Camp Gagnon - NYPD Cop Reveals Craziest Subway Crime Stories

Episode Date: October 31, 2024

Former NYPD transit Cop, Tony Hernandez, is in the tent today to talk about all the WILD stuff that happens on the subway lines we use every day. From fights with rowdy train riders, to the mole people that live rent free in the city's best kept secret, Tony tells all like only a former cop can. Sit back, relax and WELCOME TO CAMP. MERCH FOR SALE NOW! CampGoods.co 🏕️ JOIN S'MORE CAMP INNER SANCTUM HERE: https://camp.beehiiv.com/ Thanks to our sponsors! Go to ground.news/gagnon to cut past the sensationalism and find the truth in today’s news through diverse perspectives. Save 40% on the Ground News Vantage plan with my link. Prizepicks : https://prizepicks.onelink.me/ivHR/CAMP Visit https://Join.whoop.com/Camp for a ONE MONTH FREE TRIAL with Promo Code: CAMP TIMECODES 0:00 Intro 2:37 Is New York Safe? 4:24 Crime in NYC + GTA + Chop Shops 10:00 Paper Car Tags 13:27 Tony’s Background 15:34 Start of Tony’s Career 22:03 Offer To Become Undercover +Corruption 31:37 First Day on Subway Patrol 34:04 Subway Vigilante’s 37:57 Women's Struggle on Subway + Advice 40:08 Columbian Pickpocket Crew 41:57 Should You Fight Back? 44:38 Low Crime Reports 52:41 Phone Robberies + Phishing Blackmail 55:09 Moped Crimes + Migrant Gangs 1:01:21 Organized vs Unorganized Crime 1:03:26 Unqualified Police 1:06:25 Tony’s Stories as a Cop 1:16:30 Underground City 1:19:01 Most Dangerous Subway + Hustlers 1:22:37 Handling People With Mental Illness 1:32:01 Cops Quotas 1:37:32 Relating To People 1:40:35 Tony’s WILDEST Story 1:47:07 Blade Limit + Knife Crimes 1:50:30 Bomb Threats 1:51:59 Crazy NYC Stories 1:57:16 Identifying Gangs 1:59:18 How To Stay Safe? 2:04:30 Choosing To Be Homeless 2:07:50 Mind Your Own Business 2:12:39 Most Dangerous Day on Job 2:17:32 Outro

You said something that scared me. You said you can get touched in any neighborhood in New York City. That is true. Everyone's like, oh, it's so safe, the safe of city. Who's saying it's so safe anyway? All the headlines I see is like, the city's going down, migrant crisis, shooting at cops, stabbing here, a lady get punched in the subway. And a lot of people think it's fear-mongering. It's not.

You know what it is? It's... This is Tony Hernandez. He is a former NYPD transit cop that had a specialty in dealing with subway crime. Is that anything you can do? Like, if some guy runs up to me and tries to run like... They all have guns. You think they're down to shoot, though?

Like, if someone tries to give him a fight. I know they're down to shoot. And today, we're going through all of his most crazy story. He's a street man who was drunk. Before he could even execute the punch, I, like, threw my body into him to sit him down. And then we were just, like, trying to take him down. My father's had him by the ears.

The gang members that he's had to deal with and fight on the train. I got one name that sticks in my head. I'll never forget his name. But some guys you'll fight with. And there's some guys, there's no fighting. Gunplay right away. That was him. He even tells us about the people that live under the earth.

mole people in cities and little villages underneath New York City deep in the tunnels of the train. They live down there. Homeless people. I've been down there, man. There's intricate cities below here. I'm telling you this episode has absolutely everything if you were interested in New York City crime stories, specifically relating to what happens in the underground. So, sit back, relax. Tony Hernandez. What's up, baby? What's up, Mark, man? Thank you for having me. Of course, brother. Thank you so much. You got a real nice spot here in this little teepee, whatever you want to call. Yeah. It's a little weird. New York City to have like a whole campsite.

Yeah, we're at a dock. It's original. Yeah, exactly. I like being in nature, bro. I think that's where we belong. The nature boy, huh? Yeah, not in these concrete jungles that you know all too well. Yep. You have a fascinating story. Mother's Italian. You got all these wild mob, mob stories, mob connections, we'll say loosely.

Father's Mexican. And you are obviously Dominican. That's what that makes. My name was Enrique, first off. I used to pull the Enrique card. I used to dress with the bandanas or whatever, whatever the girl's like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I had the fake numbers. Couldn't give a girl your real number. Oh, wow. Yeah, you had to have like one of those abs or just maybe a separate phone.

A little burner situation? That was it, you know? I was doing it. I was doing it to sell drugs. I was doing it to get women. That's an honestly an honorable way to do it. You know what I mean? All these guys got these burners for drugs. Yo. If you're going to do it, you got to do it right. It takes work. Go for the, go for the greatest drug of all, you know what I mean? Latinos. Women? That's what it's all about. That's my weakness. You and every other guy.

Okay, welcome to it. You spent a little over 10 years as a cop in New York City, which is fascinating. So I'm curious, we were just walking around the neighborhood here in Brooklyn. I'm walking around being like, oh, this is like a safe spot. This is nice. You know, some artists. You got some coffee shops. There's like a dog spa where you know where you can go to get your dog, get the Manny Petty done.

Yeah, of course. It seems very safe. Yeah, exactly. It seems safe to me. But all of a sudden, we were walking around and you were like, yo, you know, this neighborhood is not so safe. It's not so safe. And you said something that scared me. You said you can get touched in any neighborhood in New York City.

That is true. So on the aggregate, would you say New York City's, you know, everyone's like, oh, it's so safe, the safer city. Is it safe? No. Okay. It is not safe. Okay. And who's saying it's so safe anyway?

All the headlines I see or whatever is like the city's going down, migrant crisis, shooting at cops, stabbing here, lady get punched the subway. What are you talking about? That's true. That's fair. That's fair. And a lot of people think it's fearmongering. It's not. You know what it is?

It's harsh truth and a soft reality. Okay. We walked around and this is your reality. You're like, well, look at this. We got dogs and this and that, whatever. And I'm like, hey, did you read the recent homicide report in the 9-4 or the 90 precinct? And somebody got killed right there and you're like, no. I don't even know about it.

Exactly. You know what I mean? So that's what happens with most people, you know, they don't understand that. Crime happens every day, everywhere, and most people are unaware. You're going about your day. You're going to work. You got your doctor's appointments. You got to pick the kids up from school.

You want to go out with your friends. You're not really paying attention to the local crime report. Maybe in your neighborhood. But if you live in Brooklyn, what do you know about a shooting that's going on in the Bronx right now? It might not make the news. Not at all. How do you even know that anything happened? You know, so when people say crime is down in New York City, yeah.

Maybe you just haven't been touched by it yet. So where does crime happen in New York City? That's like a really hard question to say because it's very random, you know. It can happen anywhere at any time. You know from you think that sometimes it's concentrated in the more the ghettos or the high crime areas, but that's not true You know it can happen anywhere, you know, it just depends on the crime There might not be street crime, let's say in a particular neighborhood, but every single house on the block has been burglarized in the last six months That sounds like a crime pattern to me in a nice neighborhood doesn't it and that happens often

One of the leading precincts for burglaries is the one oh nine and which one's that That covers Queens northeast Queens where I'm part of where I'm from flushing Bayside College Point, Whitestone, Malba. We're talking about some of the richest real estate in New York City, some of the most high-priced real estate, nice areas, you know, kind of suburbs. It's the highest burglaries, home break-ins, all that kind of stuff, whatever goes down over there. I forgot what that's called.

Grant that photo. Yeah, grant that photo. Right, right, right. That's the thing. But if you're going to jack a car, you're going to jack a nice one, right? And you know what? The famous thing over there is leaving the car in the crates. They do that all the time.

take the wheels. What is that? They put the crates. Oh, yeah, yeah. They'll jack up the car, like the old school. They put the crates on the... And the catalytic converters now? Yeah, it's crazy.

That's ridiculous. Did you have to respond to any of those? No, I did subway crime. So for me, we could be in a vehicle. So if I saw something, you know, I would do something, but it would depend on the crime, you know what I mean? Petty stuff, no. But if you're in the vehicle and you see somebody

cutting a fucking catalytic converter off a car or whatever, you're going to do something, of course. But that's really rampant right now. I have a buddy that works in a old. auto crime. He was telling me most of the cars that get stole here, it's an organized ring of car thieves. They happen to be Dominican, but there's an organized ring of car thieves. And it's like 20 dudes. Maybe more. Who knows how big this operation is? But once the car gets to New Jersey, kiss a goodbye. That's it. It's gone. Who knows where it winds up? Come on.

I end up in Santo Lomingo tomorrow. Wow. So it's really... They can't track it. I assume they got all the cams. I'm sure they do. I'm sure they have all this or whatever. But as soon as, and we have something called LPRs, the license plate readers. You know what I mean? So it'll ping, bing, bing, bing, whatever, like if the car is there. But sometimes these guys are so fast. So who knows how they do it. But once it winds up over that bridge, it's almost like 90% that I think of being

Kuwait by tomorrow. Wow. Yeah. And that's coming directly from a buddy of mine that works actively in auto crime. So like the Cadillic converter hustle, like how much money can you get from a catalytic converter? I'm hearing 1500 plus. Wow.

So do 10 cars in a day. And how long does it take to do? do a car like 15 minutes 15 minutes minute and a half two minutes or whatever these guys are under there maybe five minutes tops with the whole process but I've seen it done on video they showed it on Instagram and TikTok there's one I'm not sure if it's in New York City it looks

like it and the guy's like hey what are you doing he looks out on his balcony and there's four guys and masked up I've seen this yeah and he cuts his thing and the guy's like go back inside what are you going to do I'm going back inside fuck that shit bro I'm going back inside I'm going bird hunting on kind of out, you know? Yeah.

I mean, that's crazy. And so then, like, the tire hustle, like, how much money can get from tires? See, it's mostly about the rims. And it's, like, the racing rims, you know? And it's weird because you'll know where the crime comes from. It's terrible to say, but a lot of these neighborhoods are concentrated crime neighborhoods known for stealing cars and stuff like that. Corona happens to be one of them.

A lot of the dudes that were getting traced back to stealing cars and flushing and Bayside in that area, they were all from Corona. You know, guys from Corona just hustling the cars. There's a lot of body shops on Northern Boulevard over there. And the famous junkyard, which they're taking down, that was mob control right next to City Field. John Gotti's son-in-law had that. Oh, wow.

Yeah, that was his. And what was the benefit of having the junkyard? Is that you could... They could steal all the cars, change... Do everything you could imagine. You know what I mean? Steal the car, change the vint plates, you know, everything. Yeah, swap things out.

Swap things out, stolen car parts, you name it. You know, there's so many things you could do. They call them chop shops, you know? Right. I heard this hustle out and now. LA, it probably happens here, but like you would get a rental car. And then it would be the same as a car you're trying to hit. And then you swap out the tires and swap out the rims.

And then you've returned the rental car with the old shit. And then your car gets the new shit. And I was like, oh, wow. There's like all these little like schemes and hustles. That happens a lot on Turo. Oh, really? Yeah. A lot of people will ring cars on Turo. Like the car rental app.

Yeah. Think about it. If you're like, hey, I'm renting a car on Turo. And if people will play the game, you know, especially if it's a self-rentil where you can just automatically rent it, you know, you don't even have to see the person. Yeah. They don't know what they're doing with their cost. So you get a tire change for the cost of a daily rental, which is like 70 bucks.

Yeah, maybe you get $100 or whatever. You know, you're all in, and you just got four new tires for $100. And then they don't know that this shit even happen until three rentals later. And they're like, yo, who did it? And they don't even know who to blame, yeah. And it's really hard to prove because those big companies to roll, you forget it. They don't want to give you money for nothing. Wow.

Yeah, man. That's wild. See, there's a lot of schemes like that that are more like here. if I would have said that happens in New York City, it does happen a lot. That's more of the detective route, though. That's investigative crimes. Me, I was a street guy. You know what I mean?

I was on scene, in the action when stuff was going down, you know? I was headed towards that way if I would have stayed on and being in the whole playing close kind of thing and go towards detective. But, you know, certain things had happened and I just started looking at the job a little bit differently and everything changed that really after COVID. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? You remember the riots?

People kind of forget about the riots, man. It was crazy. Cops were getting hurt, man, really hurt. Yeah, that's crazy. What do you know about paper plates? Like the cars with like the temporary plates? Oh, that's a big deal too. But they set up an initiative on that.

Those are like really cars from like Pennsylvania, those kind of license plates talking about, like the temporary ones. You just print them out, Texas and all that stuff. And what's the deal with that? Like why are guys doing that? What is the benefit? So drive around.

You have unregistered car and the license plate, you probably have no insurance or whatever. And if a cop sees it, whatever, like, oh, it's just a temporary place. they'll probably pull you over and be like, hey, it's a new car or whatever, I just got these plates, you know, whatever, whatever. Are most of the guys doing it, you think, like, trying to, like, get around, like, tolls and shit like that? It could be. Are they trying to, like, do crime and not be tracked?

It's hard to say. The criminals are definitely doing crime in those cars, that's for sure, you know? And there's been numerous occasions recently. That's why they started that initiative that during certain neighborhoods and, like, Brooklyn and the Bronx and just in general in New York City, like, it was just becoming an epidemic with a problem or whatever, you know, criminals doing crime in the car. people just neglecting the fact that they have to do their duty and register the car and do this because if you kill somebody with that car, then what happens? You know what I mean?

It's like your unregistered vehicle. You're going to go to jail for a long time. Yeah. If you're like me, you probably read a news story and you're like, this is crazy. What is the truth about this? Is this a partisan spin? Is this funded by some media company

or some country by their state-sponsored media to try to warp my brain? I genuinely read news articles now with so much skepticism because I have no idea if this is from the right or the left and what the agenda is and why it's being presented in front of me. And that is why I follow and support ground news. That's right. So even before I started working with this company on the podcast, I've been following them on Instagram

because I just thought they gave a very, very great, unbiased, nonpartisan approach to media. It's awesome. Basically, you're going to get a headline and they will show you sort of the different media splits as it comes to understanding the story. They will compare the reporting from different outlets across the political spectrum in one place to show you how the framing and word choice can affect our understanding of a story. I mean, here's a story that my mom sent me from a couple months ago. Robberies, assaults surge in Central Park, leaving New Yorkers and NYC tourists terrified. What is the purpose of this story?

Who is writing it? Where is it coming from? Now I can go to ground news, read this headline, and be able to make an assessment as to whether or not this is predominantly being reported by the right wing or by the left wing. and make some type of deduction like, oh, this is actually being used, you know, as some sort of political apparatus. So if you're like me, if you're a truth seeker, if you're trying to find unbiased news, I would absolutely recommend ground news. It is a completely independent, nonpartisan, subscriber funded.

It allows readers to think critically about the world around them and it doesn't tell them what to think, but instead lets them think for themselves. And ultimately, it avoids misinformation and tries to heal polarization within our country, which I think is absolutely amazing. So don't let misinformation and sensationalism influence how you think and more importantly, how you vote. This election is massive and obviously very important. So try to let your brain be unfettered by the bias of media. Save a massive 40% on Ground News's top tier vantage plan with my link, ground.

com, news slash Gagnon, J-A-G-N-O-N-N-O-N, or scan my QR code right here. Or go to the description and click on the link. This unlocks access to all of their news analysis features, something that I think. think is, I don't know, super important to have. Yeah, make decisions based on facts, not spin this November. Check them out. Let's get back to the show. So now most of your time was spent in the subways. All of it pretty much until the end. And that was from roughly 2013, 2012. So, yeah, 2013, I got sworn in. But I was approached. I don't know if you saw my other interview, I kind of talk about this or whatever. Yeah, with Johnny. Yeah, with Johnny, right,

the connect. Great guy, by the way. Shout out to Johnny. He's a homie. He's a good guy. So in 20, I didn't have any aspirations to be a cop or whatever. I was running a lot in this neighborhood, you know, a lot. Are we allowed to say where we are? Yeah, yeah. I'm not saying no addresses or whatever, but we're in Williamsburg, you know, and this was like my second home. You know, I have a lot of family here.

My godfather still lives down the block, you know, so I'm here very often. Yeah, yeah. And I would be bouncing around all of New York City. I ran with a lot of different crews, a lot of different circles, say hello to a lot of different people for more aspects of life, you know. So when you do that, whatever, you run across, in New York City especially, you run across people that are on this side of the law, and you run across people that are on this side of law. It just happens. And that also kind of dribbles down to family as well. You speak Spanish? Yep, fluently. So you have kind of the benefit of being able to like, you know, I don't want to say code switch, but you can kind of assimilate into a lot of different cultures.

Oh, without a doubt. And I actually speak Spanish like a Dominican. Oh, wow. Yeah, because I grew up, my father didn't really teach me Spanish at all. He was just doing his thing. He was working and whatever. He just didn't have time. You know, he was. He was one of those guys who came. He was good dad and everything, you know? He just was like, teach me some Spanish. You didn't have time. Yeah, you learn the mom's language, though, that's how it goes.

Right. So when I got older, my love for Latin women or whatever, you know, I started hanging out with this Puerto Rican Dominican family and I met this gentleman. His name was Marino, rest in peace. He was like a second dad to me. And he was like, I'm going to teach you Spanish. You got to learn Spanish. And I started.

