the 16th floor where he observed a 33-year-old traffic officer named Paul Persigo attempting to divert onlookers to safety outside the hotel. Essex fatally shot Persigo in the mouth. According to several eyewitnesses, Persigo staggered several feet before falling to the sidewalk. He was pronounced dead on arrival at Charity Hospital. Shortly after noon, Deputy Superintendent Louis Sirgo organized a rescue party of three men to free patrolmen Burl and Childress, who were believed still be trapped inside an elevator shaft close to the 18th floor. At approximately 1:07 p.m., while approaching the 16th floor, Sirgo and his colleagues heard what they believed to be a police whistle sourcing from this floor. Believing this whistling sound to source from the two trapped patrolmen, the four officers ascended further. As Sirgo turned the final corner of the staircase, Essex shot him once at almost point-blank range through the chest, exposing his spine and causing Sirgo to fall backwards onto his colleagues. Essex immediately turned and ran in the direction of the hotel roof. Sirgo would be pronounced dead on arrival at Charity Hospital. Final standoff At approximately 2 p.m., Essex—by this stage having depleted his portable cache of firecrackers and ammunition—took cover in a concrete cubicle on the southeast side of the hotel roof. Over the following hours, he repeatedly shot at a CH-46 military helicopter piloted by Lt. Colonel Charles Pitman, a pilot in the United States Marine Corps who, without obtaining prior clearance, had flown to the location to assist police in their efforts to kill the sniper or snipers. Pitman first landed the helicopter near the hotel, allowing five police sharpshooters to board. This helicopter subsequently performed several strafe runs over the hotel roof over the following hours, and Pitman later stated his hope to at least strike Essex with a ricochet, although it is unknown whether Essex was wounded in any of these exchanges. In each instance Pitman flew away from the hotel to reload, Essex returned fire at the helicopter. Initially, Superintendent Giarrusso was reluctant to place any further officers at risk of injury or death by deploying them to the hotel roof. His strategy was to keep the sniper pinned in the cubicle in an effort to erode his morale. After several hours, in a last-ditch effort to persuade Essex to surrender, Giarrusso ordered a black police officer to communicate with Essex via a battery-operated