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The Twenty-Two-Round Gun Battle!!! · NYPD Through The Looking Glass

0:00
SPEAKER_00: And I exit the vehicle.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: Probably within one and a half to not even two seconds of exiting the driver's side, he's reaching into his waistband.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: He's taking a loaded 40 caliber Glock from his waistband.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: I'm taking my firearm out and I'm processing everything.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: And he yelled something at us, whatever he yelled, but I screamed, don't do it.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: He points the gun right at us and he lets one round, one round discharge before I could return fire and put the 13 over the radio.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: And there were two parked cars where it'd be worse.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: So the girl I was with, she had split to the right.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: I had split to the left.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: And the entire time I was firing, she had fired twice.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: I was firing with with, I'm a lefty, I was firing with my left hand.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: I'm transmitting on the radio.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: And to this day, I don't know why I didn't holster my radio and use two hands, but only God knows.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: So I had fired 13 times.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: He's down, okay?
0:51
SPEAKER_00: He goes for a second firearm, which he didn't have.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: He simulated, yeah.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: He simulated a second firearm.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: So I key my radio.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, show me your effing hands.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how I thought of that.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: That he didn't.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: So I let two more rounds go.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: One missed.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: I could see the dirt get kicked up.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: And I quickly adjusted, and the other one hit him in his chest.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: He was still conscious and he was still breathing at the time.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: So mind you, the three radio calls that we had, everyone's coming.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: Now 13.
1:18
SPEAKER_01: Today's guest is retired NYPD police officer Steven Pedulo.
1:21
SPEAKER_01: Steve, welcome to the show.
1:22
SPEAKER_01: Hey, Vic.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for having me.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: Pleasure's mine, Steve.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: Steve, please tell our listener something about yourself.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: So my name is Stephen Pedulo.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm a retired New York City police officer.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: I am a married father.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: I have two little girls, ages seven and five and a half.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: I proudly served the New York City Police Department from July of 2004 to July of 2019.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: I reside in Nassau County, Long Island.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: And anything else, just please feel free to ask.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: What made you become a member of the NYPD?
1:53
SPEAKER_00: Well, growing up, I'm going to date myself right here, Vic.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever seen the show TJ Hooker?
1:57
SPEAKER_00: I remember watching that show with my grandma way, yeah, way back in the day.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: So ever since I was a little boy, I always had this inclination, you know, this sixth sense, um, that I wanted to become a cop.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: And I always had this inside of me.
2:10
SPEAKER_00: I always wanted to protect those who couldn't protect themselves.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: So that's one of the reasons why I always wanted to be a police officer while growing up.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: I uh and I took and I and I took the test like every like everybody else.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: And you know, the process you go through, you first take the written exam, and then you go and you be medical, you mini-medical, and all and then psychological and all that good stuff.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: 235 uh East 20th Street, for those who don't know, it was the uh old old police academy.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: Did something happen during the process of getting hired?
2:39
SPEAKER_00: Well, I re well I distinctly remember sitting at my medical, okay.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: Remember how you gotta be like, you gotta be on time, you gotta be super, you know.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: I always say if if the meeting's at 7, 7's late.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: 645, you're on time.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: So I remember sitting in a packed room uh at the medical exam, you know, we're we're in our suits, whatever, like what you have, and this guy walks in about maybe five, 10 minutes, you know, late.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: And the one of the instructors or one of the uh officers there's like, oh, you're early.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: He's like, Really?
3:06
SPEAKER_00: It's okay, you're early for next year.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: Goodbye, and just launch this kid out.
3:10
SPEAKER_00: And the whole room, you could hear a pin drop.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, ladies and gentlemen, this is why you need to be on time for these appointments.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: And that kid apparently wasn't that serious being hired by the NYPD because me the night before, I'm in bed at like eight, nine o'clock at night.
3:25
SPEAKER_00: You gotta get the park.
3:27
SPEAKER_00: When you're young, you don't know.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: You gotta you gotta find parking, you gotta do this, you gotta do that.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, I had all my stuff ready to go, but some people don't take uh the hiring process seriously, as you could see.
3:37
SPEAKER_00: And it's very unfortunate because the guy, I'm sure he missed uh on a very good opportunity.
3:41
SPEAKER_01: Definitely, yeah.
3:42
SPEAKER_01: I I I I didn't see something that harsh, but yeah, I saw a couple of guys that, like you said, were unprepared for something and got smacked around pretty good.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: I mean, especially like, you know, when the first day of the academy, we went to uh Queen's College, we're standing in your suits, it's like 90-something degrees out, and guys are guys are late, and the instructors I remember screaming at these guys to fall in, to get in line, just immensely embarrassing themselves.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: You know, listen, I always grew up to the dinner was at six, my we were there at 5:30.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's just the mentality that I had.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: I always carry it, and I carry that with me on to my police career.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: What was your first command out of the academy?
4:20
SPEAKER_00: So out of the academy, I was assigned to the 7.5 Precinct.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I don't know if you ever saw that documentary with the uh corrupt cop Mike Dowd.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so we just missed each other.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: I was in the 7.5, and back then, uh, it wasn't NSU, we called it, it was Impact.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: So, and I'm happy I went to the 7.5 because for those who don't know, this probably one of the busiest commands in all of you know Brooklyn North or in the NYPD.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: And back then, we didn't have cell phones.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: You had phones, but it wasn't like the phone today.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: So we had two or three days of orientation at the precinct.
4:51
SPEAKER_00: And so here you go, kid, you're post-19.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, what's that?
4:53
SPEAKER_00: Oh, here's your map.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: Good luck.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: And he set this out on our way.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: So we learned that we learned real quick.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: We learned off each other.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: Hey, Mike, what do you have?
5:00
SPEAKER_00: I got this, I got that, I got that.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: You know, we didn't we didn't bother the bosses.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: We didn't call the bosses back then.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: We we taught, we learned from each all the other new guys and girls that were out there in the field with us.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: So it was a great learning experience because you know, I always say if you could do uh a few years in the 7-5 or any or any amount of time, you could work anywhere in the police department.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: As a young cop, you must have seen quite a bit in the 7-5.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was it was it was a little a bit of an eye-opener.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't really too naive growing up.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: Um I I did live in, you know, still do reside in Long Island, but I wasn't exposed to those type of elements.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: One I remember, I particularly remember one job that, you know, one of the senior guys had that we backed them up on.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: And believe it or not, is that it was a domestic, it was domestic call.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: I forgot what housing project it was in, but the kid was fighting with his mom because his mom would not perform oral sex on the child.
