Lawless | FULL EPISODE | The FBI Files

[Music] in boston the police car becomes deadly the gunman escapes but boston police and the fbi vow to find him uncovering his past they navigate a trail of criminal connections false names and hidden danger to make him pay for his brutal attack on the law [Music] [Applause] [Music] a criminal who kills a police officer wages war on society in 1987 such a criminal vanished after shooting two boston offices one fatally he had a history of violence against cops and the protection of a group of outlaws as he fled across state and national borders i'm jim calstrom former head of the fbi's new york office finding this elusive cop killer meant breaking his co-conspirators before he slipped away forever boston massachusetts the city's back bay district is an upscale area unaccustomed to violent crime at 12 30 a.m on october 2nd 1987 in one back bay apartment building meredith falcone and her cousin were locked in an argument he had threatened her and she was trying to get him to leave [Music] she feared he wouldn't go away but instead grow angrier she called 9-1-1 9-1-1 what is your emergency the emergency operator dispatched two police vehicles to the scene within minutes the first squad car arrived at the apartment building [Music] it seemed a fairly routine call for officers george torres and chris rogers they rang meredith falcone on the intercom but there was a problem with her front door release buzzer according to officer torres she came over the speaker the intercom and stated to us that her buzzer doesn't work to ring somebody else's to let let us in in the background while she was talking we could hear some commotion so we knew that there was something going on inside the apartment then two more officers william kennedy and roy sergi arrived on the scene so far none of the tenants had responded to buzz them in so the officers decided to split up we took the standard procedure that two of us would cover the back and two would stay in front at that point officer rogers and myself proceeded to the back therese and rogers searched for another way into the building [Music] we look into little alcove behind the building and we see a male up against the side of the wall sort of tried to hide perhaps it was the cousin the caller had mentioned i asked them to come towards me uh to find out what's going on the fence's gate was padlocked i told to climb over the fence towards my side as he put his feet on the ground he attempted to flee at that point i grabbed him and i started the pat down procedure once i put my hands on his shoulders he shoved me got instant told me that he had a gun therese was hit the man kept firing at officer rogers [Music] then chased to rest [Music] rogers couldn't get a clean shot by then kennedy and sergey had come to the side [Music] officer sergi had been shot too [Music] though injured therese tried to assist roy sergi [Music] kennedy chased the suspect for several blocks but he had disappeared into the boston night as i knelt over him and leaned over i noticed that there was blood coming out of my left arm on the left side of my chest and at that point i knew that i was hit several times rogers called for backup and emergency personnel [Music] i felt the pain the burning sensation i started to uh calves for air a little at that point i knew that something had gone through my lung boston dispatch put out the call that all police dread hearing officers down every available unit responded in a matter of minutes the normally quiet back bay district was swarming with emergency vehicles both critically wounded officers roy sergi and george therese were rushed to the hospital detectives interviewed officers rogers and kennedy they explained what happened and said the assailant was an asian male about 30 years old of average height and with a muscular build the description of the gunman differed from that of meredith falcone's cousin the man who had started the domestic disturbance in the building officer kennedy a trained sniper felt certain he shot the gunman as he fled but no blood was found in that area the injured officers had sustained three bullet wounds each including life-threatening chest wounds they were losing blood fast [Music] medical personnel struggled to stabilize them for emergency surgery at the crime scene forensic technicians began processing the area where the gunfight took place it was littered with shell casings bullet fragments and blood detailing the placement of each item would help reconstruct exactly who fired when blocks away they recovered an ammunition clip from a handgun believed to be dropped by the gunman it was a 15 round clip from a nine millimeter sig sauer semi-automatic and it was empty if it was the gunman's they hoped to find fingerprints or some other forensic evidence that might lead them to him in the lab they would lift one partial print but it was not enough for any comparison police issued a city-wide alert for the suspect they searched all of the back bay district and beyond but that night they found no sign of the gunman sergeant detective james fong of boston's d14 station was named lead detective [Music] when i first heard that roy sergi and joshua were shot i was actually really surprised and shocked that someone would shoot boston police officers though worried about his colleagues detective fong still had to do his job the crime scene is still crime scene regardless whether a police officer or civilian involved and you have to take everything step by step he first wanted to determine where the assailant had come from then he might be able to identify him i had already been given information that the individual who would was involved in the shooting had come out from the back gate we then myself and other officers went and investigated that area [Music] inside the gated fence they noticed a large air conditioning unit [Music] on closer inspection detective fong discovered shoe prints on the cover of the unit the footprints that we recovered at the scene with something consistent with where the officer george teres and christopher rogers said that they had seen the individual directly above the air conditioner was a window from a