Locked In with Ian Bick - I Was NYPD's Most Decorated Detective — This Is What Real Policing Looked Like in the 70s & 80s | Ralph Friedman

Episode Date: August 25, 2026

Ralph Friedman is the most decorated detective in NYPD history — with 2,000 on-duty arrests, 5,000 additional assists, and 219 awards — and in this episode of Locked In with Ian Bick, he finally tells the complete truth about what policing in New York City's most dangerous precincts really looked like from the inside during the most violent and most lawless era available. Stationed at the South Bronx's notorious 41st Precinct — known as Fort Apache — he served during one of New York City's most dire periods, recording 2,000 on-duty arrests, 5,000 additional assists, and 15 shootings — four of them fatal — before a rookie in a radio patrol car T-boned his passenger door at high speed on August 1, 1983, leaving him with 23 broken bones including a pelvis broken in four places and a shattered hip that forced him into medical retirement at 34. He shares what the Bronx streets in the 70s and 80s really required of the officers working them, what criminals putting hits on him actually involved, the worst things he ever saw on the job, and what the stories from a career that produced the most decorated record in NYPD history actually sound like from the detective who lived every one of them. _____________________________________________ #NYPD #cops #truecrimestories #police _____________________________________________ Thank you to AG1 & HUNGRYROOT for sponsoring this episode: AG1: For a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro at https://drinkag1.com/lockedin _____________________________________________ Hungryroot: Explore my Hungryroot Digital Cookbook "The Commissary Upgrade" at https://hungryroot.com/LOCKEDIN _____________________________________________  Connect with Ralph Friedman: https://www.bronxstreetwarrior.com/ _____________________________________________ Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/  _____________________________________________ Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction to Detective Ralph Friedman 00:22 Reflections on a Legendary Career 01:08 How He Became a Cop 03:25 First Day in the Bronx 04:34 An Officer's Gear in the 1970s 06:16 The Mental Toll of Policing 07:47 Public Respect and Deterrence 10:00 Case: Stopping a Justifiable Homicide 12:53 Public Sentiment Today vs. Back Then 15:08 First Arrest and Early Impressions 17:04 Specialization and the Black Liberation Army 19:34 Daily Danger and Chaos 22:40 Corruption and the Knapp Commission 24:16 A Rookie's Brush with Corruption 27:43 Changing Views on Women in Policing 29:57 Path to Detective 33:05 Plainclothes Work and Tactics 35:31 Shootout in the South Bronx 41:17 Aftermath of a Shooting 43:31 Close Calls and Street Survival Tips 47:20 Quirky Emergency Service Stories 51:03 Old School vs. Modern Training 53:52 Detective Work and Arrests 58:40 A Typical Day as a Detective 01:02:32 Taking Down a Gun and Grenade Cache 01:05:05 Reputation and Informants 01:07:55 Riding with Friends and a Street Crew 01:12:40 The Worst Call of His Career 01:14:40 When the System Fails 01:16:51 Fitting In with the Squad 01:18:04 Off-Duty Life and Arrests 01:21:28 The Attempt on His Life 01:27:07 A Date with an Assassin 01:29:25 The Trap Unfortunately Foiled 01:30:42 The Emotional Weight of Taking Lives 01:32:28 Respect eroding in Society 01:35:10 Detective Ranks Explained 01:38:41 Handling Bosses and Paperwork 01:40:41 The Frances Tavern Case That Haunts Him 01:45:40 Fighting Layoffs 01:48:41 The Accident That Ended It All 01:53:20 Recovery and the Next Chapter 01:58:40 Life Advice from a Legend 02:00:00 Final Thoughts and Thanks _____________________________________________ To advertise on the show, contact [e-mail] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/LockedInWithIanBicka

The criminals in New York wanted this man dead. My guest today is Ralph Friedman, the most decorated detective in NYPD history. He spent years policing the deadliest streets in New York, survived shootings, stabbings, and violent attacks until one split second ended it all. You know, I'm pretty proud of being a part of NYPD. I'm pretty proud of what I did. I think I left the mark. You know, I'm out 43 years now, and people still know me. So I guess I left the mark.

I feel proud of that. Does it feel like 43 years? No. You know, I remember going in the academy back in 1968 as a trainee. The years fly by. Flies by. You know, when you've got to look forward, you want something done in like a week or two weeks.

Seems like you're waiting a long time. But I look back on my whole life seems to like fly by. Did you grow up in New York City? I grew up in the Bronx. I born, raised, schooled, all my little jobs. Everything was the Bronx. And then I got on the police force and I got assigned to the Bronx. Why did you get into police in?

It was a fluke, you know, absolute. I never, ever thought of becoming a police officer. Had no friends, no family friends, no relatives, no, nobody even knew was a police officer. But I had a great job. I got out of high school. I wanted to work. My parents wanted me to go to college, obviously. But my father got me a job in a moving company, muscle job.

I was working out. Then I was lifting furniture 10 hours a day. But it was great because I was, you know, 17, 18. It was great. And I was making a lot of money. I was making $4.50 an hour. Everybody else was making $1.15. And they had to work a 40-hour week.

Anything over eight hours in a day, I could work three days. And I could work three days and I'd come home with time every day. So I was doing great. And then one night I was out on a Friday night with a couple of guys. And I said, what are you doing tomorrow? And they said, we're taking the police test. I said, I was like a police test. And those years, it was a walk-in.

You didn't have to register or file or anything. You just walked in. And it was being given in my high school, D-Wid Clinton, where I just graduated from. So I said, you know what? Knock on my door. If I get up, I'll go with you. If I don't, I won't.

So they knocked on my door, and next thing was history. You know, I did very well. They did too. We all became cop. We got called, but I was too young at the time. They got called a little later to me. I got called first. And I was too young.

I was 19. Took the test at 18. So I had to do two years as a civilian employee working indoors. We wore a gray uniform. We did everything police do indoors. Operate the T.S. The telephone switchboard. File police reports.

Take complaints. Filing. Indoor stuff. And I did that almost two years to the day. and at the end of that they sent us to the academy because you had to be 21 to touch a gun and be trained and went to the academy, which was four months, and then graduated, and then I got assigned to the Bronx,

which I was happy about because I lived in the Bronx, and I knew the Bronx, and I heard stories about certain precincts in the Bronx, and they sent me to the 41st precinct, which was back then known as Fort Apache. And it was the wildest, toughest precinct in the United States, States at the time. You know, I only lived a couple of miles away in the Bronx, and when I got over at Anto, I didn't realize what a difference it was living in the same borough, and the poverty,

and the drugs, and the disregard for human life, and the crime that went on was, I thought I was in another country, you know, and when I grew up, it was all Jewish, Italian, and Irish, you know, when I schooled and everything, and, you know, it was, we just, we just, you know, we just, did normal stuff. You know, I played football for a league. I was on a school baseball team. I took some boxing, it took some karate, little stuff. Didn't excel in anything. I did all these things.

I raised cars, had fights in the street, but nothing with weapons and nothing with, you know, we didn't know drugs or nothing like that. When you get to the other side of town, same borough, it was another universe, you know? Now, this is in the early 70s when he first got to the Bronx as a cop. Well, I started as a trainee in 68, 68 and 69.

And then 70, I was assigned as a regular. Back then, there were different names for things. We were police. We were patrolmen, not police officers. That got extended, changed later because they started hiring females, and they started to call them police officers. And we were members of a police force. You know, it was more, sounded more intimidating, you know, police force.

Now it's a police department. You know, things would change over the next few years. And policing, obviously, in itself, has changed tremendously. What kind of gear did you have on you back then? All you had was a gun, shield, and nightstick. That was it. Mace was. Tazers weren't invented. Mace wasn't invented.

We even started. We didn't have radios that were. No radios. There were no beepers. There were no cell phones. There was no computer. What you really had was your gun. You know, your knowledge and training and your guts.

You know, you went out on the street. No one trained you. You got trained in the academy. Then they sent you out, and you were on your own. Not like today you go out with training offices for a certain amount of time. You were really on your own, and they give you a post. It took you all the first day to find your post. By the time you find it, you had to head back.

And we didn't have phones or navigation. There was nothing. You know, and even in the crime stuff, there was no DNA and no. blood samples and semen samples and technology has come a long way like in every job you know in medicine and same in law enforcement it progressed and moved on but it was a different job you know how do you feel that first day is it did you knew that's what you you're nervous you're nervous you know you have a certain amount of responsibility you're walking among citizens and you're armed it's it's intimidating

But you're taught, that four months of training, you're taught to be strong. You're taught to be, you've got to be the tough guy. You've got to overcome all that. You can't show weakness to your peers or the public. You know, that's the kind of training. And, you know, that's why maybe today they have a lot of suicide prevention stuff. You know, you couldn't admit to things back then if you had a drug or a drinking problem or suicidal or mental.

you can never show weakness. That would destroy your career and you would be out or ostracized by the rest of the police officers. You had to put up a front, no matter how scared you were or intimidated, you were taught to overcome. You know, if they use their fist, if people use their fist again, you use a stick.

They use a stick, you use your gun. But you have to come out on top. This is the training. There was no verbal judo, no retreat, no, what did they call it, de-esculation. You know, it was nothing like that. It's overcome. You are a powerful force.

You enforce the law. And we were encouraged by politicians and the police department to brass to get bad guys off the street. You're there. Your main purpose is to protect the public. You know, that's what it was. You get bad guys off the street.

Today, they want you to coddle people. and, you know, what happened over the years, I don't know how it happened, but you have politicians that dictate the policies of policing, which is very wrong. To me, that's like an analogy of, like a janitor in a hospital telling a heart doctor how to do the surgery. You know, policing and bosses and policies and training should be done by professionals who are trained, have knowledge and experience. You know, I think that's how policing should be, but it took a different turn over the years, over the decades. How did the public feel about cops during your era?

Oh, they respected us. You know, the way the police department has to work is decent people respect you, and criminals have to fear you. You have to have fear for them to, when we see a cop, you would cross the street. You didn't want no part of, you know, anything. And police had more latitude where they could use a night. which was a very important tool. And sometimes you could straighten out somebody without arresting them and ruining their record and put them on the right path, you know.

But today you use it. They don't even think they carry nightsticks anymore. You know, they took away a lot of policing tools like stop and frisk and stop questioning fists. They took away nightsticks. They replaced them with things that I think empower the criminals. And now, do you think that actually deters crime? Like, say you gave rough someone up with a nightstick that was a criminal, say a drug dealer on the street.

Well, yes, I straightened out people like that and they went on to be better and maybe they didn't want to be faced what the criminal justice system had for them. You know, so no one really wants to go to jail. You know, that's the worst part because you're taking away someone's freedom, you know. And that should be taken seriously on both sides, you know. just to give you an example, it was a case, besides arresting people, here's what we had,

just to give you an example, is we had a case where a detective was handling a homicide. There was a guy dead in the street, stabbed multiple times. And he couldn't get anywhere. And I was already a detective, but I was also doing street crime work.

So he came to me and said, you know, could I help him out, me and my partner? So we started investigating because we knew the people on the street, We had CI's confidential reformants. And we got some information that we developed, and it led us back to a building. And then it led us to an apartment, and we found where the perpetrator lived.

