Street Warrior

by Ralph Friedman

  I searched him on the spot and found numerous policy slips. I figured I’d collared a numbers runner, which is a rare catch for a uniformed member of the job. Gamblers were usually arrested by the plainclothes cops of the Public Morals Division, whose job it was to enforce vice laws. But this guy was mine, and I took him on the now-familiar stroll to the station house.

  I found myself back in front of the desk before the same lieutenant I’d dealt with when I brought in Naked Man. Behind the desk with him was a deputy inspector who was signing the blotter when he saw me with my prisoner.

  “You know what you’ve got there, Officer?” the deputy inspector asked. He was in his fifties and looked every inch a high-ranking NYPD boss—pressed uniform and rack of departmental medals.

  I snapped to attention, deferring to his rank. “Yes, sir. A policy runner.” I waved a fistful of policy slips. “I got him…”

  “You’ve got more than a policy runner there, son,” he interrupted. He said to the desk officer, “Lou, secure this prisoner while I speak to the young officer here.” He came from behind the desk and pointed to the muster room, where the platoons turned out for each shift.

  Where was this going?

  It was between tours so the muster room was empty. The DI went directly to a glass-enclosed bulletin board that was secured to a wall. Concealing it was a dark-green shade, the kind you’d find on a window, with a pull string on the bottom. “You know what this is, Officer?”

  I’d obviously seen the shrouded bulletin board every day but hadn’t given it much thought. In those first few weeks, my only interest in the station house was getting out of it as soon as possible.

  “No, sir. Just got here, actually.”

  He looked at me quizzically. “From where?”

  “Police academy, sir.”

  He grunted. “What’s your name?”

  I told him.

  “Well, Officer Friedman, you just locked up one of the precinct’s KGs,” at which point he ceremoniously pulled down slightly on the shade, then released it.

  The shade shot up to reveal a hierarchical chart, with pictures of all the known gamblers (KGs) operating within the confines of the Four-One. There were about ten men on the chart. All were members of organized crime and, as such, were police enforcement targets. Very elusive targets I was to find out. My prisoner was near the top of the chart.

  “You should be proud of yourself, Officer. You not only bagged one of the slipperiest KGs around, but you made the command and yourself look good. And you know what else?”

  “What, sir?”

  “You made me look good.” Turned out this particular inspector had been looking to go to the Public Morals Division. One of his cops taking a KG off the street would help him get there.

  He gave me a day off on the spot for a good arrest. Time off was a common reward for quality arrests, the job being very proactive back then. This system of rewards was abandoned in the 1980s when administrators decided a reactive police force was more desirable than a proactive one; rather than seek out good arrests, the police would now be reacting to crime. The rationale was that if cops less actively looked to make collars, there would be fewer potential problems (such as cops being too aggressive). As a result, the number of arrests diminished, as did job morale. Cops are just like any other worker in any other field: reward them for quality work and they’ll produce. It isn’t all about pay raises; it’s about recognition for a job well done.

  But this was the 1970s, when getting a day off and an “attaboy” from an inspector meant I was appreciated. The incident with the DI may well have given me the impetus to make me the cop and detective I was to become. As for the KG, he got time served—a day in the can before being arraigned—and a small fine. I was learning that the police had little if any impact on sentencing.

  * * *

  Within a few months I found myself in a radio car. Every rookie’s goal was to get a “seat,” a permanent assignment to a patrol sector in a marked radio car. The Four-One had nineteen sectors, a large amount for a command that was only 2.5 square miles. The first step in the process of getting the coveted seat was proving yourself on foot patrol. In my first few months in Fort Apache, I’d made enough good arrests to catch the attention of the precinct commanding officer, Captain Tom Walker, whom I remember as the best CO of my career. He was tough but fair and backed up his cops. In 1976 he wrote the definitive book about the precinct, appropriately entitled Fort Apache. He was also a Sherlock Holmes expert and won the Holmes category on television’s $64,000 Question, a popular quiz show back then.