And then in school, I don't know how to read, write, everything. If you're trying to meet Dominican girls, that's the way. They don't speak English. That's the real. That's the goal. Like you with the blonde, with the hair? Or I like that with the blue eyes, if you go to Santo Lomingo, you will murder it over there, bro.

Hands down. I'm taking this wedding ring off right away, bro. Easily. Out of here. Oh, I didn't know those guys married. His wife's going to be like, I don't want this episode out. I was this guy. He's a cop.

He's a good guy. He's a good guy. All right, back to blue. Yes. So I'm curious, though, your time in the subways. Right. So going back or whatever, right. You saw some wild shit.

I did. I did. So around 2012 when I actually floated the idea, I wasn't far from this neighborhood. I was hanging out in a bar in Bushwick. I don't want to say the name, but I was hanging out at this bar or whatever, and in this bar was the perfect mix of New York City people. So you had a leader of a biker gang, a lieutenant from the police department,

buildings department inspector, some neighborhood Shylock, and maybe some guy that's down on his luck betting horses and an alcoholic, and then a couple old ladies in the corner. Only find that in New York. And Williamsburg, Bushwick area, especially at that time. So when I was there, you know, I was hanging out with a lot of people. I kind of got there, whatever. An older friend of mine who was, he's got a great story too.

He's born and raised in this neighborhood. Like, he's 60 now. Oh, wow. So, yeah, he was born and raised in this neighborhood. He did a little time in the join. And, you know, he's got great stories. So he's the one that actually brought me to this bar. Oh, wow.

Right. So I went to this bar and immediately fell in love with it. You know, beautiful women, cool guys, very humble people, whatever the culture. Hey, have a drink, relax, hang out. I fell in love with it. So I'd be going back then going back to it. And it would meet people like, what do you do? What do you do?

At the time, I was in the restaurant business. I was bartending in all these different places. And I kind of just fell in with them. You know what I mean? And then to find out, a lot of them were detectives. And I was like, these ain't the detectives that I'm used. Or even the ones in my family that, you know, they kind of give me that side look, whatever,

just the way I look from being in the street and stuff like that. I used to have long hair. I used to have braids. I'll show you a picture. You would never recognize me, ever. So I saw these guys And they had like a particular swag to them, whatever And I was like, I could be a cop like this

You know what I mean? And it was like, how are you in the bar drinker with me? And be like, hey, lieutenant's a friend Don't worry, he signs off on a thing. So I was like, oh, you know? And that was like, we're going to call corruption, call corruption, whatever. But don't act like it doesn't happen because it does. So, you know, just things like that.

You know, they might get away for a three hour lunch. And I'd be like, how the hell your lunch is an hour? How are you three hours or whatever? Listen, as long as we do our job. They don't break our balls. And I was like kind of like surprised to hear that. I was like, and they were good cops. They were like detectives, you know, like second grade.

In order to get great, you might have to kiss a little ass, but you got to be a good cop. You got to show your record and stuff like that. You like, you know, arrest record. And it's not based off a test. It's based off merit. So you actually have to get promoted. You know, like they have to pick you to promote it.

Yeah, vouched in kind of. Like vouched in, like a recommendation from the police commissioner or the chief, whatever, something like that. So anyway, I met. I met these guys or whatever and it started to like don't on me like I was like going through like a little quarter life crisis whatever you know like should I continue

I was making a lot of money at the time you know bartending mob joints regular you know catering halls regular weddings little side hustle here in there it wasn't a side hustle that was my main hustle but were you were you running any side hustle at the time weed a little weed you know

just kind of like smoking and then like hanging out in groups or whatever and then like I'd smoke the night for free and then wind up with like a hundred bucks 200 bucks in my pocket just from people exchanging whatever, you know what I mean? That was just purely petty cash, you know what I mean? The real money that I had was working these parties, you know what I mean? And that's why I made a lot of connections. So I'm working these parties, and then on my off time, I'm hanging out in these bars, you know what I mean? Some, I'm going to restaurants that are owned by wise guys, because they got good food. You know what I mean?

Parkside, that's one of my favorite tiny restaurants, you know, and that is owned by Tough Tony, who rest in peace as well. He was supposedly a captain with the West Side. a good chicken parms so you're like i'll pull up their meatball oh my god i can't say it better my mother's like the italians coming out i love it's it's so good their sauces got everything about that place is great their bread they do like the little uh bread basket with the old pizza i mean come on you can't get better but i like there's a couple good spots i like but that's definitely up there and then maybe i'm a little biased because my family's originally from that area like corona the spaghetti park area my grandmother they're from national street yeah i'm trying to find pictures because my aunt linda was

born there whatever and they went through her stuff and she was was more in the National Street, like in the 40s. Wow. And that's when they moved over to the hill in flushing. Gotcha. So going back, you know, I had friends and family, whatever, on both sides, law enforcement in the street or whatever. And, you know, working these parties or whatever, I have met a lot of individuals of

prominence talking about police commissioners. What's that guy's name, whatever? Schumer. I don't know his position or whatever. You know, I met people like that, you know, in very prominent positions. You know what I mean? You're seeing both sides. You're seeing the top dudes from sort of the street life, but then also it's kind of like the...

The political side. The real side. Yeah. The big gangs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're like, oh, okay. So now you're basically confronted with the choice. Right.

Right. So I'm, you know, I kind of saw the writing on the wall. I was like, you know, if I were to pursue just this hustling lifestyle where I'm bartending around these guys, little side hustles here and there, whatever, scores, whatever they do, I like to gamble as well. So it was like, you know, maybe a little bookmaker. If I went that route, like gambling, that's probably where I would have went. And if I went into the street life, because I really enjoyed that.

But I had a cousin or whatever, and he's like, let's go take the test. And I was like, all right, well, let's go take it. I did really well. I got like a 98 on the test. You can't study for it, really. It's kind of common sense, but common sense ain't that common. You know what I mean? It's hilarious when you find out people fail.

And I'm like, damn, you must be fucking stupid. But growing up in the city, I feel you probably had, you had a sort of an advantage. You know what I mean? Like if the test is common sense, you're like, yo, I got, you got all the common sense. Right. Well, see, the thing is growing up in the city, that's street smarts, you know? This is more common sense stuff. Yeah, it had something to do with the street or whatever, but it was just more regular, just regular stuff.

Just regular stuff like that. They want to see if you're just capable. You're not a fucking moron. You know what I mean? That's basically what it comes down to. And unfortunately, there's a lot of morons out there. We live in a society where I'm, yeah, my past. I'm like, you're fucking stupid, bro.

They ask where you're like left or right? What do you pick straight? You know what I mean? Things like that. But whatever. So we take the test. I do well. At the time, I have a hook in the department or whatever with the chief of department's

office. Okay, full bird inspector. And I happen to see him and I see, I talk to a couple other people and they're like, hey, I want to become a cop. And they were like, what? You want to become a cop? I'm thinking about it. I took the test or whatever.

And they were like, get the fuck. So I used to go to a lot of these dinners and stuff to network or whatever. So I wound up going to a catering hall in Howard Beach where the dinner was going down. It was called Romervue. It's right next to Rousseau's on the Bay. Notorious mom neighborhood. I'm in three upper echelon, NYPD people or whatever. So I get there and I was kind of ambushed.

I thought we were just going to talk about where you want to go, what you want to do, we'll take care of you or whatever. So it's this full bird inspector, chief from Intel. And, yeah, chief from Intel and a former undercover. So he tells me, what do you think about undercover word? You're going to undercover work? This is not like, they just kind of ambush me. I mean, they're getting. I was just like, you're perfect.

I was like, bro, yeah, I would have been. But the problem is, for what? For what? You've seen any of these guys that go undercover? Look at Donnie Brasco, all these kind of stories or whatever. It's not like happy stories in the end. They ruin people. You ruin them.

They ruin you, whatever. And that two-faced shit, it just doesn't sit right with me. Yeah. You know, it doesn't. If you're doing some real messed up shit, okay? Everybody has rules and parameters and stuff they believe in or whatever. You know, like me, I'm pretty loyal to a fault. You know what I mean?

And that was a conflict of interest for me or whatever, because how could I essentially lock up or investigate someone that I'm so loyal to just because they might be running a gambling house or selling some pounds, a weed? Right. You know what I mean? I'm like, they're not hurting anybody. Go after some these motherfuckers in the street or whatever. You got pedophiles out here and stuff.

I don't agree with that stuff. You know what I mean? that kind of stuff. Like, you know, you see people beating up kids or horizon kids. I'll gladly investigate all that stuff. I'll gladly go undercover in that and bust that fuck. I talked to this dude, Bob Hamer. He was undercover with the FBI for like 30 years.

And he took down this like pedophile organization. And he was like, this was the greatest thing I ever did. He's like, sometimes you take down these guys and they're doing drugs. And it's like, look, I get it. You're in a tough spot. Right. But it was these like pedophile motherfuckers. He was like, oh, I couldn't wait to take them down.

He took down like 14 of them inside this ring. And he was the greatest thing I ever did. I bet. It was more of a moral compass for me, you know what I mean? I was like, damn, like, what would I do it for? And, you know, I'm a student of history, you know what I mean? So I'm like, if I'm going to be an undercover, let me see some of the best undercovers out there, you know, see how it is.

Jack Garcia, he was undercover, went undercover with the Gambinos or whatever. Look how fat he got. He was in great shape or whatever. He could have died of a heart attack. The guy got 500 fucking pounds or whatever. Too many spaghetti dinners, bro. That's what happens. So much got of Google.

But the point is, whatever, the amount of stress. and I didn't need that adrenaline, that kind of excitement. I would get that from the street or whatever anyway, I knew, just hanging out with that. And also flipping on the dudes, not to say, like, not the literal guys you grew up with, but the types of guys you grew up with. You're like, yo, this guy that I'm turning in could have been my cousin, could have been my uncle. Or just somebody that grew up in the neighborhood was. You know, I talk about this.

Like, the neighborhoods are disappearing. Like, this neighborhood gentrified, okay? But it's, it still has a soul over there by the church, by the Mount Calma Church. You see, they got the feast on. I was telling you, it's been there for like 100 years, you know. That kind of keeps the neighborhood alive. But these other neighbors, like the one I grew up in the hill, it's all Asian now. It's all Chinese.

It's all foreign investment coming in, paying cash, everybody moved out. I'm guilty. I'm one of them. But I was one of the last three of my weekends there. Everybody already left. You know, the neighborhood had transitioned very fast. Because I want to say growing up, it still had that feel of like, you know, it was like Irish, Italian, like the early settlers that came in or whatever. they moved from the tenements, like my grandmother from Corona, National Street.

They moved over. They bought houses. And it was a generational neighbor where they raised families. I was the last generation. It stopped after me. There was nothing more after that. So undercover work, you were like, no, I'm good. I didn't want to do it.

I was like, you know what? I knew too many people from too many places. I was hanging out in Washington Heights, Best weed up there or whatever. Coming out in Bushwick, hanging out in these bars. I live in Queens. You know what I mean? Tons of places in Manhattan. I was attracted to that.

know that like risque lifestyle you know what I mean when you can't when you tell me I can't go in there I'm just gonna go in see what's up you know like what's so bad about it that I can't go in that's something in me I guess you know adventure what did they I'm a son of Columbus yeah you want to see you want to see put me on a ship right so what did they offer you that you accept so they come in and they tell me whatever they say hey listen what do you think about undercover work and I'm like what do you mean they're like well you little did undercover you're narcotics or whatever you know and he was telling me you know we bought drugs in the street it's cool you'll be all right He was really downplaying it.

Like, so he's telling me whatever. He's like, oh, whatever, you know, this is a good spy. You'll like it, whatever. And he had done undercover work for a long time because he still works. And he's still there. That's why I have, you know, I have no names. So he told me, he's like, you won't regret it. You'll like it.

You'll be perfect for it. I know you for years. These guys are vouching for you. You're going to go right in. You're not going to go into the academy. We're going to just put you out there. You'll be like a ghost, whatever, you know? Like, there's something called the ghost.

So I don't want people to get it mixed up. but Goses who kind of follows the undercover, but nobody's even gonna know that you're a member of the department here kind of thing, you know? And then they saw I was like apprehensive and my father was so against it because he saw what happened to those people down in Mexico, you know what I mean?

They got their families, they don't play that shit down there. So the first thing, he was like, banged his fist on the table, you know, like old school, like hell no. And he came from an era, no ratting, no snitching. He don't believe in none of that shit. He gets furious when he hears I listen to Sammy the Bull on my pot.

Like, I'm listening to Sammy the Bull Bulletin, he's like, turn that shit off. It's just like what he grew up in and what he believed in, you know? It's just like not what he believes in. What was it in Mexico, like the Federals, right? Like, if you're like a cop in Mexico, like you're banging with cartels all day. Like, it's crazy. The corruption in Mexico is so deep that they're corrupted before they even get into the department.

Yeah. You know, there's a great documentary. I actually saw this in person. It was by Charles Bowden. He died. I don't know if you remember him. I went to see this. It was called Sicario Room 164.

It was in Germany. I believe it got released in Germany. the guy was talking in Spanish and they translated. He was a member, I believe, of the Juarez, the Juarez police or Federales or something like that, but was a hitman killed over 200 people, something crazy for the Juarez cartel. Yeah.

So your dad grew up around that. He was like, you're not going to be a fed. You're not being a cop. I wasn't involved with it when I could have got involved with it. And when he came here and he met the Italian side of my mother, they were really prominent members in organized crime. That he was like, I could have got involved with it at the peak and you're going to try to get involved with it now

when it's fucking family. Fucked that. Exactly. That's what he told me. But I couldn't really see it at that point. You know what I mean? I was still kind of like, you know, you're enticed. You know what I mean?

But going back to the undercover thing, whatever, I turned it down. I told them, nah, I don't think it's not for me, whatever. They saw I was apprehensive. They said, what do you think about going undercover in the police academy? Kind of like reading out the corruption type thing, you know? And I was like, and the beginning I said, yeah, I was like, all right. And then it just wasn't me because I'm thinking the same thing. Like, damn, what about if I meet somebody in the academy, right?

And some good guys. If you're like corrupt, corrupt, you're going to get fucked anyway. You're going to out yourself. But let's just say I meet a guy, right? And he's a nice guy and we establish a rapport. And he tells me he's got a second job on the academy because he's got to support his kids or whatever. And I'm not fucking going to tell that he's doing that or whatever

because then he gets kicked out of the academy. It's prohibited to do that or whatever. But in my eyes, he's not doing anything wrong. He's going against the administrative book, a patrol guide, but he's not going against the law or the law of life. You know what I mean? Trying to feed his kids or even just trying to hustle. Like, hey, man, I'm thinking about saving a house.

I'm not going to make a lot of money with this police. They're only paying me $40,000 a year or $44,000. That's the degree we're getting paid. In New York City, you're paying $44,000 a taxed as a cop. Imagine you have a family. It's impossible. So what do you want them to do? That in itself breeds corruption.

You understand? Because it's like, how can I, if somebody's offering me to look the other way, why wouldn't I kind of do it? And I laugh at these people who say, oh, corruption doesn't happen. Oh, no? Oh, no. Oh, corruption is. stopped. There's no cop nowadays that would risk their badge to do this.

Dominican girl in the Bronx, look it up, court for trafficking drugs. Asian detective court in the gambling houses in Flushing. Over and over and over again. Lower rank cops or whatever have some kind of scheme going on. It might not be while they're wearing a uniform. They might use the shield while they're on the outside, but there's a lot going on. So those guys eventually are going to get caught on their own just for the shit that they do. But I just had a moral compass and I was like, no, I'm not doing it.

I decided to just do the right thing. I was like, I took the test or whatever, guys. I'm sorry, I can't do it. I called them. I was like, alright, whatever. They approached me getting later down the line. Because they were, you know, they were like family friends. And this time they did it in front of everybody.

I was at this Italian Charities dinner. And they were like, Tony, come over here. And I was with my crew. So they, like, saw me or whatever, going up to like this full bird. And then there was a chief there. And I'm hugging and kissing them, whatever. And they're like, how you know those guys? Like, how you know what you know, we're in the van now.

And everybody's asking me. I'm getting bombarded. And I'm straight up. You know, so I was like, I either don't answer you or I'll just be like, eh, you know, eh, you know. So I was like family friends, you know, it was true. I known them for a long time. So they kind of did me the favor of whatever and put me in transit because I asked. And the reason that I picked transit was the exact thing that I was telling you before,

no conflict of interest. I couldn't get called to a gambling spot in a cafe middle village, right? I can never get called there being transit. I couldn't get called to, you name it. I really couldn't get called to it if it was on the street. Now, if I saw some crime happening on the street, of course, I would get called to it. But I wasn't getting those kind of calls. I'd get in to anybody.

And I would never run into anybody that I may have or may not have done any kind of business or transaction with on the street. This makes so much sense. This is what I'm so curious about with you, right? Like, you come from, like, I don't want to say a crime backward, but you grew up in a neighborhood that crime was prevalent. And you knew street guys, but then you also know. It was a very nice neighbor that I grew up and, don't get me wrong, but the underbelly of it. And most mob neighbors are very nice. They're nice.

Look at Howard Beach today. It's like, still a lot of mob guys there. some of the most expensive houses in Queens. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, like, you knew some street guys. You also knew some, you know, official political guys and government guys. And how you square that and transit's the answer of, like, how you solve that dichotomy. Right.

That makes a lot of people thought that was crazy, you know? And a lot of people always think I'm crazy. And I kind of like that. I do outlandish shit. What you are? A little crazy. I am a little crazy. You know?