5:47
SPEAKER_00: And the child said, My mother gives me oral, well, gives me X, Y, and Z before I go to school every day.
5:53
SPEAKER_00: Dude, that's the type of mentality that's disgusting.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: This is your this is a type, I'm like, oh my, what are we doing?
5:58
SPEAKER_00: Like, this is this is this is the real world.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, it was that was one of my first jobs that opened up my eye.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't believe what I was hearing by coming out of this kid's mouth.
6:07
SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, and the rookie cops always get the shitty calls.
6:10
SPEAKER_01: You're sitting on DOAs constantly.
6:13
SPEAKER_01: Do you do you remember your first DOA in the 7-5?
6:16
SPEAKER_00: I don't remember exactly where it was, but I do remember that smell as a new officer.
6:22
SPEAKER_00: If anyone doesn't know, picture your worst smell you can think about, okay?
6:25
SPEAKER_00: And multiply that probably about 10 or 20 times, especially during the summer months.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: It's just like that smell just emulates, it just comes up and it's on your uniform, and you can't get you can't get it off your clothes.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: But I do remember several of them that I I wish I could erase from my mind because that is, I can't even begin to explain, as you know, how disgusting something like that is.
6:49
SPEAKER_01: Well, also as a rookie cop, you also get to sit on EDPs and hospitalize prisoners.
6:54
SPEAKER_01: You've got an interesting story about sitting on an EDP in a hospital.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: So in when I would back then, we would sign up for overtime.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: Now we were working one night, we're brand new in the car, and um, the detective squad was calling for assistance, and we had gone to you know assist these guys.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: We didn't know what what they had, but it wanted to be an emotionally disturbed person.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: The guy was really pumped up on whatever you know he had.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: He had a car stop, emergency service had to come and had a taco wrap this guy.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: And in the ambulance, I remember he'd be still now, mind you, he's rear handcuffed, he's taco wrapped, and he's still, you know, giving all of his might to get out of it.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: They actually gave him a shot in his rear end of whatever they gave to him to calm him down.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: We went to the hospital, mind you, he had it shot of whatever narcotic they gave him, rear handcuffed, taco wrapped.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh, I have to use the bathroom.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: He's in a cell now.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: The cell isn't locked, but he's in a cell.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: He's out cold.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: And as I exit the bathroom, I could see this guy wobbling down the hallway, okay?
7:53
SPEAKER_00: Not rear handcuffed.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: Somehow he wiggled his way out of it, and I literally saw my career flash before my eyes.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: And I was able to grab him, put him back in the cell, at which point he officially had fallen asleep.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: But that was uh that was pretty scary to see as I was exiting the bathroom.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: What was your best collar in NSU?
8:12
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember?
8:13
SPEAKER_00: Uh it was nothing, nothing back then.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: We didn't really, we had like suspended licenses, we had petty larcenies, theft of service.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: If there was anything serious, either a senior guy took the arrest or the squad would take it from us because it wasn't like um, you know, the sergeant back then wasn't giving us the chance to like make like a robbery or like a burglary arrest or anything like that.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: They'd always pass those type arrests off to more senior guys.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: And you know, now being retired, I can understand why you have a serious arrest and you don't want this kid screwing up the paperwork or what have you.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: So back then they would reassign the arrests all the time.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: So after the 7-5, you went to the 9-4 precinct?
8:50
SPEAKER_00: Went to the 9-4 precinct.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: I was there for about maybe, I don't know, four or five months.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: They had a post op for conditions unit, uh, which people don't know watching the conditions.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: It's like a summons enforcement type of unit.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: And I remember the special ops lieutenant had approached me.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: He's like, Oh, there's an opening.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: It's it's uh RDOs are Sunday, Monday, and the hours were uh six to two in the morning.
9:13
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh, LT, I appreciate the offer.
9:15
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm not really interested in that.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: He's like, all right, we'll think about it.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: And a week later, he's like, Yeah, Teg, you're right.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: You're you're volunt, as they say.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I was forced, forced into this unit that I did not want to be in.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: And at the time, we had a CEO that was very, very vindictive that if I said to him, Listen, Cap, I appreciate the opportunity, he would purposely like put me on midnights or whatever tour you didn't want.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: If I if I disrespected him, okay, he would take it very personally.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: And so I had to suck it up for about a year and a half.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: And that was that was god awful.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: It was just I had no personal life, Sunday, Mondays off, which I thought were horrible.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: Well, Sunday for football, but Mondays, whatever, and there's no one around.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: But I feel like my mid to late 20s was robbed for me, if you will, because when I had these guys that I work in corporate that I'm friends with or working these other jobs, hey, we're going out tonight, we're doing this, we're doing that, we got the girls, we got this.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: No, guys, I'm I'm I'm heading into work on a Friday night, which was god-awful.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: It was very, uh, very tough time for me.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: So, how was the 9-4 different from the 7-5?
10:11
SPEAKER_00: Oh my god.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: The nine, it's like comparing Apples to Art.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: Well, now, today, the 9-4 is a lot busier because they have built tremendous a lot of residential areas.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: But back then, I mean, guys on a midnight would maybe answer one or two calls.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: If that, in the 7-5, you're answering 20 to 25 runs per per sector.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: And uh the 9-4 back in 05 was a very quiet place.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: It was a nice command.
10:32
SPEAKER_00: It was like almost like a country club, if you will.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: But now today it's getting a lot busier.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: Was the 9-4 precinct that had like a large Polish population?
10:40
SPEAKER_00: It's funny you say that.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: It was very it was very Polish populated um in certain areas.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: And I remember Rosetta Stone, I bought Rosetta Stone to try and teach myself Polish.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: And after like maybe 30 or 40 minutes, I'm like, oh, hell with this shit.
10:56
SPEAKER_00: And I I couldn't, I couldn't do it.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't, uh, it was a very difficult language to teach myself, but I I I at least I tried, but I couldn't complete the uh complete the course.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: It was too difficult for me to teach myself.
11:06
SPEAKER_01: Do you remember handling your first homicide in the 9-4?
