Latest / NYPD Through The Looking Glass / The NYPD’s Wonder Woman

Transcript

The NYPD’s Wonder Woman · NYPD Through The Looking Glass

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: They said that the a trucker had called the police, that he ran over something.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: He wasn't sure what it was, but other people were saying it was a dog.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, we get we start getting close.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: And when I tell you what we saw was unfathomable.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: So we see like different pieces, and we're like, this is not a dog.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody had shot this guy prior, dumped him out of the car, and here comes the 18-wheeler, and he gets stuck in the drive shaft of this 18-wheeler.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: When I tell you what was left of this, you would never think that a human body would turn that way.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: You just would never.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: And it's weird because I only found out he was shot when I went to the ME down in the city that they found a hole in his head that he had been shot prior to that.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: And the poor trucker was so he was from the Midwest somewhere.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: He was so devastated.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: But when I tell you it was such a horrific scene because the eyeballs were here, an eyeball was there, a rib here, another rib there.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: His intestine, his large intestine stood intact.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: One piece.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Intact.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's as long as I can, I can't even tell you how long the intestine is.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then his skull was in pieces in different places.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: It was that was really, and that was the only thing of all the nasty things I saw in the 46, the only thing that gave me a nightmare at one time.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, because it was just, I couldn't fathom a this becoming that.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: And it was so weird.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: And even in the ME's office, they had to like prop up like a piece inside the skin to make it look kind of visible because there was a wallet on the side of the highway, you know, on the edge somewhere.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: And they picked it up, but I couldn't tell you that was the same person because there's not a face put together.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: So we included it with all the stuff and they propped him up to make us in.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: It was the same guy.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: And the way we picked him up, you know how we picked him up?
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: I had to call ESU Truck 4.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll never forget Tony came with the with his partner and they took shovels.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: And they picked him up with shovels and put him in a body bag.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: And now it was like a puzzle for the MU's office to put together.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: It was one of the worst things I had ever, ever seen.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_04: Today's guest is retired NYPD police officer Neshma Salehman.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_04: Neshma, welcome to the show.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Hi there.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_04: So Neshma, please tell our listeners a little something about yourself.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: A little something about myself.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a retired New York City police officer.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: Mom of three kids, grown kids, um, and a great career in the police department, actually.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: So where did you grow up?
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: In the Bronx.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: On the Grand Concourse.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: Right off of uh 196th Street.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_04: And what years and what years were you active with the New York City Police Department?
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh 1985 uh to 2003.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_04: And and where did you where where did you do your NSU?
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_04: NSU 8.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, so you were so tell us about NSU 8.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um NSU A consisted of four precincts that you were every day sent to a different one, different background of people and so on and so forth.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that lasted six months.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it was actually a great experience because you got to actually see how different people lived from different backgrounds, like I said a few minutes ago.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: So you were very well diverse before you got to your permanent command.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: And what precincts did NSUA cover?
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: Geez, let's see.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: The 4-1, the 4-5, 4-3, and 4-9.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: You still got it.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: I got a little bit.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_04: Now you got hired in 1985.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_04: There weren't really a lot of female cops back then.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: No, there weren't.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: There weren't many.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, and my permanent command that I ended up going to, we did have a couple there, but there wasn't much.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: There really wasn't.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_04: Well, after field training, you went to one of the busiest precincts in the block, the 4-6.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm guessing you didn't have a hook.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: No, absolutely not.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, you want to hear something funny?
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I didn't have a hook, but my dad owned his businesses in the confines of the 4.6, right?
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I was crying when I was told where I was gonna go, right?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I really was.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: I went home and I cried.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I cannot go work in a place where I know everybody there because of my dad's businesses.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: And when I got home, my father said to me, he asked me, he says, so where are you going?
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Why are you so concerned?
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: He goes, I know you're going to the 4.6.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: And my dad was not on the job, but my dad knew a lot of cops from the 4.6.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: So till this day, and my dad is long gone now, past, I don't know if my dad actually spoke with somebody in that freaking place and got me there.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't know.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: But I didn't have a real good hook.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: No, I didn't.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_04: So for so for our listeners, can you explain what the 4-6 precinct was like when you arrived in 1986?
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know what?
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: I could tell you a little bit of before I even came on the job because remember, I was in that neighborhood at my dad's businesses way before that.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: So it was a totally different neighborhood by the time I became a cop.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it is uh the most dangerous one square mile that it covers.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: It was chaotic.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: It was interesting, and more than anything else, it was one of the best places.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the best place to work because you learned very quickly and you had a lot of great cops there.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you became a great cop if you wanted to, right?
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: Because it was just a great place to learn.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: It really, really was.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_04: What I found about the 4-6 is I I worked in there in task force in in the auto crime division, in auto loss and things came at you with the 4-6 very quickly.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, absolutely.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_04: Even if you weren't looking for a collar, it was nothing to be driving down the street and two guys are shooting at each other, or someone throws a brick off or a garbage can at someone.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_04: And what's unusual about the 4-6 is the station house wasn't on a main drag like most NYPD precincts.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_04: It's on a very narrow street in a densely populated area.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: A hundred percent.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: It isn't one of the worst blocks you could possibly put a station house because between police cars and our cars and the people from the neighborhood's cars, it's like nowhere to park there.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's really, really bad.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: It is, but I often wonder if they put it there purposely to keep it out of sight of the mind.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_04: So can you describe what the precinct looked like inside?
