Roy Is Shot

Rob’s journal

when: January 20, 1996 where: Camden, New Jersey, USA what: Roy is Shot

© Rob Crimmins, Felton, Delaware, USA

I was in the shower and I heard Judi’s footsteps as she ran through the bedroom. I knew something was wrong. She wouldn’t have been running through the house if there wasn’t. I rinsed the soap off my face as she opened the bathroom door and said, “Rob! Roy’s been shot!”.

I got out of the shower, grabbed a towel and hurried to the living room. A New Jersey State Trooper, in street clothes, was on the television screen. A half dozen microphones were being held near his face.

“. . . had apprehended the suspect who drew a weapon. A struggle ensued and the trooper was shot. The suspect was killed.”

The screen changed to the news room and the anchor said, “Trooper Baker is thirty-eight years old and a nine year veteran. He is in critical condition at the Trauma Unit of the Cooper Hospital - University Medical Center.”

I said, “Roy isn’t thirty-eight, he’s forty-five. Maybe it’s a different Trooper Baker.”

Judi asked, “How can you find out?” Tears were in her eyes.

I called information in New Jersey and got the number for the State Police Public Information office in Trenton.

They told me that the trooper was Roy Baker. It was him. They couldn’t tell me anything else except that he was in critical condition.

Wrapped in a towel, I returned to the television. I wondered what to do and who to call.

The person that answered at the hospital could only tell me that he was still in critical condition. I should call the patient information line when it becomes available at 9:00 a.m. It was 8:45.

I went back to the bathroom and Judi stayed by the TV. The Philadelphia CBS affiliates Saturday morning news is a good program. They’ll repeat the story in the next cycle and they’ll have more information.

I shaved and looking into the mirror. I remembered Roy in 1974.

He and I were in the bathroom of the apartment that we shared. He was on the can and I was shaving.

He said, “You’re not shavin’ right.”

“I’m not shavin’ right? What the hell are you talkin’ about?”

“You’re goin’ against the grain. You gotta go with the grain or you’ll give yourself a rash. That’s why you have a rash.”

“Man. I don’t need shaving instruction.”

I remember it every time I see the scars that I gave myself before I pretended to reject his advice.

Judi was still standing in front of the TV. I took the watch while she got dressed. When they started to talk about Roy again I called her

This time they showed the street in East Camden where it happened. They showed the grimy restaurant storefront where the shots were fired and they told what they knew.

“Trooper Baker was working with a combined state, federal and county task force that was brought into the City of Camden two weeks ago to help Camden City Police fight the crime that has become rampant in that city. Baker and three other troopers confronted a group of men on the corner of 28th and Federal Streets. The men ran and the officers pursued.

Trooper Baker chased Massie Tynell Nelson into the Happy Dragon Chinese Restaurant. There the two exchanged gunfire.

Baker was shot three times in the chest. He is in critical condition at Cooper Hospital - University Medical Center. Nelson was pronounced dead at the scene.”

The video of the dark scene and the words intensified the shock, “. . . shot three times in the chest . . . critical condition . . .” I turned so my wife wouldn’t see my reaction.

The woman that answered the patient information line at the hospital said he was in critical condition.

“Is he stable?”

“All we have sir is that he is in critical condition?”

“Is that all you can tell me?”

“He is in the Trauma Unit intensive care and only family members can see him.”

“Can I speak to anyone else? Can I get through to a family member? I was his college roommate. His wife will speak to me.”

“I can put you through to the trauma unit waiting room.”

She wouldn’t be in a waiting room. If she is there she’s with Roy. Someone else might be in the waiting room though.

“OK. Thank you.”

Nobody answered. Maybe Ed knew something.

Ed was Roy’s roommate too. They lived together when Roy moved on campus.

As I dialed I thought, “What if he hasn’t heard?”

“Ed. Did you here about Roy?”

He screamed and dropped the phone. I heard him sobbing and cussing. I yelled into the phone, “He isn’t dead!”

