An Artist Of Horror

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

While working a night shift, Bronson and I are having Chinese food in Red Hook when we get a call for a “stab” in the projects. We stare at the computer screen mounted between our seats. “A genuine stab?” Bronson says. He wipes off his fingers and drives to the general vicinity. We don’t need the exact address, as we see a bunch of police radio mobile patrol cars go flying into the projects. “Follow that car!” I quip.

By the time we pull up to the exact building, PD already has the scene taped off with yellow crime-scene tape. “This is not good,” Bronson says. We get out of the truck, grab the stretcher and the oxygen bag overstuffed with bandages and gauze, and dash over to where a few police officers are standing around a body. The guy is face-down on the concrete with a large amount of blood pooling around him. “I think he’s dead,” an officer says. I think to myself: Trust no one and assume nothing.

Bronson checks the guy’s neck for a pulse, pressing really hard into the man’s carotid artery. “Nothing,” he says.

Is it hopeless to attempt resuscitation? Somewhere behind me, a photographer is jumping all around. The flash gives an eerie, strobe effect to the body.

Another cop takes out some paperwork and says, “I need to know, shot or stabbed?”

Bronson and I roll over the body. Just as we do, the man lets out a final gurgle. I grab my shears and cut off his hoodie sweatshirt to expose his chest, and right there in the center, just below his throat, is a hole about two inches long and probably two inches deep, probably pierced his heart or aorta, to judge from the amount of blood pouring out. I listen to his lungs with my stethoscope.

Lung sounds absent. Heartbeat absent. No pulse. There’s no use getting the defibrillator: This is a traumatic cardiac arrest. Nothing can bring him back. If we did CPR, all we’d do would be to pump all his remaining blood out of that hole in his chest.

“Yeah, but which is it?” another cop says. “Shot or stabbed?”

I pluck the scope out of my ears and lay it on the body — it’s covered in blood, so I’ll have to red-bag it. “Stab wound to the chest,” I say. I peel off my gloves, take out my paperwork, and jot down the essentials: “Unknown male. Time: 21:40 hours. 10-83 not removed, left with PD.”

As Bronson and I are walking back to the ambulance, I hear someone call out, “Hey, Bronson!” It’s his friend, Phil, a retired police lieutenant whose pastime is shooting crime scenes for newspapers.

“Ah, Weegee,” Bronson says, referring to a crime scene photographer from the 1940s and 1950s, before patient privacy, when you could get right up to a mob hit and snap away with all the cops standing around with their shiny shoes up on the whacked guy like after a hunt. In those pictures, the blood is always a glossy black. Phil’s photos are digital, and, though there’s no law against it, once the sheet is draped over the body it’s usually not lifted for a photo op. Phil is excited all the same.

“I got some good shots of you guys working,” he says. “And look at this one.” He presses a few buttons and we both peer into the little digital screen on his camera, at a shot of the body under the sheet, one sneakered foot sticking out. “Classic,” I say. “Great shot,” Bronson agrees, then puts on a faux art-critic voice, “The curiosity inspired by what you don’t see.” Phil finds another photo, of the body still face-down, before it was covered, a woman from the projects standing by, her hands to her mouth. “The horror,” Bronson says. “The shock,” I say.

Phil smiles into the camera screen. “It really tells a story, don’tcha think?”

I want to tell him it doesn’t begin to tell the half of it: The dead guy’s youth, the gang paraphernalia on his clothes, the endless drugfights in the projects. Victims and perps, in and out of the prison system, round and round and round. Phil knows all about this from his years with PD. But now he’s an artist looking into his camera screen and beaming. “I’m gonna e-mail these out to the newspapers right away.”

The next day, he’ll text-message us to say which papers the pictures are in. People all around New York will read the article over breakfast and look at the photos and think, “What a story.”

Ms. Klopsis is an emergency medical technician on an ambulance in Brooklyn. This column details her observations and experiences. Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of patients.


The New York Sun

© 2024 The New York Sun Company, LLC. All rights reserved.

Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. The material on this site is protected by copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used.

The New York Sun

Sign in or  Create a free account

or
By continuing you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use