No Lights, No Sirens: The Corruption and Redemption of an Inner City Cop

by Robert Cea

  I heard sirens getting closer. “You put this over?” I asked nervously.

  “Fuckin’ blow-job right I put it over! Why wouldn’t I?”

  Cars shot down the block like jet fighters, from the 6-7, 7-1, 7-3, and the 6-9. Four different precinct cops dropped everything to help another cop in need because in a flash they could be on the other end of that call for help. It was incredibly impressive, in less than a minute there were thirty men securing us and the perimeter. It was a rush to see all those turret lights, those blaring sirens, the guns drawn, the cops’ backs to me, protecting us from the crowd. This was what it was all about. This was what I’d signed up for, and I wanted to do it again, right that instant, before the hot shot of adrenaline wore off.

  Did we use excessive force? Don’t know, but had “Nat E. Dread” gotten a shot off and punched a quarter-size hole through my windpipe, would that have been excessive on his part? I am not getting paid to be shot. Last thing you do is sign out end of tour. That little dictum suddenly made all the sense in the world to me. We were playing for keeps out here. Win, you live. Lose, you die, period.

  I pulled the dazed and moaning dread off the ground, “Need a fuckin’ doctor, mon, broke me fuckin’ neck, mon, why dee’s bumba-clots cuff me up like dis, why you terrorize me?” Then I noticed Conroy. He stepped closer and the Rasta started to wail. If he was looking for a friendly, familiar face, he found one. “Con, you see what this Rasta-clot did to me head bone, mon? Him fuck me up for a little biscuit, mon. Why dee’s blood clots treatin’ me like a dog, Con, why?”

  Conroy’s partner started to laugh. “What the fuck is a head bone?” That brought some of the cops to their knees. Another one said, “He didn’t say head bone, he said ham bone.” The sergeant on patrol started to laugh; he began to shuffle in the street and sing, “ ‘The ham bone’s connected to the neck bone, the neck bone’s connected to the head bone…’”I saw that Conroy really wasn’t amused. He just studied the dread, Billy, and me as we placed him in the back of the RMP and drove him away.

  In the car, Billy wasted no time before laying into me. “Don’t do that again, Rob. Don’t leave me hangin’, not knowing where the fuck you went, okay? We can’t protect each other if we don’t know where the other is, yes?”

  “Yeah, Billy, I’m sorry, bro. I don’t know what it was… I just reacted; won’t happen again.” I felt uneasy as I drove, not about the chase or the capture, but the reaction of all the cops. This guy just had one of the worst days of his life and it was all about “the joke is on him.” I actually felt bad for this guy, despite the fact that given the chance he’d probably shoot me point-blank in the face to get away. Catching a mope with a pistol didn’t seem to matter to these guys. The importance of the collar meant nothing; Billy and I were simply the court jesters who’d brought them a warm ghetto body they could have a laugh at. I worried that I might become as cold and unsympathetic as all these salty veterans were.

  Brooklyn Central Booking was the facility where every arrest made in Brooklyn was arraigned. It occupied the rear second floor of the 8-4 precinct at the base of the Manhattan Bridge. The precinct was located in the middle of Fort Greene, a very nasty place. As you approach it from the south end of Brooklyn, namely Flatbush Avenue, one thing always came to mind, “out of place.” It seemed as if someone had lifted a slate-gray building up from midtown Manhattan and jammed it right in the middle of all these hideous brick buildings from hell. The Manhattan Bridge in the background made it feel that much more surreal, especially at night when it was lit and became the magic backdrop for the graffitied prison cells known as the Fort Greene housing projects.

  The room upstairs in e-cab—the early case assessment bureau—where every Brooklyn cop arraigned his prisoners was a fifteen-by-fifteen office converted into a police holding area. It held a few wooden benches and one ratty easy chair with more tears in it than it had material; still, every cop wanted it, as it was the most comfortable seat in the house. There were rectangular windows that ran the length of the west wall of the room. They were sealed shut, locking in the mix of sweat, tobacco, dust, and paint. They were covered with torn black shades to keep the daylight out. I later realized that the room resembled a crack den. You were up as long as any grinding pipe head, and when you left, felt just as dirty. This place was not built for comfort or cleanliness. It shouted to the cops upon entering, Don’t even think about doing overtime up in here.

