Paul Bacon

by Bad Cop: New York's Least Likely Police Officer Tells All

  “Crack, I think. I found a stem in his shirt pocket.”

  Arriving in front of the security office door, I could hear the perp crying on the other side. His long, hysterical sobs made him sound like a six-year-old who’d stubbed his toe, and I pictured him looking rather benign. I asked the guard if I could take a quick look at him anyway.

  “Be careful,” the guard said while pulling a ring of keys off his belt. “Don’t let him see your uniform until you absolutely have to. I told him I was calling EMS, not the cops.”

  “Is he even cuffed?” Clarabel asked him.

  The guard said, “He was, but I had to uncuff him to get him to shut up.”

  Clarabel shook her head at the guard, and said to me, “I think we should get another sector here before we do anything.”

  I was hoping for a more expedient plan. “Everyone’s out on jobs,” I reminded her.

  “Then we’ll wait,” she said.

  Right, I thought for the first time ever. Waiting was good. Waiting was not as stressful as rushing to sign out.

  I raised Central for a nonemergency eighty-five at our location, thinking it might take a half hour for someone to respond. An hour later, Clarabel and I were sitting in plastic chairs outside the security office, still waiting for backup. A regular eighty-five would have immediately brought in cops from neighboring precincts if no one was available from our command, but that was only for real emergencies. As it was, the perp was now snoring on the other side of the door.

  “This is getting stupid,” said Clarabel. “Let’s go in.”

  I walked back out to the sales floor and found the security guard to borrow his key. Returning to the office, I slipped the key inside the lock and quietly turned the knob. I pushed the door open a crack and saw our perp sleeping in a chair in the far corner. Even slumped forward in a seated position, he looked enormous. I closed the door again and told my partner what we were up against.

  “He’s gotta be at least six four, two hundred fifty pounds. That’s almost you and me put together. Maybe we should keep waiting.”

  Clarabel wrinkled her nose, then picked up her radio and called Central for the rundown. The dispatcher said, “No available units at this time. The Two-eight is in backlog.”

  My partner and I looked at each other and sighed, then unsnapped our respective handcuff cases and pulled out our manacles.

  I motioned Clarabel toward the door and said, “Ladies first.”

  “Who you calling a lady?” Clarabel said, and stepped behind me.

  I slowly opened the door again, but as it passed its midpoint, the hinges let out an alarming creak. On the chair, the suspect stirred out of his sleep. He straightened his back and started looking around the room. I kept my face in the doorway while keeping the rest of my body out of his sight. He turned to look at me with empty, bloodshot eyes.

  “What’s your name, buddy?” I said cheerfully.

  “Jer-ry,” he said slowly.

  “You ready to see the doctor, Jerry?” I said. “He’s got some good stuff for you.”

  Jerry’s eyes narrowed, and the corners of his mouth rose into a Cheshire cat grin. “Good stuff?”

  “The best,” I assured him, then turned back to Clarabel and nodded.

  I walked inside holding my cuffs behind my back, but as soon as Jerry saw my uniform, he jumped to his feet and backed himself into a corner. “I’m not getting locked up! No! No! No!” he screamed in a surprisingly high voice for his size. Pulling his hands up to his chest, he began trembling like an old woman who’d just seen a mouse in her kitchen.

  He was bizarre, but he didn’t seem aggressive, so I stepped a little closer and tried to soothe him with lies about where we wanted to take him. I had to say something to coax him out of the corner, because he was hemmed in by a filing cabinet on one side and a large metal desk on the other.

  While I kept Jerry occupied, Clarabel padded around the office furniture to get within cuffing distance. I matched my partner’s steps from across the room, both of us inching nearer to our suspect, until we got too close. Jerry looked at Clarabel, then at me, then back at her again, tensing up like he was going to run her over.

  Clarabel pointed between his eyes and shouted, “You touch me, and I’ll fucking kill you!”

  Jerry looked at me again. I stared back in dread. Apparently I wasn’t as intimidating as my partner, because Jerry plowed right into me. The impact knocked us both to the floor and pushed the door closed. On our way down, Jerry’s elbow smashed my rib cage. I gasped for air with my chest pinned to the floor.

