“Yes, sir, that’s what it looks like.” The animal was almost blown in half, the bullet long gone. “Did you hear a shot?”
He looked at me quizzically. “This is the Bronx. I always hear shots. I sort of tune them out, but this was close to home.” He pointed at the dead squirrel. “Coulda been me laying there.”
“Yes, sir.” I was taking this seriously—as seriously as Joe Friday from Dragnet. I wish I’d had the presence of mind to bring chalk with me so I could outline the body. “I’ll take care of this from here, sir. Squirrel lives matter. Thank you for reporting it.”
I scooped up the remains with a piece of cardboard, put it in the trunk, and headed for my next stop.
* * *
Sergeant Cantor dropped his pen. “You did what?”
I was back at the house reporting in. “I took the body to the ASPCA”—that is, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals—“to get it autopsied … had to ascertain the cause of death, you know. Tried the morgue first, but they told me they only autopsy humans. ASPCA said definitely a gunshot, but the round passed through the beast and wasn’t recovered.”
I was going all the way on this one. If I did everything I was supposed to do, I’d inundate Cantor with paperwork for a week.
Sergeant Cantor knew when he was beat. He leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Whaddaya say we call this a suicide and close it out?”
“You know, Sarge, you may have something there. Some people in the neighborhood said the squirrel looked depressed.”
Sergeant Cantor never busted my chops again, and we became very good friends, a friendship that endures to this day. He even saved my life once—but more on that later. I’d found a home in the Five-Two detective squad and would become even more productive than I’d been in the Four-One. Another plus was that I lived only a quarter mile beyond the precinct border, just over the city line in Yonkers.
* * *
Roger Cortes became my first partner. He was a second-grade detective and about seventeen years my senior, the old man of the squad at age forty-two. For over twenty years he’d been an active cop—you don’t get promoted to second grade by being a slacker—but after his transfer to the Five-Two squad he slowed down. Roger was far from lazy, but he was more centered on his family. He had seven kids, five of them daughters, and he lived to be with them. He’d also had a run-in with a boss a few years back and had gotten himself transferred to a detective squad on Staten Island for nine months. For a cop who lived upstate, getting assigned to Staten Island was the equivalent of an FBI agent being banished to North Dakota.
I liked Roger from the outset, but he needed a fire lit under him to rekindle the days when he was my age and eager to do the job. It didn’t take long. We started cracking down on the area’s problem of illegal gun possession, stopping cars and relying on our gut feelings. Back then, making an arrest relying on street smarts with nothing more than a “feeling” that an individual was up to no good was considered good police work. While there was a chance that some of the arrests would be tossed due to lack of reasonable cause, we still accomplished our goals: guns off the street and the people who carried them in the crosshairs of the NYPD for future reference.
In today’s climate such arrests are forbidden and could result in departmental charges. The closest the job came to resembling the old days was the stop-and-frisk program under Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, the present PC’s predecessor. Thousands of illegal guns were seized yearly and violent crime took a nosedive. This policy of stopping and frisking random individuals was deemed unacceptable with the new administration because cops were mostly stopping African American and Hispanic young men, and the strategy was halted. While it was true that the NYPD was targeting those ethnic groups, it is also true that the strategy was effective. Now imagine how effective it would be if police were getting guns out of the hands of white perps too! Time will tell if additional guns on the street will have a significant lasting effect on crime statistics, but since Kelly’s policy was halted, homicide rates and other violent crime has risen.
Back to the ’70s. I’d take the collars, and Roger got the assist. He was happy with the arrangement because he didn’t have to spend time in court and could go home to his family.
We’d taken so many guns off the street that someone had circulated my picture among the community so the people with guns could spot me coming. My photo was also circulated at JFK Airport. Given that so many of our arrests were Albanian, newcomers arriving from the old country would immediately be made aware that I was to be avoided at all costs.
For Roger it was like getting back on a bike after many years; he was into the swing of things and felt like a productive detective again. He thanked me numerous times for rejuvenating his outlook. He even mentioned setting me up with one of his daughters, thinking I’d make a fine son-in-law. After a year working together, however, and by then having insight into my social life, he would tell me, “If you ever go near any of my daughters, I’ll shoot you myself.”
* * *
Most detective units in the NYPD have an unofficial suit-and-tie dress code. Detectives have a tendency for trying to outdress each other, making the detectives of the NYPD arguably the best-dressed sleuths in the world.
I was never comfortable in business attire, preferring jeans, boots, and leather jackets. I’d occasionally throw on a sport jacket if I had to testify in court, but mostly every day was casual Friday to me. I wanted to fit in with the street people, who could spot a detective a mile away. The bosses never said anything about the way I dressed because I was bringing in numerous quality arrests, thereby substantially increasing the clearance rate for reported crime—numbers of arrests for reported crimes—in the Five-Two.
I had made 125 arrests after my first year in the Five-Two detective squad, compared to 38 arrests for the entire squad of nineteen detectives. Don’t get me wrong: the squad had a fine bunch of detectives. I was just a bit more compulsive when it came to the hunt. Plus, the other guys spent lots of time in court, while I had my trusty system. I could have shown up in a football helmet and a dress and the bosses wouldn’t have made a peep.
