* * *
Other incidents were equally upsetting but not life-threatening. A 911 dispatcher received an anonymous call about a man with a gun at 2665 Grand Concourse, apartment 7F, a very familiar address. I’d grown up in that very apartment with my family. My father had died in that same apartment.
I was working in an unmarked car when the call came over the radio. Initially, and only for a brief moment, the address didn’t register. Thousands of radio runs are broadcast daily and locations blur. And then, to my dread, the memory hit home.
I arrived at the building just behind the local sector, my heart beating just a bit quicker than normal. I’d been on many gun runs so that’s not what had me worried; it was that whoever moved into my old apartment had possibly destroyed the sanctity of the place that held my fondest memories.
Crime was rampant in the old neighborhood now, the intimacy of the community a thing of the past. It pained me to see the region degenerate into a high-crime area. When I was boy, everyone felt safe.
The gun run turned out to be unfounded, as many such radio runs are. That in itself was comforting; however, knowing that the incident could have been real was disconcerting. Times change and neighborhoods change too, but trying to wrap my head around the possibility that a violent incident occurred in my childhood home was upsetting.
* * *
In order for our criminal justice system to operate efficiently, the innocent must be exonerated and the guilty punished without delay. But rarely do the wheels of justice keep up with the high volume of cases passing through it in a large city like New York. It’s not unusual for the most serious crimes to meander in the pipeline for years before a case is adjudicated.
I can think of only a handful of exceptional cases in which justice moved as it should.
One of them begins in my customary position: in the squad room scaling a mountain of paperwork. In the office with me were Michael Fox, a detective, and Clement Krug, a police officer who was awaiting a promotion to third-grade detective. Sergeant Cantor had recently retired on a disability pension because of a job-related back injury. Replacing him was Sergeant Michael Harris, a good boss out of the Cantor mold and, like Cantor, in his midforties.
Two uniforms came in looking for me. I was the go-to detective in the squad when uniformed cops needed help or had an involved case that was growing into something larger. I always took the time to listen to what the sector guys had to say.
The cops brought a civilian in with them, a Hispanic man in his twenties who spoke no English.
“This guy’s got a story, Ralph,” one of the uniforms said. “Something about a homicide in Manhattan.”
“Tell me more.”
“The perp lives in the Four-Four. On Nelson Avenue,” the cop replied.
He had my interest. I found a cop who spoke Spanish and had our newest informant relate his tale.
He said he had been at his girlfriend’s apartment at 1114 Nelson Avenue the day before when her brother, Pablo Vega, came home. Pablo may have had a few cocktails in him and was talkative. What he talked about got the interest of our informant.
It seems Pablo had had a busy night. Before he went to his sister’s apartment, he had been in Manhattan sticking up a guy on the subway platform at Sixth Avenue and Forty-Eighth Street.
I interrupted. “He had a gun, knife … what?”
“Nope,” the interpreter got from the informant. Pablo stuck the victim up with a cigarette lighter.
I asked the informant to elaborate.
Apparently, Pablo doused the victim with an accelerant, probably lighter fluid, and threatened to “light him up” if he didn’t hand over his money. The victim complied, but Pablo flicked his Bic anyway and the poor guy erupted in flames. Pablo thought this hilarious, watched the human torch burn for a few seconds, and then took off.
In twelve years on the job, I’d witnessed or heard about all kinds of depraved indifference to human life and other cruel things, but what I’d just learned surprised even me. While the informant sounded credible, I had to check to make certain the incident had in fact occurred.
The location of the crime was within the confines of the Midtown North Precinct. I called and spoke to Detective Hart, who confirmed the story. The victim had died.
“You know the guy who did it?” Hart asked.
“Maybe,” I said, and related what I’d just been told. I told Hart we’d check out the informant’s story and get back to him.
I sat outside the sister’s apartment house with Sergeant Harris and the informant and waited for Pablo Vega, aka “Luchy,” to show up. Detective Hart from Midtown North in Manhattan joined us later.