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it was very decrepit.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: Not gonna lie.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: Forget about the bathrooms, those were even worse.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it was very dark, kind of dismal, kind of in a way, in there.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um and you know, at that time you still had a lot of old timers, a lot of bosses that were old timers, so it kind of fit the element in there, you know.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it was different, you know, like because of the lack of girls, women on the job, the locker room we us girls had was like the size of a shoebox, opposed to the guys' locker room, which was a lot bigger.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: And as the years went on, they expanded inside.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: They they took not took down, but they changed the floor mat inside of the precinct because more girls came on.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then at that point later on, a lot more cops were being assigned there because it was just so crazy that you needed to have 300 cops in one precinct, which is unheard of back then.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: But that's where we were at.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: So it was it was very dismal, it was, it was dreary, you know.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: But you know what?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: That made it a better place too at the same time.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: It really did.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Can you describe what this precinct cells looked like?
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: Oh God, you don't want to know that.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: It was well, you know, we we since we were one of those old station houses, you did have um the holding pens where, you know, you lodge prisoners there, right?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they were just truly disgusted.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of them at some point or another were shut down individually because of the toilet situation and each one, and it was just really gross.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: Between that and the rats running around, it was just awful.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so if you ever, if those of you that's ever been on a tour of Alcatraz, and you see what the cells look like.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_04: Because so in the Bronx, when Bronx Central booking would fill up, they would start sending the prisoners to different precincts to be lodged until the courthouse kind of emptied out, and then the paddy wagon would come and pick them up and start bringing them back to the courthouse.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_04: And, you know, if if you made a lot of collars in the Bronx, you were used to lodging out to different precincts.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_04: And the 4-6 I always found was like a dungeon.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, those I remember the first time as a young cop.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_04: I'm like, what the fuck is this?
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_04: So so as a female cop, I think the 4.6 was one of those precincts that when they would open the cells up for female prisoners, I think the 4-6 would was one of them.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_04: So what can and obviously as a female cop, you would have been the one to have watched, you probably got stuck with the cells, especially early in your career.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_04: Can you explain for our listeners what it's like when you get cell duty?
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: Oh God, do I really?
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: No, just kidding me.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: It is awful because you get a live uh well, first of all, I I worked at night, so I worked night tourists, so it was you were hoping it was sleepy time for them.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: And it was far from it.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: It was a time for them to scream and cry and holler and carry on.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: I need this, I need that.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of times, because of the lack of the plumbing system in the station house, you would actually have to take them out of the cell and walk them to a bathroom and bring them back.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: And and they were cold and they were hungry, and it was a nightmare.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: It really truly was a nightmare.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes, because of central booking being so backed up, um, you would have to put more than one in a cell.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: So sometimes you had two and three in a little freaking cell.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then so now you're fighting about who's gonna be on the on the piece of board or whatever, and the other one's on the floor.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: It was a nightmare.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: It was a nightmare.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: And the majority of the time was prostitutes and drug addicts.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: So it was the worst time because they were just all fiending at that point because they don't have anything, right?
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it was horrible.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: It really was.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: It was.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_04: I know, like working in the 4.2 and then later in the 5-0, every now and then someone decides to commit suicide, which is bad for business because a death in an NYPD station house, just someone is gonna get fucked.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_04: It's it's just the way it is, whether they whether they're responsible or not.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_04: Did you ever have that where someone attempted a suicide?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, no, I actually never did.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: Never did.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: But I know we had that in the station house, yes.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: But I personally didn't.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_04: When you first got to the 4-6, did you go straight to midnight?
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_04: Because I know you did midnights for many years.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_04: Did you did you go first to the ninth squad chart or you went right to midnight?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I went to the first of the ninth squad chart until there was an opening on late tours, which was um like seven, eight months or something.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: No, actually, I'm lying.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: It was like nine months.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then I went to City Late Tours.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: I was just waiting for an opening.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I really went for those hours because I had young children at the time, and I kind of needed the hours to be home in the daytime for school and meals and you know everything.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: So that's why I went to Late Tours.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_04: You know what's funny?
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_04: So, like in the old days, Bronx Central Booking was 24 hours.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_04: So you'd make an arrest after you lodge your prisoner, you fill out some paperwork and pre-arraignment, then you would go into the complaint room, you drop down your folder, and you would just sit and wait, and a DA would call you in, but you could be back, you could be there for hours or days.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_04: So the way I first knew you or saw you was I used to see you several times a week in Bronx Central Booking with a collar, which was unusual for female cops back then in those days.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, female cops made arrest, but you were always down there and you worked midnight.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_04: So I knew you were an active cop, and then later on we became friends.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_04: What was it like back then to make a collar on the midnights in the 4-6 when Bronx Central Booking went round like a merry-go-round?
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know what's funny.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm not one of those people that um I consider myself one of the guys, right?
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um especially on the job.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: I consider and the guys considered me one of the guys.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I wasn't one of these girls or female on the job.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: I was not.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I never, I never felt that way.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm female.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I know what I am, of course, right?
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: But I never felt that way.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: I always felt like I was one of the guys.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so when people ask me those kind of questions as a woman, yeah, it definitely was different, right?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I there's a lot of things I didn't realize till after I retired in retrospect.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that would be one of them, right?
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, oh, you know, come to think of it, there wasn't that many girls.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then I guess girls did this.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: But to be honest with you, um, the only thing I will say about it, which is a funny thing, um, I can tell you the amount of arrests I have, which are over a thousand in my career, and I never, ever, ever printed a prisoner.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_04: Come on.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_04: Never.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_04: I would believe that you have over a thousand collars.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_04: I do.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_04: You never fingerprinted a prisoner?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_04: Never.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_04: Ever.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: And you know why?
