It is over now. Minutes after they captured Danilo Cavalcante, I counted 15 police vehicles passing our house heading back to their home barracks.
I awoke at 1:00 am on the morning of the 12th to flashing lights. From the windows of my house, I could see 7 PSP vehicles – at first light, men and women in uniform with AR-15’s in slings stopping every car for a look-see. Helicopters, sometimes 3 at a time, were patrolling the area of dense woods from County Park east to Rt. 100 at 300 feet.
The Troopers were told very little except to stay in their spot, be vigilant and examine their map of the search zone to familiarize themselves with the area. No one knew if Cavalcante had a phone and might have been tapped into news reports. They expected him to be hunkered down and not moving until darkness. He had a .22 rifle with a scope that he had stolen from a garage.
Some of the Troopers had worked 18-hour shifts. Now they were doing 12 on and 12 off, not counting their long drives back to their home barracks – I spoke with a Corporal who drives 3 hours back to Scranton, catches a few hours’ sleep and then drives back. All he said was that he had signed up for this.
A few bearded militia types were about, including one fool riding a blue scooter with an AR-15 strapped calvary fashion across his back. Dad-pants commandos. Cosplaying cops.
This did not feel surreal. The fatigue in the bodies and faces of the Troopers was real. The PSP cars lined up from Knauertown to Daisy Point Rd. were real. For some families deep inside the search zone, the anxiety was acute. Cavalcante had stabbed his girlfriend to death in front of her children. In Brazil, he had shot a man six times over a debt. However, for most of us living here, for a period of 48 or so hours, we inhabited the safest 5 square miles in America.
Cavalcante was a resourceful guy, but when it was announced that he was armed, I did not expect this to end well for him. He had been on the run for 2 weeks. He was hemmed in. He was being hunted. He was carrying a heavy load of fear and desperation. He was a double murderer, one of his victims being a woman. I did not expect the officers to give him as much as a twitch. It was a happy surprise that they took him without shooting him and that no civilian or officer was hurt.
This was the Deep State at work – from the Governor down to individual Troopers, I saw superb and calm organizational know-how come to bear especially in contrast to the hyperventilating news reporting which spoke of “terror” and “nightmare.” With one exception. The men who captured Cavalcante should not have posed for a photo, a trophy shot. I understand why they might have done so. They were exhausted, pulsing with adrenaline, very conscious that they had done their job as well as it could have been done. However, as soon as police seem to regard another human being as an animal, in any way, very bad things can happen.
We seem to have come into the beginning of cool and blue-sky beautiful fall days. The light has grown sharp. The walkers have returned to the roads. Everyone we meet has a story about what he or she saw happening. No one is in the woods except hunters and nervous deer. But I wonder if how we now look at these familiar woods has changed or whether this experience will soon recede into gauzy myth. I have not seen a State Police cruiser since they left.