  Then Clarabel announced she was breaking out her pepper spray. I assumed she meant that she was going to use it on Jerry. About three seconds later, I felt her mace searing my lips like liquid fire. Her bad aim turned out to be a big help. The sudden, incredible pain gave me sudden, incredible strength, and I pushed my way out from under the giant and stood back up again.

  Jerry went into hysterics. He begged us to shoot him and started banging his head on the wall. Clarabel tried to get him in cuffs, but I couldn’t help her out. After I got my wind back, I started to lose it again as her pepper spray went to work on my respiratory system.

  Jerry screamed himself out after a few minutes and lay facedown on the floor like he was asleep. His hands at his sides, he was ready to cuff, and Clarabel was just about to get the first one on when the security guard opened the door and said, “What the hell are you guys doing?”

  Jerry sprang to life again when he heard the ex-cop’s voice. He sent Clarabel tumbling backward as he pushed himself up to his feet. “You lied to me!” Jerry shouted, lunging at the guard.

  I foolishly jumped between them to hold the shoplifter back. Tangled up in his massive arms, I got another taste of his elbow, this time across my temple. The jolt made me black out for a few seconds. When I came to, Clarabel’s arms were wrapped around me from behind, pulling me away from Jerry. In the midst of all this, the security guard pulled Clarabel’s radio out of its holster and called for backup.

  “Priority message, Central,” he said to our dispatcher. “Eighty-five forthwith to 300 West 125th Street. Repeat, eighty-five forthwith to Old Navy security office.”

  This was the last thing I heard before I came crashing down on the floor between Clarabel and Jerry. I’d succumbed to another blackout. I woke up on my back to see the open doorway filled with cops. The half dozen men in blue were a welcome sight, but I didn’t recognize any of them, and they all happened to be rushing toward me that very second. I rolled over like a log to get out of their way, then crawled under the desk. Their collective weight on top of Jerry brought the tumult to a speedy end, and I stretched out on the floor in relief.

  I slipped out of the security office while my colleagues dealt with the shoplifter, figuring I’d put in my time for the night. I walked past about fifteen cops mingling outside on the sales floor, and then past a store full of slack-jawed customers. Stepping out of Old Navy, I gazed out at the mayhem on 125th Street. Flashing red-and-white roof lights of a dozen police cars cast the entire area in a dizzying strobe effect. To my right and left, civilians were gathered behind yellow crime-scene tape that was stretched waist-high across the sidewalk. On the other side of the four-lane street, about a hundred more people were watching, some standing on the hoods and roofs of parked cars. An unmarked Chevy Impala streaked past us all, then did a sharp J-turn in front of a city bus, which barely stopped in time. A plainclothes cop burst out of the Impala with a flashlight in his hand and started using it to direct traffic away from the block.

  Mesmerized, I walked right off the curb without looking where I was going. An incoming patrol car nearly mowed me down. I leapt back out of the street and into the arms of a cop from the Two-six.

  “Watch yerself, bro,” said the cop, plopping me back down on my feet, then walking into Old Navy with his partner, both laughing.

  I stepped away from the curb and leaned against the nearest wall. I’d just started to relax
when my long-forgotten friend Bill Peters ducked under the yellow tape. “Look who’s a lazy hairbag now!” he said.

  Seeing Bill again brought out my sarcastic streak. “How’d you get here so quick from the Impact Zone?” I asked him. “That’s quite a hike on foot.”

  Bill puffed up and said, “I’ve been in a sector for two years, bucko.”

  “And I bet you wish you were back doing verticals,” I said.

  Bill said, “I hate to say this. But for once, you and I agree.”

  “The hate is mutual,” I said.

  “I heard you’re working with your little loony-belle at last. I’m surprised to find you in one piece.”

  “She just saved my life,” I told him, exaggerating a bit.

  “Somebody has to. I don’t see anyone else from your precinct,” he said, referring to the fleet of police cars surrounding us, all marked for outside commands.

  Clarabel walked out of Old Navy, looking duly stunned by the scene before her.

  Bill saw my partner and said, “Hey, the whole Two-eight is here now. Tell me, which one of you is Two, and which is Eight?”