  Traditionally, radio-car assignments begin on a fill-in basis and are not a daily occurrence. I’d be assigned a seat where one partner was on vacation, in court, or out sick. Every few days I’d get lucky and land in a sector, but I was still mostly walking foot posts. The downside of filling in sector cars was that I didn’t have a steady partner; I’d bounce around from sector to sector wherever I was needed.

  In police work, particularly in a high-crime command like the Four-One, having a steady partner was reassuring because you worked as a team and always knew how your partner would react in any given situation. Partners worked out strategies and tactics well before they were needed. A cop relied on his partner to save his life should the shit hit the fan. It’s often said that a cop’s partner knows more about him than his significant other. The street breeds intimacy, and there’s no one you trust more than your partner. No one.

  The upside of being the fill-in guy was that you got to ride with many cops, so when the time came to get a permanent seat, you might seek out someone you once rode with, who also might be looking for a new partner because of his current partner’s retirement or transfer. Sometimes, however, filling in can lead to disaster.

  One such time was when I was temporarily partnered with patrolman Gus Paulson, who had a steady sector. This was my first time working with Gus. He had five years on the job, a veteran by Four-One standards. His regular partner was on vacation and we were to ride together for a week. Gus was a decent guy and he seemed to know what he was doing, but otherwise I knew nothing about him.

  After a brief handshake, Gus explained how things were going to work.

  “You’re new to a sector, so maybe you should be the recorder for the tour so you get the paperwork down.”

  Partners usually switched jobs halfway through the tour so each got a turn preparing reports as the “recorder” and driving as the “operator.” But since we weren’t really partners, and I was a rookie, perhaps Gus had the right idea: get a trial by fire by being bombarded with forms and learn how that part of the job worked. While I didn’t relish writing for eight hours, I went along with it because I had little choice. Gus and I may have been the same rank, but as a rookie I had no juice when it came to anything procedural. Seniority rules. Welcome to the world of civil service.

  It was July and the Four-One was jumping. Even though the sector was composed of only a few square blocks, those streets were crammed with tenements and the crime and calls for service that went along with too many people in close proximity.

  We were constantly rolling from one job to the next: fights, shots-fired calls, burglaries and robberies in progress, and crimes of lesser consequence, but just as time-consuming.

  One thing about Gus, though, he always found the time to stop cars.

  Car stops are a cop’s reservoir for arrests. Most good collars come from car stops. The law dictates that a police officer can stop a car only if he has reasonable cause to make the stop. A traffic infraction is reasonable cause. Once the car is stopped, it can be determined if the driver’s been drinking or perhaps wanted on a warrant, if there’s contraband in plain view, or any number of other violations that could land the driver in jail.

  I was always looking to make an arrest so I was up for stopping cars. Since I was the recorder, my tactical position would be behind the stopped car and off to the right while Gus spoke to the driver. I could observe
what was going on through the rear window and be ready to take action should the stop go sideways. We stopped around six cars per tour, a pretty high number considering all the 911 calls we were responding to.

  On a day I’ll never forget, Gus and I were on a tour when the radio dispatcher advised: “Four-One Sector Mike, ten-two the house forthwith.”

  We were in Sector Mike. A “forthwith” was just shy of “you should be here already.” Someone wanted us in the station house immediately. My initial feeling was one of mild curiosity—why were we being summoned ASAP?—followed by one of dread. When I had more years on the job, I’d know that a “forthwith” to the command was usually a bad thing, but even then I knew this couldn’t be good.

  I looked to Gus for clarification. “What do you think this is about?”

  Gus looked forlorn. “I think I’m about to be locked up.”

  “What? Arrested?” I couldn’t have heard him correctly.

  Gus reached into his pocket and pulled out some neatly folded bills. “Here,” he said, dumping them on my lap. “Hold on to this money for me.” We turned onto Southern Boulevard, a few blocks from the station house.