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because my agreement was always with my partners.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: I will do all the paperwork, but you gotta print.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: I just, I never liked that thing that they're so close to you.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: It was just weird of me.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: It was just me.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: But I didn't like the fact that they're so near you and breathing down your neck.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the old way we printed, remember on the cards, they're literally like almost, you know, humping you type of thing, you know?
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I didn't like that feeling.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I always had that agreement that I will do all the paperwork, but you will print.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that was it.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I never printed not one prisoner.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_04: So work in midnights, you must have had your fair share of DOAs.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_04: You got any funny or unusual DOA stories?
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man, I probably do.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: I my memory's so shot, but uh let me see, let me see.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: I probably do.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: There was oh, I do have one.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, yes.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: A floater on the Hudson coming.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: Listen to this.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: My roof capital Yes, yes, but it was funny.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think the 4-4, the little evil bastards that they are, wait his friend to float more more northbound towards the 465.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I remember getting a call that there was a floater.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: There was, it seemed like a floater.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: I get there, and this guy was, I couldn't tell you what he originally must have looked like, but he was so blown up that if you even tapped him, he would have popped on you.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's how badly, you know, this guy was.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I had to sit there, I'll never forget it, not even on an RP, not even with an RP.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: I had to sit, if you drive on the Deegan, it's so funny, and you're on the ramp to go to the Cross Bronx, there's this high pillar.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: At one time, there must have been some bridge there back in the day, way before our time.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: And the pillar still stands there.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: I climbed that pillar and I sat up there and I could see all the cars going towards the Cross Bronx and you know the ramp because I didn't want to be nowhere near that thing because it was so disgustingly blown up.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: That was one, and then I'll tell you one more other one, then I won't tell no more stories.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: Another one was a call in the middle of the night.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: I was with Steve, as a matter of fact, and um there was a foul odor smell in the middle of the night in the winter, okay?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: So you know how the heat pumps up in these buildings in the winter, right?
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: And we get to the front of the building in the street, not even in the building, and you get the foul smell outside.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh god, there's something dead in there for sure.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: And we go to the second or third floor, and as you go up more into the building, the smell is like sticking to you.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: And the doors, they had taken the peephole out, so the hole is there, right?
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: And we look through the hole, and there is a body that's blown up like that, and all the maggots are eating him.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: It was the most disgusting thing in the planet.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I've had quite a few oddly ones, yeah.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: And you can see that through the peephole?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, because it was funny.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think they purposely put him so you could see him through that hole because it was gone, but the stench was telling you, and we finally got in, and when you got it, all the amount of oh no, it was just disgusting, Joe.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: When I tell you maggots all over, all over.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: It was gross.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: So who knows how long he'd been laying there to that point, you know, to be at that state, right?
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: But um, yeah, so those are two two good ones.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_04: You know, before before the job, you know, I don't know when there was a change in the job where they started giving cops like these Tyvek suits and different things.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_04: Because like in our time, you'd walk in a buck.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_04: I remember just slashing through a crime scene, like my feet sticking to the floor with blood.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, and the 4-6 was a violent place to work.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_04: Can you share a few other side stories?
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: Share some of those stories you said?
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: Oh there's so many stories and to try and keep up.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, I think some of them, um uh I think jumpers, which is, you know, a case of its own, are gross.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: But one that will always and has the only thing that ever gave me a nightmare, believe it or not.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: And now I'm getting deep into my own personal thing, but the only thing that ever gave me a nightmare was uh again, I was with Steve on that one, and they um the call said that there was a dead dog on the Cross Bronx that just had been run over by a million cars on the cross-bronx and approaching the Jerome Avenue, and we said, hmm, okay, we go, we get on the highway from Webster and we're leaning that way, and we're going, and they said that the a trucker had called the police that he ran over something, he wasn't sure what it was, but other people were saying it was a dog.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, we get we start getting close, and when I tell you what we saw was unfathomable.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: So we see like different pieces, and we're like, this is not a dog.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody had shot this guy prior, dumped him out of the car, and here comes the 18-wheeler, and he gets stuck in the drive shaft of this 18-wheeler.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: When I tell you what was left of this, you would never think that a human body would turn that way.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: You just would never.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: And it's weird because I only found out he was shot when I went to the ME down in the city that they found a hole in his head that he had been shot prior to that.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: And the poor trucker was so he was from the Midwest somewhere, he was so devastated.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: But when I tell you, it was such a horrific scene because the eyeballs were here, an eyeball was there, a rib here, another rib there, his intestine, his large intestine stood intact, one piece, intact.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's as long as I can, I can't even tell you how long the intestine is.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then his skull was in pieces in different places.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: It was that was really, and that was the only thing of all the nasty things I saw in a 46, the only thing that gave me a nightmare one time.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, because it was just I I couldn't fathom a this becoming that, you know what I mean?
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it was so weird.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: And even in the ME's office, they had to like prop up like a piece inside the skin to make it look kind of visible because there was a wallet on the side of the highway, you know, on the edge somewhere, and they picked it up, but I couldn't tell you that it was the same person because there's not a face put together.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: So we included it with all the stuff, and they propped him up to make a stand.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: It was the same guy.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: And the way we picked him up, you know how we picked him up?
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: I had to call ESU, Truck 4.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll never forget, Tony came with the his partner, and they took shovels.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: And they picked him up with shovels and put him in a body bag.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: And now it was like a puzzle for the ME's office to put together.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: It was one of the worst things I had ever, ever seen.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_04: How long did they have to shut the Cross Bronx down for that?