He got back on the line and said, “Last night on TV they said a Jersey State Trooper was killed! I figured it wasn’t Roy! Oh God, it was Roy!”

“It was Roy but he isn’t dead. He’s in critical condition and that’s all they’ll say.”

Ed said, “When are you goin’ up there? Where is he?”

“He’s in a hospital in Camden but they’re not letting any visitors in, only family. If we want to find out how he is we’ll have to go there. They’re not saying anything over the phone.”

“They’ll let us in!”

Ed went on. “I’m on my way out the door to a wrestling tournament. I have to referee at a college tournament at Swathmore college. I have to go.”

“When will you be done?”

“Probably not until six.”

“I don’t want to wait ‘till then.”

“Maybe I can get out earlier.

There might be extra refs there. If I could get out by two or three will you wait for me?”

“Yeah. Maybe they’ll let us in by then.”

“They’ll let us in. We’ll get in to see him.”

He said he would call me from the gym when he was leaving. Ed owns a jewelry store and we agreed that I would meet him there.

By 2:30 I couldn’t wait anymore. I live sixty miles from Ed’s store and the hospital is another sixty so I left and told my son if Ed calls tell him I’m on my way.

As I drove I thought about my friend and the things that we did together. I thought about the night that I moved into 92 East Main Street, 2nd Floor Rear.

The first Sunday in January, 1974 was the day I moved out of my father’s home. I was eighteen. Mom and Dad took me to the one bedroom apartment above Abbot’s TV repair in Newark, Delaware to begin college.

When they left I wished I was going home with them.

There were four rooms, a kitchen, living room, bedroom and bathroom. You didn’t get much for $135 a month but it was better than a dorm.

Roy bounded up the stairs at about nine o’clock and the melancholy that I was feeling subsided. He was twenty-one,

three years older then me and considerably more mature. I think he knew what I was going through.

We sat in the tiny kitchen and talked and since we were on the University wrestling team that was the topic. Three years earlier I was a high school sophomore and I went to the New Jersey State tournament to cheer the heavyweight from our school. Fifty of us went up in a bus to Princeton. It was the first year the States were at Princeton University’s Jadwin Gym. Before, they were in the Convention Hall on the boardwalk in Asbury Park.

Convention Hall was a great place for the most important event of the year, or a lifetime.

It was theatrical. When the announcer called the wrestler’s name a spotlight came on. In those days people smoked in the arena so the light formed a shaft that was anchored to the figure standing at the edge of the mat.

While his record and accomplishments were recited to the crowd the boy focused on his opponent in the semi-darkness on the other side. As his schoolmates cheered, the other name was called and another shaft lit the mist. Then the two walked to the center. The beams followed as they shook hands and silently threatened each other. The lights followed them back to the edge of the mat and then they were turned off, returning the arena to darkness until the next name was called.

Several years later Roy and I went to a concert in that building. Since then it’s been boarded up and resurrected a few times.

Jadwin Gym is an impressive structure and a proper facility for an event such as the State Wrestling Tournament. It was bathed in light. The surfaces were vinyl, rubber, aluminum and wood. It didn’t have the glitz of the arena on the boardwalk but there was the feeling of promise and of leaving the past behind.

Roy listened as I told him of these wonders, which he must have known already and he listened to the tale of the heavyweights.

There were four. New Jersey had four regional champions then and the state tournament was just two rounds, semis and finals. In the heavyweight class there was a three-hundred pound wrestler, a guy that looked like a bodybuilder and

weighed 240 pounds, the heavyweight from my school that weighed about 220 and a little guy that was about 190.

In the semi-finals the three-hundred-pounder easily beat our man and the 190 pounder beat the bodybuilder. We hoped for an upset but we pretty much figured that our wrestler wouldn’t win. He won in the regionals and districts in matches that went into overtime so we knew his luck was running out. The win by the little guy really surprised us. His opponent seemed bigger than any of them because he was so built. Most high school heavyweights in the 240 pound range are a little pudgy but this guy was ripped. Eventually he played offensive tackle for the Kansas City Chiefs.

