to rest next to his mother in Le Repentir Cemetery, one of the largest in the city.

The NYPD’s death benefits structure pays the family of the fallen officer a total of

three times the officer’s salary raised to the highest multiple of $1,000, plus a return of the officer’s accumulated contributions. According to NYPD sources, this amounted to roughly $400,000, not including a monthly residual check from the leftover insurance policies. Local organizations rushed to raise funds for Holder’s family as well. The New York Police and Fire Widows and Children Benefit Fund, created in 1985 by former Mets outfielder Rusty Staub, reportedly contributed $25,000 in the 48 hours after the shooting. Blue Lives Matter, which started in response to the dual officer killings in December 2014, set up their own donation page and raised $4000 for Holder’s family. Holder left behind his fianceé, his father, his stepmother, a grandmother, two brothers, and a sister, as well as a gaggle of aunts, cousins, nieces, and nephews. He was supporting his loved ones at home and sending money to those still in Guyana. His younger brother, Kelon, remembered how Randolph had promised to help him bring his family to the United States. Holder sent money for his brother and his two sons every month.

When the time came to allocate the six-figure death benefits, however, only one name was on Holder’s list of beneficiaries: Randolph Holder, Sr.

As Holder’s mother had passed years ago, he had no children, and was unmarried at the time of his death, it was not unusual that the money would go to his father, in the absence of other beneficiaries specifically named by Holder. But discussions between the father and the police department within days of his son’s death led certain community leaders to doubt whether the money would be shared appropriately.

(PHOTO: Holder

Sr. wears a badge from his command in Guyana with his son’s honorary badge on the chain next to it. When Holder was promoted at his funeral, Bratton gave him his father’s numbers for his new detective badge.)

“It was clear

to us that Randolph came from a fractured family,”

said Rev. Williams, citing tension between Holder Sr. and several relatives. The reverend, along with his partner, Bishop Popeye C.G. Whittingham, identified the need to raise money for the family so that they could distribute it as they saw fit. They immediately started planning a benefit event in December, in collaboration with other black interest community organizations.

The tension in the community between the police and the community in East Harlem

has accumulated over many years and feels to both sides like a permanent condition. The residents are tired, and the police are too. “Working housing in Harlem has its ups and downs. You have a community who wants to work with the police department but you also have some individuals, a small percentage that poison the community as well,” said Rodney Harrison, Deputy Chief of the NYPD. “And it’s difficult because we have to try to decipher the good residents as well as the criminals who unfortunately play out those developments.” At a pre-Thanksgiving community meeting at Police Service Area 5, which patrols the housing developments in the N.Y.P.D.’s 23rd, 25th, and 28th Precincts, the anxiety and frustration was palpable. The room was packed wall-to-wall with representatives from almost every development, as people craned to hear. Holder Sr. was in attendance, as was one of the Assistant District Attorneys for Howard’s prosecution.

The first item on the agenda was the shooting. Holder Sr. spoke, thanking the attendees for their continued support and prayers for him and his family. Captain Reymundo Mundo,

looking tired, addressed the tragedy again, and almost immediately was left to field concerns from residents of over a dozen developments. “When Officer Holder passed I didn’t want to live here anymore. I feel many of you can join me on that statement, and it’s sad! I hate it here. I don’t want to be here,” one woman finally said, in an attempt to depart from the aggressive complaints from others in attendance. “We just need to work and make it better. Call the police department if you see something. We can’t just show up to meetings and complain!” Rev. Williams lamented that the community had lost an officer who was trying to do something to change the lives of young people. “It is time now for the community to earnest up and do what needs to be done. When we see that no one is safe from this gun violence, everyone is running around like this the OK Corral, and when you think about the idea that the gun that killed officer Randolph Holder was a stolen police officer’s gun that made its way here from South Carolina- I shudder to think what would happen if people were to fall back and not do anything.”

On November 24th, 2015, almost two weeks after his initial sentencing following conviction for drug trafficking charges, Tyrone Howard returned to New York State Criminal Court, at 100 Centre Street. He walked through a crowd of 80 police officers, keeping his head down until the courthouse was full. Holder’s family, friends, and colleagues filed in for the arraignment. Howard listened as the clerk read the indictment: aggravated murder, murder in the first degree, murder in the second degree, two counts robbery in the first degree, four counts criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree, reckless endangerment in the first degree, criminal possession of a forged instrument in the second degree. Howard mumbled, “Not guilty.” His next trial date is scheduled for February 1st, 2016.

On the evening of December 5th, ten floors up in the Adam Clayton Powell State Office Building, at the benefit for the larger Holder family, Randolph’s relatives sat quietly around a table with a blue tablecloth, a simple placecard denoting the family name. Holder Sr. sat tight-lipped, next to his wife, with whom he was separated, Princess. Rank-and-file officers flanked the doorway with ceremonial flags. Programs were fanned out on every table. The venue lacked grandeur, but a few women dressed formally. Clergy members, family members, police chiefs, police officers, and journalists were scattered about the sparsely attended event. The aroma of rice, beans, jerk chicken, and pork stew wafted in from hallway. An emotional opening- a prayer from Rev. Williams and a soulful rendition of ‘Star Spangled Banner’ by anti-violence activist Jackie Rowe Adams- set a morose tone for the evening. Statements by Captain Mundo and Deputy Chief Rodney Harrison emphasized the need to get guns off the street and again lamented the loss of one of New York’s Finest.

(PHOTO: A program from the benefit event hosted by Rev. Williams and Bishop Popeye.)

“The community has

shown a lot of love regarding the loss. And they’ve supported through our sorrows, but at the same time that’s not going to get the guns off the street,” said Harrison. “And what are we gonna do going forward to

make sure there isn’t another Detective Holder, where that may happen to another uniformed member of service?”

The Holder family sat once more at a memorial service, tissues in hand. The table seemed too small for them. They seldom made eye contact.

Mary Muhammed, Holder’s fiancé, stood to read a statement. “Every day has been a challenge. I lost the love of my life; my best friend, my future. I miss him every single day,” she read aloud. “Again I really appreciate your kindness, and your prayers have been a great comfort.”

“We have to move on, but the grief is still there,” said Holder Sr. “And every time I come to functions like this it is like opening the same wound, and it hurt like hell.”

In the next room, Jackie Rowe Adams, spoke passionately of the gun violence that had forced this reckoning.

“I feel as a community leader and as a mother who’s lost two kids that things are changing with the police in the community,” Jackie said. “You still have some, that want to harp on the police killing us. We’re killing us!”

xxx