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: And now, if you remember, we're not allowed, you know, to for you to close one of the major highways, it's got to go like almost to the commissioner.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: It used to be, I don't know today how it is.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we closed it down for two hours and it was a nightmare.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it was literally, you had to go to like the highest ranking buffoon on the job to get permission to do it.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: Really, because you weren't allowed to do that.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's the main thoroughfare.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know that the truckers and and all that stuff.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: And it took us two hours.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: And they it was so awful.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, when I tell you it was bad, it was bad.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it do you know that it broke the drive shaft on the freaking truck?
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: The guy, when he pulled over, he's like couldn't go no more.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, I didn't know what it was.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Don't worry, it was, you know, it wasn't your fault.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: But then it's funny, later on, we find out on the overpass, right where they right before they dumped the body, somebody saw them.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's how we knew he was dumped there.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: They saw a part dumped the body and so on and so forth.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: So he was, you know, killed and dumped there thinking nobody would see.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: And this is way before cameras and you know, all that good stuff, you know.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_04: Was the squad able to solve that?
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know what?
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: I don't remember that.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: I can't tell you.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: I cannot tell you if they did or didn't.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: But we were able to ID him, though, all right through through the wallet, because then we realized it was the same person and stuff.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: But it was it was terrible.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: That was awful, awful.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_04: You got any homicides from Gunshot?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: I have a few, too.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: Go for it.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: Oh God, hang on, hang on.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, oh, on Jerome Avenue, uh, there was a company down there, and again, I don't know if they still exist, it's probably not.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: They used to make black garbage bags, you know, like the industrial bags.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't even know they were there until this homicide happened.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: So um I went I went down Jerome Avenue and I was like harassing the prostitutes, like, you know, get the hell out of here, type of thing, whatever.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: And they said, and they left, whatever, and I left.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: I should say, not them, I left.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: And we go around the block and we hear pop pop, right?
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: And it was like 4 30, 5 30 in the morning.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: It was still dark out, and we were like, what?
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: So we quickly come around, not knowing where it was coming from, assuming it was coming from there.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: The owner of the place was opening up and he got a hit there was a hit on him and they killed him opening the gate.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: And um, they shot him and he was dead.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: Later on, find out I ended up having to go to all the way to Candom, New Jersey, to testify on that homicide.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it was the weirdest thing.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, that must have been a long family business there because the people that owned it were not like you know local people and stuff.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: And there was a hit on him, and it had to do with something with money, owing money and this, that, and the other.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: And it was funny.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: When we came around and had harassing the prostitutes, it was because there was a car down there.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you figured, oh, they're picking her up or whatever.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I tell the guy, I tell the guy, get the hell out of here.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: And he's the shooter.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: We come to find out after the fact he was the freaking shooter.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: He was sitting right there waiting for the guy to come and open.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_04: And he hung around after you told him to leave?
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, because he was he was hired to do a hit.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: And they shot the guy.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: And oh, it was, it was that was a crazy one.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: All the way to I had never been to Camden, New Jersey.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: Believe me, you don't want to go there.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't even know the place existed until I was told that to go there.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so that was another one.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: And there's I mean, quite a few homicides, but that was one kind of that it was ironic that I spoke to the perp before he commits the crime, you know?
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_04: That's he almost sounds like the guy in No Country for Old Men.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_04: Like he's got the head for the hospital.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: Correct, correct, correct.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: Great movie.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: Great movie.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_04: Alright, give me one more homicide.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: One more homicide.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um God.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: Off the top of my head, a good one though.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: Let's see, let's see.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um but gunshot or a stab wound, does it matter?
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: What do you got?
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: Doesn't matter.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um a stab wound, a stab wound.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um tiny a couple, an elderly couple who live together.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: And um, they were both full-blown alcoholics, right?
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: And uh she calls 911 and she says, My husband's dead.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: Just like that.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: The way I'm telling you, she calls 911, like very nonchalant, according to the 911 operator.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: And she says, Oh, this I said, okay, so you figure it's elderly, it's somebody, you know, they died from age, not necessarily.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: So we get there, and we had had incidents with her before over their drunkenness fights and stuff.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: So we get there and she's like, Oh, my husband died.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, but how?
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: What happened?
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: She's like, Oh, he's in the bed.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Oh, let me go see.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm I'm thinking she's right.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: So we go look, look, look, and he's like all tidied up in his PJs in the bed, in the bed, laying there like he just died in his sleep.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: Come to find out, she stabbed him in the heart.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: She freaking changed him, put a band-aid, and killed the freaking guy.
• 24:27
  unknown: Yeah.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: And she freaking killed the guy.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: And we didn't know, we just thought we had a natural cause type of thing, right?
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: So we notify the ME, the squad, Night Watch comes, the whole nine yards.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't even know how, why the what the guys in Night Watch did, and they went like this to his PJ, and they see the band aid.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: And they asked her, What why does he have a bandage?