  Clarabel ignored Bill and walked toward me with the saddest eyes I’d ever seen on her. She stopped in front of me looking restless. She put her arms out, then quickly pulled them back. She grabbed my hand instead, and I felt tears pouring down my cheeks.

  She touched my face and wiped away a few of the tears. “It’s over,” she said.

  Gently, I pushed her hand away and said, “I know. I’m fine. It’s just the pepper spray.”

  Clarabel started to giggle. “I’m so sorry about that,” she said, covering her mouth, then doubling over with laughter.

  “It’s okay. I think it helped me get up. I’m glad you missed the perp. God knows what it would’ve done to him,” I said. I laughed until my trachea burned, and I started to cough. I couldn’t stop coughing, and I wound up doubled over next to my partner—a strange sight, I’m sure.

  “Man,” said Bill, “This place is fucked-up.”

  After he drifted off, Clarabel and I stood up straight and tried to collect ourselves. “So,” I said, trying not to laugh again. “You want this collar?”

  “I’ll take it,” she said. “You go home.”

  I walked four blocks to the Two-eight station house and headed straight for the sign-out sheet. It was almost the end of our tour, but the roster was not in its usual place across from the sergeant’s desk. This usually meant the boss was holding on to it, because she needed to talk to someone in our squad before the end of the night. Either they were in trouble for something, or they’d gotten stuck with a last-minute tour change for the following day.

  I prayed it wasn’t me as I approached Sergeant Ramirez, who was sitting behind the desk and talking on the phone. When she looked up, I quietly pointed to the sign-out sheet with a minimum of body language, hoping to go unnoticed.

  The sergeant’s eyes bugged out at the sight of my face. She told her caller good-bye and hung up the phone. “What happened?” she said. “You look like you just came from a funeral.”

  I said, “You hear that big eighty-five go over?”

  “Was that you?” she said.

  “Basically,” I said. I made another dainty gesture toward the roster sheet on her desk. “Can I just get that for just a quick second?”

  “Oh, right,” the sergeant said uncomfortably. “I’ve got something for you.”

  I watched her open her middle drawer and pull out a slip of paper that I recognized all too well. “Sorry,” she said, handing it to me.

  The print seemed smaller than usual, or maybe the pepper spray was still working on my eyes a little. I held the paper closer and the type got blurrier, so I extended my arm and made out the following remarks:

  Member: PO BACON, P.

  Notification: COUNTERTERRORISM SECURITY DETAIL

  Location: ONE POLICE PLAZA

  Report : 4/7/05 (0000—0835 Hours)

  Something about the time and date didn’t compute. I looked at my watch, then back at the slip. “That’s thirty-three minutes from now.” “I know,” said Sergeant Ramirez. “You better get going.”

  “I can’t believe this,” I said.

  “It’s not as serious as it sounds,” she said. “You just sit in a booth all night. Most of them are heated.”

  CHAPTER 30

  I TOOK A TWO-EIGHT PATROL CAR and reached One Police Plaza just before midnight. I would have signed in on time, except it took me about twenty minutes to find somewhere to park. Even though the streets were deserted, NYPD headquarters was a maze of restricted roadways, buffer zones, checkpoints, and barricades. Heightened security mea sures since 9/11 had turned the already beefy compound into a small military base that looked and felt nothing like the city surrounding it.

  I checked in with the 1PP desk sergeant and received my post, a remote security booth on the farthest edge of the facility. I walked fifteen minutes to the booth, which sat next to a driveway leading into an underground parking garage at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. Brightly lit with no signage, it looked like a back entrance for VIPs.

  My partner for the night, a young midnight cop named Lawrence, was sympathetic about my getting stuck with a last-minute double shift. “All we do is check IDs,” he told me, “so we can switch up our meals if you want to sleep first.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I’m parked in another precinct, I think. I doubt I’ll be sleeping tonight.”

  “You can use my car,” Lawrence said. He pointed at his patrol car, which was sitting beneath a streetlight about ten feet away.

  “Thanks, but I don’t even know where I’d hide in this part of town.”