  As I sat there, I couldn’t help thinking about Conroy. How it seemed as though he was a part of everything and everyone in the streets. I’d had an odd, uneasy feeling since locking up the dread. It was the cold look that Conroy had given me. Did he think I was stealing his thunder? I could only hope he understood that I aspired to being as good a cop as he was. It was clear that he was evolutions ahead of any other cop out there. I wondered what it would be like to ride in an RMP with him, the incredible knowledge I’d gain was inconceivable to me at that time.

  I heard my name called over the loudspeaker. Thank God. I’d only been sitting there for two hours, which in itself was a miracle, as some cops had to wait in e-cab three days before getting called by the ADA. This all depended on the computer system cooperating and how busy the streets were at any given time. I entered the ADA’s room. Another office probably ten feet longer than the cop’s waiting room except this room was cleaner, much cleaner. It held ten neat cubicles, windows that actually worked, a water fountain, even artwork on the walls.

  I felt human again as I approached the desk of Archibald Waxman. He was a two-hundred-pound sausage in a hundredpound Brooks Brothers bag wrapped with a polka dot bow tie. Under the bow tie it did not appear that Archibald had a neck. His head just sort of popped out of the striped designer shirt, like a pink bubble. He had large jowls and enormous cheeks. On his pinched and upturned nose sat round black glasses, the lenses so thick his eyes appeared as big as half dollars. Pirelli would have a year’s worth of material with this guy. His head bald, with wispy strands combed over from first to third. He reminded me of a cartoon character. Then it hit me—Wimpy, the burger-eating guy from the Popeye cartoon! He didn’t looked up at me once, just stared down at the paper in front of him. He waved his hand lazily at the chair in front of his desk. He then started to stroke his head, and closed his eyes. He said in a nasal voice, “G’head.” That was the clincher; I dropped my head and thought of anything I could to stop from laughing.

  “I’m sorry, I’m not foll—”

  He shot back quickly, trying to stay in the moment. “265.01.03. Yessss.” He seemed slightly annoyed given the elongated es.

  He still hadn’t opened his eyes. “Uhh, yes, I made the gun arrest on Ninety-fifth Street, off Rutland Road.”

  “How did you make this”—he fluttered his fingers up in the air like he was shooing a butterfly away—“gun arrest?”

  “I was driving eastbound on Rutland Road. I saw the individual tighten up, and he ran, so I chased him…”

  “And why’d you chase him?”

  Again I was stumped. “Because he got this terrified look and then he ran.”

  He unclasped his hands from his round belly, sat straight up in his chair, and opened his eyes. He smiled. “Let me make this easy for you”—he studied my nameplate—“Officer Ceeeeea. Did you see the gun before you chased him?”

  I just shook my head no. He tilted his head at me, then pouted. “I have to 343 it.” He pulled a fat gold pen from his really nice shirt pocket and quickly scribbled on my arrest sheet.

  “What does ‘343 it’ mean?”

  “I’m tossing the case. We’re going to drop the charges.”

  I shot up in my chair. “Why are you dropping the charges?”

  “You can’t chase someone for looking scared.” Another odd grin. “Unless they want to be.”

  “But I got the gun off the street; I did what I was supposed to do. You can’t just throw it out. C’mon…”

  He eased up in the chair, laid his tiny, puffy
, manicured hands on the table. He moved them in small circles, gently, along the desk. “There is no probable cause to make the arrest because there was no reasonable suspicion to make the stop. You understand this? Probable cause, Officer Ceeeeea. Words to live by.”