third floor hallway i believe the footprints got on the cover by an individual jumping from the third floor window onto the air conditioned cover this suggested that the suspect was likely connected to the building somehow detectives wanted to interview the roughly 60 residents of the building fong decided to start with those of asian descent the assailant was an asian male and i tried to put two to two together thinking that maybe he did come from that building and maybe he was related or did reside at that building [Music] the forensic artist had created a composite sketch of the suspect based on the officer's descriptions but the residents didn't recognize the man although they had heard the commotion and gunshots the night before they could offer little help i interviewed all of the asian occupants that were known to have resided in that building at that time of this incident and none of them were able to give me any good solid leads other residents couldn't help either i spoke to a lot most of the tennis and they didn't even know the next door neighbor because of the fact that it's a short-term lease type apartment they're only there for a few days a few weeks it seemed a dead end at the hospital the wounded officers were in critical but stable condition investigators were frustrated they had no leads on the man who shot them then six days after the shooting detectives returned to the apartment building to check out a new lead we received a call from the manager who stated to us that there was an asian male that had lived there and that she forgot to tell us about and that they had gone in to check on his well-being because they hadn't seen her for that week the manager believed the place had been abandoned the tenant's name was mark tara [Music] he loosely fit the description of the gunman [Music] a building employee pointed out a box of ammunition they discovered when they had come in to check on tara can technicians collected the bullets noting they were nine millimeter the same caliber as the casings and fragments found at the crime scene in the lab the bullets would be compared against those used in the shooting [Music] detective fong checked the space where a ceiling tile was moved to the side it was clear but something might have been hidden there before the apartment was spare and neat suggesting the tenant might have served time in the military or prison the technician scoured the entire apartment for additional evidence we recovered a number of items clothing personal effects and ammunition and fingerprints and hair samples but nothing indicated where terra had gone checking the name they learned mark tara had no police record but detective fong got a copy of his rental contract terra listed a previous address and phone number in san francisco [Music] detective fong called the number and spoke with a man named leon perry all right perry was reluctant to talk and he denied knowing tara the individual that i spoke to was very evasive in fact i identified myself as a police officer with the city of boston was investigating a shooting of two police officers the individual then became very defensive stating to me that he did not want to help the police department perry seemed suspicious but police had nothing that connected him to the shooting fong had san francisco police run a check on perry and they reported he had no local record there boston police received a copy of mark tara's california driver's license photo they brought it to the one officer who got the best look at the shooter george torres this picture just jumped all right at me and i stated to him that's the guy that shot us anxiety and fear ran through my body anxiety knowing that we have an id on the suspect and fear because he's still on the street with a suspect identified the boston police held a press conference one week after the shootout based on the information available to me and to our investigators which i cannot disclose we have an unusually violent person and quite frankly it's scary they believed they knew who the gunman was now they had to find him in boston the shootout left two police officers critically wounded suspect mark tara had disappeared investigators discovered his last known address was in san francisco and asked their counterparts in the bay area to help tell me about it they sent the san francisco police wanted posters of tara and asked them to have their officers look out for him in case he returned there after a morning roll call sergeant greg lynch checked the wanted poster clipboard on the clipboard was a flyer regarding a suspect who had shot two boston police officers i knew i had seen the individual i just couldn't immediately place where i had seen him then sergeant lynch remembered an off-duty incident that had occurred six weeks earlier in august of that year as he was leaving a movie theater with a friend he had spotted a man on the street carrying a handgun my first thought was he made about a police officer but when i looked at him the feeling i got he was not a police officer especially when he turned and he looked at me intently after the light turned green he walked across the street i told my friend to go to the phone 9-1-1 tell him who i was where i was and that i had a man with a gun lynch's instinct told him the man was a criminal he followed the man though he couldn't stop him from driving away sergeant lynch did get the man's texas license plate number once i realized that the man of the boston flyer was the man i saw at the movie house that's when i started my investigation in acquiring the information that i called in back in august including the license plate number and that came back to a david tayera though the suspect used the first name mark in boston it was the same man [Music] his record was clean and his registration listed a post office box in brownsville texas lynch forwarded the information to investigators in boston [Music] in turn boston police immediately contacted authorities in brownsville and asked for their assistance a detective from the brownsville police checked the post office box and found the suspect's street address [Music] he went to the apartment building where the suspect had lived [Music] the detective showed the apartment manager a photo of the man known as mark or david tara the manager recognized the photo but he didn't know him by either of those names he knew him as ted atsuki [Music] atsuki had moved out months ago and the manager had no idea where he had gone [Music] the brownsville detective ran a check on the name ted atsuki and learned that was the suspect's true name the names mark and david tara were aliases atsuki had an extensive criminal record including a 1979 texas bank heist preceded by the armed takeover of a small town police station [Music] in march of 1979 atsuki overpowered the two officers manning the los fresnos police station then took out their communication center [Music] with the police neutralized he walked across the street and robbed the local bank of seventy thousand dollars atsuki was eventually convicted of the robbery and served seven years of a fifteen year sentence in leavenworth prison within a year of his release he was wanted again for violating parole by leaving the state of texas [Music] the brownsville detective called boston and offered to send utsuki's fingerprints brownsville texas got some information on the uh active case you got up there 11 days had passed since the shooting of the officers in boston and the city was still on edge by that time police technicians there had lifted a single usable print from the suspect's rental contract they compared it against tedatsuki's prints sent from texas checking comparison points they made a match [Music] investigators were sure atsuki was the gunman who had shot officers george therese and roy sergi they also believed he had left massachusetts boston police contacted the fbi for assistance and the case was assigned to special agent j fallon of the boston field office [Music] with the probable cause that he had fled the state to avoid being arrested the fbi obtained an unawful flight to avoid prosecution warrant agents tracked down a known associate of itsuki in the area and convinced him to cooperate that's what we're looking for okay he said he heard the suspect had come to boston as part of a bank robbery plot certainly first thing tomorrow morning it was our belief that teratsuki was in the boston area in order to put together a collection of associates to formulate a plan by which they would identify and kidnap a bank official it appeared the shooting of the officers was completely unrelated a tragic mistake investigators believe that on the night of the shootings tedatsuki was in his apartment boston police arrived at the building in response to the domestic disturbance [Music] call they believed atsuki mistakenly assumed the officers were there to arrest him for violating his parole in [Music] he texas his nine millimeter sig sauer and extra rounds of ammunition when police buzzed asking for entry atsuki was ready to go police believed he jumped from a hallway window to the air conditioning unit below seconds later the gun fight tedatsuki was willing to do anything to escape in 1987 boston police and the fbi searched for ted atsuki wanted for the shooting of two police officers special agent jay fallon tried to narrow the search for the fugitive and predict his moves a very basic tenet in these type of investigations is to identify and interview the subject's friends and family and associates in an effort to determine any nuances in so far as what his likes dislikes where he might be they had contacted leon perry in san francisco whom they believed to be an associate but he claimed not to know the fugitive [Music] surveilling perry they realized he was using atsuki's car they watched it but never saw it sookie [Music] the fbi's database had revealed leon perry spent time in leavenworth prison with atsuki when confronted perry admitted knowing the suspect but said he had not spoken to him in months and had no idea where he was they didn't have probable cause for an arrest but they impounded the car and arranged for spot surveillance of perry [Music] when they searched his apartment they found no sign of atsuki in boston the case took a tragic turn the two wounded officers had been recovering well but on october 26 1987 sergi died suddenly when a blood clot lodged in his heart causing cardiac arrest [Music] sergeant detective james fong when i first learned that roy had passed away i was in complete shock i had seen him two nights before and he and i were engaged in small talk conversation i remember roy saying to me i'll be seeing you guys upstairs that being in the detective's room working alongside with us upon his [Music] recovery i made it a personal commitment to myself that we would seek out the individual that shot and killed roy sergi tedatsuki grew up in texas and had family there hoping to find him investigators interviewed his relatives in the area they were shocked by the allegations and said they had not seen or heard from atsuki in several months [Music] they claimed they had no idea where he was [Music] to confirm their story investigators subpoenaed their phone records they discovered several recent calls from the relative's home to atsuki's former roommate leon perry in san francisco the records also revealed calls to a second ex-convict a former bank robber in minnesota the fbi brought him in and he agreed to turn informant he gave more details about atsuki's plan for hostage taking bank robbery and murder atsuki had associates create remote controlled briefcase bombs to be handcuffed to the wrists of kidnapped bank officials after the officials removed cast from their own vaults atsuki and his men would detonate the bombs to eliminate witnesses many times people come up with ideas which others might think of as being hair brained but teratsuki took the time to actually plan such a an endeavor and enlisted the help of professionals that were very very capable of constructing these bombs and very capable of invading a home and very capable of robbing a bank agents needed to confirm the story he told us that these briefcase bombs were being stored in a storage facility in san francisco which atsuki had rented under an assumed name the fbi and the san francisco police bomb squad found the storage locker