The trial of Patrolman Thomas Shea /

In a tense, if somewhat tacky, blow-by-blow account, Hauser (The Execution of Charles Horman) recounts the events leading to the trial of white Queens, N.Y. cop Thomas Shea for the 1973 shooting death of ten-year-old black Clifford Glover. He presents Shea, a twelve-year veteran with a quick-on-the-trigger rep, as a not-too-bright law and order man who always wanted to be a policeman (and who took his wife, on their first date, to a cub scout dinner). Mistaking Clifford and stepfather Add Armstead walking to work for two taxi-holdup suspects, Shea shot the boy while Armstead, who thought Shea was a robber, ran--to his eternal shame (""He was just a boy. . . . I never knowed they would hurt him""). Routine investigation revealed inconsistencies and apparent lies in Shea's account and that of his partner. The gun they swore Clifford was going to fire was never found. High-ranking black police officers and attorneys became involved, building against Shea a solid charge of murder--the first ever brought against a cop in New York State. But the jury (11 white men, 1 black woman), thinking the police ""their last line of protection against the black hordes,"" voted for acquittal. (Shea, however, was bumped from the police force two months later.) The Shea case was big, as well as important, and Hauser's formulaic descriptions of the cast offer both more and less than one wants to know. For example: ""Tall and pleasant looking with graying black hair, a dark complexion, and decidedly Greek nose, Demakos was a nice man."" Still, he gets the facts and the complicated larger picture of black/white, citizen/cop hostilities that are both cause and effect of the murder of Clifford Glover and the ruination of Thomas Shea. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.