11:09
SPEAKER_00: Never had a homicide collar in the 9-4, but um we did have my old partner, Freddie and I, we did have in front of us a Chinese food delivery driver crushed.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: Um there was a guy, uh, he had a purchase stop sign, a livery cab.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: Chinese food delivery guys behind the livery cab.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: Behind the Chinese delivery guy is a man who had just left his own bachelor party who blacked out at the wheel.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: So now he put his vehicle's in motion, he blacks it at the wheel.
11:39
SPEAKER_00: He pushes his front of the car into the delivery cab.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: But what I say, the motorbike was between both those cars.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: So that car, that person was literally crushed right in front of us.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: And I get out of the car and I'm kind of pissed off.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh, I want to eat my dinner, what's going on?
11:55
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't initially see the delivery guy, and I'm like, holy shit.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: I hop on the radio, Central, I got a I got a pickup of a you know car accident.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: And when guys are on the radio and they're kind of panicky, the guys are listening, Steve, what do you got?
12:08
SPEAKER_00: What do you got?
12:08
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, listen, I need a car here, I need a car there.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: And that's the type of job I will forever remember because I'm now at uh I'm at Bellevue Hospital and I had to take his wallet and start battery and stuff, go through inventory purposes, and I'll never forget he pulled out, uh I pulled out a picture of him and his wife and his little girl at the beach somewhere.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, maybe his daughter was two years old at the time, but something like that, that memory will forever stick with me because that is that's gut-wrenching.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: It's it's horrible what had occurred.
12:37
SPEAKER_01: You also had a motorcycle accident with a drunk driver that went sideways.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: Um, I forgot the exact job, but there were three bikes involved in total.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: And the guys were going to um a different call.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: So they turned their lights on, and this motorcycle thought he was getting pulled he was getting pulled over, runs from the cops.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: Another driver who's not involved with this is making a left-hand, a right-hand turn, and the motorcycle had gone into the into the car and pretty much exploded into like a hundred different pieces.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: And when I got to the job, I thought the guy was 40-something years old, he was 21 because all the soot that was on his face from the accident, the road rash.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: I'll never forget the side of the ambulance was opened, and they're doing CPR on this gentleman, and the blood is just spitting up out of his mouth.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: And I couldn't, I'll and this is back in 2008.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: I still remember that to this day very distinctively, and it's such a it's such an unfortunate accident.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: But if this guy had just pulled over, he wasn't even getting pulled over, which is the best part.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: He thought he was, so he ran.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: And the guy who made that right happens to be intoxicated.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: So like I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: And what's funny is that maybe three or four weeks after the accident, I had ran into his brother at a nightclub in Long Island and were looking at each other.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: I knew who he was.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to, I didn't want to say anything.
13:54
SPEAKER_00: I and he was looking at me like, where do I know you from?
13:56
SPEAKER_00: But I just kept it alone.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: I didn't say, I didn't go up to him, I didn't approach him.
13:59
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, that was pretty wild.
14:01
SPEAKER_01: Steve, during your career, you handled more than your fair share of suicide calls, including a woman who poisoned herself.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: Ah, yes.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: It was on the north side, which is all like shops and like apartment buildings.
14:11
SPEAKER_00: We had a we had an Ada call, and but we think nothing we think nothing of it.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: And uh we get there, I'm like, why?
14:18
SPEAKER_00: What's what's going on?
14:19
SPEAKER_00: So a woman, what she had did was she had taken those brigettes for the barbecue and she had put it into a Home Depot bucket, and she had lit those brigettes on fire inside her of her of her bathroom with her cat, and she had taped like all the vents up and everything.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: So all that like that sodium which that was coming out of the briguettes, okay.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: She was trapped in the bathroom, she couldn't breathe any fresh shells outside, and she ingested it and she inhaled it, and she shut her whole body and her cat.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, what the hell did the cat do to you?
14:48
SPEAKER_00: Like and I'm like, and I'm just sitting there and I'm looking, I'm like, all right, the kitty's gone.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: Like, I what do you what do you say to that?
14:55
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, that's that was that was pretty wild.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: I remember one job that we couldn't even open up the bedroom because the body had landed in the doorwell.
15:03
SPEAKER_00: So if Martin were trying to push the door open, but the body's right there.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: Like, well, we gotta we gotta get in there.
15:09
SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, like a little child, I'm like, okay.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: And I'm trying to like not hurt him.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: Right.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: I'm trying I'm trying to be respectful, but I had to push my way in to the bedroom to retrieve the deceased, which was uh just pretty wild back then.
15:24
SPEAKER_01: The 9-4 is an interesting place.
15:26
SPEAKER_01: You and your partner also responded to an 80 case that looked like that looked like a crime scene.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: Um another call, I'll never forget.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: Gentleman sleeping in his bed is maybe it was like a seventh, seventh or eighth floor story.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: Man sleeping, and it was very windy that night.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: And what had occurred was is that the wind was so strong it had broke his pained glass window to his bedroom, so the window had shattered.
15:48
SPEAKER_00: So mind you, he's sleeping, and now he feels something.
15:51
SPEAKER_00: He wakes up.
15:52
SPEAKER_00: He's like, What's going on?
15:53
SPEAKER_00: He had hit his artery in his arm.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: Oh, so he wakes up and he's like, he's in immense pain, and he sees the blood.
16:00
SPEAKER_00: So now he I'm assuming the man panicked because he gets up.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: I guess he's running through his apartment looking for a towel, looking to wrap his arm up, and uh the blood had like splattered on the wall in the bathtub.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: I thought I was walking into a crime scene, but no, it was just the glass had landed, had sliced his arm wide open, and uh it split it split all over.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't believe I was seeing, but thank God he made it.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I was gonna ask you that.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he made it.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he wind up, yeah, he wind up, he wound up surviving.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I said to him, like, man, you better play the lottery.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: If you called Las Vegas and gave him the odds at this time, at this place, what's gonna happen when you're sleeping?
16:32
SPEAKER_00: I doubt someone would say, Oh, the glass is gonna break and uh slice my arm open.
16:36
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, he survived.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, if you hit an artery, you're on the gone, man.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: You are, unless you have a tourniquet or you have a belt to wrap around something and get that pressure turned off into your veins.
16:47
SPEAKER_00: It's uh it's no joke, it's very quick.