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I don't know, I don't know.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: And the Night Watch guy is the one who peels the thing and sees a stab wound.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: Imagine she almost got away with it.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, because if the Emmy showed up and didn't and and and didn't like undress him, uh because you know those ME.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: Because they'll just let him go to the morgue.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, they'll they'll get the prescriptions, they'll call the doctor, and every old torso's got a heart condition or something.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_04: And they would have told him the funeral hall might not have even, especially if you go to one of these ghetto funeral homes.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: So there's another good story.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the ugly ones, I just want to add one more.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: Ugly ones are the ones with children because they stay with you, you know, because it's so sad, you know, it really is a sad situation.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that one, and this was not a homicide, but this was a sad thing when the child was um uh a freaking rat literally almost ate a baby alive.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, did kill the baby.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: It was in the bed, and it was so crazy.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: The attraction of the smell of the milk, obviously, is how they they said it was it caused it, and the freaking rat was eating the baby, and the family was so sound asleep and never even realized it until the baby was dead.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: That was horrible.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: And that was on university.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'll never forget that one.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: That is really bad, yes.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: So you see a lot of well, you know, I mean you were in the job too, but you see a lot of, and you know, more so because when you're in poverty neighborhoods, you see a lot more of that kind of stuff, you know, sadly, but yeah, that was bad.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_04: The the 4-6 was known for narcotic sales, a lot of guns.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yes.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_04: And then that brings the home invasion crews.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_04: Correct.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, absolutely.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_04: They're like flies to that sort of thing.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_04: You got any stories about like gun collars or like the 4-6 was one of those places it was nothing to grab two guys coming out of a building with a shopping bag with four keys.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: I um I have a couple of.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: I actually um when my first partner won the job, Richie, he he's of course long retired way because he came on in the 70s.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, two females coming out of a building on one in the Grand Conquerors, right on the opposite side of the 4-6 precinct, yeah, the station house.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: And um it was there was uh a livery cab parked double parked in front of the building in the middle of the night, and I see pillows, like bed pillows on the back windows.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, who the hell?
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: And a cab has bed pillows, right?
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then it had Rhode Island plates on it.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: So all this was just like and we had just left the station house, we're crossing over to the other side, and I said, Richie, stop.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk to this guy.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: See, we and the guy was a white guy, you know, we don't have white folks in the fourth six.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to sound like, you know.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we stopped to talk to him, right?
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: And he goes, I said, What are you doing here from Rhode Island?
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: A cab.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, Oh, I came to bring somebody, blah, blah, blah.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Okay, so what happened?
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: You're bringing them, are you still waiting for them?
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I have a brief conversation with the guy, and he tells me it was two women.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, eh, something here's not right.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: What two women are coming all the way from Rhode Island with a freaking stranger, you know, a cat.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: So as and I and as we're talking to him, here come the two women out the building.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I grabbed them right away.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: We grabbed him, right?
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: And it was so funny.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: One of them is coming out, and she's like, her arms are so close to her body, right?
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, hmm.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: She was carrying a kilo out of that building to take it to Rhode Island.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: And when I have her come to me and I, you know, tell her to get her the kilo falls right out of her.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: The whole brick comes off of her.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, ah, that's what we were doing here.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: I see.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: So that that was a good one.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then I had another one of um uh, and they didn't even have these girls, didn't have a gun, didn't have nothing, John.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: They just came with cash for the kilo, and that was it.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: So um that was one, and the cabbie was so happy that I just said to him, find your way back.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_04: Get out again.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: So he was gone.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: But um, one other one was um, I don't know if you knew um, well, it had so many names, but the one name I remember is the Devil's Nest on uh in Tremont, right off of Webster Avenue on the 4th Sixth side.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: It was a club?
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_04: No, I don't remember that one.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so it had no numerous names, but I remember the Devil's Nest for some reason.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, it was the Devil's Nest.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: It was a club, you know, one of those illegal underground kind of places, and they constantly were having issues there, you know, and stuff like that.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: So one day um I was with my other partner and um Tony, and we're we're also just leaving the station house, and it's the shots fired at the club, right?
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: But that was the norm for us.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: The 4-A always came with us to it because you know it's our border, right?
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: So um we're heading south on the concourse to go to Trimine and go down.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: And before we get even across, I yeah, actually, no, we did.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: We had already turned to go down the concourse, and a car passes us, and somebody puts over the over the radio the description of the car, and we're like, oh wait, we need the U turn, right?
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: And now we end up pulling them over and one in the concourse, and it was three guys in the car, and they were all dressed to the nines, all of them very spiffy dressed, very sharp, all cologne up and everything, right?
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: So we get out and you know, we get them out of the car and stuff, and all of them saying, We don't speak English, so they're speaking Spanish, and me with my couple of languages that I have in my pocket.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I start to speak to them, and they were Colombians, right?
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: So when I talked to him, the guy's like, Oh, you're Colombian, I said, because you know you could tell from the way we speak, we speak different.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Yeah, and I said, Yes.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: And he goes, I said, What's going on?
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, nothing, you know.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, uh-huh.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: All right, we get them all out of the car.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: They uh, you know, we need to ID them with the to be the shooters.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: And in the meantime, while we're still there, we're looking for they had shot up the place with an Uzi and a handgun, right?
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: And it was because they were drunk when they got to the club and they had a bottle, right?
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: And they wanted to come into the club with the bottle and the bouncers wouldn't let them.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: So they got into a TIFF with the bouncers, so they went and got back in the car, came by and did a drive-by at the club.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then um, so anyhow, so all this goes on, and you know, we told Central we had the guys and and you know, all this stuff.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: And that was one of one of those at the time when they used to do those compartments in cars, you remember, and you had to have the right button to press and all this concoction crap.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: So in the back of the minivan, it had in the floor one of those compartments, and I found it like right under the driver's, the driver's like uh the dash, just one random button.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: Went peep and it was and the guns were all there.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: So that was another good one, yeah.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, there's a million of those stories.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_04: Well, that leads me into because and my next question was because the 4-6 covers a section of Jerome Avenue, yes, which was body shops, auto garages, which also subbed for chop shops and pieces that would install the traps, the 446 Cromwell Avenue or or Jerome.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_04: Those places were notorious for building traps inside of cars.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, they were.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, they were.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_04: Did you guys get a lot of GLAs or stolen cars on the night uh on the on the midnights?
