The Funniest Cop Stories Ever

by Tom Philbin

  “Well,” he says, “I was lookin’ for money in the pay phone, but this lady was standing there with her back to me. I just was gonna move her baby carriage out of the way so I can get to the coin return. She turned around, saw my hand on the carriage, and started screaming, ‘Ahhhhh!’ So I got scared and yelled, ‘Ahhhhhh!’ Then she yelled, ‘Help me! He’s trying to take my baby.’ So I got scared, screamed again, grabbed my cart, and ran.”

  I am laughing at this story because I can see it unfolding as he’s telling it. She pulls up in the patrol car and starts yelling, “That’s him, that’s the guy who tried to take my baby.”

  We explain to her what happened, that the guy is harmless. She admits she’s from the country, and she may have overreacted being this is her first time in the city. The sector car offered to give her a ride back to her hotel, and I walk over to Brokejaw to tell him everything is okay. With that he pulls an old wooden picture frame out of his cart, puts it around his neck, and starts yelling, “I didn’t do it! I was framed!”

  Learning from an Expert

  The thing about being a rookie is that you want everyone to think you have ten years on the job. It’s either an ego thing, or you want the perps to think you are a seasoned veteran so they take you more seriously. Or maybe you just want the public to think you know what you’re doing even when you are clueless.

  Back in the early ‘90s, when I was a rookie, I collared some dude for whatever and took him back to the station house to print him. At the time I sucked at fingerprinting and would end up getting ink all over me, but I had to do it because it was my collar.

  I take the perp out of his cell and start printing him—unsuccessfully. I am doing the fourth or fifth print card when the sergeant yells and asks me when I’m going to be finished. This doesn’t help, but suddenly the perp says, “Geez, at this rate I’ll be here all night. Let me [bleeping] do it myself.”

  Then he proceeds to print himself quickly and efficiently—the best prints I’ve ever seen. He said he does it all the time as a courtesy for rookies. Nice when you can get an expert to help you.

  A REAL GOURMET

  Some guys you arrest are so experienced with how the prisons in New York work that they could write a [bleeping] guidebook. I got a good example of this about ten years ago when I got a call of a “holding one” in Caldor’s, which basically means they’re holding a shoplifter, smalltime petty larceny stuff. When I get to the store, the manager says this perp has been hitting them pretty often, so instead of taking the stuff back and releasing him, they want to press charges.

  I take the guy to the station house, but he is being difficult. He has no ID, and he is not talking. He can’t get a desk appearance ticket without proper ID, so we have to send him through the system, starting with taking his prints. The guy keeps moving his hands and screwing up his prints. So I am getting pretty pissed at this B.S. collar, and I yell, “The longer you keep on delaying me printing you, the longer you’re going to stay down at central booking!”

  He gives me a big toothy smile, shakes his head, and says, “I don’t care. They got real good sandwiches down there!”

  WITH FRIENDS LIKE THIS, WHO NEEDS ENEMIES?

  Go figure this one out. One day me and my partner respond to a burglary in progress. When we arrive at the location a neighbor explains that the homeowners are away. They observed a guy entering through the back door, and he hasn’t come out. We enter the house with guns drawn and clear room to room downstairs. Then go upstairs and check the rooms. In one of them, we find the guy. He is lying under the covers in bed. My partner strips off the blanket while I keep him covered. He is fully clothed, boots and all. “Hey,” I ask, “what’s the deal?”

  “Hey, what you all doin’ in my house?”

  “This ain’t your house.”

  “Well,” he says, “it’s my best friend’s house, I’m watchin’ it for him.”

  We nod and start to cuff him, and then I ask him about the bags near the bed. “And what about all the electronic equipment in the garbage bags?”

  “Oh,” he says, “that’s my boy’s stuff. I’m gonna take it to the repair shop tomorrow.”

  “But tomorrow is Sunday,” I say.

  “Well, my other friend gots a shop. He opens for me only on Sunday!”

  We take him to the precinct and put him in the Graybar Hotel. Once in, he starts pleading his case to two other guests there. They are sympathizing with him, and as I get ready to print him, I hear him say in a high plaintive voice, “They locked me up because I was in my cousin’s house!”

  I can’t help but say, “But you told me that it was your best friend’s house.”

  He looks at me with a mystified look on his face, “Yo, five-0. My cousin is my best friend!”

  I Sign Twice!

  Back in the ‘70s, I was on the job in the 109 near Shea Stadium in Queens, where the New York Jets used to play. Some of the players rented apartments near the stadium and threw wild parties. Every once in a while it would get a little loud and the neighbors would call us. We would get there and see Joe Namath being the life of the party with two girls on each arm. Anyway, we get a call one night to tell them to quiet down a bit, and after we answered the call—Namath was there as usual—stopped at this twenty-four-hour diner we frequented. It was managed by a nice Greek immigrant named Nick who spoke broken English and didn’t know much about America, but he was very eager to learn.

  We start talking about how we just saw Joe Namath. He says in his thick Greek accent, “Who is this Namath? What does he do?”