And we started to question him. And this guy was a really decent guy. And he broke down, and he said that he did stab the guy to death. Now we get the circumstances, because we investigate further. And it wound up that this was a decent guy. married to a decent woman. He came home one day, and there was this guy, broke in and was raping his wife, in progress. So he chased the guy, and he caught up to the guy, and the guy did it at a knife point,

and in the struggle, he got the knife and stabbed this guy to death. But he panicked and left the scene. So me and my partner, you know, we coached him a little, told him the right way, because he was not an American, you know, he was a foreign, and we helped them out and, you know, working with the truth. But sometimes you could have the truth and say the wrong thing and it gets you in trouble, even though you're innocent. So we spoke to him and we introduced him to the district attorney and we got things

straightened out and he went before a grand jury and it wound up that he got a justifiable homicide. Where this is a case where this guy could have gone to jail, you know, to prison. But, you know, as a detective, as a New York City police officer, we want to find out the truth. And if he's innocent, he killed a bad guy. When we checked it out, this guy had other crimes on his record for rape and violent crime. So we helped this guy. We could have just arrested him, and he could have got lost in the system. You know, we placed him under arrest, but we didn't use cuffs.

We got him bail, and then we worked with the DA, and he went to the grand jury and got justifiable. Do you think that exists anymore, that type of attitude towards that? Well, I sure hope it does. I don't want to see an innocent person go to jail. I'm very happy to put bad guys in jail. But I don't want to put an innocent person. Because in my career, I'm sure we're going to get to talk about. I was justified four times in taking lives in the line of duty.

And I had to go before a grand jury, just like any officer, anytime you take a life, you have to explain why, and you have to be justified. And you want to make sure the truth comes out. Do you think society has gotten too obsessed with sending people to jail? Right now, I think they're against sending people to jail. And you hear politicians on the TV and radio every day saying, we want to abolish ICE, we want to abolish police or defund police, or they want to do away with police, never mind defund. And they want to do away with prisons.

I hear people talk. I mean, ridiculous stuff. But there's people that, I don't know, if they're wired differently or have different ideas or socialism or what. But there's a trend that's not good for society and for the public as large now. Now, when you first started as a cop, did you know what kind of cop you wanted to be? Wanted to be a good cop. And, you know, being that I was indoors for two years, I was watching guys, bringing in arrests and doing things. said, man, I want to be like that.

You know, I saw guys wearing medals. I see them bringing in these bad guys, but a lot of drugs. You know, when I worked in the South Bronx, the only drug we saw was heroin. When I became a detective and went north and covered the Bronx more, then I saw other things like marijuana, weed, you know, hash, pills and Coke. That stuff didn't exist in the ghetto. It was only heroin. And then the city came out with a drug that was just as bad as heroin, and they were

push in methadone. The same effect and the same results that did nothing, you know, is just a city-responsive program. But, you know, I saw these guys, and they were like my heroes. You know, I said, man, and, you know, I became lucky enough to work with some of these guys and become their partners. But I was looking up to them, like little kids look up to the Yankees, you know, and they're playing a little league. You know, I'm seeing these offices and what they're doing. And it just impressed me so much. Because like I said, I had no family, no friends, no contact with police. You know, other than a couple of times I was brought in for fights, but I was never arrested.

They got like a JD or YD caught, youthful offender. But they impressed me so much. I wanted to be like that. Do you remember your first arrest? Yeah. It wasn't really, I'm not even remember if I arrested him. Well, here's what happened. I get out of the precinct and I'm walking down the street and I see a large crowd one block away.

And there's a large crowd, very unruly and stuff and making noise, screaming. And I wade my way into the crowd. And there's totally out on the street, 100% naked guy, just dancing in the street. And they're all encouraging them. I mean, he didn't even have socks on. I mean, nothing. So here I am. I'm a rookie.

I'm just out there by myself. And I worked in the 401, which is, had 425 cops assigned to this precinct plus TPF, which was upstairs 200M, which is called Tactical Patrol Force, which was sent to all different areas. And they're all changing shifts now. And here I am, cuffed, I got this guy cuffed,

and I'm walking them up to the precinct. And I don't know if I'm going to, well, they told me eventually what I did, but I was arresting them for, I guess, public indecency, but they wound up psychowing him, The desk office said, this guy's nuts, you know, so they call for an ambulance and send them to a hospital to be evaluated for mental illness. But bringing him up, you know, here I am with a naked guy, I got him holding him and walking him up, and the cops are going to pools that way. Well, I think you took strip searching a little too far, you know.

And that's, I do remember that. It was the first day I walked out of the precinct. Did you know what kind of criminals you wanted to go after specifically? Well, I didn't like, and I still to this day, I don't like criminals that go after kids or old people. You know, that's my thing. But I wound up specializing in guns and robberies, you know, because they're pretty vicious crimes. And people get shot, those stabbed in robberies and stuff. To me, that's vicious.

And guns, of course, are going to shoot people, and I certainly didn't want to see a cop get shot. And we had other dangers on the street besides our regular perpetrators and criminals. the Black Liberation Army, the BLA was around, and they were targeting cops. And I always wanted to catch one of them, and I was working on that a lot. And I missed a couple of them by minutes, but I didn't get to have an arrest one. But I had their pictures in all my cars. I had their pictures on my nightstand on my desk. I had them on the dashboard of the police car, my private car, like people would display pictures of the kids. You know, I had six of them that I was specifically after. But they were from the whole United States. They would go, they were an offshoot, a more

violent offshoot of the Black Panthers. And they would target mostly what they called salt and pepper teams, a black and a white cop. But we would work on them off duty, on duty. We would back up cops. We bought our own bullet, my unit, 401 anti-crime, we bought our own bulletproof vest because the departments didn't have them then. And, they were so heavy. I mean, they're nothing like today. Today's is like a piece of paper.

These were so heavy that you wore them even in the winter you would sweat. And we bought our own shotguns. We bought 20 shotguns from a sporting goods store right around the corner. And we sent them back to the company to be sawed-offs. There was Stephen Savage shotgun.

We made them legal. They were two-shot, breach-load. I still have mine from 1971. and we used to patrol with those. Wait, they wouldn't even give you a shotgun or a rifle or anything back? No, no. All you had was your pistol? Of 38.

Was that a revolver? Yeah. Wow. We carried revolver. Nine weren't out. Back then, the nines that were around, the criminals had, not the police office. And we used to say, what good is 15 rounds if the first one jammed? A 38, you didn't have to even do maintenance for 20 years.

It would work perfectly, you know? it was a gun you didn't need maintenance, which was good for most cops, because they weren't into the guns like that. It was, I was never a gun guy until maybe 2020, way after policing. You know, I started collecting some guns and stuff.

But back then, it was a tool of my trade. You know, just like a surgeon would have a scalpel, a plumber would have wrenches, you know, a carpenter would have a hammer. The tool, it was a tool of your trade. How often are you using the gun at that point in time in the 70s? early 70s. Absolutely all the time

because you're making car stops. They don't even want you to pull out your gun today. We had our gun out. 90% of the time you have your gun out. You're dealing with, it was crazy back then. You're driving around and there's shots being fired, violent crimes. I remember when I first got into a radio

car back in 70, they were backed up like 30 jobs, 30 or 40 jobs. That means like Central is telling you, there's robbery in progress, assault in progress, there's a past burglary. And you can't even catch up. We would get the car, the radio car, with the light and siren on.

You jump in and you're going. This is not like working in a quiet apart, like Riverdale, say, where nothing happens in the five months. This is when you're working in the ghetto on the weekends, it's like you have no idea. It can't even be explained. It's just nuts. You're on the run. You're fighting.

You're chasing. You're getting. getting cars, your uniform gets messed up, you don't wear your hat, you know, you're running through garbage and the hallways are strewn with urine and feces and rats and stuff. You're going in vacant buildings because they were ripping out the plumbing, they were gang headquarters. It's really hard to describe. And, you know, I wrote a book about years later, decades later, and I was lucky enough to find a co-writer, Pat, Pat, Piccarelli, who was in the TPF, the Tactical Patrol Force, and worked in the areas I worked.

And I was able to describe things to him, and the book came out fantastic because of having him as a writer with me. Because he lived through it, and I would tell him things. And he walked through these apartments could describe them great, you know. Why was the city so bad? Was it always like that, or did it become that? Well, you know, drugs came in. Drugs were bad. Poverty was bad.

And it was just bad in the ghetto precincts. You know, it's just like, you know, people coming in every, all decades, there's, you know, immigrants coming in from all over. And everyone starts at the bottom. The Jews did that, the Italians, the Irish. Now it was, then it was back then, you know, the island people and the Puerto Ricans and Spanish countries and stuff. And now they moved on.

There's other ethnicities. coming in. It's just like a job. You start at the bottom, you know. But the drugs and poverty was bad. And there were areas where just overcrowding and no air conditioning and jobs were hard to get.

It was just mostly the drugs. You know, when they sprung out on drugs, they're going to commit crimes, burglaries, and robberies to get money to keep up their habit. What about corrupt cops back then? Did that exist? Or...

Corruption was really big until I came on. It was a, cops never made enough money. So there was, there was corruption, but it was ending. There was a thing called the Knapp Commission. And they cracked down. They were, they were having trials on TV at the time. I was dating a girl whose father was a detective.

He got arrested. But they were locking up offices and detectives like dozens by the day. And it was in the papers every day. And the job was turning around. and pay was getting a little better, but the numbers I tell you, you'll laugh. When I was a trainee, for two years, I was making $4,000 a year.

What? And when I got appointed police officer, patrolman, we were making $9,600 a year. But before that, they were making much less in the 60s. So corruption existed, but now it was out. But heavy-handedness was in. Like, what would they call brutality to, but that was policing the way they wanted it.

Like I said, today I would be arrested in five minutes. But back then, that was the kind of policing that the city needed and demanded. And that's how we were trained. We used night sticks. You know, if anybody disrespected you or put their hands on you or resisted arrest, you overpowered them. You take whatever it takes. So corruption was on the way out and heavy-hand policing was in

because that's what you needed to come to keep the, you know, crime down to some kind of acceptable level. So how do you know who to trust, like your partners or just the police in general? Well, the first thing is you go out there, you don't want to be corrupt. You want to do the right thing. You know, if you get in with some bad guys, I had an experience that scared me straight right from the beginning. After you're a rookie for a couple of months and stuff, you know, you're handling. DOA is people dead. You got to wait in the house until the ME comes.

Or if someone's psychos a prisoner, you got to wait in the hospital until the medical staff determines if he's staying or going. And then you get your way into a radio car. You know, and you start out as a fill-in, like when partners, one's on vacation or one's in court. So you get into a radio car.

And so what happened was, I started filling in in radio cars. and driving with this guy, and he's pulling over cars, and I'm getting out, but backing him up, and then he wouldn't write a summons, we'd get in the car. This went on like four or five, six times, and then we get a radio single that says 10-2-forthwith. Now, I know what 10-2-forth-with means.

Ten-two men means report to the house immediately, and forthwith means immediately, right? So I say, what's that about? He just turns to me and says, I think I'm getting arrested. I said, what? And then we're driving in, and he hands me these folded up bills. And they were really folded neatly. It was like about $50 or $60.