Just a tiny bit, you know? He knows me for five minutes. He could already sense it, you know? And I like that, though, you know? Because I try to be honest. So if you, like, you think I'm a little crazy? I am a little nuts. Yeah, yeah.

If you were born and raised in the city and you're not nuts, something's wrong. There you go. So then you get first day in transit, and what does that look like? You're on the platform, like looking out for, you know, like turnstile jumpers, crackheads. I didn't really know what to do the first day. It was we didn't even have an FTO with us. They were just like, all right, you have this and go out. In the beginning, we were citywide task force.

And you're in uniform. We're in uniform. We go all over the city. It could be anywhere. I reported in Queens at this time, but we could wind up in Bronx, can wind up in Brooklyn, could, we got sent to Manhattan as well, whatever, on details and stuff like that. But the majority was Queens area, right?

Right, at this time? So we bounced around, bounced around. And in the beginning, I saw something crazy. I told this story as well, whatever. When you're taking the train as a civilian, you know, because I was desensitized taking the train. I saw so much shit already. So it was like, whatever.

This was different because I'm in uniform now. You got to do some shit. And I got to do stuff, you know? The New York way is to mind you. your business and keep walking. So I was tempted to mind my business and keep walking. Like, you know, I didn't see you shit, you know, but now I'm in uniform. Now I got to do something. I mean, they had to run a whole campaign in the city. If you see something, say something. See something. That's how much New Yorkers mind their own business. They're like,

yo, if you see someone getting stabbed, like just tell someone. You know what I mean? Because New Yorkers will see some shit. Be like, not my problem. Keep a move. I saw that in the village or something, right? Somebody got stabbed and the people just walking over them. It happens, bro. That, like, that New Yorkers get to sensitize that shit. We get desensitized, but it's also the mentality. I remember what I was telling you before, like, oh, people don't think that crime happens. You want to be a hero? You go and you try to stop that and maybe you get stabbed.

And people in New York know that and they've seen it. So that's why they don't want to get involved. Yeah. I mean, you saw this thing with that dude that choked the guy out on the train. I did. Daniel Penny, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was maybe like two.

That was after you would retire, I think. I think that was like two years ago. I can't remember the time. They're talking about the Marine, right? The ex-Marine who choked out. Yes. And he got involved and now he. his whole life is like, you know, fucked up.

Like, I don't know what happened to him. I don't know if, did he get off? Do you, do you know anything about that? I'm not too familiar with what happened at the end of the case. But in the beginning of the case, I'll tell you this. This is all, I feel like it's all political stuff. Of course. Because, you know, this gentleman or whatever, like, I'm a student of history.

Like I said, this is not the first time there's been a subway of vigilante. You know what I mean? Somebody stepping in like, hey, stop this BS or whatever. If you remember, in 1984, Bernard Gates. What happened? Four African American teenagers get on. on the train, probably harassing people, and if you've been on a New York City train, you know this.

Once that door opens and there's four teenagers walking in, you're on guard. I don't care what you say, whatever. Say whatever you want. You're a little like, you know, what's going on here, whatever. First off, that's a crime. That's called unsafe riding. You're not supposed to do it. They don't give it whatever. They walk right through. They're rowdy. They may be messing with people

or whatever, you know. They thought they saw him as an easy target. Skinny white dude riding the train or whatever. You know, he's got glasses on or whatever. He had been picked on or robbed or whatever, mugged so many times or whatever, that he got a gun. And when these guys started picking on it, whatever, he shot all four of them. Whoa. And they arrested him, and it was a big deal.

It was a very highly publicized case, probably even more than Daniel Penny today. What happened to him? I believe he eventually got exonerated, but he did a couple months in jail or something like that. It might have time for manslaughter or something, but he didn't do the full murder of those guys. Did they all die? I'm pretty sure they all died. Yeah. But it was like him defending himself.

You know what I mean? In a way, because people say like, oh, my God, he was my baby. He was with a bad kid, this and that, whatever. Yeah, the same old fucking story, blah, blah, blah. And I'm not, don't get me wrong. Is that kids that hang out with the wrong crew? Yeah, so why are you letting them hang out the wrong crew bad on you as a parent? Now you're coming to cry about how he was a good boy.

I mean, to be honest with you, if they were picking on him and he shot them, okay, maybe that's not right or whatever. But if there's four guys and I'm outnumbered and I got a gun, guess what I'm doing? I'm shooting too. And don't tell me you wouldn't either. You know what I mean? That's crazy. And did you see any vigilantes when you were actually working?

You wouldn't say vigilantes, but, you know, the guardian angels started to come out when the crime was getting bad. And that's when they came out before. So with this whole Daniel Penny thing, just going back to real quick before I lose it, it's the same kind of aspect. The problem is right now, the political climate in New York City is very different today. You know, you got a DA like Alvin Bragg or whatever. And I hate to mention names and talk, you know, shit, and talk, you know, whatever you want to call, criticize someone in public, whatever, but I feel like he deserves to be criticized from his actions.

You know what I mean? Like, how can you even think to charge someone who's taking on this role of like citizen policing and kind of stopping it, whatever, with a crime? And how can you dare charge someone with murder after defending himself? You remember the bodega worker sitting there in his bodega in his bodega in Upper Mahayan or the Bronx, I believe? And the guy comes in to rob him and he stabs him, Jose. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Bragg wanted to charge him with murder for defending himself. Yeah. This is the politics that's going on right now. That guy needs to be gone, man. He's no good for this city. And you get people from all around the country, all around the world that are weighing in. But it's like, yo, if you live in New York, like, you see shit on the train. Right.

And, like, I don't know what happened that day, but I'm pretty sure the dude that got killed was, I think he had, like, some prior records. I think he had, like, punched a woman on the platform. Like, he was like, you know, he was not mentally well. Typical perp that rides a subway that picks on everybody that does things every day and gets away with it and then one day somebody steps in Do you know how many people get shit taken from them on the train and get their stuff taken or get punched or assaulted or groped or a forcible touch? You know that's very rampant forcible touching really happens all the time because the train's always crowded So how does it happen?

Like what goes down? You get very close to a woman. You rub your crotch against her or whatever or if your hands like this or whatever Your hands like this and you're close to her breast you know you're holding on to the pole like this you're going going into her, knock it into her. It's a very common thing. Oh, wow. Very, very common thing. And so creeps will just go on and try to like, you know, rub up up. That's their best time to ride, the pickpockets and the, uh, the forcible touches. They love riding during the time because they get their best, their rocks off, I guess,

because they can kind of get away with it. Depending on how much they can kind of get away with it, you know. And then you can't really prove it. I'm sure if you're a woman. It's like, you know, this guy was being weird. Yeah, he was rubbing against me or whatever. It's like, hey man. Oh, he got off, you know, two stops ago. Even so, like the train is packed or whatever. But what do you want me to do?

Of course I'm rubbing against you. There's no choice. Yeah. So it's like they kind of use that. What do you do if you're a woman? Like what advice would you give to like, you know, a woman does listen to it's like, you know, I'm trying to ride the train, but I don't want to get groped. Like what, can they, should they sit down?

Sitting down might be okay, but that doesn't save you because there's tons of videos. Like sit down and guys like exposing themselves right in the girls' faces and stuff like that. I mean, the best thing if you can is try to keep your back against somewhere, like a door. You know what I mean? Try to stay like that or whatever. So that way you can kind of see what it's going on. in front of you and just kind of be, you know, vigilant, be situational awareness is paramount.

That's my thing I always say. Be aware of your surroundings, be aware of what's going on, you know? There's suspicious-looking characters. Maybe I sense that more because I'm born and raised, I know what to look for, but there is a lot of suspicious characters that if you just watch their behavior, you know what they're doing. Everybody in New York City has something to do.

That's why, if you look at the city all sped up, everybody's moving, b, mom, ma-ma, it looks like this, right? What's the guy doing that just standing around, doing nothing, wandering around, waiting for the trains to pass, miss three, four, five trains, getting in and out. You understand? It's very easy to spot, especially if you're riding the train for a little bit. So women, you know, just in general, even people, you know, women and men for the pickpockets.

Make sure you try to keep all the stuff in your front pockets. If you have to put stuff over here, if you're a woman, do it because these guys are slick. A lot of them are very slick. There was a Colombian pickpocket crew, okay? They operated up and down the seven line easily blunded in because it's a pretty, pretty, predominantly Hispanic neighbor with a large population of Colombians. And they hit on the line while we were there. That's how good they are.

People were saying, I just got robbed while we're flooding the line with uniform cops, plain clothes cops, everything. And they're still working. That's how good they were. They eventually got caught. Bump into you in your back pocket, wallet, cash phone. Everything quick. We saw this guy, this video of it.

He's walking down the stairs in Junction Boulevard. He opened up somebody's backpack, took the laptop out, past the closest backpack, that guy had no idea what happened to him. He reported it to the police and was like, I had to be in the subway because I had it on the train, and then I got off and got home, and I didn't stop anywhere, I didn't do anything, so I had to be from here to here.

It had to be. And you saw the video. They traced the camera. Yeah, Junction Boulevard on the 7 line. Walking down the stairs. The dude's probably gone, right? So this was the pattern, though. We was the same guy that we were looking for or whatever,

so we eventually caught him and everyone else or whatever. They got wrapped up. Wow. But these guys were notorious. They came back. This was their second time around. They had already been here, whatever, a couple years before.

They'll float from city to city. Do they roll in a crew? Yeah, all crews. So it's like five guys, six guys? Women, too. Women and men. You'll see them now start operating in targets and Walmart and stuff like that. They do organize stuff to people's pocketbooks.

So they'll come with like shopping carts and they'll push like, they'll bump you with the shopping card. Or like create a diversion like they're looking at something but blocking your way and someone will come and somebody will bump you're trying to get away and you're like so flustered you don't know what to do. And at that time somebody's taking stuff out of your pocketbook or just taking your pocketbook. Wow. Tons of videos of this.

Tons of, tons of videos. This happens all the time. So those kind of guys operate in the subway all the time because it's a great opportunity to take something from so much. What should you do if you see someone like that, you feel like, yo, I felt my back pocket just move. Oh, my wallet's gone. You look over, you see dude has your wallet.

Like, do you press him? Like, do you try to fight them? Or do you just be like, yo, that's the game? Like, give it up. Depends on the kind of type of person you are. Nobody's taking nothing from me, I'll tell you that. But if you... But if you...

But if they're rolling with a crew, I don't like I might step to one guy but I don't want to step the five guys. No, if you're if you're in public make a big scene That's the best thing to do and will they give it back like pick pocket pick pocket they do it in Italy They yell at the pick pocket and they all start getting nervous and running and people look you know if you're like don't let him go You know and make a big scene, but you got to be ready to fight you know what I mean like if you're not a fighter You know try to call 911 and follow him call 911 and don't let the guy out of your sight, you know, but be careful if you check him you think he'll just give it back and be like yeah whatever and just depends depends on the guy You know what I mean? Depends on the guy.

Because some of them, that happened one time or whatever, where we were at Queensboro Plaza and we were all in plain clothes looking for these guys. And there was a guy who took the phone out of the person's pocket as they were getting on the train. Remember what I told you,

these guys that wait for three, four trains? He waited for like the third train. He acted like he's going in or whatever the train. And he starts to walk in and he gets the phone or whatever. And we jumped the guy like we were going to get him and he slipped the phone in the pocket real quick.

So now you got him and he's got nothing. And the person's like, Like, ma'am, can you come here real quick? This guy tried to steal your phone. No, my phone's here, whatever, you know? Like, no, no, no, I don't want none to do with it or whatever. Oh, wow.

So now you've got the fucking guy. You got nothing on him. So there's that quick. They can pick it and then reverse pick it. He was so fast or whatever that it was like, he took it like this out of the pocket and it kind of just threw it back or whatever by the time we got him. Because we were watching him. We knew what he was going to do.

Like, here he goes. Here he goes. Here he goes. And as soon as he got him, he let it go. And they were like, damn. And I get the woman's precise. She's like, look, I don't, like, I don't know who you are. I don't know what the cops are doing.

They might be just be trying to get some nice kid that didn't do anything wrong and try to put me involved in it. So she's just like, I'm good. Mark, let me tell you, it's not even that. It's that even when they're victims of a crime, people don't want to go to the precinct and make a report. They just take it as a loss and keep it moving. It's a close to doing business of living in New York City.

Yeah. You know what I mean? It's like, damn. So that means I got to go sit in the precinct with you for four hours, do this report, then the detectors are going to call me and I got to waste more time. Some of these people just work 12 hours shifts, which you need to work to survive in New York City, and now they got to do this or whatever, you know? So if it's something very trivial or whatever, like I said, that's why a lot of crime goes

unreported because we're just too busy here. You know what I mean? They got my wallet. Like, if I got my wallet jacked, I'd be like, okay, I lost a couple credit cards. Like maybe I lost like $25 and I'll just be like, look, I'll cancel the credit card and just move on. What about if you took your phone? It's bricked. I'll say it's missing whatever.

Apple will cut it off and I'll go to get my insurance and get a new phone. It's not worth it. So you're the reason why they say crime is low because the crimes are happening. They're just going underreported. Yeah. That's what I try to tell people, whatever. And I get text messages from people now that, you know, I'm talking about this, whatever, out publicly or whatever, you know.

Tons of guys on the job who are like, talk about this. Tell them about this what's going on and stuff like that, you know. And all of them say like, I don't want to call it. number fixing, but if you do a grand larceny, let's say, right? You know, it's one of the seven major felonies or whatever. It's a big deal or whatever. That's a number. That's a real number. The CEO, everyone is going to be on your eyes. It's like a big deal. Oh, we took another grand larceny. What's the number for it to be grand larceny? I believe in this, it's a thousand dollars or over and then $5,000 depending on the property. If you jack someone's phone, forget my man.

Don't quote me on the numbers, but I believe so. But if you grab someone's phone, that might be a $1,200 phone. No, it's grand loss. Automatic. The phone's a grand loss in the automatic because they're so expensive. Wow. Yeah. So that automatically is a grand larceny. But a lot of times what we all saw was either the administration, I don't want to say a particular rank,

but the administration or the district attorney don't want to prosecute that. They want to give them a deal, bump it down to, you know, I'm going to wrap all this up. I really don't see it. I think we're going to go petty lawsony or whatever and we'll go disorderly conduct. And, you know, it'll go to court and he'll get the deal. dismissed or whatever. So it's like, wait a second. Like I just had one of the seven major felonies, grand loss in here, phone snatch robbery or whatever, should count, should be recorded in the crime stat, should go all the way to the public to see this or whatever. But before it

even gets to the public, it's being manipulated into something else. And a lot of the guys who are on the job right now will talk about it. They won't talk about it publicly, but they'll talk about it at the local bar or wherever they're expressing their gripes about the department. That's definitely one of the things like damn you can say oh the numbers are down and a lot of the bosses are happily to do that because they get promoted so the best way to make the numbers go down is to prosecute less and just let some cases just go to the wind just not take them and then you look great you look like a superstar high brass you're like look at this guy he cleaned up the area the numbers are down this and that there has been some inspectors like when you go that route usually like when you get your

own precinct you're like a captain inspectors there have been some inspectors that have been called for it you can look it up i don't want to mention some of the names but I've worked for one. So when I mentioned to you I'm like yo numbers are down, it's like look yes on the on the books the numbers are down but it's just because crime is underreported. That's what they're telling you. Yeah, they're telling you that the numbers are down but you just said yourself well if my wallet got stolen why am I going through the process so let me ask a question if you got smacked like let's say he smacked you and it took your shit and ran away would you go after him would you be like I would be a little more inclined

if you got if he pushed if he was just like if I got pushed I mean like a lot of people get pushed let's say you push and you fell it down like oh shit and then you you you get back up, but you hurt yourself. You're like, oh, you know, my shoulder hurts a little bit, but whatever. You want to charge him for assault? You want to go to court? You want to identify him? It also depends on the guy. Like, if this is like a real dude that I'm afraid of, if it's like some

teenager or something, maybe I'd be like, ah, yeah, I'm not afraid of him. But if it's like a real... Why not? Because he's a kid, and the cop's not in his door and he'd be like, oh, I'm sorry. That's what I said. Now I can tell, I can see that you're not from you. I can just see it. These kids are the ones that you have to watch out for.

They don't think. The shooters or whatever, 14, 15, 16, look in them. Those are the ones you gotta wear about for. A real dude is not even gonna steal your shit anyway. But it's gonna be the guy who doesn't think that's that little kid or whatever who looks harmless because he can't fight

or can't step up to anybody that carries that gun that's bigger than him. That'll blow you away. Wow. What's up, guys? We're gonna take a break really quick because I need to tell you what's going on with camp.

Yes, this is just a camp behind the scenes update, no script. I just want to tell you what's going on here at the wonderful campsite. Two things. One, we got merch. Check it out, baby. It looks beautiful. It looks absolutely amazing. It's up on the website right now.