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, a lot.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: A lot.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: A dime a dozen, a dime a dozen.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny you mentioned about auto crime and all that stuff.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: There was a Jerome place not too far from where I had the homicide of the bad guy.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that and I don't remember how I ended up in there for that.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: I that I don't remember, but I ended up in one of those garages up a ramp and stuff, and there was quite a few cars.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: There's a garage where you rent, you know, spot and stuff.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I don't know how I ended up in there, what was the reason behind it?
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: And it ended up being like a major chop shop.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: That was a nightmare because you imagine all the cars in there and oh, and waiting for this unit, that unit, and every other swinging unit that has to show up for that kind of stuff.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: That was an experience in and itself, too.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: But Jerome had a lot of those shops, tons of them.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_04: We we were up there all the time.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I'm sure.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_04: I'm sure.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_04: Did didn't the 4-6 precinct have a pocket of Cuban exiles from the Mariel Boatlift?
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, we did.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_04: The Marilitos.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, we did.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: What what did you have any issues with them?
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'll tell you, they it's funny, they came and they all, for some reason, a lot of them, not all, a lot of them lived on Featherbed Lane.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: So you remember Featherbed Lane, right?
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: That was infested with them.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: And granted, they were in other parts, but that was more like it must have been a hop, like you go to Featherbed Lane, that's where we all go, type of thing.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the only I I never had issues with them.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: The only thing is that that's that time is when you really, I personally felt like you saw a lot more of the witchcraft that they do.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because, you know, the Cubans are known for their witchcraft for Brujeria and Santeria, you know, and that's when you really started to see it.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: You went down Featherbed Lane and they were doing all their shenanigans that they do that entails their things, and then you would find the chickens dead here and by this one's car, by this one's door.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was a freaky little weird time that uh yeah, that came about.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, for sure.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I couldn't f I couldn't remember where they were, but when you said Feather Ben Lane, it was like the Ben Lane.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and like I said, they were in other places, but more significantly there.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: And like I said, maybe it was like a thing they were told before they came, you go straight to Featherbed Lane, this is where you go.
• 34:09
  unknown: I don't know.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: But the majority were there, yeah, and it was a big influx we had of them, a ton of that.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_04: So so the 4-6 precinct, the cops had some colorful characters, and they were always playing practical jokes on each other.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yes.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_04: And one of the things I learned was hopping a couple of collars in there.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_04: I remember one time walking out of the station house to get something, and one of the cops standing in the doorway just grabbed me and pulled me back, and a bucket of mop water came off the roof and and fucking doused somebody.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, they were good for that.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: They were good for that.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: But you know what?
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: They also knew who to do that to because that never happened to me because they was fucking held to ooh, sorry, hell to be paid, hell to be paid if a bucket fell on me.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: They and they did it to a lot of people, and they did it to people that weren't even cops sometimes.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah, perps.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_04: Like if someone was outside carrying on about something and and that bucket of water.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_04: So the 4-6 had this guy, this Russian guy, who sounded like Boris Bagnoff from Rocky and Bowman.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_04: Simon, officer, give me a cigarette.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: Cigarette, cigarette, cigarette.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_04: What was his story?
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_04: He was always around the 4-6 station house.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: So Simon was a local.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: He lived there, but he was just kooky.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: And he just became a fix in that station house.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: He just became like he belonged there.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: We had we had him and two women, Miss Muhammad, which was an elderly black woman, and then Miss Um, oh, wait, wait, wait.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: What's her name?
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, Miss Mohammed and Miss, oh damn it.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember her name.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: I know exactly where she lived, but another one, if I remember, I'll say.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: And they were, those two women, not him, because Simon would just come to the station house.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: Those two women became chronic callers way before I got to the 4-6.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it was because they would just call about nothing.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: They were kooky.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they didn't have no harm, no nothing, but they were kooky.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: So they would tell you, oh, there's a bottle of water standing in front of the precinct.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: And and and they would call all the freaking time.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: So Miss Muhammad, she was a very quiet and mild-mannered lady.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but she just constantly was calling.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: The other one that I can't think of her name, and I wish I could.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: I can't now, it's terrible.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: I remember going to her apartment one time, and we all went because, you know, she was a chronic caller.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: She just liked to see the police, and she invited you into her house and stuff.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: So we go in and she's like, Oh, let's put the music, and she's like dancing and jumping up.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: It was hysterical stuff.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember her freaking name, but it was just funny.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: So Simon is one of those people, but he just wasn't a caller.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: He was a visitor, he made the visit into the station house.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_04: Well, one time I had a GLA call there, and he got hit with a mop order.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_04: Oh and he came in all wet and he was crying and complaining.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_04: And one of my I know I worked with a guy later on in my career that was a 4-6 guy, and he told me a story about uh a female cop in the 4-6 gave him a coat, like a winter coat, because he was cold.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_04: And then he got grabbed in Atlantic City trying to pawn the coat.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: He is crazy that Simon.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I wonder whatever happened to him, too.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, absolutely.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_04: Did did Bobby Rivera ever make an appearance in the 4-6?