And he says, you hold on to this. Right? And I'm like, rookie, and he's a senior guy. And I'm like, I'm scared out of my mind, right? I mean, this was worse than facing a guy with a gun, right? And we get in and we walk into the precinct doors and there's a gauntlet of bosses. And as soon as we walk in, they say to him, officer, give me a gun. And they placed him under arrest.

And they turned to me. Now, I'm holding the evidence. But they must have had them for other things. This was just, you know, that day was like the topic. But they had them already. So I folded this money up and put it in my wallet. it and I never touched it, right? It was folded here. And they tell me,

officer, go back on patrol. Now, we didn't even have some solo patrols, but they sent me out. I didn't even drive a radio car yet. Right? So I just started driving to get away, you know? And that scared me straight. And I ran into the guy, he got arrested, he got thrown off the job, and I seen him later at a construction site doing construction. So I went over and I said, hello and everything.

And I said, hey, I got this for you. never touched it, you know? And I was giving him the $60 or whatever. And he goes, like, they already were finished with him, but he thought I was wired or something. He goes, oh, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't want to, so I walked away and I just, I threw it in a barrel with some bums were warm in the hand,

you know, by a 55-gallon drum. I just threw it in there and kept a big car and get left. But I was like scared straight from the beginning. So now, why wasn't money necessarily a priority for you back then? Were you just so passionate about the job? I was passionate about the job. I knew that was wrong. And, you know, I wanted to be a good cop, you know.

You know, you get on, you definitely want to do the right thing, you know. Now, what about women cops? Did those exist back then? They didn't really exist, and far and few between. I mean, maybe 1%, but over the years, females in policing obviously expanded tremendously. In the beginning, nobody ever thought women could be. they were like guarding the cells. They were called matrons.

And they would guard female prisons, you know. And it seemed like from what I could remember back, we used to search female prisons, pat them down and stuff. But if you had to do a total nude search, strip search in the precinct, then you would call a matron. But guys didn't feel women could be policing in the street because it was a rough and tumbled job. You know, it was very physical.

You were fighting a lot, a lot. It was like a few times a day you were in fights, you know, when you worked in those kind of precincts. And I was always against women in policing. But over the years, by the time I got even bigger after I got out. But as time went on, women could handle the job. And you definitely need them for undercover and investigations. And, you know, now they're in. How are the jails in their early 70s?

Terrible. Terrible. I mean, it was terrible, you know. It was really bad. Like Rikers and... Oh, it was horrible. What else did they have? Well, they had holding pens in most precincts for overnight or a couple of days,

depending on when you got arrested, you know. And sometimes on the weekends, like central booking, places were booked, they were booked up, so they had to stay in the holding cells in the precincts. They were all terrible. rat infested, you know, at least in the precincts I worked in. Roach and rat infested. You know, it was terrible. I mean, today, the precincts are gorgeous.

I mean, they redo them. They're like hotels. Do you think they make them too nice? I don't know about too nice. You still got to lose your freedom, you know. But it's cleaner and, I guess more humane, you know. How long did it take for you to become a detective? I made detective in five years.

Is that normal for that time? Today it's normal. Back then, it was unheard of. And I went into plain clothes after one year on the street because I was active as an officer. So I got into what's called anti-crime, which is another thing they did away, which was a tremendous tool.

It was only done away within the last few years. Now you're half in uniform. It's just weird the way you do it. body cameras and stuff. How can you be in plain clothes with a body camera? It's just ridiculous stuff that goes on today. You know, but I made plain clothes in about 14, 15 months. And then I made detective.

Then I was promoted again. Right at the time I was almost getting laid off. I got promoted to detective. And then I made another promotion, which was almost the next promotion, but it took seven years. because there was a job freeze and a promotional freeze from 75 to 82. So in 82, I got promoted again. And then in 83, I was told I was getting promoted again.

But then I got hurt prior to, I was going to be promoted at the end of the year when they had big promotions around Thanksgiving and Christmas. The department does big promotion. I was told I was getting first grade because I was a second grade already. And I got hurt. And they took care of me every which way. but I didn't get the slot because they were very converted spots back then it was like 115 first graders in the city

and that was it. There was only 230 second graders the rest were third graders. But I went that way. I went plain clothes and detective bureau as far as promotions. Other offices go the civil service rank of sergeant, lieutenant, captain and work your way that way. I always liked the street version

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That's drinkag1.com slash locked in. What changes when you go to plain clothes? Well, you're at a uniform and you're working on more cars. And we back then, we use our own cars. We're permitted to be used. You'd get permission, register them as undercover car. We used taxis. We borrowed from a local taxi company.

We used milk trucks. We used con ed trucks. We used disguises to blend into the neighborhood. That was our job. You see, uniforms, you would say, would deter crime. If you have a cop on the corner, there's not going to be a crime, you figure. And detectors would have to investigate the crime after the fact, where plain clothes anti-crime, they wanted you there during the crime.

crime. See, now they didn't have computers to map out where things were occurring. So they had a guy in a precinct that did pins on a map. And he would go through the crime reports and put a pin in the map like we'd broken down by blocks or train station where these crimes were occurring and what time. Then he would give it to us and we would stake out these locations and get them in progress. And the thing with that is, if you catch a criminal in progress, you are going to be testifying, right? And your testimony is like professional testimony, and you have a better chance of convicting the criminal and him get in time. And 90% of the time, or even higher, they would cop out because they didn't want to face an officer in court or two officers in court that said, this is what happened. And we're used to testifying where if someone commits a crime, like you're a detective and you investigate it, and you catch the guy.

And he's as guilty as could be. But you didn't see the crime. So you could only testify if you recovered evidence or there was a statement made. But the civilian has to testify. And sometimes they're nervous. They're scared. Or they get things wrong. Or a lawyer could mess with their mind and make them say things that they really don't want to say or get them.

confused on the stand. But when an office is testifying, a very good chance they're going to take a plea during the trial, before the trial, or they're going to get convicted and do more time. Can you share us a story from that time period of working plane close? I'm going to tell you, good one. Yeah. Oh, I have a lot of Google. They're all Googles. But we were out one night on patrol and show you how things could change. We were patrolling. We were in a taxi. I was in the backseat as a passenger. And we saw this group of kids. And they were going over to people and asking for money.

So we saw what was going on. So we stayed like a block away. Like we were watching them on Prospect Avenue. And it was like two lanes of traffic in each way plus parking. So we were like six cars, you know, away. And we're watching. And they're going over to people and they're leaving, going back and forth. And we know, well, we thought we knew, that they're going to

what's called an intimidation robbery. If four guys surround you and ask for money, you know, it's like they're asking, but it's intimidation, you know, especially if it's for 20-year-olds or 17-year-old, well-built, and they're going around an 85-year-old woman, you know, give us some money, you know, that's intimidation. Even if it's a guy, a regular guy, you'd be intimidated.

So we figured we're going to get them. And the tables turned. One of the people, they went over to this guy, and all of a sudden, what was said, we found out later was they said, could you give us some money? And he said, like, go fuck yourself. And the guy goes,

the kid said to him when he said, go fuck yourself. The kid said, you're a cheap bastard, right? And the guy pulls out a gun right in front of us and shoots his 15-year-old right in the chest. We're right there. So my partner hits the gas. We skid right to the scene. He had the radio.

He calls for an ambulance and backup. Because the kid's on the floor shot in the chest. And I saw chasing the guy up the street. And the guy is shooting at me while he's running. He's got his torso turned and pointing a gun shooting at me. And I'm shooting at him. We're shooting each. My partner now flanks out to the left and runs up the street so we triangulate him.

Right, but there's cars separating my partner and the perpetrator. Now, so one lane of Fox Street, but my partner can't get a good shot in because he's running, the perpetrator and him. So now the perpetrator stops and ducks behind the car, but I could see him perfectly, but my partner can't see him. Now, at this point, my partner didn't get a shot off, and me and the guy already traded six shots each. So he stops, and he's reloading.

I pull out a second gun. second 38. And I take cover behind, like, these tenements had like three or four stairs going up, and they have three or four stairs going down. So the three or four steps going up goes into the building and you have like a five-story walk-up. And the three or four steps have an apartment downstairs. So I duck behind there and I could see the guy perfectly and he can only see like from my nose up and there's bars there for the staircase. So I pull out the second one. So I pull out the second gun. And I got it, and I'm resting it. Now I'm using support shooting. And I'm shooting right at him. And I can't, I don't see, he doesn't get hit. He's, I don't see any effect. Right. And I'm

lining up my shots. I'm using my side. It's almost like in slow motion. All my other shuders, I feel they were like in a second, you know, because I was in 15 shootings. But this one is like slow motion, even though it's fast, because I'm lining up and take an aim. All of a sudden, the guy reloads again because he now emptied two times he emptied the gun. Now my part, and what he's doing is putting one shot at me and one shot at my partner, who's pinned behind the car. All of a sudden my partner fires around. He gets a clear shot when he pops up and he hits him.

I see the guy grab his shoulder, right, and falls down. So I run over to the guy and I still got the second gun. I only fired like three, four, four rounds maybe. Got two shots left, right? And I run up and the guy's lifting the gun to point at me while he's laying on the floor. So I'm standing right over the guy. I fire and put it right between his eyes and kill him right there. So now after, well, two other things.

Now the ambulance comes and the police and everyone's there. When they picked up the guy to put him in the ambulance, the back of his head fell out and his brain falls out, right? Right there on the street. And when they look at him, I hit him like six or seven times. But it had no effect on him. He was so pumped up on either or both alcohol and drugs that the 38th wasn't, I hit him six, seven times. He didn't have an effect on them.

Now, what the guns are used today, would that have made a difference? Well, a nine millimeter definitely would make a difference. We all use 38s. Today, everybody carries a nine. So I'm sure it would have made a difference. But sometimes they're so copped up on something that sometimes they don't. feel it. I once saw right in front of my eyes in front of the precinct. I saw this little skinny girl couldn't weigh more than 90 pounds. Take on six cops. She was on like LSD or meth or something.

She's just like brushed them off like it was nothing. You know, you get this crazy strength and stuff. You know, you don't know how it's going to turn out for a few moments. You know, and this, the gun battles was fast. But just that I was aiming, it felt slow. It felt slow in a way. after a shootout or an incident like that, what happens? Do they come, close the scene, look for bullets, do all that? Absolutely. Even back then. It's taken very seriously, even though they say it was the Wild West days.

It's the police department, not only the police department, the DA's office, there's a shooting team, internal affairs. There's multiple agencies and multiple units. They have to account for every bullet, you know, because you don't want to, maybe a bullet went into a window and maybe kill. somebody or shot somebody, they have to account for every single bullet that's fired. You know, so that's a job for crime scene unit, shooting teams, and then they interview you. And back then, we didn't just clam up like today. Everyone clams up. It's lawyer time and all that stuff.

