Street Warrior

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by Ralph Friedman


  Roger and I canvassed the neighbors next. Most were helpful to the extent that people who don’t really want to get involved with the police are helpful. Most denied ever seeing Gorin. Those who admitted observing him around the building were vague about time and frequency.

  We sat on the building for a few days, hoping to get lucky. No Gorin. We returned in the early evening to talk to those neighbors we’d missed during the day. We got lucky, at least as far as finding a woman who said she’d seen Gorin and was willing to go the extra mile to help us. She was single, around thirty-five, and seemed to have taken a fancy to Roger, which was probably why she agreed to keep an eye out for Gorin and write down his license plate number should she see him again. We also alerted the 44th Precinct detective squad to be on the lookout for Gorin. I had twenty pictures of the fugitive printed and had them delivered to the 44th detectives and the A/C unit.

  Three days later, bingo!

  The female neighbor had seen Gorin briefly the day before getting into a car in front of the building, and she wrote down the plate number. I ran the plate, which gave us the address of an apartment building on Shore Road in Long Beach, which was right over the New York City line in Nassau County, a continuation of Rockaway Beach in Queens. The car wasn’t in Gorin’s name, and since it hadn’t been reported stolen, we figured he had borrowed it. The owner’s name was Audrey Glazer, whom we located by tracking down the real estate agent who managed the apartment building. She lived in apartment 5L. She was clean—no criminal record.

  Roger and I staked out Audrey Glazer’s building the next day for a few hours. We didn’t see Gorin, so we decided to talk to the super, who was cooperative. He told us that Glazer had been a tenant for a while, kept to herself, and worked during the day, though he didn’t know where or at what. He also recognized a picture of our fugitive, saying that he had begun living with Glazer recently. He added, “Oh, yeah! He’s got a dog as big as a fucking Buick. I think it’s a German shepherd … really big. Don’t look too friendly neither. He don’t go nowhere without that dog.”

  Great.

  “Either of them home?” Roger asked.

  The super shook his head. “After she leaves for work in the morning, he goes out … with the dog. Sometimes he’s gone for days.”

  “You know the dog’s name?” I asked. We might have to calm the animal after we collared Gorin.

  “Don’t know, man. Never asked him. He don’t seem like the friendly type. You know what I mean?”

  “Listen,” I said to the super, after giving a conspiratorial nod to Roger, “we need to get into Glazer’s apartment. Urgent police business.” We had no right to enter the apartment without a warrant, but I doubted the super knew that. He didn’t and handed over a master key without comment.

  I opened the door to apartment 5L after knocking and receiving no answer. I made enough noise, assuming that if the dog decided to sleep in that day, he’d hear me. No dog. Audrey Glazer’s one-bedroom apartment overlooked the ocean. It was neat and clean. We went into the bedroom and found men’s clothing in the closet. Under the bed was an unlocked attaché case that contained two revolvers, a few boxes of ammunition, and a ski mask. After a brief discussion, Roger and I decided to leave everything in place. We would have had a tough time explaining how we came into possession of the case and its contents, since we had no right to be in the apartment. After making sure we left everything exactly as we found it, we drove back to the Bronx to confer with Sergeant Cantor.

  * * *

  Sergeant Cantor, Roger, and I held the strategy meeting in Cantor’s office.

  We were dealing with a state-certified crazy escaped felon who had sworn never to go back to prison or be taken alive. A lot of cons say that, but in this case we felt Gorin meant it. At six foot four, 250 pounds, and likely armed, he could be major trouble if we didn’t take him right. If we fucked this up, we might have a major war on our hands.

  We agreed that busting into the Shore Road apartment would be a mistake, primarily because we didn’t know if Gorin was going to be there and because cornering him didn’t seem like the smart thing to do. Audrey Glazer might wind up a hostage; even if Gorin was alone, the situation might degenerate into a nasty standoff. It was April, and the weather was getting balmy after a long, hard winter, so we decided to keep canvassing the area. We figured we’d get him walking his dog.

