A memorial is set up at Detective James Allen's desk, department members go to debriefing sessions, and emergency calls for police assistance continue as they do every day of the week.

09:43 AM EDT on Monday, April 18, 2005

BY AMANDA MILKOVITS
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- This was their house.

This was the place, the police officers said, where they felt safe. Some joked they spend more time here at the Public Safety Complex at Dean and Washington streets than they do at home. Most would not be kidding about that.

They know the risks when they take this job. But not here. Not in this brick and concrete building.

This isn't a crime scene like any other. When the officers were searching yesterday through the halls and offices inside, and beating through the shrubbery outside, it was their house under seige. It was their house on lockdown.

"It's tainted," Officer Clarence Gough said softly. His tired eyes drifted to look at the station. The lowered flag fluttered against the flagpole.

He'd come to the job not long after James Allen and rode around with him in the West End. Gough left his own birthday party just after midnight to come to the station and begin his other job -- as part of the peer support group.

Yesterday, he and Lt. Kenneth Cohen, Mike Wheeler, and others in the group gathered all day and through the night in meetings with the officers. Other departments -- West Warwick, Warwick, Coventry, Fall River -- had offered help.

"I'm in shock," Gough said. "I feel like I can't get my bearings. I haven't been able to focus."

In the brilliant sunshine, the sister and father of another fallen officer tied blue ribbons on the antennae of police cruisers. Robert Shaw and his daughter, Pamela, were both near tears. Allen's death was so like the murder of Sgt. Steven Shaw 11 years ago.

Robert Shaw hugged Gough. He hugged the other officers who saw him and came over to say hello.

The pain never goes away, Shaw said.

All that some of the officers could think about was getting through the day. Few had slept. Most had come in when they heard the news, and they stayed at the station or the hospital.

The sleepless commanders worked through the day. Chief Dean M. Esserman's phone rang with calls from ministers, police chiefs, community leaders. The City Council members had been awakened at night with the news, which spread through the community.

"All of us have been struck by the outpouring of support from the community," Esserman said. "The Police Department is not grieving alone. The community is grieving with us."

People brought in flowers. They called with condolences, said clerk Jean Patek. "People are saying, 'We love you. We care about you,' " Patek said. "They say, 'We want you to be safe.' "

The emergency calls kept coming in the city. A stabbing in the afternoon. Car accidents. Complaints about harassing phone calls.

The officers went out, their faces wooden. They cracked bad jokes about other things, talked about other investigations, searching for ways to take their minds off Allen's death.

Later, they gathered to talk to each other.

Some went into the debriefing sessions late in the afternoon.

Allen's desk mates, Detectives John Murray Jr. and John Coughlin Jr., stood in the shadows of the parking garage behind the station, talking to each other.

They had set up a simple memorial at his desk. They laid a black wreath and arranged his family pictures. They put up pictures of Allen, so the rookies who were sworn in January would know who he was.

Of all people, they kept saying, Jimmy was the last one they had imagined getting hurt. He wouldn't hurt anyone else. He was smart, but wise enough not to lord it over anyone else. His world was simple: work at the station, work part-time as security at Whole Foods Market. But his free time was with his family.

His death shattered everyone. The staff from Aftermath Cleaning Company had removed the blood-stained rugs from the conference room and cleaned the glass shattered from the window.

The room would be repaired. But they couldn't imagine ever going back in again.

"Every day, we have to go in and think about this," Murray said. "This is our house."

He repeated himself, wondering. "This kid got killed in our house."