Back then, you tell the sergeant gets to the scene, you tell them what happened, you know, and then you go in, you'd be interviewed by bosses, you get internal affairs. and everything is accounted for. And you cleared that same day to go out, or is it, or do you take away your gun or how does it work? They take away your gun, not your other guns, which I don't know what they do today as far as that, but they take away the gun you used,

and you would stay indoors probably two, three days. Like on desk duty? Yeah, just a couple of days, you know, and then you go to Grand Jury and you tell your story, and you get a clear bill. a justifiable homicide. So the grand jury decides whether to indict you or to... Well, I'm sure the DA has some input because DA sort of controls a grand jury,

but they still have to give the facts. And the grand jury itself is, which is, you know, decent, ordinary citizens, you know, like maybe 20 in them, 24 of them, not like a jury of 12. There's a lot of people in the grand jury. and they either vote justifiable or they'll indict you. And that just means there's enough evidence to continue with a felony trial. But now back then the prosecutors are probably pro-police in it. Yes, but they still have.

Yes, prosecutors were pro-police. Yes, absolutely. But they have to put in the facts. And there's always ballistic teams and, you know. What does it feel like, you know, mentally to get shot at, especially early on in your career? Well, I took the job extremely seriously. And I trained.

I used to go to the range. I worked out. I went to work rested. I went to work pumped up. I went to work well fed because there wasn't places to eat a lot. You want to make sure you go. Basically, you grab pizza. Otherwise, you got to go to a different precinct, you know.

But I took it seriously. And I took the training. I remembered things that they taught us. There's little things they teach you that sticks in your mind that could save your life. I'll give you an example. One night I was with a three-man team, me and two others, and we were driving around, and we see three guys on the street, and they definitely didn't look right. So we decided we're going to stop them.

So we get out of the car, and all three right away run in three different directions. So each of my partner is Chase Purp. and which they caught by the way I chase this one guy and he runs into an abandoned building and it was late at night it was dark out already so he runs in this abandoned building

and I go in there and I had a flashlight right and I was always taught and you see this all the time in TV and movies the guy cops always put the flashlight

under the gun you know but every time I see that I say man that is so stupid Yeah, why is that in the movies? They do that. Because it's in the movies. They create. The movies create a persona or what they think it should be.

So they got the gun under the thing that's pitch black. And I'm there. One thing I was taught, don't put the light in front of you if it's dark. Because now you're giving the guy a target. So I put the, I had my left arm extended. Right. And all of a sudden I hear a shot and the bullet whiz buys me. Now me, I fire at the muzzle flash.

because obviously a guy has a gun. He's shooting. That's where he is. And I shoot him, right? And he gets away. I hear the gun drop. And I recovered the gun. Later, what happened is I hear it drop

and I hear him run away. Right? And now I call, now assistance is coming. My partner's got the guy to call, and the emergency service comes, ESU. They light up the scene like it's two in the afternoon on an August sunny day in the building. Now we find the gun, and how I know I shot him, find a trail of blood leading out, right?

So I got the gun with the spent shell, got blood, so I know I hit him. And now the investigation starts. These other guys said they didn't know him, and they probably didn't because they wouldn't give him up. And they were both warranted on warrants. So they got arrested for warrants, outstanding warrants. They wouldn't give him up. They swore they didn't know him. and what the detectives do now,

you start checking hospitals, doctors, offices, even vets, anyone who could treat a wound. Now, I don't know how bad he was hit. There was a sufficient amount of blood, but it could have been, you know, in flesh wound, could have been, you know,

something that he patched himself, could have been in and out, you know, or maybe he knew somebody he'd get taken care of, but we never got the guy. Wow, never. Never got him. I'm sure.

that type of guy got arrested later on for something else, but never got him. So a guy like... Because I didn't really see his face. We just got out of the car and they split. So I couldn't go to photo unit and identify them, you know? So someone with your mindset, that's got to drive you a little crazy.

Yeah, it bothers me. Still sticks in my head. The story is from like 1972 or three, you know. But I remember little things like that. Another thing we learned when you're, If you use car as a cover, a car, don't stand in the middle of the car. Stand by the tires. Because, guys, we learned from the BLA in the next precinct where I responded to the run.

They encountered some of the BLA members, and the guy had a machine gun, and the cops were hiding behind the car, and he sprayed under the car, because you could shoot a cop or anybody in the ankles, and you'll go down. But if you stand behind the wheel, you got to steal rims there on both sides of the car, left and right. passenger and driver. So little things like that. You know, you're staying, you're going to be behind the car. A door ain't going to protect you, you know, underneath is certainly wide open. Yeah, you see in the movies, they open up the car door and they stay behind the car door, but you got the whole bottom part. Yeah, it's underneath and the nine will go through a door. You see them hide behind

sofas. That's true. I've always wondered that. So they die behind the sofa. It's ridiculous movie stuff, you know. I teamed up with Hungry Route to build a digital cookbook, and I called it the commissary upgrade because i know we're all tired of eating ramen noodles i was looking for fast delicious meals that we can make quick at home when you click the link for the digital commissary upgrade cookbook you can see recipes that i've personally selected and make on my own every night at home such as the chicken fajitas with fresh tomato salsa the black and medium cooked shrimp tagliatelli alfredo grilled pork chops with rice green beans scallions and a sweet chili lime bowl and eggs and cuties, blueberry oatmeal, seared salmon Southwest salad,

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What are some other police strategies or tactics from back then they don't use anymore? Well, this is really funny. Like today they have really high-tech training. And they have simulation stuff and they have lasers and they have like robots come at you and pop-ups where, you know, it could be a terrorist or a criminal. or it could be a woman walking a baby or a dog, you know what I mean? So they got training technology today. Once they told us, we used to go to the range and you would fire right in front of you. The target would be six feet away, 10 feet away, 25 feet, 5, 10 yards, you know, all this.

And you just stand there and shoot. You shoot left-handed, right-handed, supported with a hand. Now they tell us, oh, you got to go to the range, a new training. You got to qualify it. And they have high tech now. So we get to the rate. This is the high tech. They had a parking meter.

They had a fire hydrant, an abandoned car, and a street sign. Technology. Hide behind these things. Take some kind of cover. You know, that was the high tech. Go behind a fire hydrant. Go behind a meter. You know, go behind the car.

You know, instead of standing there, that was what our big move. technology was. That's crazy. It was, you know, it was, you look back, it was antiquated. You know,

it was antiquated. I felt like, if I looked back now, I felt I was working with Barney Flintstone, you know, you know, it was like, it was antiquated,

you know, it came a long way, just like medicine, policing and law enforcement came a long way with technology. Did they have SWAT teams back then, like a special unit? Well,

we had emergency service. SWAT is really, was sort of like a West Coast thing. On the East Coast, it was emergency service. And did they have better weapons? Oh, much better. They carried high-powered rifles, machine guns, shotguns. They carried emergency service, you see, SWAT with special weapons and tactics.

Emergency service goes even further. NYPD Emergency Service is the premier unit. They do rescues, they climb bridges, they go in the water. They go take elevators, you know, if you're stuck in a high-rise. They do everything. And when I had my career-ending accident, which we'll probably discuss a little while, emergency service came. They were instrumental with the fire department and getting me out of the car.

They do extractions. They do everything. They're really highly trained. You know, you have to have some kind of skill to get in there, and then they'll expand on it. You know, they'll teach you. other skills. But emergency service, they carried the weapons, they got the ropes, they could propel off a building. They were the ones that responded to the two people climbing,

the Empire State Building. Yeah, they, yes, they do that. The bridges all the time. Yeah, the suicide jumpers and everything. Yeah, which, you know, that's a little great. I wouldn't want to go up on a bridge and save some psycho, you know. Were those types of things happening back then? Oh, yeah, they always happened. Absolutely. Absolutely. And even crazy a thing. New York City is almost nine million people, and there's always something going on. And everything's out of the ordinary. That's what I loved about police work, too.

It wasn't routine. You don't know what you're going to face. And you also got to see the underbelly of the city. You know, you're out there at night. Everybody's home in there's bed sleeping thanks to police officers. Because the things you see and what could go on in night in the city, is just insane. Now, what was the typical response time?

Say you needed backup or even just responding to a call. Tremendous. Well, where I was, I'd say it was tremendous. When you were in a ghetto precinct, there's more coverage. You know, like I said before, the 41st precinct in the 70s,

had 425 people, offices, and 200 TPP. Plus, it was so active that what we call a poaching, you'd have borough, like guys that were borough crime or borrow narcotics. They were only poaching.

They would look for their arrest in our precinct because that's where everything's going on. So there were so many offices in a certain, not like in a quiet precinct, it might be a little, obviously the time, response time would be a little longer. But when you call for help in the city in the ghetto precincts or like Manhattan,

there's cops all over. They're there in seconds, you know, really seconds. Tell us about becoming a detective what that was like for you. Well, funny thing is, I wanted to be a detective, but I wanted to do anti-crime work as a detective. And they asked me that question. When I went before the promotional board, they said, here's where I made a mistake. They said, how would you feel if we left you in anti-crime work?

I said, that would be great. That's what I want. So the next thing I know, I'm in the detective view. And, you know, I didn't get along with detectives before I was a detective. because a lot of times detectives we'd want to take a big collar from you. You're a rookie. They'll say, okay, kid, we'll take it.

You know? And I said, no, you're not going to take it. It's my collar. You know, and there would be some fistfights here and there. You know, but... You would fight the other cops? Yeah, we had... There was some fistfight. Hey, it's just human. Not everybody gets along, you know? And if someone's trying to take my arrest, I didn't go for that.

You know? So, yeah, there was some fistfights I had with detectives. Is this why you got the... I don't know. I had to do with all my policing stuff. But me and my partner, we once had a fight that the whole precinct saw it went on for like over a half hour. Started upstairs. It went downstairs. It went out into the yard. What was this over? You know, we worked in the same office. And we were like partners, but he bothered me on a day. You know, we both working out and stuff. and he uh you know we were trained and you know oh he would say his arms are bigger my arms are bigger

who's tough or who's strong and one day he just grabbed me from i was typing and he grabbed my arm and said ah that's not so hard and i was not in the mood for him that day i turned around him with the typewriter because we had these uh pick and peck uh underwoods that you i just hit him with the type and that was it we just started fighting and that went on for a long time but fights weren't uncommon. You know, you're dealing with a lot of testosterone and, you know, couldn't show a weakness at any point. Even with your own people, that's who you don't want to show it to.

If you show a weakness, that'll haunt you your whole career if you have a career. Now, what were the detective offices like back then? Is it like what we kind of see in the movies? Yeah, in the old time, yeah. Everything was painted as drab green. And it was very smoke-filled. People smoked indoors. detectors were known to smoke cigars.

You got the bulletin boards up. Yeah, it was like no technology. You go into a squad room today. Everybody got a computer. You know, it's so different. So different. Because I've been back to precincts and seen, you know, I stopped into say hello or something.

It's, like I say, our policing was antiquated compared to today. And I'm sure 40 years from now, this will be antiquated. Because that's how time marches on, you know. Now, walk us through what a typical day would be like when you became a detective. Well, you start getting cases of past crimes. And the detective squad is based on what they call clearance.

You want to take the case and you want to clear it with some kind of positive results. Either an arrest or property found or referred to court. You know, they want positive results, your clearance, right? So what I invented was I wanted to go out and make arrests. That was my thing. I still had my anti-crime mentality, which I continued to have through my whole career. And I was in the Detective Bureau 10 years. But I wanted to take this with me.