Patience is a trait you either need to have or acquire if you desire to be a successful detective. If you’re not sitting at a location, you’re wading through paperwork or spending hours in court waiting to testify. After several hours, our informant pointed to a guy walking down the block toward the apartment building.
He gestured wildly and spat forth a barrage of Spanish. Apparently it was our human flamethrower.
Vega was placed under arrest, offering no resistance. ADA Paula Van Mitten charged him with homicide and robbery. Total elapsed time from the murder to arrest: sixteen hours. So swift was justice in this case that at the time Vega had been arrested, the victim still hadn’t been identified.
Our informant held up his end and testified in court, and Vega was convicted.
Sometimes the creaking wheels of justice are greased.
* * *
I’ve been training with weights most of my adult life, so working out at 2 AM to me is normal. It was May 4, 1981, during one of these workout sessions, radio blasting, that I received a phone call that gripped my heart with a fear I’d never experienced, not even when Kenny Mahon was killed.
My brother had been shot.
Stu was still a New York City transit cop. It was 1:30 AM and Stu and his partner, Thomas McGurl, had been knocking back a few in PC’s, a club on Westchester Avenue in the Bronx. PC’s was widely known as a cop bar but had oddly also attracted its share of street thugs, drug dealers, and other troublemakers. This eclectic crowd, surprisingly, is not rare for a cop bar. It’s said that New York City is a melting pot, which is a truism that extends to gin mills too.
On this particular night, an altercation occurred just outside the bar between the doorman and a young white male who had been refused admittance because he lacked proper attire. This guy must have been wearing a jock strap and earmuffs or something similarly offensive, because PC’s was no fashion mecca.
The argument had been loud enough to attract Stu and his partner’s attention over the din of the music inside the club, and they went outside to investigate. They intervened, and the patron got in his car and left, pissed off. Stu and his partner decided to leave PC’s at that time, a fateful choice. They got in Stu’s car and began to depart the area.
Stu wasn’t out of first gear when they encountered the guy they’d dealt with, who was driving the same street in the opposite direction. He slowed down, pulling alongside Stu. They were now driver to driver, less than a foot separating them.
In the blink of an eye, the driver pulled a gun, leveled it at Stu’s head, and fired. My brother, who was sober and alert, saw the pistol in time to raise his left arm in a reflexive, defensive maneuver to protect his face. The round entered Stu’s triceps muscle and lodged there. Stu veered off to the side of the road while the shooter made good his escape. The bullet was never removed for safety reasons, and since then it has inched incrementally into his chest, where it remains, thirty-six years later, still too dangerous to extract.
* * *
I got the phone call from a boss at the scene of the shooting.
“Your brother’s been shot—hit in the arm, looks okay—get your ass down here to PC’s ASAP.”
My knees went weak, and my thoughts immediately brought me back to the night Kenny was killed. Both incidents were separated by only a few mo
nths, and I’d been doing the same thing, lifting weights. I just hoped it wouldn’t end the same way. The sergeant who had called me made certain to emphasize that Stu had been hit in the arm, what would seem like a non-life-threatening wound. But after years of seeing gunshot victims, I knew even the most seemingly benign wound could take a fatal turn. Bullets can hit major arteries or there can be internal bleeding, not to mention that a bullet entering the body could bounce around and wind up anywhere. This is particularly prevalent with .22s, often considered an ineffective round, but one that travels at tremendous speed and can wreak havoc in the human body. I once saw a guy shot in the leg with a .22, creating what appeared to be a minor wound, only to have the bullet travel to the victim’s heart and kill him. I had no idea what caliber bullet had been used on Stu. The upper Bronx was Purple Gang territory, and they favored .22s for their assassinations. Too many thoughts were racing through my brain; I had to get to the scene.