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_04: No.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_04: Bobby Rivera was the guy with the caterpillar, with the caterpillar hearing aids.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, he was one time there.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: He was there one time, walking around like he was a big wave.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, yes.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: He did one time.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: Don't ask me what I did see him randomly walking in the lobby of the station.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: He sure did, but I only know of one time.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, for our listeners that weren't on the job, there was, and I've talked about him before with other gas.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_04: He was an EDP, an emotionally disturbed guy.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_04: He loved the police.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_04: But he thought he was an NYPD detective.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_04: He might have had a police scanner because he would just, he was like, he would pop up at crime scenes carrying a detective's folder.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_04: He would have like a little pin on him, but he had caterpillar, they look like shrimp, big prawn shrimp, hearing aids on his ear, and he had a speech impediment.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yes, he did.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and and he's unfortunately he's no longer with us.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_04: Friend of mine worked security at a hospital.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_04: He's since passed.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, look at that.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't even know that.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny because it's on Facebook a while back, somebody mentions him and says, Anybody remember him?
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and then everybody's talking, but I don't remember seeing if anybody mentioned that he had passed.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, interesting, interesting.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_04: Now, look, I there was a guy in the 4.6.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know if this is a true story, but someone told me there was an old time in the 4.6 that was a scooter car.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_04: His side hustle would be he would tell the rookies, because there's no place to eat in a 4.6, hey, go on.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: I can tell you who it is.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and he would go around and he would collect money off the rookies.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'll say Nick.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and he would collect money off the rookies and then make tuna subs on his scooter.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_04: His trunk or in the trunk of his car.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_04: And then deliver the sandwich that he was a cock.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: And he's still alive, by the way.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: He's still alive.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: And the guy he came on in the 70s, okay?
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: He came on in the 70s.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: And he used to use our, you know how we had in the station houses the uh shoe shine machines, the electric ones?
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_01: He'd take the polish and put it in his white hair.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: He was always, he's at the age he had, he was jet black hair, and everybody's like, Nick, stack taking the damn shoe dye and put it on your hair.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: But now it's all white.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: I just saw a picture of him.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody just posted.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny you mention him.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_04: All right, here's another character, and I know him a little bit, haven't seen him in years.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_04: Can you tell the story about the 4-6 precincts boxing smoker entry, Crippler Kari?
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: That was hysterical, and that was the good time.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it was a daily news, golden gloves.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: Don't kid yourself.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know that, right?
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_04: I just thought they I just thought they entered him.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, and it was he did.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: And it was funny.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: We we got two buses, two busloads of us, and we went to it.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'll never forget it.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: And he went in there, the crippler, his name was the crippler.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: He went in there boxing like he knew.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: And he didn't know nothing about boxing, but we had a blast.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: We had a blast.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, good kid.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: He was a good kid too, yeah.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, they basically the precinct entered this cop in a in a boxing match.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_04: He had no boxing experience.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_04: He just went in there swinging in a golfing club event.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: That was a good time, too.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: See, you reminded me of things that I don't even think about.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_04: All right.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_04: So I don't know if you remember this.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_04: I remember this like being in your division driving around.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_04: There was a 911 dispatcher that would always get 30 Buchanan plays wrong.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_04: And she would always call it 30 Buckingham Powers.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: Buckingham.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_01: I remember that.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_04: And they would correct her and she would say sorry, and then 30 Buckingham Place.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_04: Shots fine.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: Buchanan place.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know that speaking of just because you bought that, you know that there's a house on that street.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: We can remember it's a little, a little turn.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's an actual landmark.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: The house is a landmark.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like when you come down, because it was remember, Fairland crossed it.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: You remember that, right?
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: Fairland place.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: So when you get when you're on Fairland, you're gonna go on Buckingham Palace.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: The first house on the turn right there, it's an actual landmark.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's a huge, beautiful home.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, interior-wise, I don't know anymore, but it's a beautiful brick house, a really, really nice, like two or three stories.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: Very nice house.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_04: Well, as active as you were, were you and you were in a busy precinct, did you were you ever offered the anti-crime, a position in the anti-crime unit?
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: No, I didn't get offered anti-crime.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: I left Latours because the CO asked me if I wanted to go to conditions, right?
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_01: And originally I didn't want to because two things.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a creature of habit, so my lato is my thing.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: Even though physically I was ready to go because I was taking taking such a drain on me.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I didn't want to leave it because, like I said, originally when I first took it 10 years prior to that was because of my children, you know, being home in the daytime.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I remember when he asked me, and I said, Look, I'll give it a shot.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: If it doesn't work, I gotta go back to Lato's.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: He says, Yep, whatever you need, whatever you want.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Okay, I ended up leaving.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_01: I went to conditions and stuff.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: I did snooze, I did everything else but crime, right?
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it was good.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_01: It was time, you know, it was time for me to go.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_01: But what I did get was so um, what's his name?
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: Safer, I think was Commissioner Safer who came up with this idea.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_01: He had he had uh come up with a pilot program that um like the most busiest precincts, uh every CO in those precincts was to give him like 4.6 got 10 slots because you know it's a big house, whatever.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: But 10 slots of your 10 top cops, you know, top working guys, right?
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: And girls, whatever.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then what they did with that was they were giving you a specialty shield.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, right?
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the specialty shield.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_01: So uh you took the step uh specialty shield, but you wouldn't get no rent, you know, you weren't get promoted out of that because that's a specialty shield, it's not a grade, right?
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: So when the time came, I was one of those people, when the time came, they gave you the option if you wanted the physical gold shield to put on your chest, or you prefer to take the money because, like they said, there was nothing gaining monetary from it, right?