* * *
Another benefit of the job was free transportation. I was using department cars and would take them home to Yonkers with me every night. Many cops would do this with unmarked autos, but I’d also take marked radio cars back and forth to work, parking them out of sight in my building’s underground garage. For gas I was using the NYPD pumps allocated for department autos. When the oil embargo hit the country and there were gas lines snaking around city blocks, I never had to wait to fuel up.
While not exactly permissible, the bosses looked the other way because of my arrest numbers. I was making the Five-Two look good.
* * *
The more time I spent in the Five-Two, the more I localized my efforts on problem areas that remained for the most part unaddressed. The Purple Gang was a perfect example.
The Purple Gang migrated from Detroit in the 1930s after the end of Prohibition. They originally specialized in running booze, but after alcohol became legal again, these hardened gangsters branched out to the usual array of enterprises favored by organized crime, changing their specialty to murder for hire.
The current crop of gang members mostly constituted the male children of members who were either dead or in prison. Truly a family business. Mostly in their twenties and thirties, these junior gangsters were looking to make names for themselves, just like their dear old dads and grandpas before them. Their goal was to either get inducted into one of the five New York Mafia families or gain enough street cred to make crime a lucrative career on their own.
While I couldn’t make it my life’s mission to follow these punks around 24/7, I could make their lives miserable. Gang members had a hangout on Jerome Avenue, just south of Bedford Park Boulevard. They’d park as close to the location as they could, which meant on sidewalks, in crosswalks, in front of fire hydrants. T
o launch my operation I did what no other detective in the NYPD ever did: I began carrying summons books. Detectives don’t write summonses—that’s something left to the uniform contingent. I broke new ground by writing tickets for every Purple Gang parking violation I saw (to the tune of over twenty-five summonses a day). In addition to costing the gang members thousands of dollars in fines a week, I was gathering information to pass on to the NYPD’s Intelligence Division, compiling massive lists of license plate numbers and physical descriptions of regulars and associates. I also pulled them over in their cars and made numerous gun collars, recording intel along the way. I did this for years and was recognized by the Intelligence Division for supplying valuable intelligence.
* * *
On January 20, 2016, Police Commissioner William Bratton published an op-ed for the New York Daily News in which he wrote: “We want to develop well-rounded, highly skilled police officers, not arrest machines.” Under Bratton, stop-and-frisk confrontations were down 96 percent from their level in 2011, when he took command. Bratton was training his cops to sharpen their “problem-solving skills,” which means fewer arrests.
While my time on the job occurred in another era, it’s difficult to see how implementing reactive responses will lower crime rates in the long run. Homicides were up 6 percent in 2014 (the last fully reported year), and, at the time of writing, the first month of 2016 has already seen a jump.
My consistent harassment of the Purple Gang by peppering them with summonses and making arrests proved highly successful in intelligence gathering and showing career criminals that they were constantly being monitored. In today’s NYPD the term for what I was doing is profiling—but I did not profile based on race. I profiled based on behavior because that’s what good cops do. The Purple Gang members were mainly ethnic Italians, yes, but if their gang members were known to carry guns, they got searched. If gang members violated the law, even if they were minor violations such as traffic infractions, they got slammed with tickets.
Quality-of-life violations such as illegally parking, harassing motorists by cleaning windshields with squeegees, jaywalking, and congregating (especially by youths) were targeted under previous administrations and proved effective in preventing more serious incidents. In my opinion, losing these tools and doing away with the stop-and-frisk technique will eventually affect the law-abiding public. But cops like to look good—and, in one form or another, that’s nothing new.
* * *
A detective’s job is to investigate crime, but that didn’t stop me from making pickup arrests; I’d still go out on the street and bust people with guns and drugs. When there was a sudden spike in robberies, I was asked if I wanted to work with the Robbery Investigation Program (RIP), a unit of Five-Two cops from Anti-Crime whose sole job was to work out of uniform and make robbery arrests, I jumped at the chance. I’d be the only detective in the ranks. We’d be working the street, and I wouldn’t stand out from the other men in my street garb. Who says you can’t go home again?
I began riding with Timothy Kennedy, a highly decorated RIP cop, originally from the 45th Precinct, with four years on the job. We were similar in many ways: both bodybuilders and looking to clear the streets of people who shouldn’t be there. He also looked vaguely familiar when we were introduced upon my arrival in RIP. It turned out that we did know each other. A few years back, I was within the confines of the 45th Precinct when I got involved in an off-duty arrest. I apprehended a man with a gun, one of two armed men, while the other had gotten away. After cuffing my prisoner, I called 911 to provide transportation to the Four-Five station house and who do you think responded? Tim Kennedy. He took my prisoner, and I was supposed to follow in my private car.
As Kennedy approached the command with the prisoner, he got a call from the dispatcher to respond to assist an off-duty officer with an arrest. When he heard my name, he told Central that he’d already responded to that job and was already transporting my prisoner.
“There’s another arrest—same cop … Friedman,” the dispatcher replied.
