Jersey Tough

by Wayne Bradshaw

  We shared a love of travel to lush, secluded and sometimes dangerous locales. Her father was an executive at Exxon Oil and an accomplished sailor who took his family to tropical destinations. Jane could do serious travel, and never complained about canceled flights, venomous snakes, rabid monkeys or banditos.

  There exists no shortage of material on movies and TV shows concerning the reasons why divorce is so prevalent in police marriages. The paradigm is usually a cop whose heart has turned to leather because of the horrors he is a part of. He frequently misses spending time with the Mrs. and winds up working to the neglect of wife and family. To be sure, that is probably accurate in some cases. More often it’s the increased attention he gets from women after getting the uniform, badge and gun. I didn’t “run bimbos” like some of my cop buddies. I had friends who literally had two and three wives—one legal and two more very close relationships. Each woman was supposedly unaware of the others.

  In our case, it was just a mutual agreement that we were both still young enough to start new relationships and put sexual and emotional passion back on the table—with new partners. We simply didn’t have the spark any more. Although I haven’t communicated with Jane for many years, I’m certain she’s doing well.

  Working at the club gave me time to continue reading the Bushido and the Hagakure, as well as keep training at my brother’s gym. I wound up staying for almost two years, doing a good deal of training and reading during the period. Still, I had a nagging, uneasy feeling about the job. Somewhere deep down, my gut was telling me that this place was trouble and that I should be thinking of another career change, even if it meant working at McDonald’s.

  I was the lone bouncer one evening when a short and very drunk white guy, about 30 years old and wearing a leather jacket, walked through the door. He didn’t need to be asked for his identification. He needed a cab ride home to sleep it off. He was also very angry, and being told that he couldn’t enter the club because he was too drunk didn’t go over well, either.

  The guy tried to walk around me, but I blocked his path, gave him a push toward the door and told him to leave. I even offered to call him a cab. But he went ballistic and let out a stream of obscenities. I opened the door and shoved him outside.

  “Fuck you,” he said. “I’m coming back with a gun. You are a dead man.”

  It certainly wasn’t the first time that I’d been threatened. The odd thing was that I hadn’t done anything all that bad this time. I didn’t think much about it and went back to watching TV. About 45 minutes later, the lobby door burst open.

  My one foray into bodybuilding in Little Silver, New Jersey, in 1980.

  “Call the cops,” a man frantically screamed. “Someone’s shooting up the club across the street. He must be killing people. Someone call the cops now! Oh my God, oh my God.”

  I dialed the phone, got the Sayreville Police on the line and handed it to the guy, who looked like he was going to pee on himself.

  “It was a short guy with a leather jacket,” he told the police dispatcher. “He pulled up to the door of the club and just went crazy. He emptied the gun. He just kept shooting into the lobby. Then he got back in his car and drove away like nothing happened.”

  I immediately recognized the description and realized it was the guy who had threatened me earlier that evening. I’d narrowly missed getting blown away by the nut because he got confused and went to the similar-looking club on the other side of Route 35. The only outward difference between the clubs was that one sat on the northbound side of the divider and the other on the southbound side. That cat had made good on his threat; he was just too drunk to realize that he was on the wrong side of the highway. The next day, I went to a job recruitment center. I never went back to the club.

  Still without any skills, I worried what the woman in the job center would be able to find for me. After a brief chat, she mentioned that the Department of Defense was looking for security personnel for Fort Monmouth, in Eatontown. I had a chance to get the job because I was an army vet. I worried that a background check might turn up my time in the Pagans; I knew that the FBI was aware I’d been a member.

  Surprisingly, my application went through, and I was soon wearing a navy blue DOD uniform and working alongside mostly World War II veterans. I was ecstatic and realized that I suddenly had a chance to set a radically new course for myself. I vowed to put it all on the line for the good guys. Somehow I’d lived through my time as a Pagan and emerged unscathed, with no felonies on my record. I’d been spared for reasons that I didn’t even know. I was one of the lucky ones, and now I wanted to right the scales of justice, where I felt a real debt was owed.

  I went to work at Fort Monmouth in September 1980 and spent three years there as a DOD guard. I worked night shifts and enjoyed hearing a mix of war stories from the veterans there. Eventually, I was promoted to sergeant. During the day, I took classes in everything from computer science to creative writing at Brookdale Community College. And I continued to work out every evening at my brother’s gym, further honing my martial arts skills.

  I knew that I’d never make any real money as a security guard—there was no opportunity for advancement—so I looked for job opportunities. I wanted more than a 10-year-old car in the driveway and a Naugahyde couch in my living room. Then I heard there were openings for police officers. Ironically, I was perfectly positioned for the job because of my status as a veteran and my experience as a DOD security guard. I took the state civil service exam and—thanks to my veteran status—rose to the top of the list of job applicants. I had my choice of where I wanted to go to work. I could go to the Middletown Police Department or somewhere else in Monmouth County if they didn’t want me. I was number five on the county list.

  To be sure, the Middletown PD had just cause to reject me, given my arrest at the diner while wearing Pagan colors. But the money and benefits were very good in Middletown, and they had the reputation of being the toughest department in the state, ranking just below the New Jersey State Police. Working for a department that seemed fair in dealing with people, kept order and didn’t put up with shit from bad guys appealed to me.