  “You don’t have to hide it. Just sleep in it right there.”

  “Right there,” I said. “Under the light, facing the checkpoint.”

  “Sure,” he said. “I do it all the time.”

  Sleeping on the clock, even during meal, was a cardinal sin in our profession. Cooping, as it was known, was punishable by one of the worst possible penalties: the revoking of vacation days.

  I declined Lawrence’s offer, and a couple hours later he showed me something I’ll never forget. He got behind the wheel of his car and closed the door, then pulled the bill of his patrolman’s cap just below his eyes and stopped moving for an hour. Sitting ramrod straight beneath a bright light, he looked like a mannequin in a police museum. It was the gutsiest hairbag move I’d ever seen.

  When Lawrence came back into the booth at three o’clock, I asked him, “Don’t you worry about someone coming up to you?”

  “There’s no bosses this time of night,” he said.

  “What about someone with a gun, or a suicide bomber?”

  “A suicide bomber’s gonna get me anyway, but nobody’s shootin’ through my windows. Them shits is bulletproof.”

  “I thought we didn’t have bulletproof windows. They’re too heavy or too expensive or something.”

  “This is One-P-P. You don’t believe me? Take a shot.”

  “I am tired.”

  “Get some sleep then.”

  “But there must be somewhere better than right here,” I said, looking out the windows of the booth.

  Beyond the glare of our security checkpoint, I saw only darkness, so I stepped outside and took a short walk. Slowly my night vision returned, and I spotted a small department parking lot only about fifty yards away. Tucked around a curve in the bridge off-ramp, a single row of patrol cars was lined up down a gentle slope, between a high stone wall and a chain-link fence. It was unlit, with only one way in and out, and there were a couple spots open near the end. It was perfect. I went back and asked Lawrence if I could park his vehicle in the lot, and he said, “Yeah, if you wanna go all the way down there.”

  “All the way?” I said. “I could push your car that far.”

  I parked his vehicle in one of the open spots and turned off the engine. Just past the windshield on the other side of the fence, I saw
a sprawling multistreet intersection with no traffic. I was totally exhausted and nestled in a cooper’s paradise, so I should have been snoring within seconds, but the front seat didn’t recline because of the partition behind it. I didn’t think I could sleep sitting up—I’d never been able to sleep on airplanes—but there was the whole backseat, deliciously horizontal and inviting as a feather bed. Knowing I’d want to lie on my side, I unholstered my gun and radio and laid them both on the passenger seat. I slipped out of the front door and into the back, then assumed the fetal position. I set my watch alarm for four A.M. and fell deeply asleep.

  My alarm roused me after what seemed like a few seconds, and I sat up again feeling more tired than I had an hour before. I tried to look out the windshield, but the scratched-up Plexiglas partition between the front and back compartments obscured the view. Still, I could see that little had changed; the city that supposedly never sleeps was still in a coma. I had to be on post, though, so I reached for the door handle. Pulling it once, I got no response. I pulled again harder, putting my shoulder into the door. Still nothing.

  No, I thought, I did not just . . .

  I slid across the seat and tried the other handle. Also locked. Back to the first side. Still locked, of course. I hung my head. I’d forgotten to turn off the inside back-door locks while I was in the front seat.

  No problem, no problem, I told myself. I could see the security booth out my back window, and I could use my flashlight to get Lawrence’s attention. I tried a discreet swirl, with no response. Then some bigger loops; still nothing. Finally I shined it directly at his head. No reaction. He was sitting perfectly still inside the booth, hat pulled down neatly over his eyes.

  “Fuck!” I shouted. My radio was on the other side of the partition, and even if I hadn’t left my gun up there, too, it wouldn’t have helped me; the windows were bulletproof.

  Sliding across the backseat in a rising panic, I scanned the empty Financial District for anyone to do the simple favor of lifting my outside door handle. That was all I needed, but no one was around. I collapsed onto the backseat. Kicking open a door seemed like my last good option, though I wondered what chance I had against a cage I’d once seen contain an ex-heavyweight boxer high on angel dust. With no choice but to try, I laid on my side again and pounded away at the door with all my might. The door pounded back just as hard.