Anatomy of a Man Hunt

When you kill a cop, the saying goes, there is no hole to hide in. Two weeks ago, Sergeant Frederick Reddy, 50, and Officer Andrew Glover, 34, of the New York City police department were gunned down on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It was the second such double murder in the area in less than four years. TIME Correspondent Robert Parker compiled a log of the all-out man hunt that began within minutes of the shooting. Here is how New York police went after the killer of two of their own:

DAY 1. Alerted by a 10-13 radio call (assist police officer), squad cars converge on East Fifth Street between Avenues A and B at 9:15 p.m. Sergeant Reddy lies near his own squad car, shot once in the heart with a .38. Officer Glover, shot twice in the head and chest, apparently with the same gun, lies a few feet away near a battered red 1967 Plymouth convertible. Reddy had managed to get off three shots. Glover clutches a Pennsylvania title of ownership for the Plymouth. Witnesses say that Glover was apparently carrying out a routine check of the car, which was double-parked. After a few minutes of talk, the driver suddenly started shooting, then fled on foot. So did a companion, who had been standing near by.

Deputy Chief of Detectives William J. Averill, 62, arrives at 9:30 to command the operation and deploys hundreds of officers, many of them volunteers, who are gathering from all over the city after hearing the news. Sergeant Reddy, who ran the precinct's neighborhood police team, was popular in the tough, polyglot area of Puerto Ricans, blacks, whites and Chinese. The police get cooperation. By 4 a.m., when Averill returns to his office, he has concluded that he is looking for two Hispanic males in their 20s. One, not the killer, is called Frankie, last name unknown.

DAY 2. The Pennsylvania title from the car lists a Trenton, NJ. address. Six N.Y.P.D. officers head for Trenton; the address is phony. Others head for Philadelphia to check out Nelson Hernandez, listed as the car's owner. They learn that he has bought at least five cars in recent weeks; all the addresses on the papers are false. Back in New York, the police check out a dozen possible Frankies and are convinced their man is Frankie Segarra, a small-time pusher. Other officers trace a dog-vaccination certificate that they found in the Plymouth to the girl friend of a Luis Serrano Velez. They think he is the triggerman. Her address lists the wrong street, but police check 507 East on every street in the area until they find her apartment at 507 East 13th Street. The police get a search warrant from a judge.

DAY 3. At one minute after sunrise, the police break into the apartment. Empty. But there is unexpected evidence, including sets of handcuffs, suggesting that the suspects were involved in three recent bank robberies in Brooklyn and Manhattan--which may explain why the gunman panicked and shot the officers. The police now watch Segarra's known haunts. A detective spots him in a public market but cannot shoot; the area is too crowded. The man escapes.

DAY 4. The hunters check hotels in Lower Manhattan, and a clerk at the Seville on 29th Street recognizes the picture of Segarra. At 1:10 a.m., an officer raps on the door of the suspect's room, identifies himself, then breaks in when he hears sounds of the door's apparently being barricaded. Segarra, 24, dressed in his underwear, is there with his wife and three-year-old son. He spread-eagles himself on the bed and surrenders. He says that he last saw Velez, the suspected killer, at an apartment on Clinton Street. Thirty-five officers go there.

DAY 5. Before dawn, officers clear everyone from the apartments above, below and next to the watched apartment. Wearing armored vests because they have word that Velez may be armed with a grenade as well as a gun, they force their way in. All they find is a swarm of cockroaches. They issue a formal alarm for the arrest of Velez.

DAYS 6, 7, 8. The hunt settles down to gray, repetitive routine--phone work, sifting previously gathered information, conferring with informers. One hundred detectives and police officers are now working full-time on the case, and everyone else on the force has it in mind. "There are 30,000 cops looking for that guy," says Averill. The dragnet has turned up unanticipated side benefits. The bank-robbery evidence has led to the tagging of two more men--already jailed on different offenses--as accomplices of Velez, Segarra and Car Owner Hernandez (who is wanted for allegedly taking part in the bank jobs). Raids based on tips about the suspects in the cop-killing cases have also uncovered various small caches of narcotics and $8,000 in cash, and led to the arrest of a parole violator wanted for two years. But no trace of Velez.

DAY 9. Torrential rains all day in the dark city. Late in the afternoon, police raid a Bronx apartment of Velez's girl friend and find a phone number. It does not check out, but police ask the New York Telephone Co. for addresses of phones with a single transposition of any of the digits. They check out two possibilities. No luck. At the third, on West 19th Street, Lieutenant John J. Yuknes, 45, who has been running the mechanics of the search, posts officers at the building's exits. Not knowing which of the 18 apartments contains the phone--and perhaps Velez--Yuknes dials the number and mumbles to a man who answers, "I was asked to call this number--the cops are coming." Seconds later, a man rushes out of the front door of the tenement. He sees the cops, but an officer beats him to the homemade grenade he is carrying and also snatches his pistol, a .38 revolver. He is Velez--with his once bushy Afro shaved. The police also arrest another man, wanted in the bank robberies. Four hours later, in Brooklyn, they find Car Owner Hernandez, real name Eco Avila. After Velez, 26, is booked on charges of double homicide, Lieutenant Yuknes says, "We've been home twice since this started." But he can't go home yet. There is a morning press conference. The mayor will show up and say it was "a terrific arrest."

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