and inside the briefcase described by the informant not knowing exactly how the device was triggered they had to be cautious the specialists placed the briefcase far from the storage building then attached a small charge designed to open the case without detonating any bomb inside [Music] [Music] third it was a pipe bomb an improvised device made volatile by gunpowder held under pressure when sparked the powder burns so intensely it bursts the metal pipe walls sending deadly shrapnel flying in all directions render it safe they needed to open the pipe releasing the pressure on the gunpowder [Music] using a water cannon is the safest way to do so according to san francisco fbi special agent philip senna the cannon slug is forced out by water under great pressure that way you're not firing something that has uh heat and flame directed at the pipe you're sending something that's relatively benign in the uh effort to uncap the explosive before it can [Music] explode [Applause] the device was very well constructed quite sophisticated it was designed to be placed and then detonated from a distance i was told that the device was capable of killing somebody and having a relatively small blast radius maybe 10-15 feet but being pretty devastating within that radius they later found and rendered safe a second bomb the evidence was collected for processing at the forensics lab special agent fallon wanted to know if hatsuki's former san francisco roommate leon perry knew about the bombs after the bombs were recovered we reinterviewed perry perry stated that he had no idea as to the existence of these bombs and certainly would have notified us if he did we then sent the bombs and the materials to the lab and we determined the lab determined that in fact perry's fingerprints were on the boxing materials that the bombs were in based on the fact that we truly didn't think that perry was cooperating with us as completely as he could have and should have we made the decision to revoke his parole and put him in jail investigators had long suspected that perry was actively involved with atsuki now they had direct evidence unless he cooperated perry was facing a return to prison of up to 20 years [Music] special agent sena hoped to get him to talk we had enough evidence of his association with azuki and parole violation evidence that we had the ability to put a little pressure on him he was comfortable in prison so going back wasn't the worst possible thing that could have happened to him we spent the first day probably 15 hours talking and this went on for approximately a week sometimes 10 12 14 hours there were headache days [Music] eventually agents convinced perry it was in his best interest to cooperate and he began to talk perry said that on the day after the boston shooting he got a phone call in san francisco he told us that ted had called him told him that things had gone bad in boston natsuki said he had shot two cops there and that he was shot too he told perry he was calling from the airport in dayton ohio natsuki said he had to fly to texas where he could quietly get medical attention for his gunshot wound atsuki had left his car and the gun he used in the shootout at the dayton airport he asked perry to go to ohio and get it perry agreed ozuki sent the keys to the automobile and the long-term parking ticket overnight mail he was to go to dayton recover the car take the murder weapon and destroy it drive the car back to san francisco unload the rest of the stuff from the car and hide it perry found the car as atsuki described inside was the nine millimeter sig sauer the murder weapon was a high quality handgun he was reluctant to destroy that high quality handgun so he decided that he would take the handgun and give it to his father he drove to his parents house in missouri and left the gun there we contacted the father i spoke with him i assured him that his son was doing the right thing i asked him if he still had the handgun and he said that he had missouri agents retrieved the sig sauer [Music] ballistics testing confirmed it was the weapon that fired the fatal bullets fingerprints were found to be on a bullet within the weapon that matched azuki so now we not only had the weapon that ballistics showed had killed the police officer but we also had ozuki's fingerprints on one of the bullets in the weapon with physical evidence implicating atsuki in the murder of roy sergi and in the building of deadly bombs the fbi placed tedazuki on their 10 most wanted fugitives list but the dangerous fugitive had been on the run for four months [Music] by now it could be anywhere in 1988 the fbi continued a nationwide manhunt for tedazuki the suspected cop killer on january 22nd of that year they placed him on their 10 most wanted fugitives list to further the publicity of the case the fbi asked a nationally televised crime show to profile atsuki during the broadcast an acquaintance of atsukis called the show's toll-free number [Music] when it seemed he had a legitimate tip operators patched him through to fbi special agent j fallon j the caller said that atsuki was especially close with two particular relatives living in texas and that if anyone knew atsuki's whereabouts it was this couple authorities had previously spoken with the couple who claimed to have no contact with the fugitive if someone saw us at the birthday party though that's about it checking the relative's phone records agents discovered a sudden increase in calls from guadalajara mexico where the family had other relatives atsuki might have fled there the hunt extended into mexico fbi offices in foreign countries are called legal attaches at the mexico city legal attache fbi special agent stephen walker took on the case the fbi has no legal authority to conduct investigations on a foreign land according to the foreign the laws of that country so we solicit or the fbi would solicit a cooperation form a liaison relationship and request officially that the host country law enforcement agencies do the work of the fbi [Music] special agent walker met with the mexican federal judicial police to ask for their assistance in searching for atsuki we didn't have any an exact address in guadalajara but