We got this shirt and we got this shirt. They're absolutely awesome. I love them. I think the logo is beautiful. And we did very limited orders. We didn't make that many shirts because, you know, I don't know what the heck I'm doing. So they're probably going to sell out if you want to check it out. There's also a link in the description. You can also check it out at campgo.com. That's right, campgoad. Check it out, grab a shirt, join the campsite. On top of that, we also got smore camp. What is smore camp? That is the intersankton. Okay, that is our weekly newsletter, sometimes multiple times a week, and it's absolutely amazing because it gives you every single update directly to your inbox of what's going on with this show every single week. It'll give you cool updates and interesting things that are happening in history just to keep you more updated on the world to make you a more interesting human being for every room that you walk into. Things like, you know, religion, the mafia, war, crime, things that are just, you know, make your day better, you know, starting your day, just reading about a terrible crime that happened. Look, there's also some good stuff. We're probably going to be doing some give-a-wit. We're probably going to be doing some give-a-war. ways. For people that sign up within the next 48 hours, probably be sending some extra, you know, merch to, maybe some sneak peek deals, maybe send in some episodes that haven't come out yet. There's

all sorts of incentives and cool things we're going to be doing with that community. So, join the campsite. Now, let's get back to the show. What's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick because you need to know what's on my wrist. This is a whoop. It is my favorite thing ever. I'm genuinely so excited to be working with them. I wear it all the time and here's why. I love my whoop for a couple of reasons. One, it gamifies my health. It turns my actual health into a video game. Every single morning, I can pop on to my app and I can look at how I slept that night. I can look at how what I ate impacted, how I slept. And it tells me all the metrics for my health that I need in order to perform my best, not only at the gym, but also at work, doing a podcast,

listening to some scientists, doing stand-up. It helps with everything. And on top of that, I use it for my workouts. My whoop strength trainer, literally I type in my workouts and it tells me everything that I'm doing. It keeps my heart rate. It tells me where my heart rate's at. and it keeps me on track with all of the reps and movements that I'm doing. It's absolutely awesome. And you, if you're not wearing a whoop, you absolutely should get one. The other thing I love about it, it can give you, like, data on other people within your region or other groups and how they're doing. So you can keep track, see where you're at on the leaderboard.

It's super fun. If you're interested in joining whoop, taking control of your health and trying the challenge for yourself, I would implore you to go to join. Woop.com slash camp. That's right. Join. wop.com slash camp. Or you can click on the link in the description. And for people that use this promo code CAMP, you will be getting

a one month free trial of Woop. Let's get back to the show. Now, I had a friend that got his phone stolen and he was able to track it. And he saw the phone was in a bad neighborhood and he saw the address that the phone was at. And he was like, yo, I want to go get it so bad. I just want to

let's just pull up and go get it. And I was like, no I'm not gonna do that Why would you? That's what I said I was like I don't know who the fuck's in there I don't know what they got Like if they're stealing your phone they probably got A hundred other phones and if they got a hundred Other phones that's you know a couple thousand bucks They probably got guns I don't I'm not going into that

What would be your advice from my friend that's like yo let's let's go get it Unless your friend is about that life Like going in with a gun and putting in people's faces and demand this stuff Which could go very bad you know because that's that's the kind of people whatever that get their shit back if they ever do. Yeah. But regular citizens who are you nuts?

Like is your friend crazy or whatever? You know, he could get killed. Yeah. You just found maybe the stash potter or who knows what you're even walking into, like you said. In that instance, you call 911. You have a cop escort you or whatever. They'll do the heavy lifting.

This guy stole my phone. This is the address. It's pinged here. Accompany me here and they will. And they'll go get it. Yeah, they'll come with you or they'll go get it themselves. Oh, wow. Yeah.

I mean, that's kind of cool. No, that's the way to do it, whatever. Going in there all vigilance, what do you're doing? What do you're from, Ramble? Yeah, he thought he was. This guy's putting the thing on, like Arnold and Commando or whatever, trying to thing around his arm. He was fired up.

But I get that, though. You get some shit stolen. That's a different feeling. Now, what if it's an aggressive robbery? What if someone, like, holds up a knife and is like, yo, let me run your pockets. I'm taking all your shit. I'm taking your sneakers off you.

I think that depends on the person, too, but come on, give it to them. Have you responded to those cases? Oh, yeah. Violin robberies. It happened all the time in the subway. Like all the time. Really? There was, now, I don't know if it's so much,

it's definitely giving you a shit or whatever, but I remember seeing like on the F line, we had this pattern of really young kids who were 16, 17, like I was telling you, but they were already kind of hardcore and they were knocking people out and taking their phones, having knives on them and taking their phones, all that kind of stuff. Wow. Yeah, so it's like, you know, I don't know.

What can you do with a phone, though? A lot. Like if you, if you jam it up. up and you'd be like, yo, it's stolen. You send it, you send it to another country or whatever. They jailbreak it or who knows. Maybe for the pieces. I don't know.

I don't, I didn't get too much into what they did after. I know that a lot of them would sell it to certain bodegas. And a lot of these bodegas are foreign owners who would ship them back to their country. And they can sell for cards, break it up. They can do whatever they want over there. I'm sure they got tech guys over there that have no problem opening those phones. I've actually heard of that. I've heard like people go to like festivals and like, you know, little ladies will come to steal your phone.

Then they send it over to like Shenzhen and China. And they have a whole jailbreak policy. Or they'll try to blackmail you into opening up your phone. Like they have your number because the phone, you might have like a message like, yo, if you find this, send it to this number. And they'll send the number and they'll write to them be like, hey, we got your phone. We hacked into it. We got all your pictures.

We found these naked pictures. We found all this crazy shit. We're going to leak it. We're going to send it to your family and friends. And you can make this all go away if you just unlock the phone. Right. It's all a bluff. It's all bullshit.

But, you know, some kid, it's at a festival. He's doing drugs. You got scared. He's like, oh, fuck, all right, whatever. And that's how they run the phone scheme. Of course. Crazy. Actually, those things aren't new.

Those, like, fishing things where they threaten you like that, like send me all this money. It actually happened to me once. Like, they logged into my email and was like, I have all these things. You'll be ruined financially. Your parents and your friends will know about your porn history or whatever. I wrote back, if you know about my porn history, I don't know if I could say it's on Camry.

If you know about my porn history or whatever, go fuck your mother. You know what I mean? Because I like milk. You know what I mean? Like just fucking with them. You know, it's like you got to respond like that and then see what happens. But, but those kind of things that you're talking about, like the little ladies stealing phones at the festivals, that is 100% true. Okay. And it's even gone further. So now, right now in New York City, you'll see that there's the epidemic of the moped crimes, right? Those guys on the scooters, a big deal. In this neighborhood? Everywhere. Man, it's very probably, you name the neighbor. It's all over New York City. They're confiscating and they come right back. And explain what happens for people that don't know. What is the hustle? So this right here, what you were talking about is the cell phone hustle, okay?

And this is all organized crime. This is all it is. It's an organized theft ring. And one recently, the moped gang stuff or whatever is all run a lot of it, not all of it, but most of it is run by the illegal migrants. There's a new gang that has planted their flag here in a lot of major cities in the United States called Tren de Aragua. They're a Venezuelan gang.

They're not just the gang. They're a transnational criminal organization involved in drug trafficking, human trafficking, migrant smuggling, you name it. In their country, it's normal to shoot at cops.

I'm sure you've seen it in the paper. They're just in Times Square, the 15-year-old shooting over his shoulder when he got caught stealing. The other guy that shot the cop, this is normal. They have orders to do this stuff from the gangs. Now, the reason I know

there's also is because the NYPD cracked the case up in the Bronx in Allerton, I want to say a couple months back or whatever, of a leader of this gang with tentacles stretching all the way back to Venezuela, sending out mass text messages through WhatsApp to the migrants saying, need phones, will pay cash, send, you know, give me the phones or whatever, just like straight messages or whatever, sending it out to either the migrant gangs that are running around on these moped things who know now I'm going out and getting as many phones as I can because I can. can get $600 a phone or $100 a phone, who knows how much they're getting each phone,

taking it to this guy, getting cash, this guy's getting all of them, like you said, maybe thousands of phones, whatever, sending them to Venezuela or South America, and this is millions and millions of dollars here, not thousands, millions of dollars. Wow. Organized suffering.

So these guys don't necessarily come here to do crime, but they get in and they're trying to do these hustles, they're trying to make money in America, and then they have a cousin, or a friend, someone they grew up with back in Venezuela, or wherever they're from, that's like, yo, need phones, I'll send cash. And you're like, no, no, no.

There's a gang leader here who was sending out those text messages. Need phones will give cash. So the migrants that were here that were already doing the business or whatever, like they brought these guys here to do crime. They didn't come here for a better life. They said, yo, your business is crime. It's easier to do in the U.S. Come over.

In our country, whatever, they'll kill you. If you steal somebody's wallet, they probably shoot you in the back. If you steal a tourist wallet in one of those countries, they probably shoot you, kill you, you know? You don't want to get arrested in one of those countries. But if you get arrested in the United States, they'll give you three hot meals. They'll give you a nice bed. They'll give you this.

They'll give you medical. There's way more shit to steal over there. And there's a lot more stuff over there. You can bring to riches over there. So they're coming over here with the gang mentality. The problem is the ones that were coming, they mixed in with the ones that are coming here just to maybe live a good life and get a better opportunity. So they're kind of blending in with them.

And they're kind of extorting them in a way to say, hey, listen, we need some phones. Oh, you want to make some money in a way? like giving them the opportunity to make money. And these people are down in a luck. They're starving. You know what do I mean? They'll be like, all right. You know, like, what do we got to do?

Whatever. So like some of them that want quick money or whatever are going to, even if they're not criminals, they're going to be like, that guy's 100 bucks if I get a phone. Maybe they won't violently go take it from someone, but they'll try to maybe look and do a petty loss. So, you know, like, you know, take something real quick, take it and then just go. So then how does a scooter thing work? Like, what's going on with that? So this is how they're doing it.

They're riding around. There's tons of videos all over the place. You know, I got a couple of things on my page as well on one of the videos I did. There's literally news, news, news, Channel 4, Channel 11, Channel 7, Channel 8, all different stories of the same thing. Moped robbery, moped robbery,

migrant gang members riding around on no mopeds, maybe one or two, snatching cell phones, snatching pocketbooks, dragging ladies in the street. Stop trying everything. I saw stories actually just up the block whereas two guys in a moped, they drove up in front of a restaurant, saw a guy in the window, popped in and said,

yo, we need your watch. Yep. held a gun and the guy gave him the watch, popped out, jump on the molo and sons, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jump back on the, jump back on the moped and just dip. They're both wearing shysseys and they just got away. Exactly. That's what I'm talking about. That's exactly what I'm talking about.

This is the kind of stuff that happens in third world countries. You know what I mean? The moped guys, they come up, they rob you, they take your shit, whatever, and you're just like, what even just happened? And there's anything you can do? Like, if some guy runs up to me and tries to run my shit, I just got to be like, all right, like, I don't want to get killed over it. Listen, I'm not, I don't recommend.

man, anyone fighting back unless you've ever been in that situation where somebody's tried to rob you and you know how to handle yourself. But at the same time, you're also putting your life in your hands. You know what I mean? Like, you just are. You know what I mean? They all have guns. They shoot at cops. What do you think they'll do to you? You think they're down to shoot though. Like if someone tries to get them a fight. I know they're down to shoot. They proved it already. They shot at a cop. If you're shooting, you're not shooting at a cop. You're shooting at the authority. With a gun. With a gun to defend myself. But you're shooting at this uniform. That uniform represents this city, the law and order of. of this city. If you will shoot at that, you'll shoot at anything. You'll never think twice to shoot at a regular civilian, especially if you talk shit to me, like give me that watch. No. Okay. In their country, they just take a machete and cut your hand off if you're saying no. So what do you think that they're going to stop here? Like, this is a lot easier for them, you know? Wow. It's turning into like almost the Wild West, like the Cowboys. They roll up on the horses.

They come and do some bandito shit and then they're out. That's not the first time it's happened, too. I think in the city, too, they rolled up on an expensive restaurant. Was it where was it? It was like one of those known restaurants. There's been a couple that have gotten hit. And they went out and they stole the guys' watches and stuff. There was also a crime pattern. I don't know if you remember.

A couple of guys from the Bronx a couple months ago, they were hitting everybody. All these high-end places, they were like the Manhattan diner robbers. It's like four or five Dominican dudes, I think, from the Bronx. You got millions of dollars worth the people's watches. That Philippe Chow all over the place. Wow.

Yeah, just going up to people and just taking their stuff. That's the thing. I feel like I didn't realize until like I kind of moved to the city like it's not just a bunch of random people doing it. It is an organized ring. You know what I mean? Like it's this, there's this thing in economics where it's like the Pareto principle. Like 20% of the people are doing 80% of the crime. The 8020 rule. Exactly. It's the 20 principle. I feel it's that same exact thing where it's like you got a small minority of people that are doing all the crime, all the watchjackings, all the phones, all that shit. Is that fair to say? I would, I would agree with that assessment,

but at the same time crime is very random. And, big cities. Okay? So it's like, yeah, there's organized stuff and stuff like that, just like when the mob was around. It was organized. You knew they were doing shit, but certain crimes didn't happen. You understand?

Nowadays, when you see the, like I said, the organized theft ring and stuff, stealing the cell phones and stuff like that, yeah, it's organized, but there's a lot of disorganized crime going on as well. You understand? And there's a lot of lone wolves, a lot of people that are doing stuff without the permission of anyone. When you used to have to do crime, you used to have to ask someone for permission, you know, it was all organized.

You know, there was a couple wild, you know, loose cannons or whatever, a couple street guys do whatever they want. But for the most part, this kind of theft ring and stuff like that. If the mob was doing this phone theft thing, I bet you there'd be nobody getting hurt or no violence. It would just be about money, you understand? It's just different mentality, you know. There's violent robberies and stuff like that.

That's, you know, nowadays at least or whatever, it's, I don't think the mob or anyone is doing that. It's just the organized people in the street. So I don't know if you can necessarily... And I don't think that's organized. I think it's kind of disorganized. Right. You know?

So, yeah, it's organized where it comes from Venezuela, but these guys aren't militant soldiers. You understand? But it's not organizing the way we look at organized crime. The mafia soldiers would never shoot at the cops. They would never do this kind of stuff. They would do their business, but it would be make millions of dollars just like these guys are or whatever. But it would be a lot more quieter and a lot more tamer. And I think that's why they kind of let it happen.

But when your law is going around, stealing people's watches, doing all this kind of stuff, shooting people, shooting at cops and stuff like that. You're bringing it back to like the 1930, maybe Al Capone days. Yeah. This is wild stuff. I don't know if you can speak on this necessarily, but are there detectives that are trying to get those like leaders of the crime syndicates? Of course. There's people working on it right now, thousand percent.

The problem is, is that once you investigate these guys or whatever, they move, you know, they move from city to city, state to state, stuff like that. They don't like stay put, you know. A lot of the detectives are hard at work, but the NYP. is so overwork now and undermanned. I think in the last five years has been the biggest exodus of police from the New York City Police Department since its inception.

You were one of them, right? You were like, yo, fuck this shit. There you go. Yeah. So it's like, you know, you had a lot of people, whatever, that retired and didn't get those ranks filled. You know what I mean?

So it's like you're not filling the ranks and then the candidates that you're taken are really aren't the best qualify for the job. So it's like, what do you expect to happen? You know, they were flowing this thing. This even reached. is that ideology even reaches on a national level. Because if you saw what just happened to, you know,

former President Trump, did you hear what they're saying about a secret service? Like, no, it's a hard job. Not many people want to take it. They had a couple people there that they look very unqualified. One of them, if I could spot something, was the one, the lady who had a gun like this in the ready position. Yeah. When they were going towards the car.

Now, muscle memory or whatever will dictate certain things when you're a cop. So when we're at the range and we're shooting and I'm going to look for that I don't look down at my gun. I just grab and go and I can put it back without even looking at it. Because you got trained properly. No, listen, there was exigent circumstances

and it was a little crazy and everything like that. But certain little tells like that, any seasoned officer or any guy that's been in any kind of dignity protection or trained and that kind of stuff, well, no, like, that was one of the underqualified people there. She couldn't even host to her weapon, really.

She was a little nervous and stuff like that. And I get you can say, like yo it was a crazy circumstance it was a historical moment but that's when you need the people the most you know what I'm saying like who's supposed to be the best who's protecting former presidents like you need the best guys that are a little crazy that know exactly what the fuck to do and where to find their weapon muscle memory yeah all that you know there is no question there is no getting nervous I look at it like getting nervous maybe or you look at it getting nervous or

whatever but they don't it's another day this is my job this is what I do I'll die for this man that and that and when you when you look at someone like that who has that level of credibility you kind of look to them as the pinnacle of what's supposed to be done. And if it was handled like that, that's why I think everybody's starting to question a little. And a lot of them responded adequately, I think. No, of course. Most of them, probably. All of them, in my opinion.

But you see a couple where you go, what's going on? And that is what I meant when you kind of, you know, for whatever reason, I don't want to get too political of why they did that or whatever, or they're scraping the bottom of the barrel. But let's just look at the pure economics of it of living in New York City. What a cop starting salary? It's a thankless job. You get treated like shit. you know, what are you going to do?

You know, it's like almost impossible. You know, you can't live here. You can't afford to live in the city that you police in. Did you get treated like shit when you were in uniform on the platform? Sometimes. Like, what would people say? Pig, fuck you. You know, all profanity, stuff like that.

Did it bug you? Eh, no, no. Because I don't like people talking smack to me or whatever, but I got thick skin. You know what I mean? Like, you're not going to put, you're not going to touch me. That's for sure or whatever, you know? But you're not going to get my face and spit, that kind of stuff. I don't take that stuff.

Yeah, of course. But like you talk from a distance or whatever and you talk stuff. If I wasn't in this uniform, maybe some shit would happen. Oh, they know that, though. I'm on the job. You can tell that by somebody's eyes. Yeah. You look in a man's eyes or whatever and you insult him or whatever.