16:49
SPEAKER_01: Steve, could you share the story about you were in an RP that caught fire?
16:53
SPEAKER_00: If you brought this to Hollywood, you cannot make this up.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: But yes, this really occurred.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: So I had a DWI arrest.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: It was some like minivan with like work tools that had like a million miles on the car.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: The guy was DE.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: So the car was at the command for over 30 days.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: So now the special ops lieutenant's like, listen, the car's been in for more.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: Yep, yep, the car's been in for more than 30.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: Steve, do me a favor.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: Go with Freddie, take Pete with you, he'll drive.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: You guys go down to the to the pound, drop the car, grab some food, whatever you want to do with this, come back.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: LT, no problem.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: So we're on the northern state.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: My old partner, Freddie, he's driving behind us in a marked patrol car.
17:28
SPEAKER_00: My friend Peter at the time, he's driving, and I'm sitting in the passenger seat of this minivan, and all of a sudden, my partner is hitting the lights and sirens.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, why is he hitting the lights and sirens?
17:40
SPEAKER_00: Like, what the hell is going on?
17:41
SPEAKER_00: And the car, we're transporting it down to the pound.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: The car had caught fire and exploded as the vehicle is in motion, mind you.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: You know the scene from uh Casino how Robert De Niro's sitting in his Cadillac and the flame.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: That I on all that is holy, I swear that occurred.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: It um would dry out and the smoke is coming at coming through the vents because my partner was screaming on on the PA system, because the rear of the vehicle was actually on fire, which we didn't know.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: But the now the smoke starts to come through the vents, and like, what the what the hell is that?
18:14
SPEAKER_00: So thank God we were in the right-hand lane on the northern state going to the pound.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: I literally jumped exit the vehicle as the vehicle was in motion, and I'm ripping off my uniform.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: I thought I was on fire.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: I it was I could send you pictures, my eyebrows were singed.
18:29
SPEAKER_00: The fire the flames came out.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: So mind you, we're transporting this car down to the pound.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: FD and Y is there.
18:35
SPEAKER_00: I called a desk.
18:35
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, hey, Sarge, what's the procedure when the car explodes and we're transporting?
18:40
SPEAKER_00: He's like, You serious?
18:41
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, You hear that?
18:42
SPEAKER_00: That's the FDNY putting it out right now.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was uh that was pretty wild.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: I remember that too.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: Like it was yesterday.
18:48
SPEAKER_01: Did you have did you take the car to the pound?
18:50
SPEAKER_01: We did.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: That's the best part.
18:52
SPEAKER_00: We took it to the pound, we had notified the pound, and the lieutenant at the pound thought we were screwing with him.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, no, we dropped, they towed the vehicle, the vehicle was still smoky as the shh, like we dropped, like, all right, like what do we do?
19:04
SPEAKER_00: Like, this is the car.
19:05
SPEAKER_00: See you later.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: This really happened.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
19:07
SPEAKER_01: Having worked in auto crime, I was at the pound three times a week.
19:11
SPEAKER_01: So I knew a lot of those guys.
19:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I could just picture that thing, A, the phone call that they would think was bullshit, and B, towing in this burning hulk of metal.
19:21
SPEAKER_01: That's exactly what it looked like.
19:23
SPEAKER_01: That's exactly what it was.
19:24
SPEAKER_01: And the voucher goes out the window of airbags and and everything.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: It was it was like they they thought we were screwing with them.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: Like, no, this really occurred.
19:33
SPEAKER_01: Steve, you had a father called 911 to have you and your partner give his son some advice.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so what occurred with that is we had um Martin Ballow's name, is I'm still friends with him to this day.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: He had called 911 because his son Dylan at the time was running with the wrong group of guys.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: His son was a teenager, and his father was very concerned.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: His teenage son was staying out late at night, you know, running with the wrong crowded group of kids.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: So we had got there, and since it came over as a family job, we took the family, the domestic violence report.
20:02
SPEAKER_00: His son wasn't there at the time.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: So a couple of days go by, we happened to be in that same area where we got the call.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I said to my partner, I go, How about we knock on the door?
20:11
SPEAKER_00: We're slow tonight, we stopped by, we check in on this kid, see what's going on.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: You know, we didn't have to do that.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: We it was just a gesture in the back of my head at that exact moment.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: Son was home, his father was home.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: So we knocked on the door, and we give this kid tough love.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: Almost like an older, two older brothers talking to him.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: And to this day, you fast forward, I think he had joined the police department, I don't know what department.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: He was a golden gloves, and then he joined the Navy as well.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: And after that day, of the first occurrence of speaking to his son Dylan, we would check in periodically.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: We would stop by, hey, what's up?
20:40
SPEAKER_00: Oh, what's up, officers?
20:41
SPEAKER_00: How are you?
20:42
SPEAKER_00: We really turned this kid's life around.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: In my heart of hearts, I truly believe we saved that kid's life.
20:47
SPEAKER_00: And what did it cost me?
20:48
SPEAKER_00: 10 minutes of my time?
20:49
SPEAKER_00: Right.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: It costed us nothing.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: It was because we there was nothing doing.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: So why would you not stop and try and see how this kid's doing?
20:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, every now and then it's just taking that time, minute or two with someone you can change their life.
21:00
SPEAKER_01: Steve, during your time in the 9-4, you worked in the precincts anti-crime team.
21:04
SPEAKER_01: What was that like?
21:05
SPEAKER_00: Back then, I was on a 4-12 shift, and my wife at the time, you know, she's like, you have to get off this goddamn tour because we would never see.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: You smile and you laugh because we would never see each other.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: She was she was in nursing school at the time.
21:16
SPEAKER_00: It was like we were two ships just passing each other.
21:19
SPEAKER_00: And I was getting married in 2020.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: So in 2012, you know, I was getting I was making lots of arrests, just not for to get my numbers up, because I wanted the overtime.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: That those are my flowers, those are my DJs.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: Like I had to earn it, I had to pay for pay for things.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: And my CEO had approached me.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: He's like, Do you want to go to crime?
21:35
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, All right, like what and it was a 9:30 to 0930 about 1805 tour, steady Friday, Saturday off, which I did not know what was like.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: It's like you driving an 89 Civic, and now you're driving a brand new Ferrari.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: You're like, I'm not used to this upgrade.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by upgrade is the quality of life, my home life had improved tremendously.