  “Are you kidding, Nick?” I say. “He is the quarterback for the New York Jets. His signing bonus alone is more than you make in ten years.”

  “What is this signing bonus?”

  “Well, when you sign a contract you get a bonus.”

  “You mean just for signing your name they pay you in this country?”

  “Yes. They paid him over four hundred thousand dollars.”

  “Four hundred thousand dollars just for signing his name?” His face brightened. “Wow,” he says, “I sign twice!”

  OUTDOOR LOONY BIN

  I used to work in the Green Street area back in the ‘80s. Now it is all redone and full of yuppies, but back then it was an outdoor loony bin. Part of the scene was a homeless woman, around seventy, whose name was Dahlia. She was harmless, though personal hygiene was not her strong suit, and she had lots of road on her face. We would see her for a week, then not see her for a few days—and eventually she would show up wearing a hospital bracelet, a sign that she had been a guest at the psycho ward.

  We treated her well. We would give her change once in a while or get one of the bodegas to give her some coffee. One night around Christmas she comes up to me as I am getting into my patrol car.

  “Merry Christmas, Offica. Gimme a dollar so I can eat.”

  “No, I will take you inside and get you a slice of pizza.”

  “Pizza? I don’t eat pizza. I eat rice and beans.”

  So I take out a buck, and she says, “Gimme two dollars, it’s Christmas.”

  “Two dollars! Okay, but you are taking advantage of me.”

  She smirks, takes the two dollars, drops her head, and as she walks away turns back and says, “Okay, now find me a boyfriend.”

  HE’LL SEE ME THEN

  I was in the community policing unit back in the early ‘90s. It’s a unit that basically addresses all the conditions that people complain about—gangs, double-parked cars, drugs, prostitution, whatever. The idea was to schmooze with the public and fix the condition so everyone was happy. We go into the stores, schools, houses of worship, and get to know everyone.

  The only fly in the ointment was this one maniac sergeant who looked and acted like Barney Fife and who nobody could stand him. He was always looking to hang somebody for something stupid. So one time he has this cop, Cory Bayhill, in his crosshairs. Cory was a good cop with about eighteen years in and one of the best schmoozers on the jo
b. We are doing paperwork just before we go out one day, and this sergeant comes into the room to confront and possibly embarrass Cory. “Hey, Bayhill, what are you doing in the station house?”

  Bayhill doesn’t even look up and says, “I’m finishing updating my conditions log.”

  “Well, you always have an excuse for being in here. You should be out on your beat.”

  Bayhill didn’t answer.

  “Just so happens I checked on one of the stores on your beat—the piano store. Guy says he hasn’t seen you in months.”

  Bayhill finally looks up. “Well,” he says, “when I need a piano he’ll see me.”

  Dumbbells

  One night we respond to a burglary in progress. We get to the scene and start looking in windows and listening for any further screaming—which prompted the complaint—to verify it. The light is dim, but my partner sees there is a guy on the floor kneeling near what appears to be someone tied upside down on a weight bench. We head for the back door, kick it down, and run to the room where the guy is. Then we bum rush him and cuff him. I turn on the lights, and it’s a female tied upside down. Her clothes are off, she’s gagged, and she has a look of terror in her eyes. I think, what kind of animal would do this? Then I remove the gag, and the woman yells, “We were role playing, please untie me and let my boyfriend go!”

  WHO DRESSES YOU?

  I was in the Narcotics Enforcement Unit in South Central, and one night during a street-level narcotics operation, we move onto a corner and put like half a dozen people against the wall. I start patting this young kid down, and in his back pants pocket I find a baggie of crack. He immediately says, “It ain’t my crack.”

  I’m cuffing him and say, “Oh yeah, well what’s it doing in your pocket?”

  “It ain’t my pants!”

  EYE SEE

  We get a call about a fight in the street at East 29th and Lemon. We pull up, and a large crowd is watching a shoplifter and another person duke it out. We know it’s a shoplifter because in the middle of summer, he is wearing a shoplifter’s overcoat with numerous hidden pockets. The stolen stuff is spilling out as he fights. His opponent is a little Italian guy. We find out later he’s the manager of a Safeway and he caught this jerk stealing. They battled inside the store, then spilled out onto the avenue.

  Before we can stop the fight, the manager hauls off and hits the thief square in the jaw with a roundhouse right. The shoplifter’s glass eye pops out onto the street. He stops fighting and is panicking, trying to find his glass eye. People are screaming, and you could see right into his head. He finally finds his eye, but could not pop it back in. So he says to the store manager, “I’m coming back with a gun, and I’m going to kill you!”

  So my partner says, “Well, you better keep an eye out for us, too!”

  INVESTING 101

  City cops are usually working without a contract, which is why most have second jobs and are always struggling financially. It is a political game. The city offers a low increase so they can hold onto money for two years while the contract gets dragged into arbitration and finally settled. Then the cops get a retroactive paycheck for the raise, which could be as much as a few grand before taxes. The city offers a 457 deferred compensation plan, which is like a 401k plan. The smart thing to do is to put the retro check into deferred comp to avoid high taxes. So one day we were all talking about it when fellow cop and known gambler John Davit walks in. John would bet on raindrops racing down a window. One cop says, “Yeah, I put all I can into the 457 plan.”