  “I’ll notify the Nassau County cops and the Long Beach PD,” Roger said. It was protocol to advise the local police if you were going to be working on their turf. Both departments had jurisdiction in Long Beach.

  “Not a good idea,” Sergeant Cantor said. “They’ll need to know why we’re going to be there, and we’ll be obligated to tell them. You think they’ll leave us alone?”

  Cantor was right. The local cops would not only want to be there when the arrest went down, they might want to take command and lock up Gorin themselves. After all the work we’d done, that wasn’t going to happen. Additionally, given Gorin’s status as an insane fugitive with no desire to go back to the can and given that he was likely heavily armed, the cops would want an overwhelming presence in the area. Gorin might be a lunatic, but he wasn’t stupid. He’d be on heightened alert and would spot a large number of police officers no matter how dressed down they were. Like cops, criminals, particularly those who are looking at numerous years behind bars, have sharp observational skills.

  “Let’s sit on the Shore Road address tomorrow, see what happens,” Cantor said. He got the necessary permissions from Bronx Area to venture into Nassau County, even though we’d been working there for a while already. We needed the job’s okay to cover ourselves when we nabbed Gorin.

  * * *

  Spring doesn’t last long in New York. It always seems to come and go in less than a week, and then the humidity wraps us up until September.

  The three of us were sitting up the block from the Shore Road building waiting for Gorin to materialize. About 150 feet to our right, the boardwalk was crowded with people taking advantage of the weather, strolling casually and gazing at the ocean. We heard the surf and could smell the salt water. If we weren’t there on intensified alert, I would’ve called it a relaxing day.

  Then I spotted Gorin, and I didn’t have to be a supersleuth to see him: he towered over most of the pedestrians on the boardwalk. I elbowed Sergeant Cantor, who was seated next to me in the front seat, then pointed to the boardwalk. Cortes perked up.

  Gorin was wearing a black leather jacket and jeans. His right hand was in his jacket pocket and his left held a leash, at the end of which was a very big German shepherd. The super wasn’t kidding about this dog’s size. We watched Gorin for a while. He seemed to have no interest in the dog; all his attention was focused on the people around him. We knew this wasn’t a good sign. We all thought the same thing: he’s holding a gun in the jacket pocket.

  Cantor said, “We should spread out, approach him from three different sides. Ready?”

  Roger and I said “yep” simultaneously, and the three of us exited the car.

  There had to be over a hundred people in Gorin’s immediate vicinity, which was good for our concealment but bad if things went poorly. If he indeed had a gun, there could be collateral damage.

  We split up: Sergeant Cantor increased his pace to get in front of the target, Roger went left, and I went right. As we walked, we kept narrowing the distance between us and Gorin. When we were within about five feet of him, we drew our guns and Cantor whirled to face him. As soon as Cantor did that, we all yelled, “Police, don’t move!”

  I caught Gorin’s right hand in a death grip before he could take anything out of his pocket and stuck my revolver in his ear. Roger did the same to his other ear. Cantor jammed his gun in Gorin’s mouth, and the three of us forced him to the ground with enough power to take down a water buffalo. And the Hound from Hell? He sat down and watched his master being arrested. Maybe my tattoos scared him

  Pedestrians started screaming and runnin
g away from us.

  Gorin was grunting from the knockdown but otherwise remained silent. I reached into his pocket and extracted a fully loaded .357 revolver containing hollow-point ammunition. He was also carrying loose rounds for reloading. The three of us hustled the fugitive into our car and drove back to the apartment, where we recovered the attaché case, ski mask, and guns still inside. The pooch went docilely with other cops to a local pound. Then we headed back to the Five-Two. Gorin took his right to remain silent seriously; he didn’t utter a word.

  Now that we had Gorin, we had to figure out what to do with him. He was eventually handed over to the FBI under the For Other Agency (FOA) policy, meaning the arresting officer simply handed over the prisoner to another agency for prosecution.