21:59
SPEAKER_00: It it it I was home for dinner around seven o'clock at night.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know what that was like.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: Oh my God.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: This is like a taste of a normal life, which was very attractive to me because I was getting burnt out being on that midnight, on that four to twelve tour, which is listen, it works for some families.
22:14
SPEAKER_00: It was starting to really get to me because I was missing a lot of things.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't seeing my family, my loved ones.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: So on that aspect of working the day tour, if you will, my quality of life at home had shot through the roof tremendously, which in the value itself was unbelievable.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: One story from crime that I can remember, you know, I was with my old partner Bobby McGinn, and we jump out on this guy by the projects.
22:35
SPEAKER_00: Because when you, as you know, if someone looks like they stand out of place, they stand out of place.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: You can't hide it, you can't cover it up, it's impossible.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: So we jump out on this guy, what's up, buddy?
22:46
SPEAKER_00: How are you?
22:46
SPEAKER_00: How you doing?
22:46
SPEAKER_00: Yada, yada, yada.
22:48
SPEAKER_00: We send them on his way.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: The following day, my partner comes out to me.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: He's like, remember the guy we stopped last night?
22:53
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, yeah.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: He shows me the front page of the New York Post, wanted by Port Authority Police Department for the knockout game.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: So when we had stopped him, we didn't know he was wanted by Port Authority police.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: And now I'm thinking, does he, does he think that he's being stopped because the cops know that he's wanted?
23:09
SPEAKER_00: So you never know who you're dealing with.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: And I couldn't put my mouth hit the floor when I saw that on the front page of the paper.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't believe that.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: Did you see him again?
23:16
SPEAKER_00: No, we never saw.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: We did look for him though.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: We never saw, we never saw, we did, we drove around.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: I remember the following day also, we tried finding this guy again, but we didn't we never saw him.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: Nope.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: Do you got any you got any stories of good collars for being an anti-crime?
23:30
SPEAKER_00: Uh one caller that particularly uh rings my mind is that there was a burglary and that we had traced, someone had burglarized four different apartments.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: They had stolen someone's like, you know, laptop, et cetera, et cetera.
23:41
SPEAKER_00: We had traced um the Apple uh Find My iPhone.
23:45
SPEAKER_00: So we had four we had traced, I mean, this guy was in the different precinct, he was in the 7-9 precinct, and the Find My iPhone was still active.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: So I had taken out my cell phone and I had traced where this person was, and the complaint was in the back of our patrol car.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: And um as we're driving in the 7-9 precinct, we're getting the signal closer and closer and closer and closer.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: Holy shit, that's my luggage.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: So this guy was literally, literally has this woman's luggage, like a tote bag if you and he's pulling it down the block, and we jump out of this guy, he's like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: And I pull out like back credit cards, IDs.
24:20
SPEAKER_00: That's not mine.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: I and I remember holding the ID up to the guy's face.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, yeah, that's this is not you, asshole.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: So we we closed out, not only that, but we closed out different all those burglars in one shot, which is great.
24:31
SPEAKER_01: Steve, you're a Brooklyn guy.
24:32
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure you've had your fair share of the West Indian Day parade.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: I have, unfortunately.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
24:38
SPEAKER_00: I've been very fortunate.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: I've been notified for that detail only a few times.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: And every time I was notified for that detail, I was never on the actual route.
24:46
SPEAKER_00: I remember being on Atlantic Avenue by the McDonald's over there, like traffic control.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: And another time we were, we did uh speaker retention, and my sergeant says to me at the time, we're not taking anyone's effing speakers today.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, well, Mike, well, no shit, we're not.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: We're not, I'm not gonna cause a riot.
25:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:03
SPEAKER_00: Because as you know, oh, sir, man, your music's a little loud.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm sure they would really understand as we're as we're vouching their speakers that are pretty costly, I'm assuming.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna cause, what am I gonna cause?
25:14
SPEAKER_00: Like a big uh, you know, 13 or an 85 over over.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: No, we weren't doing that.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: But thank God, knock on what, I was never on the actual parade route.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: I do remember one time working the Puerto Rican Day Parade and the PVA canteen was coming by and I was on the route, okay?
25:28
SPEAKER_00: So you need the earplugs?
25:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, no, I'm good.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would have paid thousands of dollars for those earplugs.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: As a young officer, I didn't realize how loud that route can get.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: I I was blown, I I thought my ear drums were gonna get blown out that day.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but that was that was an experience itself.
25:48
SPEAKER_00: It was a good detail.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: It's all right.
25:49
SPEAKER_01: Well, speaking of working details, you you got a good story about helping a couple out on New Year's Eve.
25:55
SPEAKER_00: I'd be still assigned to the police academy, or it was a year or two after.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: It's like maybe a quarter after 11 o'clock at night, and these four people approach me.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: And mind you, I'm five or six blocks from the ball, and like, oh, how do we get closer to see the bull?
26:08
SPEAKER_00: And I, you know, I was already there for like 15, 16 hours.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: There's a little bit of a smart ass.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: And I look at my watch and I'm like, oh, you're early.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, you're early for next year because you've got to get here, guys, at like eight, seven o'clock in the morning, and like, oh, all right.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: And whatever they had said to me, they go, Oh, we just got married, we're visiting New York.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, oh my God, I feel like such an asshole.
26:27
SPEAKER_00: So I had the kindness out of my heart, four random people had escorted them about five blocks right by the ball.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: And at the time, they had the MOS, the member of the service family pen.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: And I said to some cop, and I'm like, listen, these are my cousins, let them let them stay.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: And I and I then I said to these people, congratulations on your marriage.
26:47
SPEAKER_00: And I now gave these people a story that we'll ever for forever remember.
26:51
SPEAKER_00: I think it was 06 or 05.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, that no, remember that cop that let us stand right by the ball?
26:57
SPEAKER_00: That's something they'll forever remember for the rest of their lives.
26:59
SPEAKER_00: Oh, definitely.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but I was I was I felt really bad because I was such a sarcastic asshole to them.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: And then they hit me with, oh, we just got married, we're visiting New York, and I'm like, I'm like, all right, so I think I had to do the right thing and escort them right by the ball.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
27:14
SPEAKER_01: Steve, I made a couple of callers in Brooklyn.