  We were into the Badlands for a couple of months by this point and it was teeming with dangerous street cats—besides the Rastafarians, there were homegrown blacks and the occasional Puerto Rican—all out there with deadly agendas. I studied them and where they lived. There wasn’t one street I did not drive or walk down. I learned back alleys, courtyards, abandoned buildings; ways out, ways in. I wanted to know escape routes, lookout points. I wanted to know the people and the geography as if I’d been conceived on one of these roofs and been born and raised in one of these buildings. I studied them moving through on foot, in cars, on bicycles, cataloging in my mind the neighborhood guys, their girlfriends who lived in the area, and who was a transient. I also came to know who slung drugs, and what types of drugs they were slinging. My job was not only answering the radio, but it was seeing what did not want to be seen. The PRs were generally in the area to buy, mostly heroin, or “boy” as it was called. The homegrowns, or American Blacks, were into slinging crack or coke, which was known as “girl.” The Rastafarians, the Jews of the Caribbean, they were into everything: slinging crack, coke, heroin, and their biggest street crop—marijuana. They took special pride in the sale and distribution of this because it defined who they were. It was their culture, and they were the cumumba-jumba connoisseurs of weed.

  They were also extremely smart. Getting caught with a couple of ounces, or O-Zs, of coke was a B felony which, put into simple street terms, carried the same type of sentencing as manslaughter or attempted murder. Getting caught with a couple of ounces of heroin carried the same sentence as if you’d shot and killed a cop, twenty to life. A perfect illustration of this kind of thinking came from a defense attorney hired by some Rastafari I had locked up with a little less than two O-Zs of boy. Only a month before, we’d pulled a car over for running a red light. The driver was high on coke; his nostrils had white residue from all the blow he’d been snorting. Of course he had his drug testicles on, so he took off on us, but we caught him and locked him up. A subsequent search of his car turned up the heroin, simple, by the numbers, a-b-c. A week or so later he apparently made bail because I saw him out in the Badlands. I had treated him well during the arrest processing; bought him a pack of Kools, or double Os as they’re referred to; gotten him a meatball sandwich; allowed him to make a bunch of phone calls. I’d been watching how Conroy was treating all of his perps and saw how much respect they gave him. When I say respect I mean he’d get street jugo, or juice, from them—all of his perps would roll over on other perps wanted for serious crimes, bolstering Conroy’s already staggering arrest record. Treat them good, they’ll treat you good.

  So this cat and I were cool with each other. He came over to the RMP, started to laugh. “Yo, Officer Cool, what up, check this, ya man, check this. My lawyer tell me, why you no shoot that bumba cop in the head, looking at the same time up north, man, same motherfuckin’ time behind this punk-ass drug charge. Him actually tell me to wet you up, same fuckin’ charge.” Now I had to absorb exactly what was being broken down for me. A defense attorney had actually told his client he should’ve shot the cop, me, because an A felony is twenty to life any way you cut it. He had a better chance by clipping me and getting away as opposed to letting the “bumba cop” lock him up to face serious time. This put defense attorneys in a special category for me. I wonder how many of his clients actually took his advice and ended careers and lives.

  Back on the streets, I was learning not only who the dealers were, but also the lookouts and enforcers—or street lieutenants—who worked for them. The whole street operation of selling drugs was as much a paramilitary operation as the one I was in except the pay scale was very different. The risks were very similar though: lots of jail time, serious injury or death for them; lots of jail time, serious injury or death for us. Billy and I started out slow, bringing in a gun a week off the street. I treated my perps well, and developed a reputation on the street as being cool, which translated into them feeling comfortable enough with me to trade street secrets—who was wanted, what their competition was up to, who was bringing in quantity drugs, all of the shit that I’d signed up for. I was learning how to talk to them, and, more important, how to listen to them, not seeming too anxious or too condescending. I was learning from Conroy that keeping your enemies close is a necessity, and to do this you pretty much had to breathe the same air, eat the same food, and speak the same language. When in Rome…

  I started to really feel the vibe. And I started to understand something about myself: I really hate losing.