  Moreover, my father was the town administrator in Middletown and a close friend of its police chief, Joe McCarthy. Some people thought the fix was in because of the relationship between my dad and McCarthy. But my father had a strict personal policy about favoritism, and I knew there was no way that he was going to get involved on my behalf. He’d told me that quite clearly. My father hated my involvement with the Pagans; if I suffered a career setback because of it, so be it. I’d have to take it as a life lesson and move on. I respected both his judgment and candor, and realized that Joe McCarthy would have to decide.

  The Middletown police chief was something of a legend. He was street-smart, loved to fight and was that rarest of creatures, a sober Irishman. The guy seemed to thrive on controversy and stress. Maybe he’d even entertain the idea of having a former member of the Sandy Hook Pagans on his force.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  THE MAN IN THE DUSTER

  Chief McCarthy called me in for a sit-down meeting in his office before deciding if he’d hire me or not. The chief was sky-high on adrenaline. Gentleman Gerry Cooney had just knocked out Ken Norton, and McCarthy was thrilled by the prospect of a future Irish heavyweight champion. He seemed to admire two qualities above all others in men: toughness and loyalty. The two of us bonded almost instantly. He liked the fighter in me and sensed that I’d be loyal. His street instincts were sharp, and I knew I’d get a shot at balancing my inner scale of justice.

  McCarthy told me to find an attorney who could get the arrest in the Sandy Hook Diner incident expunged, and he’d hire me. Just remember to stay loyal, he admonished me. I thanked him, got the charges expunged and joined the department a few weeks later. I spent a few days working in headquarters before entering the police academy in Freehold.

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p; One day, McCarthy told me to hang out in the dispatch area, where dispatchers took the emergency calls and assigned patrol cars. A shift lieutenant ran the show. About an hour after I got there, a police officer came in with a prisoner in handcuffs, a big, burly white guy about 40 years old. It was alleged that the guy had repeatedly raped his 12-year-old daughter.

  The arresting officer walked the prisoner in, and I watched as the two disappeared down a long, steep flight of stairs to the basement for processing—which included the customary mug shot and fingerprinting.

  Chief McCarthy was in the dispatch area, talking to the shift lieutenant, when the officer came back upstairs and reported that the prisoner refused to have his fingerprints taken. McCarthy asked what the man was being charged with, and the officer described the rape charge.

  “Bradshaw and I will fingerprint him,” the chief bellowed, motioning for me to follow him downstairs. I recalled the time I’d been fingerprinted with Jake after the diner arrest some six years earlier.

  McCarthy grabbed the prisoner and tried to guide the man’s fingers over the print card. The prisoner wrenched his hand to the side, smudging the card. The chief told the man not to do that again. McCarthy then repeated his move, and the prisoner smudged a second card. Without saying a word, the chief slammed his elbow back into the prisoner’s head. The bad guy crumpled to the ground.

  “See him try to hit me, Bradshaw?”

  “Yes, Chief,” I said.

  The two of us reached down and grabbed the prisoner by his arms and dragged him up the flight of stairs and into the area holding three jail cells. On the count of three, we tossed him into the cell and left him there in a heap.

  “Thanks for the help,” Chief McCarthy said before heading back to his office.

  A few days later, I reported to the Monmouth County Police Academy on Highway 33 East in Freehold for training. The county facility did double duty, functioning as both a police and fire training facility. The head drill instructor there reminded me of Louis Gossett Jr.’s character, Marine Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley, in the 1982 movie An Officer and a Gentleman. He certainly had all the vernacular of the movie down.

  The class was co-ed and included several Vietnam and military vets who weren’t worried in the least about a DI at a police academy; all of us with military training had seen, and learned to deal with, men who were a good deal fiercer than this dude. Week after week of the academy passed by. In many ways, the training was all politically correct and felt good. But I wondered if the training would really be of much help when we were out on the street, trying to catch the bad guys. Like everyone else, I just wanted to complete my training and go to work.

  In mid-December 1983, I graduated from the academy and headed off to work in the Middletown PD. Suddenly I was going to be working alongside the very same men who had arrested me that night at the diner. A handful of them had been involved with the actual arrest and knew what had gone down. Others had simply heard stories, embellished by the officers in much the same way that fishermen exaggerate theirs. The local newspaper had unwittingly complicated things by describing me as a black belt in a piece about some of the new officers joining the force.

  Donning the uniform and reporting to work in the very building I was once jailed in is difficult to describe. I was excited and wanted to give it hell. But clearly some of my workmates were far less enthusiastic about my arrival. Behind my back, there were mutterings from some of the officers that I was “just a Pagan with a badge.”

  In truth, I just wanted to fit in. I was very well aware that I was under a microscope and that anything I did wrong would get plenty of attention. I was also aware that I needed these guys to have my back. You cannot survive on the street alone in this business unless you have a lot of experience, savvy and just a bit of old-fashioned luck. Even then, it’s tough. So I kept to myself and showed deference to the experienced and respect to supervisors.