we did have some suspect telephone numbers in that area and the investigation conducted at that time failed to locate the relative or to locate otsuki special agent fallon hoped atsuki's former roommate leon perry could help them offering perry immunity on the bomb making charges the fbi convinced him to wear a wire we had devised a plan by which we thought that perry could speak with family members of teratsuki in an effort to have the family be forthcoming and advise perry as to where atsuki might be agents created a fake passport for perry and coached him on how to draw the relatives work in never works in mexico perry got this bogus identification and was going to leave town so to speak that was the story that he was going to tell atsuki's family in an effort to have the family reach out to atsuki to speak with perry it was also the situation as to the murder weapon and one of the biggest selling points was that perry needed to know from the family what ted wanted done with the murder weapon before he fled after several requests atsuki's texas relatives agreed to meet with perry at a restaurant in matamoros mexico outside boston detective james fong fbi agents and mexican federal police waited ready to listen in on the meeting all right mike sounds good we're ready to go okay other agents were inside prior to the arrival of perry myself and another agent had gone into the restaurant and sat down in an effort to observe and surveil the situation perry walked in sat at the bar he didn't have to wait long before atsuki's relatives walked in we're going inside right here agents could hear them talking but atsuki was never mentioned after a few minutes atsuki's male relatives said they needed to leave the surveillance teams changed plans faster i was concerned because that was not exactly what we were expecting however you have to have faith in the people that uh that you have out there uh we'll pick it up here and then you can pick up in a few minutes coming up to you they would have to stay close enough to maintain the audio signal but still avoid detection they hoped they were finally closing in on ted atsuki in northern mexico detective james fong and other investigators had wired an informant and followed him as he met with relatives of suspected cop killer ted utsuki [Music] surveillance teams had to stay close to maintain the signal from the microphone they had on informant leon perry i need to meet with him i need to talk with ted it's gonna be tough i'm telling you well where is he he's he's not anywhere around here if he wants me to take care of the things he wants me to take care of i'm going to have to meet with him and i can't i ca i don't know how else to tell you that okay i tell you what finally the relatives said they would call it suki my wife has a number i think what we can do is to head over to the bus station the bus space they've got phones there oh okay and they may be able to help us uh connect to them okay well do you think he'll meet with me he's not gonna meet with you he might talk to you over the phone but that's about it the bus station was in the town of matamoros a few miles from the texas border investigators watched as the relatives placed a call on a public long-distance telephone [Music] undercover agents kept a closer eye on them the relatives spoke briefly then gave the phone to perry it was atsuki he told perry to destroy the nine-millimeter sig sauer he said he'd been robbing banks in mexico but he wouldn't say exactly where still the phone call was the best lead yet for special agent philip senna the mexican federal authorities were able to get the phone number that was accessed from the clerks that run the bus station the federal judicial police were able to determine the location of that number in guadalajara working as a liaison with the mexican federal police in guadalajara was fbi special agent stephen walker we had the telephone number it was called we knew it was atsuki that was called it was listed to a residence in guadalajara which turned out to be an apartment in the city so it was just a matter then of going to guadalajara enlisting the services of the federal police to go to the apartment teams of officers staked out the building but there was no sign of atsuki we were so close but we didn't have him yet so in some ways it was more difficult than not knowing where he was because now that we knew where he was we wanted him desperately and we didn't know if we were going to be able to accomplish that then two days after the stakeout began [Music] gun but didn't get a shot off this time the federal police arrested him then transferred custody to the fbi the next day tedatsuki was found guilty of the attempted murder of george therese and the first degree murder of roy sergi he was sentenced to life plus 20 years officer torres recovered from his wounds and returned to active duty he retired from the boston police department in 1997. roy sergi promoted to detective after the shooting left behind a wife and three children and scores of friends on the boston police force the community room at the d-14 police station is dedicated to his memory george torres hopes the legacy of the case helps keep other officers alive we try not to take anything as a routine call there's no such thing as a routine call you go they expect the unexpected after the shooting boston police began issuing bulletproof vests to all officers and replaced their six-shot revolvers with 15-round semi-automatics [Music] now they stand a better chance at coming out alive when the unexpected [Music] happens [Music] you

Channel: The FBI Files

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Keywords: Crime investigation, Crime scene investigation, Crime-solving challenges, Crime-solving mysteries, Crime-solving techniques, Criminal behavior, Criminal case analysis, Criminal investigation, Criminal profiling techniques, Domestic dispute, FBI cases, FBI documentary, Massachusetts, Most-wanted man, Murder mystery, Police murder case, Roy Joseph Sergei, The FBI Files, True crime, True crime enthusiasts, Unsolved crimes

Id: Wj2gS7gN9rI

Length: 49min 23sec (2963 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 06 2021