On the way I had spotted the second perp from the first arrest and disarmed and cuffed him. When Kennedy came back to pick me up, he said he wanted to be just like me when he grew up. I was pleased to be working with him in RIP. While not a full-time assignment, it was satisfying to see instances of robbery plummet in the Five-Two.
We began piling up arrests for street robberies. Victims would ride along with us in some instances, and we’d cruise the neighborhood looking for the person who stuck them up. Invariably we’d find them hanging around a street corner bragging to their friends about their score. They never even had the presence of mind to change clothes to muddy the identification.
* * *
I always had a good relationship with the uniformed cops. Patrol is the lifeblood of the job, and without the rank-and-file cops, the city would dissolve into anarchy. Some elitist detectives talked down to cops, but I found this attitude to be wrong on many levels. For one thing, there were only nineteen detectives in the Five-Two, but there were a couple hundred cops, who were a wealth of intelligence. It made sense to pick their brains and treat them with much-deserved respect. And eventually one of them brought me one of the most rewarding cases I ever handled as a detective.
Patrol cops came to me often with information on criminal activity, garnered though their day-to-day interaction with the community.
I was in the squad room processing a collar and catching up on paperwork when a young cop, whose name I’ve since forgotten, showed me a complaint report he’d just prepared.
“Check this out, Ralph,” he said. “Thought you might be interested.”
It began as a standard report of domestic abuse. A woman named Jacqueline Karlan called 911 to report that her former husband, Eli Morton Gorin, had shoved her against her apartment door and threatened to “break every bone in her body.” The two responding officers took the report and advised her to call if he showed up at the apartment again. As the officers were leaving, Ms. Karlan said, “Oh, by the way, my ex is wanted by the FBI.”
This detail was added to the victim’s complaint report. The cop who brought me the case figured if he didn’t notify someone before he handed in the report, it would be mixed in with the copious other paperwork being processed that day and the most important part would be overlooked.
This was hot! I thanked the cop and began doing some preliminary research.
Eli Gorin had been an upstanding citizen who’d never been arrested for anything until he lost his job and seemed to go off the deep end. He held up a bank with a gun, was caught, and was sentenced to thirty years in prison, where he was deemed criminally insane. In the mix of it all, his wife divorced him.
After seven years, he escaped from Lompac Penitentiary in California and made his way back to New York, vowing to anyone who’d listen that he was never going back to jail. He’d been a fugitive for about eighteen months when we got our lead, during which time he had been tried in absentia for the escape, convicted, and sentenced to an additional six years. But someone would have to catch him first, and so far the FBI had no results.
I requested his photos and got all his family information.
I went to see Sergeant Cantor and laid out the facts. He understood how big this case was. After contemplating a few seconds, he said, “You think you can get this guy, Ralph?” I knew what was running through his mind: the FBI hadn’t had any luck, so why should I?
“No doubt, boss.” The FBI didn’t know the Bronx like Roger Cortes and I did.
“Okay,” Cantor said. “You and Roger are off the chart. Get him.”
An NYPD detective handles many cases at once. A load of fifteen cases at a time, or more, isn’t rare, unlike detectives in the movies, who handle one case and devote all their time to it. The FBI works that way, but not us. The Gorin case, however, would be our sole focus, and we would work off the traditional work schedule.
As I turned to leave, Cantor said, �
�And I want to be involved. When you’re getting close, let me know.”
“Sure, boss,” I said. In the time to follow, Cantor would work the case with us most of the time while still managing to run the squad in his usual efficient manner. Steve Cantor was sharp: after a distinguished career with the NYPD, he became an attorney and is still practicing law today.
The next day, Roger and I interviewed Gorin’s mother at her home in the 44th Precinct. She told us that her son had stopped by but hadn’t been there lately.
Later that day, Special Agent Corliss of the FBI called me and advised that Gorin was to be considered armed and extremely dangerous.
We interviewed Gorin’s ex-wife, Jacqueline Karlan, who was scared shitless and was very helpful. “I want that bastard caught before he kills me,” she said.
She told us that Gorin had come to New York and was due to attend their son’s bar mitzvah. The ceremony was to be conducted at a local shul, followed by a reception at a catering hall. Roger and I both attended, accompanied by Sergeant Cantor. We tried to blend in by wearing yarmulkes, but we stuck out like three sore thumbs, this despite the fact that I am Jewish. I did concede to wearing a business suit, which probably made me look even more awkward. Sergeant Cantor pretended he didn’t know me.
“I like the suit,” he told me. “You look like a hit man for the local Hadassah.”
Gorin didn’t show at the shul; we hoped he’d make it to the reception. We split up at the catering hall, mingling and eating some food that was so good it made me regret I wasn’t more in touch with my Jewish roots. Roger, completely forgetting he was undercover in a yarmulke, exclaimed with surprise, “This shit’s great!”
Gorin didn’t show at the reception either. It was time to do the tedious part of detective work.
We interviewed the ex-wife again to see if she remembered anything else she could tell us. No luck. While the ex-wife was obviously on our side, we couldn’t be sure about Mom, figuring her natural instinct was likely to be to protect her boy. But when we talked to the super of her building, he told us basically the same thing she had: Gorin had stopped by to see his mother but not lately.
Street Warrior Page 16