I repeated my movements on the night Kenny was shot: I grabbed both .38s and my shotgun and was out the door in less than a minute. The drive to the bar from Yonkers was a little less than the distance to the Four-One, so I was there in less time than it took me to get to Kenny. I was thankful for that: too much time in the car thinking wasn’t productive, and the longer I was driving like a maniac, the more likely I’d wind up in a wreck.
My car, tires smoking, literally screeched to a halt in front of PC’s, sliding within inches of a radio car. There were at least twenty marked and unmarked cars from the NYPD and Transit PD parked at odd angles blocking the street. There was a crowd of cops and civilians outside the club.
Talking to some cops at the scene, I was directed to the bouncer who had been in the argument with the person thought to be the shooter. I identified myself and got right to the point: “You know who shot my brother?” Bar bouncers are usually a wealth of information because they often see the same patrons night after night. While he might not know for sure who the shooter was, he might have an idea or be able to direct me to someone with more information.
The bouncer, a mountain of a guy, wouldn’t make eye contact with me. I was certain whatever came out of his mouth was going to be a lie. He said, “No, man. Never saw the guy before. First time he’s been here.”
I punched the bouncer in the face, and he went down like a dropped anchor, having no time to react or show surprise. Within a nanosecond, bosses of all ranks were attempting to contain me. I was livid and tried to break loose and get back at the bouncer, who was now struggling to get to his feet.
Two sergeants dragged me away. “You gonna calm the fuck down?” one of them asked. A group of cops gathered around us, and the bosses looked nervous. While I wanted information about the shooter, fighting with bosses didn’t seem productive. I regained my composure, but that didn’t stop the several high-ranking supervisors at the scene from getting into a debate about whether I should get arrested for assault. The deliberation became moot because the bouncer didn’t seem inclined to press charges. Guys like him were used to getting into brawls. It’s part of the job description, and having me charged with hitting him would create a shitload of new enemies—for starters, the entire NYPD and Transit PD. The very least that would happen is he’d never work again as a bouncer anywhere in the city.
In the commotion, someone in the crowd—I never found out who, and I didn’t much care—gave up the shooter’s license plate number. The plate came back to a female in Suffolk County, out on Long Island. My gut feeling was that the female who owned the car had lent it to the shooter. However he came to possess it, I needed a name; time was of the essence. The more time that passed, the more distance between me and the shooter. And I wanted him badly.
There were two overlapping investigations in progress, one by the NYPD that was proceeding by the book—seasoned investigators and brass interviewing witnesses while being courteous and professional—and mine, which consisted of volunteer cops from the Transit PD and NYPD. Ours was a scorched-earth inquiry. We were going to do everything we had to do to get answers, and none of those things would be pleasant for anyone withholding crucial information.
A bar patron knew the shooter’s father, Carmine Zizzo, a bookie, but didn’t know the son’s name. It didn’t take us long to identify him through his dad’s criminal history as Joseph Zizzo. Then the Bureau of Criminal Identification (BCI) came back with his rap sheet. He had ties to organized crime, including the Purple Gang.
I went to Jacobi Hospital to check in on Stu. He was up and around but a little groggy from whatever meds they gave him. A doctor assured me that my brother was in good condition and would probably be released the next day. Our mother hadn’t been notified of the shooting, so I called her. It took me a while to calm her down, and then I refocused my attention on catching the scumbag who shot my brother.
The next day, Stu’s partner, Tommy, called the Photo Unit and was able to get numerous copies of Zizzo’s mugshot, which we distributed to every cop in the area. I was in tunnel vision, my only thought being how to find Zizzo and extract revenge. I would not rest until he was located.
I had plenty of help looking for this guy; many off-duty cops from both departments volunteered their time to help me track him down. We tore up the neighborhood for two days with no luck. Zizzo was in hiding and had been savvy enough to keep his mouth shut and not confide whereabouts to anyone. His father was being watched too, but his son was staying out of touch.
I got word from street sources that Zizzo had found out whom he shot and that I was Stu’s brother. He was scared and had every right to be. There wasn’t a street thug in the Bronx who didn’t know what I was capable of.