So what I would do is I would say I'm going out to interview a witness or a complainant. And I put down the case number. But then I would go out and then I say, oh, I saw a suspicious car. I would stop cars. I would follow people. And I would with my partner. and we'd make an arrest. And what I invented was,

instead of closing it out at the patrol level, I would refer to the detectives, and then I would catch the case and close it out in an arrest. Now the bosses saw it liking this, because I was bringing up the clearance rate. So they let me do what I wanted. At first, the detectives, you know, they thought I was nuts. I came there with a reputation.

You know what I mean? And they had 19 guys, were in the Detective Bureau. And for the whole year, they made 38 arrests between the 19 of them. The first year I went up there, I made 160 arrests. So now they got to know, I wasn't there to make them look bad. I was doing my thing. You know, I was helping them.

Cops knew what I was like, and they would always come to me and give me information because they knew I'd follow up on it, and I would really work the case. You know, or even if it wasn't a case, we'd make it a case. And then I would refer it to the detectives, and I would care. catch it, and the boss would get clearance. So then they started liking me and knowing what was going on. Now, what kind of cases are these? Well, there are assault, burglaries, robberies, people getting threatened, all kinds of

cases. Back then, sometimes they had a homicide squad. Sometimes they didn't. Sometimes it was a robbery squad. At certain points, we were catching everything. I've worked homicides. All kinds of things. I mean, I had a case once.

Give me an example. A woman was in a high-rise building, not a high-rise, five-six-story building. That was high. Anything over five, you had an elevator. Under five, you didn't have elevators. So this woman's sitting in her window, you know. You know, people sit in their windows sometimes, especially old people. You sit in the window, and she's looking down, and she sees a car pull up and a guy,

and a guy pulls out a grenade. And it's showing it to the guy in the car. So she makes up a report. She says, I saw a guy with a grenade. I said, hey, you know, it's a grenade. Oh, I watched it on TV. I know. I seen them using soldier movies.

Right? So she makes a report. I get it. So she gives us a car description and a description of the guys, the guy that was out of the car. So we start checking around and we're hanging out in the area. Give you an example. And, you know, there was a lot of legwork then.

Like now they would go on cameras. There'd be cameras somewhere. You'd find the car. She'd describe the car. You'd pick it up. You start where it is. If there's no cameras, you'd keep expanding your perimeter until you find the car. I mean, there's ways of doing it today.

We just staked out the building. Then we saw a guy a couple of times. This was over the course of maybe a week or two. You know, anytime we had time, we paid attention, right? We always filled our time with something. You know, there's always something to do. So we paid attention to this, and we got it. found the guy. And we followed him, found out where he lives, talked to the super,

get the apartment and everything. And we knock on the door and he opens the door. And we could visually see guns on the wall. Like he had them on the wall. Right? Like something like a John Wick thing. Yeah. Right. So we go in the apartment. We just walk in. You know, we didn't get search warrants. I told you, things weren't done like that. So we go in the apartment and we find out he's got guns everywhere. We found this is great. We even found guns in the freezer. What kind of

guns? Thirty-eight and nine millimeters. In the freezer. In the refrigerator and the freezer. A freezer would ruin the gun, but it was a gun in there in a plastic bag. So we got about I don't know, 15, 20 guns and we find two grenades.

So I take the grenades. We put all the stuff. We take the guy. me and my partner, and we drive back to the precinct. And we go off to the desk office with this box. We got a cardboard box with all these guns and the grenade. What do you got there? I said, well, we got some guns and two grenades.

He freaked out. Fucking grenades. Are you nuts? So now he's, you know, you got to, they don't want you to touch these kinds of things. Today, you would evacuate the building, all the buildings and stuff. But I didn't want to evacuate all the buildings. I said, you don't pull the bin.

It's got to be. safe, right? They don't pull the pin. So they call the bomb squad come to the precinct. He says, get out in the parking lot with that shit. So we let the guns inside. You take the box outside

and he's getting all the cops away. And the bomb squad comes. They take it over to Rodman's neck near City Island. That's where the range is and a bomb disposal. So they went over there. So one was good, one was inert, meaning it wasn't

So what happened to the guy? Oh, we were asking. He was charged with a million counts of, you know, guns and explosive grenade. Now, back then were criminals getting off the hook for, you know, say, the search warrant thing? No, no, no. They took pleas. Okay. Everybody took pleas.

You know, we said when we opened the door, we saw the guns, you know. So that gave us a legal right, probable cause and stuff. Now, what kind of reputation were you getting on the streets from criminals, say people, running and cruise. Well, they knew. They put it to you this way. No one was putting water on my head. You know what I mean?

No, they didn't want to deal with me. I had a reputation and a couple of detectives told us in stories and stuff. I'd call up a perpetrator. You know, we didn't have cell phones, but if you get the number, I call a guy up and I said, this is Detective Friedman. You got to come in. They would come in. A lot of guys that had come in because they didn't want to face me on the street.

Did you have a good group of a number of a number? informants? Oh, yeah. That's a very, very important tool in policing. I don't think he could operate without informants. You know, and we didn't have, like I say, cell phones. They had to reach out to the precinct. The priest had to reach out to me.

I had to get back to the precinct, get back to the CI, meet them on the street. You know, and we gave them money and stuff for, they got a pass for small stuff. You know what I mean? You know, we'd give them $10 was a lot of money then. But, you know, you give them $5, $10. maybe a 20, and you get information. If I had, with all the arrests I've made and things I've done, if I had a cell phone, a guy would call me up and say,

hey, this guy in the corner, blue shirt jeans, you got a gun on them now. And I can't even imagine how many collars I'd have. But we did it with, oh, this guy looks like this. He's going to be around this neighborhood. We had a circle around. Sometimes we put them in the car, had them ducked down in the back. You know, there's all kinds of things we've done.

Did you ever take down a whole crew, maybe like a jewel? ice crew or something. Oh, yeah, we took down a couple of robbery teams. Tell you a really funny story. We were, I used to take, this was off the record, but I used to take guys out with me, friends, take them on patrol so they could see. Because telling people of stories was great,

and they would sit there with their mouth open, but if I took somebody with me, they would freak out. They would talk about it forever for the rest of their lives, right? So this day, I took out a friend. And we were a three-man team. I told him, I call this the four-story, right?

This is the four-story. So I said, no matter what you do, don't get out of the car, don't get involved in anything, just watch. Don't say nothing, don't do nothing. So we go out, and we're driving around for a while,

and he's sitting in the car, and then we pull over a car. We stopped a few cars, but then we see four guys in the car, right? And there's four of us. So this is how we're getting to the four-story. So he gets out of the car. He says, stay in the car.

We get out, we got the car. There's four guys there. We get over there. Start getting him out of the car. And he gets out of the car, and he's standing by the unmarked car, right? Wines up, the four guys had four guns. Lock them all up. It was a robbery team.

And we locked them up for the possession of the guns. And we let the detectives later on figure out what robberies they did, right? Because I was an anti-crime then. Wasn't a detective yet. playing clothes I was doing. So we get to the trial, and these guys are going to trial. They're saying we had illegal search and seizure, all this garbage. And the defense is going, well, three cops testify.

Where's the fourth cop? I want the fourth cop to testify. And we're going, there's no fourth cop. Meanwhile, it was my friend. So there's four of us, four perpetrators, and four guns. That's the fourth story. So he keeps going. And he was smart trying to get it.

And they called IED. They went to the precinct. They tried to get the roll calls. They did everything to get this cop to testify. But the defense lawyer wasn't smart enough to ask if it was a civilian. So I never lied on the oath. I said there was no fourth cop there. Would you have told the truth if they...

I don't know. I mean, you wouldn't have gotten fired over that. No, no, but it wouldn't have been good. You know, I probably would have lied. To be honest. I don't know. I have any idea what you're talking about. But I didn't have to get to that point.

I didn't have to commit perjury. But he never asked about a civilian. But I took friends. I had, you know, one time I took a friend, and he brought a camera. And we went to a job. There was a guy committed suicide and was hanging. In those years, you had to get the film developed, right?

So we sent the film in to the local drugstore. They never developed it for us. Because he took a picture of my friend standing. next to the body hanging. I took the picture of him standing there. So, do you think you just built up immunity to seeing some of these things?

Yeah, you know, you see car accidents, guys losing limbs, you see guys shot, you see blood. You know, there was no rubber gloves then. There was no AIDS. You know, there was none of this stuff. I mean, we were at home. We were covered in blood and garbage

and who knows what, you know what I'm saying? You didn't wear gloves. But you saw, when you worked in the ghetto, in these what they call A-houses or shit houses or ghetto, the stuff you see, you know, people

slash with knives, excuse me, with knives and guns and baseball bats and anything they could find. It was the violence. I saw it, I was broken in that way, and it didn't seem to bother me. Before I became a cop on the street, though,

when you're in the academy, they take you one day to the morgue. And that's some kind of training. There were people that throw up. Cops couldn't take it. And even in the hallways, you smell death. I can't describe it unless you've been there. But I went back a couple of times with other cops, you know, on our own.

But they take you there to acquaint you with it. Because at some point, you're going to go to the morgue. If you work in the ghetto precinct, you go in there more than, you know, someone else. But you had to go there sometimes to bring a fairer. family member, even if it was a natural death. And you find they need an identification besides being victims of a crime. You know, but you just see horrendous things as a cop. And, you know, that's what drives a lot of cops maybe to drink, you know.

And that's why cops tend to start, you get, you become a cop and you have a lot of friends that are civilians. And then gradually you start seeing them less and hanging out with cops that are your buddies and your poise. and your partners and go through the same things as you and your friendship starts turning into all cops. You know, you still have some. Some of your real friends will hang with you. I still have friends from 50, 60 years ago. But it just sort of chirates towards the cop relationships.

What do you think by far was the worst thing you saw? Oh, I could absolutely tell you. This was a guy was holding his two guys, kids and his wife, his common law wife and two kids, he was holding them hostage. This was in 1970. I was in uniform. And it was a hostage situation. But the woman and a male child escaped and called the police. We didn't have hostage units then, you know, and like I say, emergency service was around, but they weren't expanded to where they could go everywhere all the time. They were thin, you know.

So we went, the whole precinct responds. It was a big deal. And he's holding them hostage. And we get to the door. The door's open. And he's holding this knife. This is a little girl, she was about seven or eight years old. Little cute girl, long black hair.

And he's holding a knife to her. And we're all pointing guns at him, telling him, drop the knife, drop the knife. Right? And we got our guns trained on them. My fingers are on the trigger. And all of a sudden, he takes the knife and cuts the girl's arm off in front of me. Cuts the girls' arm. My finger is tightening on the trigger.

And before I can pull that trigger, the guy took the knife and cut his own head off. We'd get the girl in the ambulance. The ambulance, gosh, she died. But it was a horrendous scene. A little girl could her arm cut off, bleeding in the death. And the guy cut his, he cut his, like this. It was one of these, like a butcher's knife, sharp like a scalpel, and cut himself right around his whole neck.