27:16
SPEAKER_01: Can you give our listeners a tour of Brooklyn Central Booking?
27:19
SPEAKER_01: Oh my.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: Brooklyn Central Booking, what's you put what can you compare that to?
27:23
SPEAKER_00: It's just god awful.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: First off, to get into central booking, it's a pain in the ass, as we know, okay?
27:28
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna go with the easy one.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: Let's say you have one or two parks you're transporting down to it.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: Right.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: Then you have to go through all these doors, you have to voucher your guns and your magazines and your and all the nonsense on your gun belt.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: Then you have to go through the whole system of walking around, they have to see the medical, they have to see this, they have to get searched, they have blah blah blah blah blah.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of these prisoners, they play the game.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: They've been locked up and they've been collared so many times.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: They know the system better than some of these comps.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: And I remember transporting this one perp.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the guy would say perp.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: The guy had a nice long rap sheet.
27:59
SPEAKER_00: I go, if I get you cigarettes, will you not go sick?
28:02
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, I promise.
28:03
SPEAKER_00: I I I kid you not.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm not you can't do that today.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: But so we literally stopped at the bodega.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: I picked up some cigarettes for this guy, and I kept my word.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: I'm a man of my word.
28:12
SPEAKER_00: I okay?
28:13
SPEAKER_00: I let him smoke in the car, and guess what?
28:15
SPEAKER_00: He did not go sick.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: And I looked at my partner, I'm like, best five bucks I ever spent, pal.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: I mean, because now people don't know if you prisoner go sick, Mike.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: So we say we have two preps.
28:25
SPEAKER_00: The one prep is lodged, you know, they take take him over at central booking, but now we have to sit on this guy until God knows when, for how many tours, for how many hours.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: And you and I both know half these guys, they're fine.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: They're just playing a game, prolonging them seeing a judge because they can.
28:39
SPEAKER_00: Because they want to you want to lock me up, they're gonna be an asshole now.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: So it is what it is what it is.
28:43
SPEAKER_01: How how was the how was the relationship with the cops and the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office?
28:49
SPEAKER_00: Oh man, it's it could be good, and it could also be a little rocky at the same time.
28:56
SPEAKER_00: I remember I had this one arrest, it was a it was for it was for rape.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: The the woman's child's father had violently raped her and had burnt a cigarette on her arm.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: And we got the call, got there, I make the I make the arrest, and now the following day I'm in the special prosecutor's office, and unfortunately, this guy was part of the Russian mob, and they had gotten to her.
29:19
SPEAKER_00: The and we I remember speaking to the prosecutor, and she's like, We have no case.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, what are you talking about?
29:23
SPEAKER_00: They're like, she's dropping all charges, and she got nasty with me, but she's like, officer, you look really upset.
29:29
SPEAKER_00: You know, what do you want me?
29:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, well, you know, a woman just got violently raped, and uh, I walked out of her office, like, what do you want me to do?
29:35
SPEAKER_00: But some of these district attorneys, cops have to realize, too, they're not your friends.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: Okay, you have a relationship with them on the phone, you speak them in person a couple of times.
29:44
SPEAKER_00: You have to be very careful what you say to these guys.
29:45
SPEAKER_00: And I and I tell these younger officers today, actually, if it's not, if it's not part of the story, if it's not part of the paperwork, don't fabricate it.
29:52
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna perjure, you're gonna lose your job, and you're possibly gonna do time.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: Either you have it or you don't.
29:57
SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day, it's not worth it.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: Making up stories, fabricating evidence, or what have you, because they'll bite you in the ass someday.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: So, but to answer your question, for the most part, I never had any issues with any of the prosecutors.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, very professional, very cordial uh back then, rather.
30:12
SPEAKER_00: But um, today I don't know what it's like with the uh these DAs because a lot of them can be very liberal coming out of these this law school, and their views could be different than yours, and sometimes they don't prosecute, and now with the bail reform, right?
30:24
SPEAKER_00: These bail laws, it's like it's a revolving door, like in and out, and in and out, in and out.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know how I would be a cop in today's environment because my hands are tied.
30:33
SPEAKER_00: My hands are tied.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: And now and then let me ask you, why bother?
30:37
SPEAKER_00: Why am I going to arrest someone that did, let's say, a petty larceny, okay?
30:42
SPEAKER_00: Now they're denied a desk appearance ticket because they've been locked up X amount of times, okay?
30:46
SPEAKER_00: But now they're they're back out before I'm even done with their paperwork.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: Why give why give a shit?
30:52
SPEAKER_00: If if they're gonna keep the perk and they're gonna put this guy through the system and have them learn their lesson of you can't steal other people's stuff, that'd be a different story.
31:00
SPEAKER_00: But it's like a revolving door, governor Hulk go, great job, by the way, with bail reform, you idiot.
31:05
SPEAKER_00: It's just it has to be, these laws have to be taken back to square to square one.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: Put people through the system, keep them in jail, and that's how crime will be reduced.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
31:15
SPEAKER_00: Steve, you were involved in a shooting in the 9-4.
31:18
SPEAKER_00: Can you go into that story?
31:19
SPEAKER_00: I was.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: I've told, I have told this story a thousand times.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: Every time I tell the story, I feel just much more better about myself.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: So it was, I had a cover patrol with July 17th, 2016.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm walking into the precinct.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: I have my morning coffee.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: It's up, boss.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: How are you?
31:35
SPEAKER_00: Hey, Steve, you want to do the TS?
31:37
SPEAKER_00: Now I hate the telephone switchboard because I hate sitting still and I hate the dumb calls that would come in.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, no, I'll go out.
31:43
SPEAKER_00: Standing and roll call.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: Never work, never worked with this girl a day in my life.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: And my dispatcher central is like, oh, four Adam Daytour.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: We have an emotionally disturbed person.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, all right, whatever.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: So now I'm talking to the midnight, you know, we go outside, I'm talking to the midnight car, I'm taking that car over.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: So Central raises us, raises up and goes, listen, be advised now at 1010 man with the firearm.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, all right, guys, let me run.
32:03
SPEAKER_00: So we're flying to the call.
32:05
SPEAKER_00: Maybe 30 seconds later, Central says, be advised to 30, which is a robbery to 30 at gunpoint, numerous phone calls.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: Holy shit.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: This is legit.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: This is gay.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: This is real.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: This is real, this is real world.