You can tell him when he's ready to fucking kill you, you know? Did anyone check you, like, for real when you were a cop? Like, pull up on you. Yeah, I had one time, whatever. I'll see if I'll find a picture for you. I give it to you. This guy had tattoo. He was crazy.

He was actually schizophrenic. I found out later. Got him. He had tattoos all over his face and down his body. And listen, I understand that certain people get that. It's an artistic thing or whatever, tattoos all over the place. But this was obviously someone with a mental illness. So I didn't know right away because he looked kind of young.

And it didn't want to, you know, I didn't expect this to happen at all, actually. I was like kind of an off day. And we're my partner. And this is how to handle a situation kind of like 101. Okay? There's no other really way to do it. So I'm with my partner at the time. She's a female.

She's one of my best friends that has done. day still and we're at flushing on the seven line or whatever so we're just there supposed to be an off day we maybe you know looking for a call if we find something but it's more just train patrol riding back forward to making sure everybody's good and I see this guy acting a little bit erratic you know talking shit to people pushing people like you know not pushing but you know bumping around like get out of my work kind of thing whatever he gets up to the turnstile and he swipes a red card which is a disability card but he looked kind of young you know he look maybe late 20

maybe 30, like I said, he was a young guy, tattoos on his face, and he knew the deal already because he had probably swiped that card so many times or whatever. So like I said, at that time, that day, we were probably just looking for something to do whatever. I was like, let me just stop him, see what, whatever. Maybe we'll just get a quick summons or whatever and we'll call, you know, a little activity for the day and that'll be the end of it. So I go out to him and before I could even approach him, he's like, nah, bro, no, bro, no, bro, gets into a fighting stance or whatever.

Like, it ain't happening. And I'm like, what the fuck he's going on here, whatever? I was like, I didn't even say hello yet. Like, what's going on? So he's like, I ain't showing you nothing. That's it. And he's a big boy. And I'm like, I'm like 5, 10 or whatever.

He's probably like six, three. So I'm kind of looking up at him and I'm just like, you know, what do you mean? Like, well, you know, just show me the card. That's all you know. I'm, oh, you already know why I'm stopping you then. Oh, no big deal then. Is your card?

Yeah, it's my car. Show me. No. Why not? Show me, no, no, no, no. Because erratic or whatever, right? So me, like I said, I've seen erratic be here.

I've been all around this. Some costs might get nervous. And a lot do, you know? And that's what I was saying before. Scraping the bottom of the barrel. You're going to get a lot of people that aren't ready for this shit. They just need a really good paycheck and some benefits and whatever else. And they're not ready for it.

And they're going to get nervous and maybe go to reach for something real quick or something. And it's like, find out what's going on. Like, I was ready in case he came. I already, you know, knew what to do. I'm okay with defending myself, whatever. So it was like, I knew what to do. And he's, you know, violent and, like, swinging his arms. I was like, I'm not doing anything.

I'm not showing you, whatever. And I just like pause, you know, very calm or whatever. And I'm just like, listen, bro. You gotta give the command voice or whatever, like whatever I can call him bro, but like, sir, like, you know, listen. I have a job to do. I want to see that card until, and you try to push past me now or whatever.

So now I had to boom, put my hand right on his chest, look down, I'm showing the face. I got a job to do. You either gonna, we can go two ways here. You're gonna show me the card and go. You're gonna get out of the train station. like real like, you know, command voice. Oh, no, you come with me.

One of those things or whatever, I said, something like that or whatever, but I really was just going to kick him out because I knew he was. I didn't want to arrest him. He was just crazy. I just wanted to see the car or whatever. So it turned out, like, he looked at me or whatever,

and when I got that serious, put my hand on his chest or whatever, it was like, you are not passing me. And that's it. Because in my mind, in his mind, I wasn't there. I wasn't nobody. He was screaming, I'm doing this, I'm doing that. You're nobody.

If you don't establish that dominance immediately, you're finished. If I would have let him walk past me, it was done. Even if I chased him, it was done. You know, I lost that interaction and I'd have to call more cops and possibly get them hurt, rush into a situation. A lot of cops don't think like this. Their first thing is to go running for help or whatever. I've been tons of fight. I never called anybody. Just squared up or whatever, and cuffs go on or whatever. Not like crazy fights, but like, you know, tossing and turning or whatever. And only when I know, like, shit, I can't handle this guy or

or he's got to fight him for his life is when you got to call someone else. So in that situation, when I start them, I looked at him dead in the eyes or whatever, he like paused up. Show me his card and I was like, thank you. That was it. And I let him go. Wow. Well, people will test you like that. He didn't even do anything wrong.

He used his own card. But there's just crazy people in New York. Now, imagine a guy that does something bad. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? I saw the guy one time. His body felt like iron, bro.

And he wasn't that big of a dude. He, he, I remember what he did. It wasn't my stop. We showed up as backup. up. So it was a female officer who was very capable of herself and another guy who was, eh, you know, he was okay, you know, but he was too nice with the perp. Like, you please put your hands behind your back, that kind of thing, you know, it's not happening. You know, you got to be a little bit more aggressive. Me, I used to do three. Ask him once. You ask him

twice. Third time, that was it. Because the more you ask him, your words start meeting less and and less and less. They have less power. You know what I mean? So he, I don't know what he did or whatever. I can't remember but they have them sit down they have them sat down okay so it's one officer on each side so every time anytime you see another officer have somebody stopped especially in transit you're gonna go back them up you know like you might have just got off the train they got someone stopped you're gonna go back them up you're gonna see what's going on so the guy he looks like he's in decent shape but he's not like super brolic you know what I mean like just like kind of strong and he's sitting there and his leg is tapping and I can just tell by his mannerisms he's like looking left looking right

and if anybody knows what that means you're ready to run fight a flight mode or whatever you know, so now he sees four cops around him. It's a little bit less of the flight fight or flight mode. However, this right now, whatever, is determining whether he goes back to jail or not. So his anxiety is very high. You can see it, you know? We used to be able to run names over the radio at that time, whatever. We didn't have cell phones or anything like that.

So when Central came back to you, she either gave you one or two codes. And those codes either met you coming or you're going, right? I mean, you're coming with us or you're going on your way. So he happened to be coming with us. He just did. I found this out later, like three years or four years, four and a half years, three and a half or four and a half years, hard time in like a federal penitentiary. So he did not want to go back. So we asked him, sir, you're coming with us.

You ever want, you, you know, he was recidivist or something like that. I was like, you know, whatever you did, you have to come with us. He had to come back Bruce and he was like, no. calmly, no. He was like, you got to come with us. Snatches the ID out of the cop's hand. I told you. I didn't say the guy was like, you know, you got to come with us.

And he's like, no. And then he's like, sir, you got to come with us. And I was like, come on, buddy, you got to come with us. He snatches the idea out of the other cop's hand. As soon as I saw that, you know, you got to go. It's on. So I grabbed him. Fucking guy was like iron, bro.

Diesel. Iron. And he didn't look like a big guy. Some guys are like, this guy is strong or whatever. He was slender. But he must have been, you know, four years of pushups and who the hell knows, those bar workouts. He was solid, bro.

I'm a pretty strong dude. I was like, all right, I just got to hold this guy. I was like, I just bear hugged him. I was just like, I can't do anything else. I was like, somebody else got to get his legs, somebody else got to get something because he did not want to go. He wasn't really actively fighting, but he was actively resisting that it was almost like he was fighting.

You know what I'm saying? So when you got a situation like that, whatever, I mean, it's just all hands-on deck. You'd have to call somebody to come and get you. And everyone else that was there, they tackled him. Eventually, the girl, the guy was trying to get the cuffs on, he wanted the cop, of cutting his hand

trying to get the cuffs on him. The girl we're like wrestling with him, whatever and then finally my part, the guy I was with got one arm

I got the other one finally we got him against the wall and once you get him against the wall whatever it's a little easier whatever to maintain them or let him kick back on you

you hold them against the wall and that female officer I was telling you she came and got the cuffs on her but it took four if it was just two he might have been out of that he might have been out of

one of those cops could be being really hurt because you're fighting on a subway platform you know how dangerous that is The trains come by, whatever, you roll, whatever. I'm trying to think. He didn't get hurt, this cop or whatever, but he was fighting with somebody, and he was like a ninja.

He got pushed down on the subway tracks. This really happened. He stole a cop to this day, this guy. He got pushed down, fighting with a guy, stopping him. The guy just shoved him. He fell back on the tracks. Boom. Hit his head on the tracks.

He didn't jump back up. Must have been his reflexes that got him. Had a big gash on his head like this. Oh, that's crazy. That's a far, that's five feet straight to your head? At least. realize, like I've been down there walking. Like the thing is up to here.

Like I said, I'm about 5'10. So the thing is up to here on you, whatever. Even if you have uniform or something like that, it's almost impossible to get yourself up there if you're not in good shape. Just to hoist yourself up there, it takes a lot of strength. Wow. Yeah. And these guys know that.

And they're like, yo, I'm fighting for my life. You got to go down the pit. They'll do anything. I mean, this guy actually kicked him over there, pushed him over there. And full uniform he was. Boom, right on the tracks. That's like attempted murder of a cop, you know? Did you have to respond to anyone that ever touched the third

rail? The electrified one? Yeah. What happens? They get electrified or electrocuted. I had immediately. I responded to it like kind of after FD. I don't know if I've ever seen someone like actually I have I have he was a black dude a homeless black dude he like laid next to it whatever just like charred up there yeah you can tell he just got a lot of burns but they're just dead. Fuck yeah like drunk like on on some drugs and touch it or something some people live down there man some people live down there like how they just live in the in the subway tunnels Yeah. They live down there.

Homeless people. There's documentaries on, there was a documentary back in the day. Somebody actually lived down there like legit for a long time, the subway people. But a lot of homeless actually do call that home. That's what I mean. And they live down there. So you're like showing the platform during the day and then at night you like pop into the top? Oh, they just walk down to who's going to really stop a homeless guy or whatever unless you really see him or whatever?

There's tons of times or whatever. There's even videos over where a homeless guy just walk out from the tracks. You're like, what the hell is going on? And the train comes by, they did pop up on the... Because they stay on the sides. They sleep on the sides. They got those tunnels all figured out. There's intricate cities.

I've been down there, man. There's intricate cities below here. Some of like old close-off subway stations. When you go down in the Jamaica Center, there is so many hidden rooms and tunnels and this and that. I swear to God. You've been down there? Yeah, I've been in it.

What's it like? Explain all that shit. That's crazy. They got electricity and shit? Yeah, electricity. It's all MTA. It's all MTA. They charge their phones and shit.

They can do anything they want. There's all outlets and all that kind of shit. but they're like industrial stuff, but they figure it out, you know, like there's lights when they work on the train tracks and stuff like that.

There's tons of stuff. I think there's an abandoned station that's really, really nice like down by Bleaker over there. Yeah, there's one like that. That's big. So when you're in Manhattan,

forget it, bro. Those rooms just keep going and going. I didn't work in Manhattan too much to figure out because there's like three or four different transit districts in Manhattan. So I've worked out of each one,

but never enough to explore like I did in Queens. That's crazy. Queens, man. Like, I mean, you can just get lost. And there's so many rooms. Manhattan is like an animal onto itself. But all of them have it.

Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens. There's underground tunnels. Either there are old subways or just MTA tunnels, whether they did work or whatever else. And people live down there. Is there a way to clear it out? Or it's like, they just let them have it. I'm kind of like, yo, if you want to live down there,

I'm not going to stop it. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's not hurting me. Yeah, I mean, you get a call sometimes. Some of them, we saw a guy who was dead once living over there. He's probably just homeless. I don't know if any, I don't know if I've ever seen anyone get by a train that live there per se.

But there's a lot of track fires. They cause a lot of track fires. Sometimes trying to stay warm. They'll set like newspapers on fire or whatever. So like when the conductor's driving by, you know, they'll call us and we'll go in the booth with the conductor, do a little drive-through and see where the fire is. And then lo and behold, there would be some homeless guy trying to stay warm in the middle of a fucking subway tunnel.

That's crazy. What do you think is the most dangerous subway line in the city? It's hard to say Listen Everywhere has crime But the more crime-written neighborhoods are more prone to crime in the subways It just it bleeds in

One bleeds into the other So the rough areas like Brooklyn, the Bronx The Bronx is a whole other animal They fight up there This is this very old school kind of New York You know when you're in the Bronx You got to tread lightly You know what I mean

That's crazy Certain areas or whatever Where it gets really it can get really dangerous, really fast, depending on where you are, what block you are, what subway stop you get off on, you know, you don't really want to mess around. Yeah. You know, especially for someone that's not from New York. Yeah, right.

Like, I keep my headphones out. I like try to keep my eyes open the whole time. Yeah, definitely. Like, do you, those kids that sell, like, candy bars for their basketball team, is that legit or is that, like, a hustle? That's a hustle. That's been going on for years. It is.

Yeah. But, you know what, though? They're kind of innocent, I would say, for the most part. and even say it like, hello, ladies and gentlemen, I could be out here robbing people doing this, but I said,

I'm just trying to better my life and whatever the fuck speech they gave or whatever, you know? Yeah. They got a point, you know? Okay, so big deal. They bought a box of candy or whatever and they're trying to legally sell it on the train

or whatever. Those are the kind of crimes I think we can all as a society look past. You got it. Now, don't get me wrong. I am a advocate for broken windows, so that means the broken windows policy,

the petty crimes do lead to bigger, blah, blah, this and that, whatever, yes. But it depends on what the crime is. And if you got a bunch of drunk guys hanging out in the corner and they're drinking or whatever, you know, it's like, all right, fellas, it's like, I'm not going to enforce

the first two beers or whatever, but when you guys are getting all rowdy and loud or whatever, whatever, expect some drinking tickets or whatever else. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, that kind of thing. That makes sense.

I mean, that's just being a cool cop, I feel like. I tried to be, man. I really did, you know? And anybody that I ever arrested, even if they were an asshole by the end, you know, It was respecting, too.

That's a tough line, though, right, for you because it's like, on the one hand, I'm trying to be cool, like, y'all, I'm from the city. I know, like, you guys are just some kids drinking on the train. Like, I'm not trying to fuck your whole day up. But at the same time, like, don't disrespect me and don't be a dickhead. Exactly. Or else you're going to have to get a clip. Like.

Oh, whoa. I was a clip in a little by. You got to get a little ticket. I would get hands on. You know what I mean? Yeah, of course. Or there would be some kind of enforcement that had to be done. You know?

And listen, I made cool cops growing up, too. You know what I mean? Or do you think I never drank a beer in the street or whatever? You know what I mean? I met tons of guys who were just like, hey, pour it out. And then I've been an asshole who's like, you know? So I was like, I always say this, and this is my philosophy. If you were cool before you got on the job, you'll be cool while you're on job and cool after.

If you were a dick before you got on or you were those guys that have a complex that, like, oh, this thing is going to make me, that shield is going to give me respect. You're going to be a dick while you're on the job. You're going to be even worse when you get off. It's just the sense of entitlement is going to go through the roof, and now you have a gun in the shield, which gives guys batteries in their back. Like, you didn't have to prove anything. Like, you didn't get the shield to prove that you were a tough guy. No, I'm not saying. And I'm not saying I'm tough.

Like, what's the definition of tough or whatever? Can I take a beating? Yeah. Can I give a beating? Yeah, that's tough. You know, but the real, like, tough thing about it or whatever, you know, like picking on people. That's fake.

That's bullshit. You know, like, acting like a tough guy and all that's all. Hey, nobody could hurt me. That's the word, acting. Acting. Acting. Yeah, yeah. You meet real tough guys.

They're pretty kind. Very quiet. Yeah. Very quiet. Low-key, whatever, you know. and that, you know, you don't know even how much power some guys have, whatever, that they're so quiet. Yeah.

Growing up around, like, wise guys and stuff in the street, you know, it'd be like this little old man, whatever, that'd be wheeling all this fucking power, whatever, people were scared of them, you know? It was like, it was more of a respect thing. Yeah. Did you ever have to respond to, like, any crazy, like, homeless dudes or, like, you know, crackheads, stuff like that?

Like, what was that response? Like, how do you even handle a guy like that? Because he's not fully there. He's on drugs. Like, what is that protocol? And what are some stories like that? Isolate and contain. You try to.

to get them as far away from the public as possible and to try to maintain the situation as safe as possible for the public. And don't forget, you might be in the subway. It's very hard. It's not like you can tell people go down that block or whatever. There's only one exit that they might be able to get out of and you're blocking it or you might have someone on the floor

or stopped or whatever. So for the most part, whatever, if there's somebody that's ridiculously crazy or just like out of control, We call them EDPs, emotionally disturbed persons. So if there's an EDP job or something like that, they changed the protocol so many times because certain cops have gotten charged with how they handled,

excuse me, certain cops got charged with how they handled EDP situations. I don't know if you remember there was a shooting in the Bronx. The lady went at the cop. It was a sergeant, I believe, with a bat, and he shot her. Now, listen, when I was in the academy, there was a silhouette of a guy with a bat, and we shot it.

So it's like, you know, damned if you do, damned if you don't kind of thing, whatever. He did what he was taught and he got in trouble for it. I don't remember what happened to him, but he got in trouble. He's in the paper. He got suspended, all that stuff just for doing the right thing. Do you have any examples of having to be called to EDPs? So if we do, so going back to like, you know, just finishing it up, let's say we get called to an EDP. And this happened to me or whatever, I get called to an EDP.