His head just flopped back and blood gushing out like the exorcist vomiting. It was horrible. What do you think about that night when you go to bed? I don't think I went to bed. I don't think he could sleep, you know. I still remember that and that was 1970. That's 30, 50, 6 years ago. I see it right in my head

and the cops were vomiting, cops were crying it was terrible I mean you know I held up you know you see these things but it's horrible there was no help for cops back then

no nothing you got to you know you threw up you took a shot drink or something guys I never drank but I'm saying you know you had to live with it

and you couldn't show the weakness I mean throwing up up, or crying was a response that some cops couldn't stop, you know, but you got to stand tough. You just, you can't show weakness. When you were a detective, did you ever arrest someone who then got off? Oh, yeah, these guys could get off. I remember, I remember these two guys, two brothers, right? And we were driving around.

They caught our eye. They were in a hallway, caught our eye, and they had gas cans, and they were going to burn down a building. with people in it for a landlord. And we, I'm telling you, I tune these guys up. They got beatings. And next morning they're in court. And they, no one shaved their head back there, nobody. This guy had a shaved head, you know,

because the doctor shaved his head. And they had like, I think it was 28 stitches each, if I remember correctly, either 18 or 28. But they looked like railroad tracks. And the judge said, I think their punishment was, enough. And he dismissed the case. How'd that make you feel? Well, I took out my frustrations

when I arrested them, but I felt, you know, you win some, you lose something. You don't want to lose any, but, you know, you go on doing your job. Would lawyers put you on the stand? Were you good on the stand? Oh, it was great on the stand. They tried not to put me on the stand, but if they're going to try the case, I was classified as an expert witness because I was testifying a lot. you know, even though most took plea deals, some of them wanted to see how you testify, then they would learn my reputation. You know, you know what I was famous for?

They would say, the lawyers, you know, they try to say things, they have their pat lines too. They'll say, officer, isn't it true that this happened and not that? And I would say, no, it's not true. Are you trying to say I'm committing perjury? Why don't you have me arrested then? Judge, officer, calm down, calm down, officer.

I'd say, well, no, I didn't lie. If I'm lying, I wouldn't have me charge with perjury. You know, the lawyer would step back, judge would step in, you know. How did the other detect? You know, I was good at it. I'm not bragging. I just did it a lot. And I learned from the best.

I learned from cops that were my heroes that were testifying and making arrests all the time. How did the other detectives come to treat you as you got situated as a detective? Oh, you know, first they thought I was insane. First, they knew my reputation. And they thought I was crazy. And then they got to like me, you know, because I would help them with their cases. And, you know, when I say help, some of them didn't feel like doing certain things I would do it. You think there was a lot of ways?

And they came to me also because I had a lot of CIs. See, I was on the street. So I could help them with their cases. Just like I said with that murder that was a rape that I got to help get the guy off, the detective came to me because he knew that I could blend in the street and I had C.R. eyes on the street and I could get things moving because he hit a he hit a you know wall he was you know couldn't go any further with his investigation do you think there was a lot of lazy cops back then uh there was some you know how would you handle it well I was aggressive

to say the least I didn't mind making arrest if it was the end of tour I made arrest off duty I got out in 14 years I made 105 off duty arrest everything from Eddie Larsonie to double homicide, off duty. I mean, I didn't care. I was an arrest machine. Did you have a life outside of police? I made a lot of arrests off duty with girls on date. Wait, give us a good story.

Tell us a story for this. I'll tell you a good one. Back then, we had, you would voucher evidence, guns and drugs, and it was your responsibility. This sounds crazy today. I mean, people won't understand it. but it was your responsibility once they're vouchered. You put them in sealed envelopes and they're initialed by the desk officer and yourself.

And then you would take them home. And you were responsible for taking them either to the lab or to ballistics. So at any given time, I had heroin in my house, guns, illegal guns and stuff. But they were vouchered, sealed, and signed. So I was on my day off one day. And I called this girl up. And I said, let's take a ride downtown, right? and she was a good-looking girl, and we went downtown, and I brought some guns to ballistics.

So she was good-looking, so the guys wanted to show awful little. So they started testing the guns. Besides the guns I had, the gun I had, they were testing some other guns. They brought out a machine gun from, like, the 20s. They brought out like a pimps gun and stuff, and they were doing things and showing. Because they would fire into tanks of water that would stop the bullet, show how you get the eating off it, or you fire into cotton, and the bullet would spin around, and the cotton would stop it, you know?

And we had a good time up there and everything. Now we'd drive them back home. So we were coming back on the East River Drive to the Bronx. And the East River Drive, every time it rains, it would flood out. So we're coming back, and I had to get off the East River Drive and heading off on First Avenue. So it was pouring rain. Really, we only would cause out pretty much. It was a Sunday.

It's getting dark. And all of a sudden, we stopped at the light at 150th Street and 1st Avenue. And it was right next to, I think, Metropolitan Hospital. Right? I remember that. So, we stopped at the light, and I hear gunshots. And all of a sudden, two bodies fall on my car, right on my hood. So I jumped out of the car with my gun out.

And these two guys, one guy's stabbing the other guy, and the other guy's shooting the guy. Right, right on my hood. So they were like weak already. They were both shot and stabbed. So I just like hit them, knock the weapons out of their hands. One guy falls down dead. And the other guy is like dying.

So we get, how I remember the hospital was there because the police came stuff. People called up right away. And we put the guy in the hospital. And he winds up dying like a week later. And they were fighting over a woman. Now, I had the girl that was with me,

wasn't my girlfriend. So I called somebody, my brother, and he came down and picked up the girl and got her away because I knew the press was coming. And these two guys, after we got their sheets, right, and the investigation started by detectives and stuff, they were shooting and stabbing each other for 15 years over the same woman.

Every year, one would get shot or stab. And this was going on for 15, 20 years. And now this mindlock came out with it. We ended up killing each other on my car. That's crazy. Right? Did you ever have anyone target you, like criminals? Did anyone try to take your life or anything?

Tell you a good story. Happen to have another story. So me and my partner are out on patrol and we see a purse snatch. A guy grab a woman's purse and start running. It's a grand larceny, purse snatch, right? And I get out of the call. My partner was older at the time. So he got out right away and comforted a woman.

I chased a guy and I catch him. Get the pocketbook. Then we bring him in. And it was near the end of the tour. So my partner went home because I stayed on overtime. Right? So I'm processing this guy for grand larceny, per snatch. And a CI comes in, a good CI.

and he tells me, I got a guy selling me a gun. He says, Ralph, and he's a bad guy in the neighborhood. So I said, okay, let me tell the boss, because I got a collar. So I go into my boss, I say, boss, I got this CIA out here is really good, and the guy trying to sell him a gun. So he says, okay, I'll be your partner,

the boss says, the sergeant, the squad commander. So I said, okay, so we formulate a plan with this guy. He's supposed to meet him. on the roof, right? So we give them the money. We say, you go up on the roof with the guy, and we're going to go up on connecting roofs.

Like the whole block, they had these roofs. They were all connected. The tenements are next to each other. And there's little walls separating them. Say 18 to 25 inches like that, that you could cross over roof to roof. So we go up at the beginning of the block. We climb up the fire escape.

We don't want some people seeing us go in the building. We go up and climb the whole building and we position ourselves where we could see them, right? Tell the guy, go in with the money and you get possession of the gun, then we're going to come out and arrest you two guys, right? Because we figure the gun is safer in the CI's hands. So we get, we think the plan, we get in position, everything's going good. As soon as they get up there, we get up there, we see. it turns sideways right away. First, there's three guys on the roof,

the CI and two perpetrators. And the gun is not a handgun. It's a hunting rifle, which we later find out was stolen a day or two before in the neighboring precinct. And then here's the worst part. The guy wants to show him the gun works. He starts sniping off the roof.

He just leans over and starts pumping shots. Now we have no choice. We expose ourselves. We start running towards them, screaming, police drop the weapon, please freeze. And we're jumping over these roofs. You can't fall, but you're jumping from roof to roof. And the guy turns the rifle on us, fires.

And the CI is smart enough. He hits the deck. He's down cold. And we shoot this guy. I empty my gun on him and I shoot him. And he goes down, drops the rifle. Now I pull out a second gun, and the second perpetrator runs behind a chimney, like a chimney type of thing, even though it wasn't an operating chimney, but I can't see him, right?

So the guy is down, the CI, the guy with the rifles down, the rifles a little near him, but not with him. And he's shot multiple times from both of us, right? And now I pull out the second gun, right? and I'm rounding the curb of this chimney. And the guy all of a sudden is right there with a knife over his head like this. He's going to stab me in the head. So I think my fingers tightening on the trail. I'm going to shoot him right there.

And I hear a shot fight. I hear bang. But I didn't pull a trigger yet. And the guy goes down. My partner went around the chimney from the other side, shoots him in the back because he saw he was going to stab me. Right? So he screams to me, get the gun. Get the gun.

So now I went to pass the guy that was on the floor. to go get the gun from the rifle. He said, get the rifle. So I go to pass him, and the guy leaps up with the knife. He was shot in the back once, but he leaps up. Now I got the second gun. I shoot him in the stomach, and I kill him right there. Now I go over, I kick the gun away,

and we cuff up the guy that's shot, and we cuff up the guy who's the CI, so it makes, you know, so we don't blow his cover. Right? And, you know, I go to the grand jury. I get justifiable homicide again. That was my fourth time, right? And the other guy is getting locked up. You know, he doesn't get prosecuted.

The guy with the CI. And that was it, you know. And they took me off the street, though, on that one, the only one I was taking off the street for. And I was talking off for six weeks. And all I did was work out in the gym every day, right? So I get back on the street and I meet this girl in the street. And while I was arriving on patrol,

nice, really hot Puerto Rican girl. So we start dating, right? We start dating and stuff and take her out a few times. And now we've got a plan to meet in her apartment. You know, I guess now we're going to have sex, right? So I couldn't make it. I wind up that night. I made an arrest.

So I said, I call her because, you know, it was from the precinct. Because it was on cell phones, like I said. I call her on her landline. I say, I can't make it. She says, oh, no, you got to make it. I really was counting on this. I said, well, we'll be tied up all night. And she calls me back a few times.

I'm going to say, no, I got to process evidence. I got to take them to central booking. There's an investigation and evidence, vouchers, rest reports. And she's like getting upset with me, really upset. I said, look, I'll come over the next night, you know. I'm thinking myself, wow, this is great. She's really horny. Right?

So next day comes. I'm out on patrol. And I get a 10-2-fourth with me and my partner. we go into the priest, we can't figure out what this is about. So we go in, and we can see the boss's door is open, and there's two suits sitting there, say, man, it must be internal affairs, right? We don't know what we did, what allegations made.

So we get up there, and the boss goes, tells my partner, you go back out. He says, he's reminiscent of what happened to me back when I was in uniform with that corruption thing. So he tells my partner, to go, you leave. So I go in, and the, the suits identified themselves as a lieutenant and a detective from the intelligence division. And they said, oh, you had a date last night with Lucy?

I'm now, my head's spinning. Luce, how would you know what I have a date with? They said, yeah, you were supposed to go up to her apartment? My head's like spinning. I said, yeah. They said, well, we got a CI, a good CI, great CI. They had two guys, there were two or three guys in her bedroom closet waiting to kill you. you when you got undressed and you were with her.