  Another cop says, “Me too, that’s the best way to go. What about you, John?”

  “Well, yeah, I kind of put it in my own 457 plan. I put it down on the four and the five horse in the seventh at Belmont.”

  You Have to Install It Correctly

  Being a detective in a Chicago precinct is like Forrest Gump’s line about a box of chocolates: “You never know what you’re going to get.” One time, a sweet-looking lady in her early sixties walks into the squad room. She looks very concerned, so I greet her with a smile and ask what I can do for her. She says, “I want to make a complaint about my landlord.”

  “What did he do?”

  She looks around like she has a secret and tells me, “Well, he is breaking into my apartment.”

  I am thinking this is legit and can be serious, so I should find out more. “Well. What is he doing, is he stealing things?”

  “No, nothing is missing.”

  “Is he watching you?”

  “No.”

  She leans closer and tells me in a hushed voice, “When I leave my apartment, he comes in and rearranges all my Precious Moments figurines.”

  Now I am trying not to laugh because I can see she is a lonely older lady. I say, “Change the locks.”

  “I did. He comes through the walls.”

  “You mean he broke through a hole in the walls?”

  “No! He can pass through walls.”

  “Oh, well, just put tin foil on your walls.”

  She looks at me like I am crazy. “Tin foil?”

  “Yeah, we get this problem all the time. Tin foil is metal. They can’t pass through metal. So just put it on the wall he is coming through like wallpaper.”

  She kisses my hand and says thank you so much. Two weeks later I get a call from her again, and she says it didn’t work. He is still passing through her walls. I ask, “Did you put the shiny side facing the wall?”

  “No. Does it matter?”

  “Of course it matters. The shiny side is what repels.”

  “Okay, I’ll switch it right now.”

  I guess it kept the landlord out, because I never heard from her again.

  THE LEGAL DEFINITION

  The academy can be a lot of fun, but they do throw a lot of stuff at you, and memorizing all of it can be a little tough at times. Halfway through the training our law instructor, who was impeccable about defining things, got transferred to another detail. She was replaced by another instructor named Littles, who was a giant. He stood about six-foot-seven or six-eight and he played on the police basketball team. He was also a great guy and a seasoned cop, born and raised in the city—he knew the ways of the street. He came to the academy to teach but also to study for the sergeant’s exam.

  On the first day, he walks into the class, and everyone is silent looking at him.

  “Okay, where did you guys leave off?”

  One recruit raises his hand and says, “Robbery.”

  “Robbery, okay, who can give the definition of robbery?”

  One recruit says, “When there is a threat of violence?”

  A little girl from the suburbs looks it up in the legal dictionary, raises her hand, and says, “Robbery is the direct taking of property (including money) from a person (victim) through force, threat, or intimidation. Robbery is a felony (crime punishable by a term in state or federal prison). Armed robbery involves—“

  He stops her right there. “Take out your books and write this down.”

  Everyone goes for their books, and Littles says, “Definition of robbery. Somebody comes over to you, punches you in the face, and takes your [bleep]! Dat’s robbery! Next chapter.”

  SECRET AGENT MAN

  There was this one cop, a friend of mine named Mark Brenner. He just got transferred to our precinct, and when you get transferred you usually get the lousy details until you get to know the guys and the area. One day he gets the 59th Street Bridge post. They give him a car and tell him to just wait at the base of the bridge to be on terrorist alert type stuff. So he is sitting there for about two or three hours and a call comes over, “108 bridge car on the air.”

  “On the air, go ahead.”

  “There is a suspicious male on the bridge. Check and advise.”

  “Ten-four.”

  Mark is about six-seven and a good cop. He has a very quick sense of humor and is always using it. He responds, and he sees a guy at the edge of the bridge getting ready to jump. Mark says, “Hey p
al, what’s going on?”

  The guy is a complete EDP. He’s crazed, and he starts screaming, “Get back, there are so many spies here!”

  “What spies?”

  “Spies! All over! I need to get to the right people in government to warn them. I can’t trust anyone. They are after me and my information.”

  Just then another unit pulls up, and the guy turns his attention to them and continues the same rant. With that, Brenner jumps him. They are wrestling on the bridge, and the guy is screaming: “Leave me alone, I need to warn the government!”

  The guy has EDP strength. (It is amazing how strong these people are when they have all that adrenaline rushing through them.) Brenner is about to lose him, but he whispers in the guy’s ear, “I know you are right. They are all around us.”

  The guy lightens up a bit so Brenner continues, “I’m with the government, Donald Rumsfeld sent me. He needs to talk to you right away.”

  The guy stops resisting and straightens up with amazing calmness and says, “Really?”

  “Yeah, but you can’t tell anyone, or they won’t let me take you to him. You have to go peacefully.”

  The guy looks at the other two officers and says, “Okay, I’ll go, but I am only going with Officer Brenner.” Then he looks at Brenner and salutes before he lets him put the cuffs on.