Where you're just like, you don't even want to put cuffs on this guy. He might stink. He's got bugs on him. Just crazy stuff. He might be on drugs. He might be naked. You know, if you see a grown man with, you know, naked talking to himself, wandering or whatever,

there's not someone that you really want to arrest and put through the system. You're not going to get any information. What are you going to ask him his name? You don't even know it. You understand? So it's like, when you get someone, when you get an EDP like that, you'll call ESU.

And I think after what I was telling you, that whole cop situation was shooting the bat, it's now a protocol. Just call ESU. They're calling the boys with the toys. They come by. They wrap them up with something called a burrito. What's that?

A big net. I'm just throwing at this guy out of her and just wrap them up. They know, they call two seconds. They're real good. When regular cops can't get it done, that's what we call. Oh, wow. So you had to go to see some naked dudes or what? Yeah, unfortunately.

What happened? What happened? I just had a story in my head that I was going to tell you and I forgot. Oh, so I was coming back from Manhattan, okay? It was me and two of my partners at the time. It was like kind of earlier in my career. We were in uniform. We had to go down.

At the time, whatever, they used to send us down to the borough office to drop off paperwork and stuff it was like a weird thing that they had because the main transit bureau is down on by like j street over there downtown so it was us three to avoid dealing with the public because we weren't on we were on police duty if we had to act but our assignment for the day was go down there bring the paperwork come back and then you're gonna go out on the street and do whatever you got to do so in this particular instance we were riding in the pet in the conductors car in the back we used to do that a lot just to avoid the public we would be watching you wouldn't know that we were there whatever it'd be three

cops sitting in the back of that train car or whatever and you know the people the public would be there so in this particular we're riding all the way from queens to j street and brooklyn and we hear like this on the way back we get there we hear like uh-ah-ah-ah-da-rah and police this and that whatever so like we start to make our way out of the thing or whatever and everybody's like oh man what the hell's going on so there was a guy he was drunk and he had a beer in his hand it was automatic okay so when the train goes from the E train goes from Manhattan when it gets from Brooklyn, goes to Manhattan and then goes to Queens. When it comes to

Queens, you go under the tunnel. When you go under the tunnel, whatever it is, there's no radio service, there's no cell phone service, and it's a long ride from one start to the next. If you're in a fight as a cop, do not fight. Tell all these cops right now, if you're in transit, do not fight from those two stops. Fight when there's like a close stop, because you could be in a brawl

for five minutes. And five minutes in a brawl and no help and no radio is 30 seconds feels like an eternity. minutes or we'll kill you yeah you'll see does three minute rounds yeah yeah fuck that exactly so let's say it's about five plus minutes to get the here and there whatever guy saw it's going crazy whatever blah blah blah and he's got a beer in his hand and he sees us come out whatever and he's a little like eh so i'm talking to him using that like we call verbal judo whatever but he's not really kind of hearing me whatever so i kind of just like get him to the seat we get him down in the seat he's he's naked he's this guy's not naked so

but he's crazy he's one of the crazy homeless guys whatever that will i don't know if he has a weapon I don't know what's going on or whatever. He's a street man who's drunk, and he looks like he can be a violent individual. He's not old enough. He's not old that you're not worried about him. He's young enough that he's got some strength, and he'll hurt someone.

So he was bothering this lady with him. I was like, sit down, like, sit him down or whatever, you know? And I'm like, don't drink any, is that a beer? And he's like drinking. I'm like, don't drink any more beer or whatever. You know, I'm trying to be, you know, cordial but firm at the same time. And I snatched a beer away from him at this point.

Okay, maybe I shouldn't have, whatever, but he goes to drinking again and I just didn't want any more problems and I don't want this guy drunk and fighting in five minutes or whatever that were alone I put the beer down or whatever right?

So he goes to get up right? So as he goes to get up it's like a failed swing almost but I kind of saw a comment and it was like he was mad that I took his beer so he went like

I turned back around and it was just like my partners were with me but it was just like a failed point before I even before he could even execute the punch or whatever I like threw my body into him

to sit him down and then we were just like trying to take him down One of my partners had him by the ears trying to pull him. He was drunk. When you fight with a drunk guy, forget it. He's like Superman. These guys go, you know?

So it was like that was one of the times I had to deal with one of those emotionally to assert persons without ESU or anybody on the train. We eventually got him out and threw him out of the subway and just got him out. He was just, I didn't even arrest him. Wow. I didn't arrest him for a while. You know, for drunken disorderly, this and that, whatever. Get the fuck out.

I didn't even tell the bosses. We didn't tell anybody between us. I didn't even put it over. That's what I'm saying. There's a lot of things that happen, even cops. Now with the cameras, you can't really. Maybe. I don't know.

I don't know how it works. I didn't work with a camera. I couldn't tell you. But at that time, we had discretion. You know what I mean? You could pick and choose really what you wanted to do. And like I said, if you were a good cop, you're not going to bust some guys' balls if he's drinking a beer.

But if you're about to assault the woman or you're about to start shit on the train or whatever, now it's enough. You understand? Now I got to step in and stop. Nobody's bothering you from having a beer, or whatever on the train and going home. Maybe I'll just pretend they didn't see it. It's a soda, whatever.

Yeah. But now you're acting violent. You're like an asshole. You've got to go. What's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick because I'm coming on the road. That's right. Pots Town, PA, Friday, November 8th, 2024.

I'll be at Seoul Joles. You can come see me do one hour of stand-up comedy, nothing more and nothing less. It's going to be an amazing time. And if you're not near Potsetown, don't worry because I'm coming to Stanford, Connecticut. I'm going to New York Comedy Club. That's right. They have a bunch of amazing clubs in the city. and also an amazing one in Stanford, Connecticut, November 13th.

If you want to come hang out, come hang with me, say what's up. I'll be talking to everybody after the show. We'll be doing an hour of comedy, guys, stand-up comedy. It's my passion. It's what I love to do when I'm not inside this tent. So come kick it with me, a bunch of crazy stories. We'll have a great time. You can find the link at my Instagram.

Get it in the story. I'll put it in the description. I can't wait to see you guys there. Let's get back to the show. Hey, what's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick because I want to talk to you about the largest independently owned daily fantasy sports platform in North America. Yes, we are talking about prize picks. This is a super

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Now, I was here about quotas. Like, I was here like cops have quotas. They got to pull over X amount of people. Did you have any type of quotas? You had to like. I'll say that openly. Yes, there's quotas. Everybody will tell you. I don't know how it works now. I said, I've been out for a little bit. Sure. But in your time, what was that like? And every administration has their own rules. So now you see there's like every administration that comes in, they bring their own people. You know, they change the whole, pretty much the whole administration that some people that do hold on or whatever. But they bring the people that came up with them through the ranks and cops and so and so. And they do favors.

Like, hey, you owe me a favor now. I hope to get here. So you got to bring this guy in for this position. All that kind of stuff happens. Oh, wow. So, refraise the question one more time. I'm sorry. Quotas.

The quotas. So when you are in a plane closed unit like I was in or even in transit or end, any kind of precinct, they'll tell you what they want from you a month. I want one in four. I want two and five. I want one in ten. What does that mean? That means I want one of rest, two arrests, ten summonses.

One arrest, I mean, one of rest, two summonses, two arrests, ten summonses, whatever they want. But those are called numbers, right? Every month. Every month. That's what they tell you. Wow. When I was in the, when I came out in the citywide unit, they just told us to call everyone. There was guys that would be 10 a month, 5, 10 a month calls just from whatever they could or whatever,

just rocking up everybody. And there's some guys that literally would call it every single day, every day for anything, anyone. So it was like it was really mixed up or whatever, but they expected a number from you. Okay, so if that number was two arrests and five summonses for the month or one arrest and 10 summons then they have different summons. You know, there's A summons, B summons, C summons, the Tammons, the transit. So, you know, they'll tell you. And if you have nothing at the end of the month, you're low on the X summons.

activity log, they will go out and get you a collar. And trust me, my friend, that's not the collar that you want to process. It's one of those guys I was telling you about that's picking bugs off his balls and he's been homeless for 20 years. We call him bag of shit. Like, who bought that bag of shit? And it's usually a sergeant who's like, where is the guy who doesn't have an arrest for the month?

Where is the guy? That's him or whatever. Get him over here, whatever. So I love how they say there's no like retaliation or anything. Like, Jesus, the guy didn't find an arrest in the month. They dropped off a bag of shit on him. That's crazy. That's done by a lot of voices.

Did you know or like, did you see any cops that like end of the month, they were maybe missing or arrest, and there was someone that was kind of 50-50, and they were like, nah, you got to come with us. Oh, like they had to get a number for a month? Yeah. Yes. Really? Yeah, that happens. This certain time, like I said, it's discretion, you know? Like, you can technically now, I don't know how it works with the camera, and they get out anyway for even up to attempt to murder with this bail reform shit.

So it's like, I don't really know how that works. But if you needed a number for the month, you maybe come in if you. threw gum on the floor. Wow. You would rather take a guy in for throwing gum on the floor because what would the department do? They'd give you a bag of shit, whatever, that you would want to avoid. So I just saw a guy spitting.

Now listen, you're not going to just bring him in for a slow level crime like that. In my day at the time or whatever, you would run the name over the radio. So if you gave them that opportunity to say, you know, hey, you spit on the floor, all right, go. But if you were looking for that collar, all right, sit down. Let me run your name. You don't even ask him if you ever been arrested before. like that because once it goes over it goes over and that's it if you you know put that

arrest over and he runs over and now you got escape prisoner and it's a problem and you let this guy go he's wanted something like that you know because some guys do get called for wanted for serious crimes that do dumb shit yeah you understand there's a lot of guys that arrested that had eye cards identification cards where they're wanted for murder tempted murder robbery huge things you don't even know about that they just like refer to detective referred to Intel refer to this You know And they take the subway

Who knows what they're into you know You have an example of a time Where you got a guy for doing whatever Jump in the Turn style doing something And it turned out he was a murder I got one nut and name That sticks in my head I'll never forget his name

He's from this I won't mention his name But he's from the south side His whole rap sheet Was possession of firearm Possession of Firearm He was talking to me about the Jamestor J murder Yeah he was a nice guy

He was serious dude though Serious dude I was telling the guy that was like, yo, do you don't even know who this guy is, bro? I had heard a little bit of his reputation, but he was just straight, you know, there's some guys, and I talk about this as well, some guys you'll fight with, some guy, straight knife coming out, and there's some guys, there's no fighting, gunplay right away, that was him, that was him, and he was a hitter for sure. He did, I think he did 10 years for manslaughter, maybe, but he was going to kill the guy.

And you had to stop him? Yeah, we stopped him for something. Can you say what? That's crazy. You knew who he was when you got... I didn't know who he was directly or whatever, but then, like, when I started talking to him, he wasn't a younger guy.

He was a little bit older and seasoned or whatever. And you... I have this thing, or I guess it's my situational awareness. Like, you can just recognize things in some people. Remember the gentleman we were talking about? And I said that guy's got eyes of a killer. Yeah. This guy had killer eyes like that.

You just look into the eyes of some people and you just know, like, they've seen some real shit, or they've done some real bad shit and there's no overtime with them you know if you lock up with them you better be ready to do you know go all the way so he was one of those guys and we wound up getting them

and he had an eye card for robbery and something robbery and something else that was what they were looking that was what the identification card was looking for him for wow now you seem like a respectful dude I don't think you're going to go and just like check someone and be just like on some disrespectful shit immediately you know what I mean like that's not the the vibe I get but when you're dealing with a guy like that

do you have to act a little bit more cordial, do you have to be like, hey man, I'm doing my job. Like, let's just be cool with this because I know who you are. Depends. Like, how do you play that without deferring and being kind of weak, but at the same time, like, not trying to escalate anything? Right, right. It's a very good question.

So there's a fine line, okay? And this comes to my years of growing up around wise guys and dealing with mob guys. They're huge on respect. They're like the fucking Japanese. Like, they're very, like, respectful people. You know, so you learn in a way, and I grew up like that to. be respectful to walk on eggshell. When I was young and I walked in and leave the door open,

but what are you living in a barn? You know, things like that. Like you learn to close the door. You learn to say hello to everyone when you're coming. So there's certain things like that that kind of molded me or whatever to where I could talk to anyone from any walk of life and kind of relate to them and come off to them in whatever way. You know what I mean?

I wouldn't be talking to him the same way I'm talking to you. You know what I mean? There would be a certain for anyone that I stopped. You know what I mean? there would be a certain, either, it's not the, it's more fear or the unknown if there's any fear associated with it. It's just levels of things that you don't know. Like, is this guy going to shoot me right now?

Is this guy going to talk? But my icebreaker was always like, hello, excuse me, hello, how you doing? All right, you know, and then try to like relate to people like that or whatever on a level. But there's ways that you talk in regards to how you use your voice, your command voice, you know, you want to scream like an idiot, whatever. Or you want to go up to someone and be like, hey, man, how you doing? You know what's going to get it on a personal level, you know? They can also get a sense of you, I'm sure.

Like, they're like, oh, this is not some random dude from Wisconsin that moved here to be a cop. Like, this is a guy from the neighborhood. Some shit kicking him from eye. Yeah, yeah. Like, they can tell just by talking about, like, oh, this is a guy from the neighborhood. Like, he knows what's good. People used to say that to me all the time or whatever. Like, oh, come on, man, you know the deal.

And, you know, and I would talk to them in their own vernacular, the way that they talk relatable to people, you understand, to show them, whatever, listen, I understand. But at the same time, you know what I mean? That's your hustle? That's my hustle. You know what I mean? I got to feed my kids too

is what I'm doing. You think I make the rules? I'm a soldier. They tell me what to do and people would understand. If you're from the street, you understand that. Yeah.

So when you relate to people like that, real people, not the kids today, the fucking guys who respect, disrespect. I'm talking about the old school guys like that, gangsters that grew up

in that era and generation that understood even the mob guys, the black gangs, the Spanish gangs, all of them understood. Cops have a job to do and we have a job to do

as long as you don't cross those lines or whatever like don't be a dirty fuck to try to get us and we're not going to kill you and like you know you coexist that's what it was all about coexisting nobody's going anywhere crime ain't going anywhere drugs ain't going anywhere and cops ain't going anywhere as far as i i can tell now i don't know maybe this won't hold up in the future we might turn it the demolition man we're all like you know wiping our ass with seashells we're all be living in the train tunnels that's we're all going that way gonna be mole people did you ever have to stop people like that had guns on them And like, you know, you check them out and you're like, yo, you got a fucking weapon.

And like, did that scare you? Did that make you question like, yo, this could have gone way worse? Like, do you have any stories in that vein? So the one time that is stuck in my head the most was when I prevented a guy from getting murdered. Okay? And I'm going to tell you why. So there was like this 14-year-old kid. He's walking through the train station.

You ever seen The Godfather, too? when Vito Colione wraps the thing when he's gonna go kill the guy the towel on his hand, he's got that, but wrapped up in his hand like this. So immediately in my head, I'm thinking shotgun, something,

you know, just my instincts or whatever. I see him or whatever, and I'm like, what's up, man, how you doing? And the best thing is come over here, you know? Hey, come over here, let me talk to you real quick,

let me talk to you real quick. And they come over or whatever. Like, what's that? Just straight up asking, what's that? He's like, and when you surprise people sometimes or whatever, we call it spontaneous utterance. They just say the truth

or they just say things or whatever, you know? They might not mean to say it sometimes. He was like, I was like, what is that? He's like, is a sword? Oh, let me see it. So he unwrapped it. So now it's in plain view.

I take it to Samurai, so take it out of his hands. What are you doing with this? Oh, I just bought this. What are you doing with it? All right. Come with me real quick. I arrest him or whatever. You know, he's 14 years old.

So now he's a juvenile. I have the contact, the proper authorities, you know. It was a PIN's case. Persons in need a supervision. So this kid already had a bunch of cases on him and all that kind of stuff. So the social worker comes down. Yeah, like an alcoholic, drug addict mother, stepfather in the house. He was from the Rockaways.

I stopped him in Jamaica. He went to South Jamaica to buy this sort. He was coming back to the Rockaways because, like I said, family situation or whatever, his little brother, who was like a toddler, I guess, or whatever, was separated from him. And he was furious at the stepfather because the stepfather was either giving the mother the drugs or domestic violence or whatever. He was the reason why the kids had to be separated. So he was going back to the Rockaways to kill the stepfather because that was the way he was going to get back associate with his little brother.

He said this in front of me and the social worker. And I was just like, I arrested this kid for a sword. And he went to go, he was fucking about to go kill someone. That was one of the things I didn't expect. I was like, ah, this kid bought a stupid sword or whatever, we'll take him in, we'll get him home to his parents. That's what I thought it was a little thing. So yeah, social worker went with the kid.

I don't know what happened after that. That's crazy. That stuck with me. Yeah. I was just like, damn. I was just like, damn, like this kid's got so much pain that he's like, yo, this is like how I'm going to like take care of it. Not thinking about the long-term consequences.

He didn't. He didn't. Kids don't think about the long-term consequences, especially when you don't have a positive adult. He was probably the adult in that house. You know, when you have an alcoholic or drug addict mother, he was probably changing the baby, feeding the baby doing all that stuff.

And the baby left probably broke his heart or whatever, you know. Like, how can you blame him? He didn't know what else to do. The cops weren't. help, who was helping? You know, I called the cops. They send the super bot, the social worker. You know, who's helping? There was no family, no nothing or whatever, you know? It was a sad situation. That's crazy. Yeah, that stuck with me. But as far as you were saying before, as far as taking weapons off people, I took tons of tons of knives off people. That was my specialty.