  I was confused. “Why? What is this?” I scooped up the bills and gave them a fast count; sixty dollars in fives and tens.

  He stared straight ahead, driving calmly. “Ralph,” he said, almost inaudibly, “just hold on to the money … No questions, please.”

  The bills were folded in half separately, one bill on top of another. I put them in my wallet. There was no more conversation. As we parked in front of the station house, Gus handed me the car keys, gave me a wan smile, and we went inside.

  Lined up in front of the desk was a gauntlet of bosses of varying ranks, all above the rank of lieutenant. They were staring at us, which brought us to a halt. A grim-looking inspector came forward.

  “Which one of you is Paulson?” These were the days before name tags.

  Gus stepped forward. “I am, sir.” He had turned a sickly shade of pale.

  The inspector extended an open palm. “Your gun and shield, Officer.” His eyes were sad, almost fatherly with evident pity. The rest of the bosses looked uneasy; a few slid their hands over their holstered guns. Cops have been known to do strange things when arrested, and the bosses’ movement to their revolvers was cautionary. Suicide was not unusual, shooting one’s arresting officer rare, but being prepared for any outcome is just good tactics.

  Gus was being arrested for shaking down motorists. I was to find out later that there had been complaints from motorists that Gus was shaking them down for cash after being stopped for traffic violations. He’d been doing this during our car stops and had been doing it for quite a while. The shakedowns were unobtrusive and deftly conducted. I had no idea what was going on from my position at the rear of the stopped cars. All I knew was that I had the proceeds of the crimes in my wallet. Was I about to be searched? Was any of the money marked? I felt my throat close; my palms began to sweat. The inspector turned to me.

  “Resume patrol, Officer. You’re excused.”

  I turned and made for the door on wobbly legs, hoping they would get me to the radio car. I wanted to get as far from the station house as possible.

  I fell into the driver’s seat, my head spinning, the tainted money burning hot in my wallet. As I started the motor, I realized that I had no partner; mine was on his way to jail. All the radio cars in the NYPD are manned by two cops, but the last thing I wanted to do was go back into the house and ask for a partner. I had visions of one of the bosses saying, “Hey, Friedman, while you’re here empty your pockets.” The neatly folded single bills were obviously the proceeds of the shakedowns, and while that couldn’t be assumed in a court of law, this was the NYPD, where a cop is guilty until proven innocent. What’s more, I was a probationary police officer and, as such, could get canned for any reason or no reason until my probationary year was over.

  I considered stashing the money in the car—between the seat cushions seemed like a good place. Then paranoia kicked in. Was I being watched? I was parked directly in front of the house, after all. I saw my job slipping away and I’d done nothing wrong. Sure, I knew I should’ve handed over the bills, but the unofficial code of the job forbade turning on a fellow cop. To do so would brand me as a rat. I’d live in my own hell for the rest of my career, unable to work anywhere in the city without my unsavory reputation preceding me. Gus, a crooked cop, would have better standing than me. Nope, I was going to set a precedent; I was going to be the first cop in the hellhole that was the Four-One to go on patrol in a one-man car. Did I have a death wish? Perhaps, but death seemed a better alternative than returning to the house.

  I handled calls alone the rest of the day, with everyone from street junkies to cops in other radio cars giving me funny looks. Nothing of consequence occurred and I had plenty of time to think.

  It wasn’t rare for cops in the NYPD to shake down motorists in the 1960s and before, but in the ’70s the tide began to turn. An increase in blue-ribbon commissions investigating the matter had a lot to do with it, but mostly it was the caliber of new cops that changed the way the job was done. Many recruits were returning Vietnam vets, who thirsted for action and had enough indoctrination in the military to care about their honor. In my case, if it ever crossed my mind to do such a thing, the incident with Gus swayed me forever. The humiliation that getting arrested would bring to me and my family would be incalculable, and I vowed that day to resist temptation, do my job, and sleep well at night. No amount of money, especially the paltry sum Gus lost his job and freedom over, was worth it. When I think back on that incident today, I realize that I’d learned a valuable lesson. I like money and I made my share working overtime, but a dirty dollar wasn’t part of my future. I would look to get assigned to units that had reputations for incorruptibility because being associated with police officers who were less than honest depressed me.