32:17
SPEAKER_00: So as I'm as I'm driving, I'm pulling, I pull into the parking lot.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: I can see the guy walking towards us.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: And I exit the vehicle.
32:24
SPEAKER_00: Probably within one and a half to not even two seconds of exiting the driver's side, he's reaching into his waistband.
32:30
SPEAKER_00: He's taking a loaded 40 caliber Glock from his waistband.
32:34
SPEAKER_00: I'm taking my firearm out and I'm processing everything.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: And he yelled something at us, whatever he yelled, but I screamed, don't do it.
32:42
SPEAKER_00: He points the gun right at us and he lets one round, one round discharge before I could return fire and put the 13 over the radio.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: And there were two parked cars where it'd be worse.
32:52
SPEAKER_00: So the girl I was with, she had split to the right.
32:54
SPEAKER_00: I had split to the left.
32:56
SPEAKER_00: And the entire time I was firing, she had fired twice.
32:59
SPEAKER_00: I was firing with with, I'm a lefty, I was firing with my left hand.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: I'm transmitting on the radio.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: And to this day, I don't know why I didn't holster my radio and use two hands, but only God knows.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: So I had fired 13 times.
33:12
SPEAKER_00: He's down, okay.
33:14
SPEAKER_00: He goes for a second firearm, which he didn't have.
33:16
SPEAKER_00: He simulated, yeah.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: He simulated a second firearm.
33:19
SPEAKER_00: So I key my radio.
33:21
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, show me your effing hands.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how I thought of that.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: That he didn't.
33:25
SPEAKER_00: So I let two more rounds go.
33:27
SPEAKER_00: One missed.
33:28
SPEAKER_00: I could see the dirt get kicked up.
33:29
SPEAKER_00: And I quickly adjusted, and the other one hit him in his chest.
33:33
SPEAKER_00: He was still conscious and he was still breathing at the time.
33:35
SPEAKER_00: So mind you, the three radio calls that we had, everyone's coming now.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: I put the 13 over the radio.
33:41
SPEAKER_00: So now my firearm is still out.
33:43
SPEAKER_00: I'm still pointed at the perp, but the guys, the backup is coming, and I'm screaming at them, you're in my line of fire.
33:48
SPEAKER_00: So I'm telling him to go to the side.
33:50
SPEAKER_00: So as um the perp is down, I had I walk up to him, I had holster up my firearm, and I flip him around, I cough him up.
33:57
SPEAKER_00: Right.
33:57
SPEAKER_00: Now I walk off the set and I start to cry a little bit.
34:01
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, what the what just happened?
34:03
SPEAKER_00: What just now mind you, my crime sergeant pulls up, George, and I'm like, George, am I fucking?
34:08
SPEAKER_00: Am I hit?
34:08
SPEAKER_00: Am I shot, bro?
34:09
SPEAKER_00: Because you're so pumped up, your adrenaline's all flying.
34:13
SPEAKER_00: And if he feels my vest, like, Steve, turn around, ambulance pulls up, blood pressure was 186 over 110.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm a very healthy guy.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: Dad's, the guy, they're like, you need you need to go to Elmhurst, you're gonna stroke.
34:23
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, no, I'm good, I'm good.
34:24
SPEAKER_00: You need to chill.
34:25
SPEAKER_00: We got to get to the hospital for trauma.
34:26
SPEAKER_00: So our shooting was so straightforward.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: We had uh 911 witnesses, you had people witnesses, you had all these, you had NITR security cameras, you had everything you could possibly need, okay, to back us up, thank God, because the DA could not twist it a little bit.
34:43
SPEAKER_00: They couldn't do anything.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: It was so straightforward that they, the district attorney took 21 months to sign off not to prosecute us.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: But mind you, if I had effed up and I had screwed up, that day I would be modified, garden shield would have been removed, and they would have pro started to prosecute me.
35:00
SPEAKER_00: But when it's the other way around, when we're when the police were in the riot, they dragged their feet.
35:05
SPEAKER_00: You need you need fast-to-do process.
35:07
SPEAKER_00: That was out of control that how long it took for them.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: Well, how long after the shooting did they run you to a grand jury?
35:13
SPEAKER_00: They didn't.
35:13
SPEAKER_00: One of my friends, I'm not gonna mention his name, they worked at one police plaza at the time.
35:17
SPEAKER_00: He had called me a few hours after.
35:19
SPEAKER_00: He's like, unofficially, you're good.
35:20
SPEAKER_00: Which I knew in my heart.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: I I knew I was okay.
35:22
SPEAKER_00: I was I was fine.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: Um, but they didn't run, they didn't run the grand.
35:26
SPEAKER_00: They didn't do any of that.
35:27
SPEAKER_00: You would have had to have testified.
35:29
SPEAKER_00: Correct.
35:29
SPEAKER_00: Now, mind you, the perp wound up bleeding out at the hospital and he bled to death and he had passed away.
35:36
SPEAKER_00: Now, my CR at the time, he's like, we didn't want to tell you that.
35:39
SPEAKER_00: I go, Why don't you want to tell me?
35:40
SPEAKER_00: Well, we didn't want to upset you.
35:42
SPEAKER_00: Upset me, so I have to now go testify, okay?
35:45
SPEAKER_00: And I have to have some liberal defense attorney, Officer Padulo, in 2008, did you post this on Facebook?
35:52
SPEAKER_00: Not arguing the attempted assassination or murder of two New York City police officers, but the arguing about my views or whatever I put on my personal social media page, trying to demoralize my character.
36:02
SPEAKER_00: No, I didn't want to deal with that.
36:03
SPEAKER_00: So the hell with that guy.
36:04
SPEAKER_00: Good for him.
36:05
SPEAKER_01: During this epic gun battle you were in, were you nervous about running out of rounds?
36:10
SPEAKER_01: It's funny you asked me that question.
36:11
SPEAKER_00: People would always ask me, what was going through your mind?
36:14
SPEAKER_00: And the my my generalized answer to that question is nothing.
36:18
SPEAKER_00: I was also a part of counterterrorism at the time.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: So it's like a professional athlete.
36:24
SPEAKER_00: They practice and practiced and practiced and practiced.