  Special Agent Corliss of the FBI, astonished that we nabbed Gorin, was very generous with his praise. The special agent in charge of the New York office would send a congratulatory letter to the police commissioner, which would go into our personnel files (commendatory letters are a big plus when being considered for promotion).

  Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) had me fly down to Virginia to testify against the person, a cabdriver, who bought the guns for Gorin—known as a straw buyer. A straw buyer is someone who legally purchases firearms for the purposes of reselling them to an unauthorized buyer. The ATF agents treated me well, putting me up at the best hotel in the area and taking me to some great restaurants.

  In the end, Gorin went back to prison, which he said he would never do. He had the time he still owed for the bank robbery, plus the extra six years for the escape and a few more for the guns. The woman who harbored him while he was on the run, Audrey Glazer, wasn’t prosecuted because it couldn’t be proven that she knew Gorin was a wanted fugitive. Gorin will be well into his seventies by the time he gets out of prison, if he gets out.

  7

  I keep odd hours. Since I worked mostly nights for so many years, my internal clock is the opposite of most people’s. Even when I was off duty, I generally adhered to my owlish schedule; it was the way my body worked and the way it continues to work thirty-four years after leaving the NYPD.

  I’m up all night and sleep during the day. Six or seven AM is normally the time I go to bed. I get up in the middle of the afternoon. On the rare occasion when I can’t put off doing something until the evening and I’m forced to conform to most everyone else’s schedule, I do so grudgingly.

  Detectives don’t spend much time on patrol; we’re too busy juggling a multitude of cases or catching up on the river of paperwork that never dries up. Occasionally, however, there were lulls in the craziness, and Roger and I would tour the command in an unmarked car. We’d be looking for crime, but sometimes we also backed up the uniforms on dangerous jobs.

  Patrol was a nice respite and brought me back to the not-too-distant past. One of the nice things about going on patrol as a detective was that when you got tired of it, you just went back to the squad room. As a uniform in a sector, your ass was attached to that seat for the entire tour.

  While on patrol one day, Roger and I heard a radio run to be on the lookout for a car seen leaving the scene of a burglary. A license plate number was supplied. The crime had been committed in another section of the Bronx, but, as luck would have it, the wanted vehicle was right in front of us with what appeared to be two individuals in the front seat.

  We gave the car a short blast of the siren, the universal signal to pull over, and the driver complied. Neither of us could get a clear view of the driver and passenger from inside our vehicle, but we were about to get the surprise of our lives.

  Roger and I exited our auto and assumed our tactical positions, with me (being the operator of our vehicle) approaching the driver’s side of the car, while Roger (the recorder) positioned himself to the right rear of the suspect car, observing the occupants and ready to take action should I be fired upon.

  The driver lowered his window as I came abreast of him. I was about to ask for his license and registration when he shouted, “Get him!” and a very large Doberman pinscher, which I had mistaken as a passenger, leapt over the driver and through the window as I instinctively took several steps backward. The dog, snarling and baring its teeth, bounced off the pavement and jumped for my throat.

  I fired my gun, which I had unholstered as I approached the suspect vehicle, striking the beast in midair. The dog dropped facefirst to the ground, a bullet in his front right leg.

  We subdued the driver, and then I turned my attention back to the dog, who had regained his footing and was limping away. He made it a few feet, curled up, got back on the ground, and began whimpering.

  It’s no secret that I love dogs, and I felt bad that I had to shoot this one. The dog had obeyed his master’s command and went into protection mode when ordered to do so. For me, that is totally different from shooting someone who fully intends to hurt you.

  NYPD policy dictates that police officers are required to call Animal Control in any situation when an animal needs help. I knew if I did that, the dog would stand a good chance of being put down. I wasn’t about to let that happen.

  With Roger tending to the prisoner, I slowly approached the Doberman, who was in pain and crying. Cornered, defenseless animals are apt to attack, and this dog was looking me right in the eye when I shot him. I was hoping he had a short memory.