Wines up, I killed her brother. The guy on the rooftop that I just told you the story, the guy that I shot behind the chimney, that was, she made herself be seen by me and made herself look good. You know, she was a good-looking girl, but she knew I'd fall and go with her. And she waited all this time and dated me and set me up to be killed. So did that change your perspective on dating ever again after that? Well, I never really trusted people. You know, I'm not a trusting guy.

but now even now I have worry about girls I date. Now would you have one strapped into seeing her? What was that? Oh yeah, I didn't carry a gun. So do you think you would have survived that attack or no? No, I would have been vulnerable at that time. So what happened?

I would have been undressed. They arrested them or? No, she couldn't be arrested. She never got arrested. I'll tell you why, which will make a lot of sense to you. First, it was a he said, she said. There was no recording, no evidence. It's her word.

She'll say no, he says yes. And they would be burning a very good CI. Your CI's are rated like if a guy gives you three pieces of information that are good out of 10, he's like, you know, so-so. If he gives you nine or 10, and all nine or ten are good, nine out of ten out of, this guy's great. You don't want to burn this guy. You're not going to burn him for he said, she said.

So they just said, stay away from her. don't take no more calls, which I didn't. And she called the priestson multiple times, and I never returned the call. That was it. But you don't want to, there was no evidence. He said, she said, and you'll burn a CI. So how did you ensure that that wouldn't happen again going forward after that?

You know, it's hard to say, you know, I'd have to do a background check on the girls on day. No, I don't know, you just, it's really hard to protect again. that. Did background trucks even exist back then? Oh yeah, you could run the, you know, name and date of birth. But what do you have to go through a paper file? There's not really computers, right? No, they had them. Yeah, you would call what's BCI. I guess they did everything by pay pay in. So you call that person's precinct that they're living in, I guess, that area? No, BCI was centralized. Okay. Bureau of Criminal Investigation, you know, but there were no computers. We used to go, you know, now you put pictures on computers. They were

files and drawers, drawers, and drawers, files cabinets, hundreds of thousands of pictures. And if you were working with a victim,

you would take them down and sit through pictures and pictures and pictures. And they all start to look alike after a while, you know? Would there ever be those

situations that we see in the movies where like a suspect breaks in to steal the file? Because there was no computers. That never happened.

Like a file goes missing or anything like that? No, not that I know. Not that I know. That would have been crazy. How did it feel to take someone's life? What's that feeling like? To be honest, it felt good because I felt victorious.

Because, you know, the other side of taking a life, if you're justified, is you're saving a life. Either my own, my partners, or civilians. That's the other side. You're saving lives if you have to take a life. Right? Does that make sense? Yeah. You know, so you feel victorious.

You're doing exactly what you were trained for and what you're prepared for all the time. and you had no choice. You know, the perpetrators make the choice. I'm never going to beat up or smack a guy around or hit a guy or shoot a guy. If they make the decision, it's what they do first that activates my response. You know, so it's always on them. You know, if I say you're under arrest and you put your hands out to be cuffed, you know, with your hands behind your back, there's no problem.

You know, you did your crime. Now I tell the judge what you want to tell them. You know, just like a speeding judge. ticket. Don't fight with the cop. Tell the judge or a hearing officer. You know, if you go peacefully, there's never a problem. You did what you did. I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. But if you're going to fight me, then all the rules are off, you know. So if I had to take a gun, if I had to use my gun because a guy's shooting, they're trying to stab me. There's no problem with me taking his life. I'm going to do, I'm not trying to take his life. What I'm trained to do is

stop that threat. And once the threat is stopped now, if he dies as a result of him, stopping that threat. That's on him. It's not on me. I did what I was trained to do at that moment, but he made the decision, and all I did was stop the threat. He could live and he could die through it. That's, you know, he died because of the result of his own actions. It's on him. Now, back then, were you seeing the violence in schools that there is now, school shootings, bomb threats, any of that? Very, no. There was, I don't remember a bomb threat. I don't remember any violence in schools.

You know, teachers were respected. It got to a point where teachers couldn't even teach, you know, later on. They're taking attendance. People had respect back then. You know, if you did some, if you were disrespectful as a kid to a cop or a teacher, your parents would beat your butt. You know, it's like somewhere along the whole line, parents lost control too. You know, and they didn't teach.

It starts in the home. You know, the parents didn't respect the police or the teachers, and then they started having kids that don't respect. It goes on, you know. It's like I remember kids, you know, salute and, you know, the Pledge of Allegiance every morning. I had that. I saw kids having that.

Teachers were respected. Today, teachers are operating afraid. They'll get beat up. I mean, society as a whole lost respect for authority and for authoritative figures and teachers and doctors and everything. What do you think happened? I don't know. I can't pinpoint it, but it went on from generation. You know, like I said, parents, the people that were disrespecting and started to, they started having kids.

And then they had, the kids had kids. So it propelled itself. It's like, I don't know, it's terrible. Now, you mentioned earlier there was different grades for a detective. What does that mean, first, second, third? Well, you're all detectives, but if you do, if you, you know, excel, you get promoted. There are ranks of detectives. You start at third and you can work your way to second and then first.

So, and that's on merit. and evaluations as you're going on. You have to be evaluated twice a year by your supervisors. That's their job. Supervisors, evaluate, make sure the investigations are going correctly. You know, they're not investigating, but it's like your boss watching you. You know, in your case, you're a boss, so you watch your employees. You know, so they're expected to total line, and some of them excel, right, in any job.

And if you excel and you keep getting better ratings and make better arrests and more clearance and more felony arrests and you're testifying good and, you know, you don't get yourself in trouble or jammed up, you get good evaluations and you can be promoted. Now you were a second grade. Second grade detective. And that you are looking to become a first. Everybody is. It was very second grade and first grade is very prestigious because all detectives are third grade. So it's very prestigious. And back in those years, it was more prestigious to be a first-grade detective than to be a captain of a precinct.

You need to have the rank they had. They were bosses of all the cops, sergeants and lieutenants. But actually, any detective, I mean, maybe a lot of detectives, they don't even know just themselves. But in the patrol guide, if you're the investigating detective on the scene, it's your case, you're really the highest ranking. You could outrank a sergeant, a lieutenant, and captain. You wouldn't tell him, though. But you could tell them, don't step in my crime scene.

Well, this is a crime scene. Or have officers roped this off. You are the commanding officer of that crime scene. You're the highest ranking if it's your scene. How did you get along with the guys that kind of went up the corporate way that didn't really have the experience hands on, the ones that were the officer? Well, I actually... I got along with bosses who came up through the ranks and were street cops.

Because they understood. If they were a good boss, what we considered a good boss is a boss that remembered that he was a cop. And he remembered he did narcotics or anti-crime or he was doing street work. And then he knows what it feels like to be on the other end. And you need good bosses. But some of the, some bosses, but like I say, it's in any job. Some of it goes to their head or their egos. And now they think they're better than some.

somebody else. And some of them didn't, some guys that get promoted up to civil service line, they do it by knowledge of study, you know, and passing a test. So some of them didn't do street work. They just studied. You know, they got by by the skin of their teeth and did the least amount, but studied and became a boss. You know, so guys at the street cops didn't really respect them like you would respect a cop that became a boss and was, remember. but he was a street cop. Kind of like probably what happens in the military with the officers. Same thing.

Same thing. You know, some of them are just bookworms and some of street cops. But if you're a smart individual and you just study, you can work your way up. You know? And sometimes with the job, it's better to be a boss. You know, you want to get off the bottom in a totem pole. But you didn't want that. I didn't want to be a boss.

I wanted to be a street. You know, I just wanted to be playing clothes. I love the anti-crime work. I love the rank of a detective because that recognizes you, you know, for the street work you did. And then each rank of detective recognized you more. But I like the street persona, the whole thing about it. I like going to work in sneakers and jeans or construction boots, army jacket. I like blending in the street.

I like being in the action. What about the paperwork aspect of the job? Oh, I hated that. Yeah, I figured. hated that. But I was mostly in the anti-crime. We were a three-man team. And what we did was, my partner was just as nuts as me. They wanted arrest, too. That's how I got all the assist that I got. But we developed the system. When we got into prison, how we could get out as fast as we could, one partner would do the arrest report. One guy would do the vouchering. You know, one guy would

explain to the boss. And we'd all get it done and we'd get down to court. And before, we even got the court, we had the court papers in the precinct. So one of them would do, it was easy enough to do a, the statement and have the DA just initial it. We had all the forms for court in the precinct. So we did everything, so we could get in and out down there too. You know, we had a system, and it worked really good where we could get back on the street and make three collars,

three separate individual arrests in one night. you know so it was a system what's a one case you work that doesn't sit right with you to this day still it doesn't sit right oh definitely can tell you one uh i had a great informant we're going back to an informant and there was one of the first terrorist attacks in new york city was the frances tavern in manhattan and they blew it up and they killed four people and injured 56. And it was an unsolved case. And this informant came to me and told me he knew who did it. So I went to my captain at the time, a captain called Tommy Walker. He was the greatest boss ever. And he was my lieutenant one time in anti-crime. And he was my lieutenant and my captain. When he got promoted,

He came back as a captain in the 41st precinct for Apache. And he was just great hands-on boss. And he said, well, you work undercover with this guy. Get the information, develop everything you could. And we did. And no one knew, not even my partner. I was working off-duty, after-work, off-duty, days-off, everything. And no one knew except this captain, right?

and we developed enough information where we knew the guys were going to be. And this was the biggest case there was around, right? So he said at this time, there was no bomb squad at the time. It was called Austin Explosion. And they would handle something like that. So at that time, he said, okay, we got to turn it over to them. And you'll be the lead guy. So we got together with them.

And the CIA wouldn't talk to nobody about me. me. That made me the main guy. But there was a sergeant there that didn't like me and I didn't like him. And he was like the poster boy for the NYPD. Suit and

tie, big, well-built Irish guy. He was there like, when they did perp walks, they always had him there. He would walk out John Gotti. You know, he did all the stuff the poster boy. And

And he just didn't like me. And I felt the same way about him. So we had to work together. So it got to the point where there was a wedding in the Bronx. And it was going to be all bad guys. The guy told me there were going to be a hundred guys there, and they were all armed. He said, and there's going to be the bombers there. And there was two or four bombers that killed four people and blew up Francis Tavre

in Manhattan and injured 56 people. And they're going to be there. and we're going to the wedding. You're going as my plus one. He was bringing me as a date. So we were in my car. Now, they had vans behind us and unmarked cars. And he didn't want to get wired.

He was scared. He was scared. So I said, I'll get wired. Wire me. So he wired me, right? And we're going to this wedding. And while we're driving, they had vans with guys and machine guns, you know, dozens.

maybe two dozen guys following and the boss in an unmarked car with his driver. And he was the one listening in. And while we're driving, I didn't notice either. The guy pulls out of it. I said, everyone's going to be armed here, right? He says, everyone's armed here, man. And I brought a gun too. And he pulls out a gun, my CI.

I didn't know he had a gun on him, right? So this sergeant stops the operation. Pulls us over, light and siren. pulls us on, kills the operation. I got the perpetrators of a terrorist attack, right? And he brings us in. And he's holding us. He's arresting the guy for the gun, and he's trying to arrest me.