Really? Yeah, I had a couple accommodations. I'm not one of these guys that had bars all the way up because I didn't write them all. These guys got to sit down and write all these shit or whatever. Sometimes I would get recommended for them, but a lot of the CPWs, criminal possessions of weapons. Knives, I was great at it. I don't know if it was just like growing up in the city, you just saw things. But a lot of times when guys have knives, it might be a subconscious thing or they have something illegal.

They'll tap it. A little tap. It's a subconscious thing, I think. Like a little, like, just to make sure it's there or whatever. I got my security. Yeah, like poop or like this. Like, you know, like you tap your wallet. You know what I mean?

Something like that. And I noticed that some guys would do that a lot in terms. trains, you know, and they would tap, whatever, and I was just waiting for them to do something that I could stop them on, like spit or litter or something, because it was a small crime that now I could figure out who you are. And like I said, look, I would stop the guy, I won't say it was for, whatever, that guy. And he was a hitter from the south side. And then I stopped another guy or whatever who wanted on, the detectives wanted him on a series of burglary patterns. You know, you never know who you're going to stop. And it's very for a small thing. But, you know,

And there was tons of guys or whatever who, I don't want to say like, you know, everybody has a weapon in the subway. But I did bag checks at one point. And it would be tons of guys or whatever who would just, oh, women or whatever who would have. Like, not a little switchblades or pepper spray and stuff like that, whatever. So everybody in New York has something to defend themselves. It's just you got to worry about the people that are using it to hurt other people and not defend themselves. Yeah. So, but like if you saw pepper spray, you'd be like, no, you got.

No big deal. You're not going to take a woman's pepper spray. Oh, no, not at all. Construction worker, like some fucking douchebag cops with a rush construction workers. I'm like, bro, he uses a knife to work. He's not going to rob somebody. Oh, really? You know?

Yeah. I wasn't that kind of cop. Wow. Can you tell, by the way, someone's carrying themselves if they have a gun or a weapon on them? Like, obviously, the tapping thing is like... The walk, you can tell. I wasn't too seasoned with the gun. I can tell, you know, but I'm not going to give you my secrets on how.

Sure. But there's some, there's really, really good detectives that literally, and I heard stories about one of them who was famed. They had the most gun calls in the department. He could tell just by the way you walked if you had a gun on you from the back. You can watch you walk from the back and tell if you had a gun on you in the front. I wasn't a savant like that, but there's cops out there that can. And so they see like a group of five kids walking and they'd be like, oh, that kid's carrying. Well, I mean, usually the guy who runs away, right?

He'll have the gun on him or whatever. So do you chase him or chase the other guy? That happened to me in Coney Island once. We got to call for a gun run. me and the sergeant and we were in the car and it was at a park on neptune avenue i believe down there and we were at the summer detail in the train station and we got a call for a gun run and we saw the guys in the park and we rolled up but the precinct cops rolled up first and this kid on the bike dipped out with the backpack so we were like we didn't know where to go whatever and we're

like you know we're franz it really it's not our job but it's a gun run so we went to it to back them up and they searched it was like confirmed or whatever that there was a gun there but that that's the kid that took it and ran away, you know? So that's all, these kids, it's just second nature to us here in New York. We know how to survive and we know how to evade cops. Yeah. Now, I've heard that there's like a blade limit in the city. Like you can have a blade.

Under four finger rule, the four inch rule. Yeah. Is that legit? Yes and no. But it's like I said, what are you using the knife for or whatever? If it's in lieu of arrest, you know, or are you using, are you slicing people? You know what I mean? Doesn't have to be four inches.

It could be a blade like this, but are you slicing people? Do a buck 50 or whatever. Yeah, you do a buck 50 on somebody. That was big when I was growing up. The Bloods were doing that. Yeah. Halloween initiation and stuff.

They'd be slicing people's faces all over the place. In the neighborhood that I was, there was a bus that ran across Main Street. And then it went from Jamaica to Main Street. So bloods, some of the Bloods would get on in Jamaica and ride and then like slice people along the lines of the bus Halloween. I remember that happened. Did you ever know someone that had happened to?

I know somebody that got a buck 50 I knew somebody who got shot yeah buck 50 I don't know trying to think a lot of fights growing up and stuff like that kids would get hurt you know neighborhood fights and stuff like that I can't think of anybody getting a buck 50

in front of me or anything you know I don't have to think that's crazy I saw a lot of shit though yeah you know where you would see a lot of violence too at like the parades and stuff oh really yeah they they slice a lot of people at the parades Like the Dominican or the Puerto Rican parade or the West Indian parade. West Indian parade is wild. Wait, for, for, that's juvee down in Brooklyn.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But is this like gang initiation shit or is it like just on some beef shit? Who knows? It would just happen. Some of it is random. The Latin kings were really big in the city at one point. And they sliced some guy from wearing a six-sie's jersey. He was a black dude.

He thought it was a blood. He sliced them. They got a nice buck 50. There's a video of that, too. That was back. That was a while ago. But yeah, things like that would happen. They're Trinitarios.

They're a big gang or whatever Dominican gang here in the city. They're known for doing machete attacks on people. They stabbed up that kid. You remember, Junior, outside of in the Bronx by St. Barnabas Hospital. They thought he was a suspected gang member, the 50-year-old kid. Who was his last name? I forget. Alejandro Guzman, maybe Guzman.

Something like that. Vaguely familiar. Yeah, you know, cut this if I didn't get the name right. But I'm pretty sure his name was junior. And they chased them down. And then he Trio's into the bodega, and they stabbed him up bad. He's on the floor bleeding out, whatever, and he wasn't even a gang member. That's crazy.

They're real serious about that kind of stuff. Yeah. You know? Do you feel like bodega guys, like the guys that actually run the bodegas, like sit behind the corner doing like the graveyard shifts? Like those guys, do you think that they're tougher than people give them credit for? I feel like people see them as like an easy mark. But I feel like if you're running a New York City bodega, you got like a certain level of fearlessness. I think it depends on the person, of course, but it also depends on where they come from.

You think that you're a hood dude and you're going to go pick on some fucking dude from Yemen or something. He's just going to take it over. That guy's seen some shit in his country, bro. They experience wars and all this other shit that are privileged-assies do not experience here. We don't get our buildings blown up really. And I'm not going to say terrorist attacks don't happen, but on a daily basis, their laws and stuff are a lot worse over there, you know? In Albania and places like that, Serbia. Yeah. So when they come over here, this is like nothing.

You think you're going to push them around. You got something else coming. Yeah. Yeah, they're fight. Oh, did you ever respond to any like terror or anything like that? Like any, like bomb threats on the train? We had one. I actually got nervous about this one.

We always had bomb scares all the time. But this bomb scare particularly stuck out to me because a lot of them are full of shit. You know, they're not real. They're just like false flags. And that's like some dude that just calls up like, yo, there's a bomb or whatever. This bomb here. Is this crazy people? Like, what's the...

Why would someone do a bomb threat like that? Couldn't tell you. I couldn't tell you. So weird. Yeah, but some of them get traced back. Some of them are praying callers. There's a large amount of mentally ill people in this city. You know what I mean?

They probably see things and there aren't there or whatever. But this one time, we did get called for a bomb. And no joke, there was a black box sitting on the train tracks with wires coming out of it. Swear to God. I was like, holy shit, this is serious. It's probably in the papers, too. I believe it was in Jamaica, Symmaca Center. Yeah, we were all there at that point.

Like, there was a lot of us there. And what happened? It wasn't a bomb. It looked like one, though. What was it? Who the hell knows? Maybe a false flag. Who knows?

They brought in the squad and they checked it out. Oh, yeah. That's crazy. It looked like somebody, it was placed on the tracks. It might have fell off when they were doing construction work or something. Who knows? Because they have a lot of those garbage trains and shit that they go through the subways as well and they're open. Who knows?

But it was like perfectly placed on the tracks with black box, with wires. coming out of there and shit. Fuck that. Yeah, bro. I went upstairs. I was like, yeah, I'm gonna check the perimeter over here.

Yeah, I saw something over here. Newark is really are the best, though. Like, there's some shit I've seen on the train that's just like, it's, it's amazing. Like, there was one time I was taking, I was on the marshy stop. And the train, like, we could see it coming and all of a sudden it stopped. And it was like maybe like 200 feet down, like on the, on the bridge. And it was coming and it was just sitting there.

We were like, what the fuck? So we walked over to the end of the platform, and there's a guy just laying there. On the track. Just drunk, like talking shit. He's just, like, laying there. And there's, like, a couple people that are, like, being nice at the beginning. Like, hey, man, just, like, get off the track. Like, it's good.

They thought he was trying to kill himself. Right. And he's like, no, fuck you guys. Like, I'm trying to sleep. Like, he's just being an asshole. Sounds like in New York. Immediately they start chirping back at him. Like, yo, I'm fucking late.

I got to go. I'm trying to catch the train. Like, you're fucking selfish. I saw that. You're fucking selfish. I was like, oh, this is like, it's just amazing. Seeing a guy, like, on the track? I've seen that happen.

That's hilarious. It was the deal? Like, why? Just drunk guy? Just, like, laying on the track? They don't give a fuck. I don't know if we're talking about the same one, but there's a video of it, right? And they're like, yo, get the...

It ain't time to kill yourself. Get off, man. I'll be late before I stop the bullshit. Yeah. Did you see that one? Yeah. I don't know if that's the same way you're talking about if it's that mossy, but I remember that. It was something along those lines and you're like, that's a typical New York response.

You know what I mean? Like, don't fucking kill yourself while I got to get to work. Do it when I after I go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's like the old, like, Patrice O'Neill bit. He's like, yo, like, I was on a train. And you know Patrice O'Neill, the comedian? Yeah, of course. He's that, I was on the train.

You know, someone jumped in front of the train. The conductor came on, like, you know, ladies and gentlemen, we have a disruption. There's a person on the track or a person that died on the track. So, you know, we're going to be delayed, you know, a couple, like maybe an hour or something like that. And everyone on the train was like, damn, that's so sad. And then immediately people started checking their watch. It's like, God, damn it, why'd you have to kill yourself right now? Like there's a sense of New York is being like,

yo, don't kill yourself when I'm trying to do shit. I mean, I got places to be. It's annoying. It's true. But did you ever see people like trying to jump out? Like, did you ever respond to those calls? Like, jumpers in the train? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. All the time. I've seen a bunch of them, bro. Yeah, I've seen a bunch of them. I told a crazy story when a guy got his leg chopped off or whatever. I don't know if you heard me talking about that on the seven line. The leg came down on the street because, you know, the, it's a, the seven lines above line.

So it was like either 90 or 82nd Street right there. He got run over by the train for whatever reason. I can't remember the particulars. And his leg fell down to the platform. And all the blood was leaking down still. And just people walking around like, yo, what the fuck? Yeah, obviously we're a little shocked even as New York just to see that.

But still it was like, oh shit. That's insane. Yeah. And one time, this was a fucking miracle. Talk about being drunk on the tracks or whatever, right? It was like a drunk construction workout, like Polish or something like that. didn't really speak too much English. He was at, he was on the F line at 75th.

So we used to get calls, oh, there's a man under, there's a man under, that's what they call when somebody comes into contact with the train or actually under the train. Oh, there's a man under, there's a man under. Oh, all right, whatever. I'm with the sergeant and another cop. This was actually a confirmed man under.

We get there, the guy's in the middle of the train. The train's completely stopped. We can see him. Looking down, looking at this guy or whatever, right? FD comes They get them They have this special thing

Whatever to get them out They have this way Whatever they put the A little bed or whatever I forgot what that's cold Or whatever The gurney the flat gurney Whatever

They put it down And they get him out The guy didn't I didn't know if he was alive or not At this point or whatever Because you know They're gonna evaluate him We did the report

The guy came into the priest And the next day to thank us For saving him Not a fucking scratch On his body Drung guy survived The luck of this guy The train was coming full speed.

Injus. He tripped and fell. The conductor colds. I killed him over. I killed him. I know I did. He was all destroyed. Whatever.

He's like, I saw him. He jumped. He jumped. He jumped. He fell. He jumped. He was going crazy or whatever. You know, because I was, you see the person.

Like, those guys, they get like a paid year off leave and stuff after something like that. Yeah. After something like that. Traumatic like that happens. Wow. Yeah. So he was like, oh, destroyed thinking he killed somebody. But, you know, he can investigate.

We all can investigate. We all can't investigate. He was like, it looks all right. You know, he looks whole, like everything's there. We're looking at whatever. Guy walked into the priest in the next day. He was just drunk or whatever, and he fell, and he got so lucky that he fell right in the middle,

and the train went right over. That is crazy. Yeah, man. Probably kept drinking. Probably next time he was like, I got to drink this off, bro. He had to be it just to calm his nerves after that, right? That's fucking crazy. I mean, you probably got to see the conductors after some crazy shit happens, right?

Oh, yeah. You got to do it, like, if you're first officer on the scene or you're there, you got to do some kind of investigation, of course. And I'm sure they see some crazy shit. conductors, that's tough, whatever, you know, because people do jump. I know things don't make it on news. Like, I know personally, because there's stuff that when I was a cop that went on in this city that I didn't even hear about.

And I'm like supposed to be known what's going on, you know what I mean? But it happens in a different part of the city. There was a girl who, a lady who I only found this out and I knew her before I was a cop or whatever that I wanted up, she wanted to commit suicide. And I was like, oh, really hot she kills her. Like, oh, she jumped in front of a train. And I was like, wait, what? And like, you think, like, I would have saw her name on me.

Maybe the people that got hit in front of the train that I would have recognized or whatever. And it was never published anywhere. Nobody's ever spoken about it. And she's gone. And she was a person. So it's like, you know, how many times that by how big is a city, how many people are in this city, man. You know? If one percent get hurt, nobody would even notice, but it's a lot of people.

Yeah. Now, do you ever see, like, whole gangs come through onto the train and no one's doing anything wrong, but you know them? Like, you obviously being a cop and also a dude that's like, you know, growing up in the neighborhood. Like, you can tell when there's a gang. You know that some... They're not doing anything criminal right now. We used to call them roving bans. And so what's the deal with that?

What's the protocol? Like, you don't necessarily want to, like, instigate something, but at the same time, like... Just keep your eye on them. Just watch them. You know? Eventually someone will do something. But like I said, you... Me, I was always knowing, like, you know, and they would teach you as well or whatever,

like try not to fight outnumbered. You know, we don't fight fair. It's a night to fight fair. You know, you're one, we're two, you're three, we're four, you're four, you're five, we're ten. That's just the way it works and that's the way it goes. So, you know, if you saw five to six, seven guys, okay, it might be after an event, after parade, after concert, whatever, and, you know, they'll look it up, being a little rowdy.

Nothing crazy. Now they lick it up and touching people and doing all that kind of stuff or whatever. You got to break up those crowds. And the best thing is to try to break them up before they get bigger because they like a snowball effect. I see six, seven guys walking rowdy. next thing you know it could be 14, 20. And a lot of them sometimes are kids.

So they're opportunists. The Wolfpack mentality, you know what I mean? They might not even want to do anything, but just to look kind of cool in front of the older guys or whatever. They might go and smack somebody or steal something or, you know, just stuff like that that could escalate into serious violence. How do you break it up? You just got to grab one guy.

Yeah, let's go. Hey, you move this way, you move that way. Oh, wow. You really just walk in and they'll kind of disperse. Yeah, kind of dispersed. But it depends. What's the event? What's going on?

It's just a bunch of kids while in on in the train. you might get yo fellas calm down whatever you know come on do me a favor i would talk to people very normal i wouldn't come over there was sometimes where i had to come off as a an asshole cop you have to but there's most of the times whatever when i just look at people would be like what the fuck you do like just just stop like you know just stop that's all that's all i'm not even gonna bother you just stop that's all it's like you know it's just what it is it's people just try to act out you know i don't know i can't explain it what advice do you have from me someone I'm not from Florida.

I'm not from the city. I've been here a couple years. I'm not a street, dude. You know what I mean? I'm a regular citizen. What advice do you have for me to stay safe on the train? Should I carry a fucking weapon? Should I have mace?

Like, should I just like take my headphones out? Should I keep my backpack in front of me, not wear my watch? Like, what general advice would you give to me and people like me coming to New York? Do you travel a lot, like internationally? Mm-hmm. You do?

Mm-hmm. So you are probably a little bit more experienced than the average person that might be from the Midwest. and I know some people are hating on me for saying this or whatever, but people that come from rural areas have left experienced than people in the cities. I don't mean anything by it.

They're from the Midwest, don't get offended. If you went out to the woods in fucking Oklahoma... I wouldn't know what the fuck I was doing. I wouldn't survive or whatever. You know, I get eaten by something. I get stung by a tick and something stupid and we're getting my leg cut off. Something like really stupid.

Yeah, it would be something like that. So, you know, with guys like you who aren't from the city or someone else that might be from, you know, somewhere else that's not really accustomed, you know, situational awareness is paramount. I will say that over and over again. We are addicted through the phones, to everything else, technology.

Like you said, you got your earbuds in or whatever. You don't even know if somebody's honking their horn at you or whatever, let alone if somebody's going to come behind you and hurt you. You know what I mean? So headphones out. Always be able to use all your senses. You got them all? Here, smell, see, taste, touch, all that stuff.

Make sure that you can use them all. Don't knock one off. Because if you knock off your ears, you won't be able to see as well. You know, if you close your eyes, maybe you won't be able to hear as well, you know, things like that. The senses are connected, right?