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh continuing monetary, I should say.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I said, you know what?
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_01: I don't need a gold shield.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_01: I know who I am, I know what I've done on this job, you know, I'll take the money.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I took my out of the 10 of us, only two of us took the money, and everybody else took the shield, which is a funny thing.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_01: But uh yes, I never went to crime, never went to crime.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_01: Were you ever asked to do any kind of undercover or plainclothes work?
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_01: So prior to to what happened here?
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_01: Hold on.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_01: What year was that?
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_01: Something happened.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: In the 90s, that they were well, I was gonna do, I was preparing to do, because it was seemed to have been a big thing back then when you know people got married for citizenship, you know, paying people to do it.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: So there was this um disgusting little hotel on 182 in the Grand Concourse, which used to be a residential building at one time, but it became like a nasty hotel.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_01: So that was like their meeting place where somebody there was the person in charge of making these arrangements.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of the guys apparently at that time were Arabs, right?
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I was asked to go do it because they spoke the language so I could speak with them, right?
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_01: And make them feel comfortable, you know, to go through the process.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: But something happened around that time of the year that when we were ready set to go, and you know, I already had met the guy that was conducting the business at the hotel, um, and he was gonna hook me up with a person, right?
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, something happened and we had to something with the courts, I forgot what it was, that they put a stop to that.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: I forgot, and now I can't remember why, but we never were able to follow through with that.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: But I will say my lieutenant from Special Ops wanted me to do the losing proposition, right?
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, Oh, I'm gonna send you the train.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Don't send me to it because I'm not gonna do it.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna waste your time.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, But why?
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_01: I said, No, I said, I cannot do that because if some freaking dirt bag comes and tells me I want X, Y, and Z, you know what I'm gonna do to him, right?
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, Well, you know, I said, No, no, no.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: I said, that was one thing.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I knew so many people in the neighborhood because of my dad's business.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_01: I know a lot of people there.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, the last thing I need is for they to go to my, to go to my father and say, your daughter's now a prostitute on Jerome.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: My father would have blown his gas.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, I can't do that.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: I can't, I listen, I I was involved in a lot of those um when we used to do them with the cow, and I would listen to the conversations they would have with the girls, and I'm like peeing on myself, just listening to what these men would say to them.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, what?
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't keep a straight face.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'd be like, Are you fucking kidding me?
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_01: But so yes, I never did that, but I was asked to do.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_04: So you have a funny story.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_04: We were talking the other day with your email address.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_04: You said you had a funny story about Wonder Woman.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_01: Wonder Woman.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I always have sector Eddie Frank in the four six, right?
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the southern end of um uh how should I say East German.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_01: Between four, yeah, the four foot border, yes, the four foot border from the Grand Concourse to Jerome.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, all the way to Burnside.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_01: So that whole area is Eddie Frank, right?
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's not anymore, obviously, but today back then it was.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_01: So there was uh a big drug dealer on Townsend Avenue, right?
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, and Townsend was hot.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: That place was hot with drugs for years.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they were really bad there, and it was all crack at the time, right?
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_01: So the the big boss down there, David Pacheco, he he's probably dead now because he went to do federal like 25 years, he um he gave me that name.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_01: And it was funny, it was funny though, when I was younger, everybody said, Oh, you look like Linda Carter.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_01: Wonder Woman, because I had, you know, of course, dark hair, whatever, whatever, and the eyes.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I always I used to love Wonder Woman.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_01: And people, when they started saying so, I was like, Oh my god, I'm in heaven.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_01: This is the shit, you know, that kind of thing, like a little kid.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: So that guy, he gave me that name.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_01: And he was like, You look just yeah, yeah, he said, You look disliked.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: So all his workers, because he wasn't the one doing hand-to-hands, he was the big guy in there.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_01: He told all his workers that's Wonder Woman.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_01: And every time they saw me, hey, Wonder Woman, hey, Wonder Woman, and that's how that became the big thing about the whole Wonder Woman thing.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so that's funny.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_01: And my and I use it as, like I said, my email all the time.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I it's it's all over the place, all over the place.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, how long you retired now?
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, next month is 23 years.
• 47:54
  unknown: Wow.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, next month.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_04: Time time flies, doesn't it?
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: It does.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_01: It most definitely does.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_04: And and what do what are you doing these days to keep yourself?
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_01: Travel and different things, nothing of anything.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, at first when I first retired, uh, three years later, my granddaughter was born.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I took care of her until COVID happened because then my daughter was working from home.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_01: So she took care of her, you know.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_01: But uh other than that, nothing else.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I want to thank you so much for spending your time with us today.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_01: No, thank you for having me.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_01: It was fun.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_01: It was fun.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_01: Brings back a lot of good memories.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_04: It really does, and you should write a book.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think people are that interested in my book.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_04: You'd be surprised.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_04: All right.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_04: Just give just give me a second.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_04: So, as always, I'd like to thank everyone for tuning in, especially my listeners in Pine Bush, New York, Battle Creek, Michigan, Clifton, New Jersey, Johannesburg, South Africa, and Henry Winkler, Manitoba.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_04: If you work in law enforcement and had an interesting criminal background, please drop me a note on Twitter, Instagram at VicFerrari50.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_04: If you're watching on YouTube, please hit the like and subscribe buttons.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_04: If you enjoy the content, please check out my Amazon author page.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_04: Just type in my name, Vic Ferrari LikeTar, where you can preview all my NYPD books for free.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_04: Thanks again, everyone, and I'll see you next week.