Technically, if you want to be really technical, I'm under arrest. I can't leave the pricing. He's, I'm sitting there. He didn't disarm me, but he says, you're staying here. And all this time, like I said, there's no cell phone. We're trying to reach the captain. right who's gonna you know tell him i didn't give a guy a gun he thinks i gave the splied the gun right and he wants to get me arrested so we're in the precinct for like four hours and meanwhile i'm saying

at least go to the wedding get the guys no everything stopped he killed it so they got away yeah they've never been caught to this day they know who did it and i know who did it and uh he got away with So what do you think was that? Well, he got arrested and did heavy time for other stuff. Yeah, but that, so you think it was a cover? He's never charged for that. No, it's just a guy whose ego didn't like me. And finally my captain came and got me out.

And right after that incident, right after, like in a very small time frame, I got notified I was getting laid off because it was 1975, and they wanted to lay off everyone who worked five years or less. But I really had seven years. But I got notified. There was no computers. And I got this letter on being laid off in a certain amount of time. I said, well, I got seven years.

They said, you know, I said, I do. I said, I got the, there was no computers, but I saved the pay stubs. I was a civilian employee of the police department for all of 68 and 69. No one knew. So I had all the pay stubs. I just happened to save my paperwork like I did so I was able to write this book later on. I was able to prove everything. They do fact-finding anyway.

But I went down to the employee relations with the pay stubs and it saved my job. And in that time frame too, that's when I got promoted to detective. It was like a crazy one minute I'm being arrested, one minute I'm being held, one minute I'm being laid off and the next minute I'm being promoted. I mean, my head was, it was all like in a few-month area. It was just a crazy time. Now, looking back on it, how different do you think your life would have been if you did get laid off? Man, I don't even want to think about that. You know, you don't know how your life would have went because guys took part-time jobs.

Guys took full-time. Some jobs people created their own jobs or opened the business or got involved in work who made better pay, never came back. Because it took two years for them to start hiring guys again, you know, very slowly. Guys, you know what they did? They had you come in at the end of your tour. Now you're a police officer, and you got this power to arrest people, take away their freedom, in-force laws, and you would come in at the end of this tour, and you had a turn in your gun and shield.

And you're nothing. You're unemployed. Now they can't get guys to work. Yeah. Back then, everybody wanted to be caught. Now it's, you know, and not only that, guys are leaving the department that are working in NYPD because they're trained well. So other departments are eating them up.

They're giving them bonus signing fees like you do for sports figures. You know, they give them sign of fees, that they relocate them. They relocate everything. Tennessee, Florida, California, everywhere. You know, it got so bad, you know, cops were always known for going to Suffolk and Nassau. And at one point, the police department was trying to charge them those counties for training the office because they were leaving them so fast. They didn't get nothing out of them. You know, but Suffolk always paid better and that.

Suffolk was the top. Tell us a story of how your career ended. Well, that's another thing about police work. Your career could end at any second, you know, due to any number of things. You could be shot, stabbed. You know, you don't know how police work either. my career ended in like one second. I didn't even know what happened.

I went on a motorcycle trip to Virginia Beach and went down with a few guys. It was like a week trip. We went there, hung out, came back. It was a Wednesday to Wednesday, something kind of thing. And we had girlfriends and stuff. And we told them to fly down after work on a Friday, hung out with us all weekend.

They flew back Sunday night to be in work on Monday. But we drove back on motorcycles. and I got to work. It was a day or too late. I was still vibrating. So I did most of the driving. Not that it was my partner's fault, but I did 95% of driving.

So I said, you drive tonight. So we were working. You know, we were in a Monmar car, a Valari, a Plymouth Valari, small car.

And we get a single 1013. That's an officer in trouble. And what we call, this was a real 1013 because it was the officer himself calling it. Sometimes you get a single. get people calling in a fake cop in trouble for a couple of reasons. They might want all the cops on one side of the precinct so they could commit a crime

on the other side or they just like to see cars racing to a scene, you know, and cops jumping out and running around. But this was a cop calling for help. So we responded. And we were like on the, we were sort of towards the east and we were heading west. And we were going to go to the end of the street and turn left to go. But before we could do that, there was a police car coming from the north heading south. And it teabone me on my side.

Hit me at like 75 miles an hour or so. No rubber. So the accident investigation squad couldn't even tell how fast the car. It was no rubber. They never even got to touch the brake. Ironically, it was a female in the car and a rookie guy driving. And they hit me right in the hip. And I was knocked out immediately.

and the car was, the floor came up, the roof came down. I mean, there's a picture in the book. It was so bad. It was in every newspaper, one newspaper even put the wrong side of the car in because the car was damaged in so many directions. They put the other side in, not the point of impact. But I had to be cut out of the car by the fire department. Took two hours to get me out of the car.

He said I was only knocked out for two minutes, and I was talking to guys. which I never remember because I went into shock. And the result was I had 23 broken bones. I shattered my hip and I broke my pelvic, left, right, upper and lower. And I got to the hospital and they had me on so many drugs. I didn't even know for like two, three weeks what happened? One day in the hospital I wake up and there's like six or seven girls around the bed.

And it was all the girls I was dating. You know, because I was dating quite a few girls. I wasn't tied down. And one of them was the girl I took to Virginia Beach. But, so I just made, I saw them, I just made like I passed out again. And this girl met all of them, right? And she got to know them all. And they started fading out because the prognosis was weird.

But this one girl came every single day. I was in the hospital almost three months. She came every day. She went to work home hospital, work home hospital. She said, I knew you'd get better. She hung in there. And then I got out of hospital. I was in a wheelchair for a long time.

And she moved in with me. I still teased it today because I wound up marrying her. And now I'm in with her 43 years. She said, I knew you'd be better. And I said to her, you moved in when I was in a wheelchair and on drugs. I still can't get you out. You know, but it just shows you life can change as a police officer in one second. I mean, you never expect to run into a shootout.

Even if you're prepared, you don't know it's going to happen. but you could get shot, you can get stabbed, you could get hit by a car. Your life could change. You could see something that makes your mind go. Did you know you were going to be done? Pretty much. You know, I always thought I'd be a cop until the minute I died or until they forced me off to job due to age, which in NYPD, which I think they just changed recently. But you couldn't, you couldn't hit 63 and be a cop.

You had to take your lost time, vacation. You could not hit 63. I thought I'd be on until 63. I never thought I'd live to see 30. You know, I used to think 30 was old. Now I think 60 is young. You know, I'm going to be 78 a few months. But, you know, I loved a job.

I never thought it would end. But it does end. How old were you at that point? I was 34. 34, with 14 years on. Yeah. How did that make you feel mentally? Well, mentally what I did was I channeled all my mental strength and physical strength on trying to get better.

You know, I thought I could get better and I knew I had a long road to recovery. And I really had to work on it. And the police department, like I said, the coveted positions of first grade, they weren't going to give me, you know, because people didn't move out yet. People keep that until they retire and the numbers were locked in. But the police department treated me really, really good. And the first thing they did, I was in a hospital where I worked. So they gave me 24-hour protection because the person knew I was laid up,

it was in the, I couldn't do anything. So I had 24-hour day protection, which was really great, which helped me a lot mentally and physically. Because they were always with me and helping me and talking to me. And when I was able to get the crutches, they would walk with me. and say you could, you know, they wanted me to walk around the nurses, staying on crutches, or even trying to wheel the wheelchair.

They were there to help me and egg me on, right? And when I did leave the hospital, I wasn't living with anyone. The girl moved in, but she was still working. They gave me a maid to clean and go shopping, take me to, they gave me a chauffeur to take me to doctors and stuff. They treated me great. And when I got out of hospital, the emergency service unit took me home in their ambulance, and they supplied the crutches and the wheelchair.

I was treated very well, and they carried me on the job, because they knew I wasn't going to be a cop again. My hip, I couldn't do running physical work again. So they fixed it, so I'd be on the job. My official retirement date was January of 84, but I got her August 1st of 83. So there were more paychecks the way they fell out then. There was an extra paycheck in December, January. Plus you got uniform pay and holiday pay.

And they took care of me so I would get all these pay things. And worked out I retired January 30th. And what happened? You get full retirement? You get what's called three quarters of your pay, but it's tax-free because it's a disability. For the rest of your life? Yes. But it sounds great, but at the time,

because it's three-quarters pay tax-free. But the increases, I mean, last year we got a $18 a month raise. I mean, the increases are ridiculous. What we thought was a lot of money in 83 and 84 is pennies today. Now, being that young and losing kind of your career, where do you go? How do you end up? Well, like I said, it took like a year and a half, two years before I could be fully functional again. You know, I was really injured very bad.

And, you know, I still, I can't even sleep on this side today. I still can't run, stuff like that. But I've done other work, and I made investments, you know. And I kept busy, you know, where I supplemented my pension. And you wrote a book. And I wrote a book, which is still available on Amazon called Street Warrior. And I also had a TV series come out. which was on Prime, it was on Discovery, it was on the ID channel.

It's called Street Justice the Bronx. And it's still available on Discovery on Demand and on regular demand TV. If you talk into your remote, just say, on-demand Street Justice the Bronx and it'll come up. I have one season, six shows. I narrate the show, but they have an act to play me. And I think it was very good. and the reason we didn't continue on was first there was problems with financing because it was a time period thing where you do everything outside so you got to be time specific and then the George Floyd incident occurred

where it stopped publishers and produces and everything for doing things on police so that sort of hurt my second career but I did was I was lucky enough to get a book out and and it's a time. TV series. And I did, I was involved in the film, The Sopranos film, The Many Saints of Newick, I was hired as a technical advisor. And I've done many podcasts. One of the best ones is yours. And I was honored to be honest. So I did get to do a lot of things in my life. And I guess God had a different path for me. You let me survive and I survived and thrived. Why do you think that happened to you, looking back on it now? Do you think that you you needed to have redirection in your life?

Well, like I said, maybe God had different plans for me. I was getting older, even at 34, I was locking up younger guys with guns. And yeah, I guess there was a different direction that I, you know, there's a plan for everybody, I guess. And he let me live through it. And I did thrive. So I guess intervention, you know.

You know, what made Trump? turned to the left for one second and a bulletman for his head goes through a little fleshy part of his ear. You know, it's, you don't know. There's intervention, I guess. If you could share one important piece of life advice that you've taken from your life to someone, what would that be? Well, to any law enforcement officer, I would say, always be vigilant, be observant. You know, I never did drugs or drink or smoke, but I, I never did drugs or drinking because I always wanted to be on point. And if you're going to do police work, you've got to be on point.

And I say, don't give a perpetrator an inch. You know, you try to be a nice guy. It could cost you your life. You know, that's why you handcuffed people behind you, follow tips in your training that could save your life, and always be observant and vigilant and on point, you know. Well, Ralph, I appreciate you taking the time to do this. This was my honor. It's such a fun interview, man.

Well, I hope your audience likes it. Yeah, no, they're going to love it. They love the NYPD stories. Well, I got a million other stories. If you ever want and honor me again by having me on, I can tell all different stories and let's see how your audience, you know, responds to it. Yeah, and we want them to buy the book, too. So we'll have the link in the description of this episode for you.

Thank you very much. Of course. You know, and like I said, if you want me back, we'll tell some more stories. 100%. And you could ask more. question. Sounds good. I'm sure you'll have some new ideas and new points you might want to hit. Definitely. Thank you. Thank you.