  I knelt down and pet him. He wasn’t hostile, which surprised the hell out of me. I decided to take a chance; I gently put my arm under him and very slowly lifted him to my chest. This dog, which a minute ago was ready to rip my throat out, now trusted me completely and let me carry him to my car. I placed him carefully in the backseat, which he took up door to door. This was one big pooch.

  I called out to Roger, “I’m taking this dog to the animal hospital in Manhattan.”

  “Do what you gotta do, man. I’m good here.” I heard sirens approaching in the distance. Our prisoner was in no shape to resist or try to escape, so I felt okay about leaving.

  One of the best animal hospitals in the country is located on the Upper East Side, and I made it there in record time, lights and siren all the way. The dog let me carry him into the hospital, and I stayed with him until he went into surgery.

  The Doberman survived. His master went to prison.

  * * *

  My love of dogs was well known in the squad, so when I had to shoot yet another dog during a major drug bust, the detectives in the squad decided to have some fun with me. Cops can have a wicked sense of humor.

  The dog in question was a German shepherd that was guarding a drug den. Roger and I broke through the door with the aid of a battering ram, backed up by the Bronx Narcotics Unit. Armed with shotguns, Roger and I were the first cops inside the apartment. The dog took one look at Roger, saw lunch, and charged him from across the room. Roger was caught unawares and was slow to take out the dog. I pushed him aside and unloaded a round into the animal’s chest. The dog was dead before he hit the floor. Once again, I felt bad about the shooting—really bad!—but I rationalized my actions by telling myself I’d ridded the world of a canine career criminal. You tell yourself what you have to.

  As with any shooting, a huge amount of paperwork is required. When I’d returned to the squad room the next day, there was an official NYPD communication on my desk (known as a U.F. 49). This is basically a boss’s report (in this case from a borough deputy inspector) assessing the shooting and determining whether it was justified. As I read it, my jaw dropped.

  The dog I’d killed was a certified Seeing Eye dog with many years of service and had also received numerous awards and citations for visiting terminally sick kids in hospitals around the city. I’d killed the Mother Teresa of the dog world!

  I felt terrible. I was flabbergasted. The other detectives in the squad room were no help. They broke my balls unmercifully.

  “Hey, Ralph, how many kids are gonna cry themselves to sleep tonight because you whacked friggin’ Rin Tin Tin?”

  “Yo,
Friedman, I just heard some blind guy walked off a subway platform and got splattered by the downtown IRT because you clipped his Seeing Eye dog.”

  And on it went for about an hour until I finally caught on. Someone had forged the U.F. 49 and invented the deputy inspector.

  Cop humor …

  * * *

  I was becoming accustomed to doing investigations, a skill that took time to acquire. I couldn’t pin down the average length of time I spent on a case with any accuracy, but I’d say about a week, from assignment to completion, is a good guess. Catching Eli Gorin, the escaped convict, had taken a bit longer, though time passed quickly on cases of that size. What I wasn’t prepared for, however, was one that was coming my way: it involved a phony home-repair scam, a slick con man, and the makings of a cat-and-mouse game that would ensnare me for over a year and a half trying to arrest the guy.

  On a brisk April day, an elderly woman arrived at the squad office claiming to be the victim of a confidence scam. She told me that she’d given one Anthony Alessandro of the Alessandro Home Improvement Company in Pelham, New York, two thousand dollars to make repairs on her home on Decatur Avenue.

  “The son of a bitch took my money and never did a goddamn thing,” the complainant told me. She went on to say that she’d phoned Alessandro numerous times and had never received a return call.

  The case seemed easy enough: visit the contractor’s place of business and lock him up. I told her I’d be in touch, scooped up Roger, and went to Alessandro’s listed business address, 175 Wolfs Lane in Pelham, located just over the Bronx border in Westchester County.

  The Alessandro Home Improvement Company, no longer at that address, was replaced by a real estate business. We interviewed the agent, as well as the proprietors of several businesses in the area, but no one knew the current whereabouts of Anthony Alessandro. According to most of the people we spoke to, Alessandro had moved from the Wolfs Lane address “months ago.”

 

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