After two days, Joseph Zizzo’s attorney contacted the NYPD. His client wished to surrender but had conditions: the surrender was to be made at the 43rd Precinct detective squad office to a member of the NYPD who was not Ralph Friedman. Additionally, the NYPD had to guarantee that said Ralph Friedman wasn’t to be within three miles of the agreed-upon surrender location.
Initially, I balked at these demands, in fact any demands. Zizzo had shot a cop—worse yet, my brother—and he had no right to dictate how he was going to turn himself in. I wanted to be the one to book him, and if he didn’t like it, he didn’t have to give himself up because I’d find him anyway. It was just a matter of time. I was exhausted, surviving on adrenaline and rage, but kept going under the belief that there was nowhere for Zizzo to hide.
Then I willed myself to calm down and think rationally. If I didn’t agree to the demands, Zizzo would eventually walk into a police precinct in another borough and surrender. I’d have no way to get to him, anyway. I relented, agreed to the conditions, and Joseph Zizzo gave himself up.
I tried to figure a way to get near him in central booking or a precinct holding cell, but I’d have had an easier time getting into the White House and hitting the president of the United States in the face with a pie. Screw it. I went to see how my brother was doing instead.
Joseph Zizzo got six years for shooting Stu and my undying hate of anything Zizzo. I made it my mission to drop intelligence reports on his dad Carmine’s bookie operation every chance I got. There was some comfort in knowing that every time the Organized Crime Control Bureau shut down the elder Zizzo’s book, he probably cursed his out-of-control son.
* * *
That’s not the end of the family drama, however, and incidents didn’t always wrap up so neatly. I was in the squad room clearing up paperwork when I got a call that a “woman” had been mugged. The woman turned out to be my mother.
My mom had been going into her apartment building when she’d been surprised from behind by a purse snatcher. My mom tried to hold on to her purse, which is never advisable, and was punched and knocked to the ground with a black eye. My mom was fifty years old and in decent shape, but still no match for the robber who got away. Roger officially caught the case; the job dictated I couldn’t be involved because of the familial relationship. But Roger and I bot
h knew we were going to work it together, anyway.
I got to the hospital as my mom was being released. Seeing her banged up made my blood boil. Here I was again, on another heated mission of blind rage.
Eyewitness identification is unreliable at best—and disastrously misleading at worst—because the average person isn’t trained to observe, particularly in a stressful situation. In my mother’s case, she was focused on saving her purse, was hurt, and did not concentrate on her attacker. She gave us a vague description and perused pictures of known purse snatchers, picking out a possible suspect. He turned out to be the wrong guy. We followed a few more leads, but they went nowhere. Everyday cases like these are difficult, if not impossible. This one ceased being “everyday” when it involved my mother, but that didn’t make it any easier. We never cleared it. I realized I couldn’t solve every case I worked, but letting this one go was particularly bothersome. While my mom wasn’t hurt badly, that wasn’t the point; the bad guy had won, and that’s a concept I can’t accept.
Roger Cortes and I had been working together for a few years, and the partnership had worked out well. There came a time, however, when Roger was made an offer he couldn’t refuse.
He had been a second-grade detective for eight years and was looking for that bump to first grade, the pinnacle for detectives in the NYPD. A legendary rank, first graders are the elite. So when he was offered a position in the newly formed Felony Apprehension Unit, it came with the expectation of a grade jump after a short time in the new assignment. Naturally, Roger leapt at the opportunity. It was the best thing that could happen to him. We’d had had a nice run, but now I was without a steady partner.
9
I began working more with the Robbery Investigation Program. I was the only detective among a handful of very good cops, one of the best being Timothy Kennedy, whom I’d known since he provided transportation for two off-duty gun collars I made in the 45th Precinct a few years back. Now, as partners, we would make many hundreds of arrests for drugs and guns together.
Street Warrior Page 20