So be vigilant of everything. Don't have your head in your cell phone. Don't have your earbuds in. You know, don't put your valuables in your back pockets, stuff like that. Don't walk into a situation that you might be like, oh, shit, that's going on. I'm going to walk that way.

Because that happens a lot of time in New York as well, you know, you might walk right into a situation that you had no idea what was going on. A broad day shootout, somebody, a fight, you know, like anything could happen, you know, or you're just seeing something maybe you're not supposed to see, you know, especially now with the migrants or whatever, you know, there's a lot of crime that's going on right now that's like,

you haven't seen in a while, you know, like, you know, carjackings and all this kind of stuff. If you got your chain out, maybe throw your chain in your shirt. What were you just telling me before, whatever, right around the corner here at this really fancy restaurant, whatever, guys rolled up in mopeds or whatever with the shikes he's on, came out and robbed these guys for their watches, you know? Are you watching your pocket if you're on the train? Does it happen?

Yeah, sure, whatever. But why are you asking for it? You know what I mean? Why are you going to wear a watch? Why are you going to put the stuff in your back pocket? Why are you going to have the earphones in? Why are you going to have your head down on your phone? You have to ask yourself all those questions.

What about like, I've heard people like stashing shit in their socks and stuff? Like, is that is that an effective tactic? I would do that. Yeah. I mean, listen. You got some cash on. When I travel to other countries, I assume sometimes that I will be robbed because, you know how it is. You know, you go to Caribbean country, Mexico or whatever.

It's part of the game. We'll do desperate shit. And you, there's a friendly extortion there too by the police, you know? So if you get pulled over or something, you might have to have $20. But if he sees you got $60, guess what? Now you're paying $60. But if you just pull out the $120 from your sock or wherever else you can't. This is all I got.

They'll take it. So, you know, that's really survival instincts that I don't know need to really particularly be enacted on a train in New York, let's say. But you want to be aware. You know whatever that if you're taking the six line from $125 at night or up there, whatever, or you're taking the E-line from Jamaica and then you've got to walk a little bit or whatever, you know that you're going to avoid this block because people get robbed over there.

It's a dark alley or whatever. Women have gotten sexually assaulted, et cetera, et cetera, you know. Learn where you are. Know your areas in New York. A lot of people are oblivious. Like, oh my God, I want to go try that restaurant, whatever, in this neighborhood, and they get there, whatever, and they go down the wrong block

and you're in the middle of the projects or a rough spot when you're like, eh, this is no good. I've also heard if it's the middle of rush hour, the people on every train is packed and there's a train that's empty, don't go on. You know why, though, right? I've heard that.

You know why? Tell me why. Because there's one of those guys that we were telling that lives in the subway, a homeless guy, whatever, and the stench is unbearable, bro. You will smell. You won't go in. You'll throw up. Imagine being stuck on that train car for what I said, remember from Manhattan to Queens or whatever. There's no way to go.

You're taking the L underneath the fucking the river? Forget it. And, like, people, like, it's not even like, oh, piss or whatever. It's like, yo, there might be a wound. Like bro might have like a like a festering wound that needs medical attention. On his feet. I've seen that all the time. Guys, guys, the famous stop for the scales we call them, the homeless.

And Queens was 179 on the F. That is something like you've never seen, man. It's something like you never smelled. It touches all your senses. Like I told you, have all your senses open. You're heightenly alert when you walk down into that train station. Because 24-7, 365, it smells. Like you just said, it's not necessarily piss, but it's like dying, rotting flesh and some kind of disease that we don't have, not really prevalent that this person has that's eating away at them, that we can smell.

And it's horrible, bro, horrible. And they sleep down there, like, that's their home. Yeah. It's fucking terrible. I've even heard stories of people, like, trying to give, like, a homeless dude money and they'll get, like, attacked. Like, have you heard that? Like, again, I don't want to say, like, don't give a homeless dude a buck. but like, you know, is there a type of guy, you'd be like, yeah, I'll give you five bucks.

And is there a type of guy? You're like, y'all, I don't have anything. Like, is there a protocol for that? It really depends what your intentions are. Because before social media and before influences, I would say, yeah, give them whatever. But now a lot of people want to give something to someone fucking recorded. That's corny. Yeah, but people do it all the fucking time.

And that's probably why a lot of these guys are upset, you know? Like, I'm not your sideshow, motherfucker. Why you got me on camera giving me a dollar? I don't need your dollar. Interesting. That's what it comes down to. I think a lot of the times too. If you're fucking sleeping on the street,

you want some guy shoving a camera in your face because it's giving you five bucks. Not fuck that. Yeah. So it's like, I'm sure that that has a lot to do with it as well. Some of these guys still have their self-respect. They just like to be homeless.

They don't want to be in society. You know, and I saw that, you know? Like some guys just like to live on that way. They have all the facility to help them. They might actually come from a family that is wealthy or something like that

and they don't want it. And they live in the subway and they live a homeless. That's a real thing. No, I've met some guys like that. I remember I volunteered at this homeless shelter, and I was asking this dude, I was like, you're like a smart guy.

Like, you know. Yeah, why are you homeless? Like, are you a drug addict? He's like, no, I'm not a drug. I like to drink, you know, but I'm not like crazy. I'm like, why are you doing this? And he's like, I like, I like being out here. Maybe that'll change, but right now I like being out here.

Yeah. And I was like, whoa. And sure, he's probably got some other things going on. I don't want to speculate. But that kind of a thing where you see homeless people and get like, oh, they're all helpless out of us. Some people are choosing that. Yeah.

go down and the cops we call them topside cops they kick them down into transit because it's like go ahead and ride that train the bowels of hell get down so you're almost battling with the with the upstairs dudes being like oh yeah they're sending them up i used to kick them upstairs sometimes or whatever like go ahead go up there oh that's crazy because once you hit the steps that's transit and then once you're on the street like i said if you see a crime and it would bleed into each other as well they would chase guys that would go into the subway sometimes hilarious we'd run into each other whatever one time i didn't even see a cop we collided with each other because I wasn't paying attention I was

there you go I wasn't paying attention but I was looking this way let's say and a guy he must have jumped because it was something I saw real fast or whatever and I was like oh shit he jumped so I went to just go run after him and I was on running after him there was cops running after him so they jumped and they ran into me and I was like oh shit hilarious fumble it was a fumble that guy he stole somebody's purse upstairs ran down trying to get away from them in the subway or whatever I have I have that fantasy that guy steal someone's purse and I just trip him like you ever see those Give them the little trip or the nudge. Yeah.

Like, you ever see people do that? Like, they're running and a guy will just trip them? I think everybody in this society, okay? And most of us work, you know, who cares what we do, whether we do illegal shit or legal shit? We don't like when people steal from us. You understand? I don't like when people steal from me. I'm sure you don't.

You know, unless you're a thief, you know, and that's your thing, okay, you get off on it or that's your business. Fine. But the average person, I think we're all against that, taking somebody else's shit. So I would do the same thing. I'm totally looked the other way. I'm a born and raised New Yorker. You know what I mean? I don't follow that.

See something, say something. I don't want those problems. And that's usually what New Yorkers think. Yeah. So it's like, but if I saw something like that, yeah, I have to stick my foot out just like you. I got some advice. I'm curious if you think is good or not. Someone told me, so I saw like a, basically like a domestic dispute on the train one time.

It was like a girl that I think saw a guy's phone and saw that he was fucking around. So she started yelling and she had his phone. And he was like, yo, give me my phone back. And he wasn't like aggressive, but he was kind of like, you know, he wasn't putting his hands on her, but he kind of has hands around her, kind of like stopping her from moving. And she was like, help, help, help. She's screaming for help. And there was like two other guys around.

I didn't want to get involved. So I basically, the advice that I was given before this was like, yo, walk up to him and be like, yo, man, the cops are coming. Like, someone just called the cops. Like, they're coming right now, bro. It's like, it's not worth it. And that's what they told me to say. And I was like-

This person was in New Yorker that told you this? Yes. Like born and raised here? Yeah. That's bad advice. Really? Why? Remember what I told you?

you before before I was a cop that how different was when I was a cop because I used to just turn my head and mind my business and just go about my way but now you actually have to do something. As a citizen you really don't have to do anything. I'm putting myself in harm's way or whatever because I took an oath and it's my job and that's what I'm doing.

Why are you doing that? You know what I mean? Well, I see a woman getting accosted, like I don't know what the situation is. I hear you, but you know, heroes you know what happens to them? You know what I mean? You just put yourself and you don't even know the background of what's on actually. If you see the guy beating the shit out of a girl, that's a whole different

story. The situation that you just gave me, blocking her from going or like a little domestic, but there is no violence. It could get, it looked. Everybody's anxiety might be really high because it looks like there's about to be violence. He might be like, ah, like, you know, scaring her, whatever. But there's no violence and nothing like that, whatever. I mean, I don't know, are you Batman? Can you fight? Are you bulletproof? You know what I mean? Like, so why you, what about if the guy, what about if he caught the girl cheating, right? And you don't know this or whatever and he's furious right now okay he takes it out on you because he knows he can't hit her now and you want to be captain sabahole or whatever they call you whatever and you go over there like

hey i'm mr white knight don't do this or whatever and he's like and now what you know if it concerns you or if you really can't stand it if you're one of those guys that can't take a guy talking to a woman by all means do your thing but be ready to go all the way because you're putting your nose and You're sticking your nose to someone else's business where it don't belong. That's their business. Until it becomes your business, you should mind your own business. That's what I live by at least. If I see, guy and girl is a very difficult situation because today and age, we're all equal, right?

So it's like, you know, equal rights and equal lefts. They start fighting with each other, that's up to them. But if I, even now, whatever, if I saw like a kid getting beat up or whatever, like I saw a guy one time, whatever, he went after a kid because the kid was talking shit to him. and a kid defended himself. He had a skateboard. And he fucking smacked the kid or whatever. And I told him, as well, as I pull over real quick. Because I don't involve myself in shit.

But I saw the kid was obviously a kid. He was like 13 or 12. And he was mouthed off. That's what kids do or whatever. They think they got huge balls or whatever. His kid was like 190 pounds. And the guy was a grown man. But he was trying to pull the dad card on him.

And the kid defended himself and swung the skateboard. So me and this other guy got out of our cars or whatever, because we saw it happening. This was like, this was a, in Corona, actually, right on the side of the LIE by Junction Boulevard. You're on duty? No, I wasn't on duty. I was off duty. But that's what I'm saying.

Remember, I don't get involved in shit, whatever, but I stopped for that one. And I didn't even identify myself as a cop. I didn't. I wanted to see what was going on first. I'm a person before I'm a cop. I always said that. That was my profession. You know what I mean?

If I had to take police action, I would. But I want to see what was happening. I didn't know if that was his son, his father or whatever. You know what I mean? But I saw a grown man going after a kid. That for me is crossing the line. Like I told you before, now I'm going to put myself into it. I was by myself, too.

I understand. If I was with someone that I had to take care of or responsibilities, it's a different story. But if I'm on my own and like that, I got in. So we got out, whatever, me and the guy. I was like, yo, what the fuck? Like, you know, it's a kid. Oh, you got to learn manners. Is your family or something?

You know the kid? He's like, no, this is some kid in the street talking shit. Like, bro. Me and the other, like, the guy looked at each other like, and you went to attack him. Like, bro, we should fuck you up, bro. Like, we went to like, you should get your ass kicked. He's 14 years old. You're like 40.

What do you expect them not to talk shit? Whatever. You told him to stop skateboarding there or whatever. And he probably said, fuck you. And you go to hit him? He charged him. He charged a little kid. He can't have balls though.

He swung the skateboard out of him. But imagine you're like a 12, 13 old kid and some grown man charges you. That's when I feel like adults need to step in, you know, or something. That kid probably learned his lesson too. He's like, oh, fuck. There's consequences. That too. There you go.

You know? But you getting that advice and stepping in a domestic dispute, what about if the girl's like, get the fuck out of you, asshole. Yeah, what are you going to do that? Like, oh, shit. Like, yeah, I feel the dick. You know what I mean? That's a good point.

Yeah. What was the most dangerous day on the job? Was there a day that you went home and you were like, fuck, man. I'm glad to be in my bed tonight. Um, every day has danger. I don't know if I,

I don't know if I was considered any day particularly dangerous. Like, did you ever get shot at or anything like that? No, I never got shot at. Mm-hmm. Brolls, maybe, you know, stuff like that, whatever. Like, when we were down at those parades, the West Indian Day parades and stuff like that, you know, I was on the detail, whatever, and people were getting shot, whatever, a block away and stuff like that. So you're always on guard.

You know, the mayor's aide, I think, got shot in the head once while they were walking. Yeah, in the drubate parade. Wow. Some of you worked for it, was it Bloomberg's administration? I can't remember the administration. Yeah, you got shot in the head walking down the parade route, like, you know, grandstanding or whatever. That's fucking crazy. Did you ever have to have to fire a weapon?

No. Thank God. Wow. I never fired. I pulled it out, though, once. We had a, uh, only one time. I had to pull out my gun, too. What happened?

I told you, when you're not scared, you know how to handle yourself, there's only a very few small things that you're going to pull your gun out for. And that is seriously physical, serious physical interest to yourself or someone around you, the public or whatever, like you're in actual fear for your life,

or you see someone with a weapon. I used to see guys with knives or whatever, like on their hip or whatever, and be like, oh, no. Talk to them first. See what it is. You've got to be very careful with a knife. Knife is more dangerous than a gun.

In one way? In my opinion. You can kill easier with the knife. Gun, I think you'll survive. Somebody shoots closer whatever. You might be able to dodge and dip whatever. You've got to grab a knife or something like that, a knife fight. One little cut on the artery or this and that.

A lot of guys survive getting shot. Like guys getting all cut and stuff. You can bleed out from so many ways. Wow. Yeah. And the distance that you need to be safe from a knife is like 21 feet. Yeah. So if I'm here, whatever, and I mean like the kill distance,

you can get killed within 21 feet. feet, you know? Somebody with a gun or whatever close, like you can shoot somebody with a 25 here. It's so bad the accuracy, the bullet might go that way, you know? So I'm more inclined to be ready when somebody has a knife than a gun. But the one time that I did have to pull it out was a carjacking in the middle of the day, middle of the afternoon on Queens Boulevard in Q Gardens of all fucking places. Like nice area, you know, business people, homes, you know, it's like Russian Jewish community or whatever, you know, it's not much going on. But the courthouse is there.

You always get an influx of people, whatever, coming in out of that neighborhood, you know? Anybody who gets arrested in Queens is going through that court, you know what I'm saying? So these guys or whatever, there was three guys. They carjacked this lady or whatever. I can't remember if they had a gun. But regardless, if you're violating carjack at someone, you're going to take your gun out when you're dealing with a perp like that because that's a serious crime. So they throw the lady out of the car and they get in the car.

Who the fuck carjack somewhere at 3 o'clock in the afternoon? Do you know what kind of traffic there is on Queens Boulevard at 3 o'clock in the afternoon at the Van Wick interchange? It's ridiculous. Yeah. So we got a call. We were going back to the precinct and we got a call when we're like, we're a block away from this. You serious? All of a sudden, we see one guy running like this or whatever in the distance or whatever because we were on the service road to the Grand Central.

They hijacked the car on Queens Boulevard at the Van WIC Interchange. They must have got caught with all that. fucking traffic on the van wick. They abandoned a car. And now all the cops are coming from everywhere, from the top side, I believe that's the 112 person that covers that.

And just from everywhere, the transit guys are coming up to stairs, right? Because you're hearing this. And we see the guy running. Now he's running across the highway, like fraudger. He jumped across the fence,

rolled down the hill, and froggered his way across the highway. Now, he's lucky that it was traffic or whatever, that, you know, the cars aren't moving that fast. So we see him. We get to the other side of this.

building and I hear, hey, like, oh shit, there it is. We get in, so now I got my gun out or whatever, you know, and we're about to, like, go through the building and do, like, a building search. It was, like, an abandoned building. So we went around the Grand Central. It was, like, one of those abandoned buildings right behind, like, the Q motor in is like a motel there on the corner. It's also, like, on the side of the van wick interchange. It was like one of those buildings that was abandoned. He went in. I don't think it was abandoned, but you know what I mean? Like, he could go in this door in and out. It was like one of those warehouse type things. So he gets in, and we can hear him.

like, you know, like running up the stairs, whatever. I'm like, oh, shit, we're on and whatever, you know. I got a gun out. I'm like looking around or whatever, you know. And I hear a door close. Obviously, he ran out. He got away. No way.

Yeah. I think they might have caught him later, you know, because they caught one of the guys, I think. So he probably snitching on the rest to get them all. Oh, that's crazy. Yeah, but crazy, right? And we were going back to prison. It was the end of the day. It was like, you know, I'm old Thai.

We're tired. We're probably sweaty. And all of a sudden. And then boom, like, just happened just like that. And on Queens Boulevard, 3 p.m. in the middle of the afternoon, out of old things. It's like, what? That's crazy.

Yeah, man. Tony, this was awesome, brother. Thank you so much. We got another combo. We got to discuss the New York City mob. You know, I know you obviously kind of grew up around some guys that had some connections. And you have a channel that's awesome. What's the name of the channel again?

Corruption Connection. Corruption connection where you discuss a lot of New York City crime, a lot of New York City mob stuff. And I'm really excited to talk about that. But, dude, thank you so much for this combo. This was really fun. It was a lot of fun for me. I appreciate. I feel better equipped to walk around the city.

Oh, without that. And if you need anything, you call me, I'll help you. My man. Thank you, brother. Anybody else to.