Word: cars
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Like many teenagers on a Friday night, James Cooney needed a car to pick up his girlfriend. He borrowed his good friend Barry Bootan's father's Chevrolet, banged it into a pole and racked up $900 worth of body damage. To come up with the money, the two New York City prep school graduates hatched a bizarre robbery scheme. Over the next 48 hours, youngsters who had never been in trouble played out every parent's nightmare. A minor scrape gave way to panic, then to terror. All judgment vanished. At the end, Cooney, 18, was dead, and four...
Frantic to get the car repaired before Bootan's father returned from a weekend fishing trip, Cooney and Bootan, 18, called three other classmates from Fordham Prep, a Jesuit school from which they were graduated on June 3. About 1 a.m. last Sunday, the five headed off in Jason Katanic's mother's Chrysler with three ski masks and a .22-cal. rifle. They drove to a late-night grocery, where Cooney held up the owner for $140. Buoyed by their success, the boys rode around looking for someone else to rob, shooting out the windows of about six empty...
Cooney leaned out the window of the Chrysler, pointed the rifle in the driver's face and demanded his wallet. He then fired two shots into the side of the car, and the boys' luck ran out. The driver turned out to be an off- duty policeman. Ducking down, the officer drew his .38 pistol, stuck it out the window and fired five times. At least one shot hit Cooney square in the face. Four more bullets strafed the Chrysler as it sped away, Cooney dying in the front seat...
Horrible deeds done by good people prompt the most difficult questions. How did efforts to get the car fixed spiral into robbery and death, bad decisions made at every turn? Nothing about Cooney or his friends suggested they were capable of reckless, murderous behavior. So far, drinking and drugs do not appear to be a factor. Three of the boys came from working-class families who struggled to pay the $3,225 tuition at a strict private school where Catholic, not prep, is the defining sensibility. Cooney was the stepson of a police officer; Katanic's widowed mother...
...backup strategy requires sneaking near the rail yard to board in darkness. Railroad police are everywhere with spotlights. No sleep again. Just after midnight they find a grain car with a narrow porch. Twenty minutes later, the freight pauses to add an engine, and aliens from the Mexican border clamber aboard frantically. Finally, the clickety-clack commences for the last time. A hobbyist road-named the "Gentle Giant" defines this moment. "You face nature, and the train is your friend," he says. "All your senses are alive. You'll love your wife, your children and your home better." Three weary...