  I was making collars almost instinctively. I’d see a cat tighten up or change his body language at the sight of me and I’d feel the adrenaline shoot through me; it was an uncontrollable burst of excitement or energy that would always lead to a chase that turned into a gun collar. A lot of them were like the first gun collar, some were much more brutal, some were easy. What was killing me though was that for all the gun collars I was making, they all ended up the same: 343’d at central booking. Not one of the arrests up to this point had made it out of stage-one arraignment. Every time I’d bring it in, the ADAs would ask the same question front and fucking center: “How’d you make the arrest, Officer Cea?” My answer was the same every time: “He got incredibly scared, took off, and was subsequently arrested carrying a pistol.” Their response was to dump it and dismiss me like I was wasting everybody’s time, including that of the perps I was arresting.

  Now, I wasn’t much of a drinker at this point, but I’d find that when I lost in central booking, a few shots of bourbon would always smooth out the roughness I was feeling. On one particular evening, I found my way to Alfredo’s, a nasty little hole-in-the-wall in Red Hook, Brooklyn, at the base of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. My academy pal Patty Pirelli worked in the area and was particularly fond of this place because of the anything-goes Latinas who hung here. I’d been to a lot of bars all over the city that guys claimed were infamous for tons of beautiful women who would do almost anything for any type of legit guy, and in the ghetto the most legit guys these chicks knew were either lawyers representing the men in their lives or the cops who put them away. Sad but true. So I was expecting much the same as I’d encountered in these other bars: a bunch of whiskey-dicked cops at the bar trying to chat up the same three or four nurses. I’d been wrong.

  Alfredo’s sat below the Gowanus Expressway, and was situated between a ratty tire-repair shop to its left and to its right a secondhand furniture store. The furniture was anything but secondhand, more like third and fourthhand. Alfredo’s looked like any other ghetto gin mill. A storefront-type facade with blacked-out windows and a red front door. Inside, a red velvet curtain in the vestibule, a twenty-foot bar, and across from the bar about fifteen tables that looked on to a small dance floor. The difference was that this thousandsquare-foot hole-in-the-wall was everything that Pirelli had said it was; it was the shit, it smoked every other club and bar in the city. The music was a mix of old school R and B, disco, and Latin. The walls were wet with the sweat from the men and woman grinding and dancing. If you were into beautiful Latinas, this was the jammy jam. I had never seen so many beautiful women in one place in all of my young life.

  Tonight Pirelli was in rare form on the dance floor, jammed between two half-naked, spectacular-looking women who were grinding him from the front and back. Not one of Alfredo’s patrons even raised an eyebrow at the behavior, as this was considered tame in this place. Billy was already at the bar, half in the bag, talking to the bartender, Roxanne, another ghetto fabulous, sexy Latina. I entered and moved right to the bar. Billy was surprised to see me, obviously, because we’d just made a collar three hours prior.

  “What the fuck happened?”

  “Same bullshit, Billy. ‘How’d
you make the arrest, Officer?’ ‘Myself and my partner rolled up the guy gets incredibly nervous, he immediately takes off, we chase him, make the arrest, blah, blah, blah…’ I’m getting fucking tired of this, Billy, tired of…wasting everyone’s time. Six gun arrests, not one time to court. This prick was out before I was. It’s like, what the fuck are we doing wrong? I just don’t know what to do.”

  I knew Roxanne the bartender had a thing for me; Pirelli had told me. She jumped in and poured me a double of Jack Daniel’s. “C’mon, Rob, have a shot of sunshine.” I looked at the shot and swallowed it, put it down, and she refilled it again and then once again. I dropped some cash on the bar. She would not take it, just leaned in and kissed my lips gently. “It’s on me, ya pretty motherfucker.” It felt good, too good. Her kiss was hot, sexy, different from my girlfriend’s. Streety, and I liked it. This was a different type of woman, just like the ones I was seeing and becoming so very familiar with every day at work, only Roxanne was all that and a big bag of wings.