When the behemoth lost we were amazed and the place went nuts. Everybody was pulling for the underdog.

Theirs was the final match of the tournament and as it ended a small woman ran out of the stands. She stopped at the edge of the mat just long enough to kick off her shoes and as the referee raised the winner’s hand she ran out on the mat and leaped into his arms. She wrapped herself around him and kissed him as he carried her off the mat. She had to be his mother. Everybody laughed or cried.

I told Roy it was the greatest thing I ever saw in wrestling and he said, “Yeah. That was really cool. That was me.”

He told me about his mother and about the night of his victory. The loneliness that I was feeling earlier had vanished.

I was amazed that such beautiful coincidences and unlikely arrangements could happen. In the twelve months that Roy and I shared a home there were many times when I was thrilled by the discoveries of life and the joys of freedom and on many of those occasions Roy was with me.

On that first night I lost my father’s home and started a friendship that I’ll always cherish but for the past fifteen years I had neglected.

Now he’s been shot.

Ed was at the store waiting on a customer. I waited until he finished and then he and I left for the hospital.

It was less than an hour to Camden. We talked about Roy and the awful state of affairs that brought him to a place where he otherwise wouldn’t set foot.

The receptionist at the hospital told us we had to check with security.

In my last call to the hospital public information line, before I left home, I found out that he was in the Trauma Center, he was in critical condition and family members and “people on the list” were allowed to visit. We needed to get on the list.

The guard told us that no one was allowed up. We explained who we were and told him that if we could speak to Roy’s wife, that she would put our names on the visitor’s list. (Ed wanted to tell them that we were his brothers.) The guard called someone, hung up, and told us, nope, sorry.

How about a note. Could you take a note to his wife. He said yes. He could send a note to her.

I wrote that we were here. Could we see Roy? Could she or anyone come down to tell us how he is?

Our need to find out was selfish but our desire to learn his condition might mean something to him too. Even if we couldn’t speak to him or give him the Heinekens that we were hiding in our coats he would be glad to know we were there.

The note went up and we waited. The security guards were tense. Ed and I talked about that. Maybe they’re always on their toes. This is a city hospital. More likely today is special. Governor Whitman was here earlier to see Roy.

After about a half-hour a Trooper walked out of a corridor that a guard was blocking. He was on his way out of the hospital but we stopped him. Adam was his name and he told us that Mrs. Baker got our note and someone would come down. He apologized and explained that he couldn’t talk to us. He said there was a situation that he had to attend to outside. A few minutes later he came back in and went back down the corridor.

Adam returned fifteen minutes later with Sgt. Burke of the State Police. Now we would find out if our friend was expected to live.

Sgt. Burke said, “He’s going to be all right. He has two wounds. One round penetrated his lung but and that was repaired and the other went through his trapezius. Both wounds will heal.”

He told us what happened in some depth and he treated us with great respect and care but he was careful since the

details of the encounter weren’t any of our business. Our friend was brave and he would be back on the job. That was the most important thing. That was what we came to find out.

The security was tight and because of that they couldn’t let us see him. He wasn’t in any condition to see us anyway.

His mother was there and I thought of her running across the mat twenty-five years before.

We left. I was happier than I had been in years. We drank the beer and told each other stories about Roy. Ed got so excited he was yelling. As we pumped gas at a station in Camden Ed shouted the details of his latest hunting trip to the amused attendant. People a block away turned to see.

As life goes on tragedies mount. With time there is growth and death and the longer we live the more we live through. Middle of the night phone calls and bad news will come.

Today it went the other way. Sgt. Burke’s words were music.

Alone, on the road home, I sang with Bruce Springsteen as the radio played a song from his first album, Greetings From Asbury Park.