  I reported for my first tour, which was the midnight shift. My superior officers and squad mates were cordial. Most had lengthy careers under their belts, and my first briefing was without excitement. I was given the keys to a patrol car, assigned a sector to cover and sent off into the chill night air. I didn’t even have time to familiarize myself with the controls for the emergency lights and siren or figure out how to detach the shotgun from its mount before responding to my first radio call—a woman dying from a drug overdose.

  I made it to the call and pretended to know what I was doing, checking for a pulse and finding none. Other officers and an ambulance were also on the way, and it wasn’t more than a couple of minutes before they were on scene. One of the other officers explained to me how I should write up the incident report, which I did. Then I headed off and found a quiet park, where I sat and figured out how the car worked. Most police academies include a whole section on learning how to operate a police car in an emergency situation, including high-speed driving techniques. But that wasn’t the case at the bare-bones Monmouth County Academy.

  Maybe it was fortunate that local residents had no idea what we learned, or didn’t learn, before graduating from the academy. A couple of years later, Middletown and other Monmouth police departments implemented the radical concept of sending new officers out with a training partner to better learn the ropes.

  Several days later, I was in the downstairs locker room at headquarters with some of the other uniformed officers when Jim Wladyco walked over to me. This guy was massive and covered with tattoos. I knew that he had been a hang-around with the Breed but not a member of the club. At one point, he’d supposedly stolen the colors from the vice president of the Sandy Hook Pagans. Another time, he’d put his pistol in Slater’s face, no doubt because Jake was doing something crazy and dangerous. I was curious how this impromptu meeting was going to play out and thought it had the potential to get really ugly because of my history.

  Wladyco reached out, shook my hand and introduced himself. “Welcome to the force,” he said. “I used to ride with the Breed. I made a killing running guns for them. But those days are long over.”

  I shook his hand, we talked a little about the department and that was it—no disparaging remarks about my time as a Pagan, no crude jokes. There was nothing but small talk between us. Still, I wondered if he’d be willing to support me out on the street if I ever ended up in some bad situation. I got the answer to that question some weeks later, when the two of us were out on the pistol range, which was in a large, wooded area adjacent to the police academy. Wladyco was the range supervisor.

  After shooting a course with the rest of the squad, I walked over to the table where Wladyco was seated to give him my score. I bent down and grabbed a pencil to jot my numbers down on his clipboard.

  “Look,” he said.

  I glanced up and saw a cocked and locked .45-caliber pistol in his hands, pointed at my family jewels. Before I could react, he pulled the trigger and the handgun went off. The sound was deafening—but I was still standing, and in one piece. Wladyco started laughing hysterically as the patrolmen around me glanced at each other awkwardly and tried not to react.

  The round was a blank.

  Wladyco wouldn’t have pulled a crazy stunt like that in front of the guys if he had any ulterior motives about taking me out some day; this guy would have my back, if I ever needed it. I took his action in stride and tried to joke with him—though deep inside I was still reeling.

  Over time, I came to know Jim Wladyco as a quiet guy with a great sense of humor—at least most of the time. He tended not to hang out with cops when he was off duty, though I seemed to be an exception to that rule. He also tended to carry exotic weapons (including an AK-47 with a folding stock) while on the job, which was fine with me. I’d been comfortable around guns for years, and having a little extra firepower in the field could never hurt.

  I enjoyed my first week on the job, and it felt like I might be able to fit in with th
e men, most of whom I had little if anything in common with.

  On Christmas Day, roughly two weeks after I left the academy, I responded to a call that could have had a serious impact on my tenure with the department. It was a bitterly cold and windy day. Right after the shift change, at about 3:15 p.m., I was dispatched to a wealthy neighborhood in the southern part of town; there was an intruder—a “dangerous-looking” African-American man who was trying to enter someone’s house. Another officer was riding with me that day.

  Just as we pulled up to the large house, the dispatcher radioed us again, reporting that she’d received a second call from the homeowner, this one more frantic, saying that the man was again trying to get in. The two of us agreed to split up—I took the front door, and the second officer headed around the left side toward the one in back. As I walked toward the home, I turned to see an African-American male, about 40 years old and wearing a long coat, reminiscent of the duster coats once used by ranchers. He walked straight toward me without saying a word.

  I stopped dead in my tracks, identified myself as a police officer and ordered the man to halt. As I did so, I reached down, put my right hand on top of my gun and unclipped the leather strap that held it in the holster.

  He ignored my order and continued walking. At the same time, he reached into his coat and pulled out something that glinted in the waning afternoon sun. I cleared leather, aimed at center of mass, applied light pressure to the trigger—but held fire.

  It wasn’t a gun but a wallet that he’d been reaching for. A metal chain on the side of the wallet is what caught the light.

  The man explained that his car had broken down on the nearby Garden State Parkway and that he’d left it to get help. This was in the days before cell phones. Freezing cold and unable to find anyone to give him a hand, he’d tried to get inside.

  I called to the other responding officer, and we assured the frantic homeowner that there was no problem. I took the man to headquarters, where he was able to warm up and make some phone calls. A tow truck was dispatched to pick up the broken-down car.