  If a cop is going to go bad, it usually occurs in increments: taking small amounts like Gus, then steadily increasing the scores. A cop might shake down motorists one day and graduate to extorting money from drug dealers down the line.

  * * *

  I sought Gus out at his new job at a construction site about six months later. He’d been given a pass on jail time and was just fired. Gus’s arrest occurred during the Knapp Commission hearings, a board of inquiry convened to root out corruption in the NYPD. The last thing the job needed was to broadcast that it’d found yet another corrupt cop. He was lucky; you don’t want to be a cop in prison. Survival is highly doubtful.

  Most fired cops can’t get a decent job. Not too many employers want to hire a terminated police officer, the reason they lost their job being inconsequential. A cop who didn’t make it to retirement and left the job was viewed with a jaundiced eye by most employers. Most cops in this predicament gravitate toward construction work, where anyone with a strong back can get scooped right up (and laid off just as quickly when weather turns bad). It’s a tough way to make a living.

  I spotted Gus before he spotted me, and I decided to approach him and say hello. Besides, I still had a chore left undone …

  He was leaning on a shovel by a fifty-five-gallon drum that was burning wood, embers flying in the mid-January wind. There were several other workers getting warm, and when Gus saw me, he gestured for me to follow him, which I did at a discreet distance.

  He had aged: the not-so-great outdoors in the dead of winter and the physical labor not agreeing with him. He forced a grin and shook my hand.

  “How’re you doing, Gus?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I’m doing. You?”

  “I’m okay,” I said.

  And so it went for a few minutes—small talk that trailed into minutiae. Finally, I said what I came to say. “You know, I still got that money you asked me to hold.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “Money?”

  I removed the bills from my wallet. They were in the same configuration as when he’d passed
them to me six months ago, stacked atop each other like business cards. He took a half step back and held up his hands. “Hey, I don’t know nothing about any money.” He was shaking his head, feigning bewilderment. “I never asked you to hold any money for me.”

  I realized Gus thought he was being set up—for what, I had no idea. His case had already been adjudicated; he was done with the criminal justice system, both as an employee and a temporary guest. He was paranoid. Most cops are, and we never lose it, but we choose to call it “healthy skepticism.” Gus, however, was overestimating himself as a target. He was an ex-cop, a fired cop. No one gave a shit about him anymore.

  I was going to explain to him that it was me he was talking to, not a rat. He wasn’t being recorded, there were no Internal Affairs bogeymen hiding in dump trucks. I opened my mouth to speak and then reconsidered. I didn’t need to defend myself. I didn’t even know why I’d stopped to talk to him in the first place or why I’d held on to the money. Maybe I just felt sorry for him. In the coming years, I’d hear about other corrupt police officers. Most of them were excellent cops … some genuine heroes.

  “Forget it, man,” I mumbled, then I did an about-face and started back to my car. Before reaching it, I tossed the stacked bills into the burning drum, much to the astonishment of the huddled masses.

  * * *

  I picked up a steady seat with Rafael Torres, a bright cop but not the most active in the arrest department, which was fine with me. I would take all the collars he didn’t want. Torres had a working wife and a platoon of kids. One parent had to be home with the kids while the other one worked, and arrests got in the way of their finely tuned schedule.

  There were quite a few cops in the same situation. I believe my annual salary was around $9,600 back then, and I had a hard time just supporting myself. I couldn’t imagine trying to take care of a family on that kind of money. A lot of cops also had second jobs, and it was a hassle to go to court, so they would seek out a partner who would take the arrests.