36:26
SPEAKER_00: And thank God my training had kicked in, and I trained for that over and hundreds of times.
36:32
SPEAKER_00: And I remember the chief, which I won't mention his name either because he's been in a lot of trouble, this guy.
36:37
SPEAKER_00: He says to me in the detective squad, uh, Steve, are you former military?
36:41
SPEAKER_00: I go, No, sir, I'm not.
36:42
SPEAKER_00: He goes, you must have balls the size of watermelons.
36:45
SPEAKER_00: And mind you, you're you're in front of like eight or nine different guys right now.
36:49
SPEAKER_00: And and and I and what do you say?
36:50
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Chief?
36:51
SPEAKER_00: Like, all right, great.
36:52
SPEAKER_00: But I'm so happy that I was able to have that training under my belt, and the good guys were able to go home on that morning, and we went on the one piece.
37:00
SPEAKER_00: So you never had to drop a mag dur during the uh No, what's crazy too is that funny you say that is that I had fired 15 times in total, not realizing.
37:09
SPEAKER_00: Now, taking close.
37:10
SPEAKER_00: Came very close.
37:12
SPEAKER_00: Mind you, let's take a step back.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: So when I had walked off the set, and my and after I was checked with my vest, I backed my mag.
37:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, how many times did I shoot?
37:20
SPEAKER_00: Three or four?
37:21
SPEAKER_00: And I backed my magazine out from the out of the holster.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, holy shit.
37:26
SPEAKER_00: Now mind you, if I went to Sly Lock and I went empty, guess what?
37:29
SPEAKER_00: I would have threw a fresh magazine right back in it, and I would have been right back into that game.
37:33
SPEAKER_00: Because if I had fire, if I had to fire 46 rounds, which we had, you know, police officers carrying today today and back then, I would have fired all 46 because I was only doing what I was trained to do to protect myself, protect the public, and protect my partner at that day.
37:47
SPEAKER_00: What was the deceased story?
37:49
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's funny.
37:50
SPEAKER_00: He was, I believe he was 37 or 38 years old, and his squad had ran his name and ran everything.
37:55
SPEAKER_00: He was locked up 38 times.
37:57
SPEAKER_00: So you're telling me from the day you're born to the you were locked, you were arrested one time per year for every year.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: And you know, it's crazy.
38:05
SPEAKER_00: No one to this day, no one knows what he was doing in that area.
38:07
SPEAKER_00: Now, it's not like you know, in the housing projects, oh, that's Mike, that's so-and-so.
38:11
SPEAKER_00: Everyone knows each other.
38:12
SPEAKER_00: No one knew who this guy was.
38:13
SPEAKER_00: No one know, no one could tell you why he was in that area at the time of the shooting.
38:17
SPEAKER_00: No one, I mean, I didn't nobody know, nobody knows.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: So that's what happened.
38:23
SPEAKER_00: And you you received a combat cross for that shooting.
38:26
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
38:26
SPEAKER_00: So they had written up, my supervisors and my superiors had written up the uh the combat cross, which you could kind of see up somewhere up there behind me.
38:35
SPEAKER_00: So if anyone doesn't know, the combat cross is NYPD's second highest medal any police officer of any rank can ever receive.
38:41
SPEAKER_00: And honestly, that's probably one of the proudest days and proudest moments of my life of receiving that award because it's so it's such a humbling experience to be recognized for the hard work and the experience that you had gone through.
38:54
SPEAKER_00: And thank God uh I was able to go home that day and be awarded that and uh talk about it today.
38:59
SPEAKER_01: People don't realize they watch television and they see cops get involved in a shooting and they go home that night and they're having a beer.
39:06
SPEAKER_00: So I went home probably so the shooting was so early in the morning.
39:10
SPEAKER_00: I had left the priest and I believe 4 30 or 5 in the afternoon because it was the first call out of the gate, went to the hospital, came back, did a lot of the paperwork.
39:20
SPEAKER_00: On the day of my shooting, my delegates like, oh, you have to fill this out.
39:23
SPEAKER_00: I go, what the hell is this?
39:25
SPEAKER_00: He just the NYPD had just came out.
39:27
SPEAKER_00: It's uh it's a use of force report.
39:30
SPEAKER_00: And mind you, it was the first day the use of force report was active.
39:34
SPEAKER_00: So I go, lucky you.
39:35
SPEAKER_00: I don't oh, thank yeah, lucky me.
39:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
39:38
SPEAKER_00: I don't effing know what the hell this is.
39:40
SPEAKER_00: Like, show me how to fill this freaking thing out.
39:42
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know what this was, but it was some IAB sergeant.
39:45
SPEAKER_00: They had to breathe me, and my delegate's like, you're gonna pass, right?
39:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, no, I had eight shots of J-MO drive it in today.
39:51
SPEAKER_00: I blew it to the breathalyzer, and it was zero, zero, zero across the board.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: I mean, come on.
39:55
SPEAKER_01: After the shooting, did did they give you a choice if you wanted to go someplace or that was never offered to me.
40:02
SPEAKER_00: I was out line of duty injury for about six, seven months.
40:05
SPEAKER_00: Um, mind you, I was medically restricted.
40:08
SPEAKER_00: So with being medically restricted, you can only go to certain places.
40:12
SPEAKER_00: So I thought I'm like, well, well, let's try central booking, because you know, Queen Central Booking was of the commute, which mind you, I didn't realize commute wasn't that great for me, even though I was living in Nassau County.
40:23
SPEAKER_00: And when I got to Queen Central booking, I won't mention this certain admin lieutenant's name, but he was a real asshole to me.
40:28
SPEAKER_00: I don't know why we met.
40:30
SPEAKER_00: Um, hey, I'm here, not by choice, because I was injured in a shooting, I'm medically restricted.
40:35
SPEAKER_00: You know, good shooting.
40:37
SPEAKER_00: I'm not, I'm I don't want to sound arrogant, but I'm like, hey, LT, you know, how's like maybe Friday, Saturday off?
40:43
SPEAKER_00: You know, because I'm a guest.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: I'm temporarily assigned to central booking.
40:46
SPEAKER_00: I'm technically not there.
40:47
SPEAKER_00: He's like, no, you're gonna do midnights and you're gonna do a lieutenant trunk.
40:51
SPEAKER_00: It was 5'2, 5253, meaning you were off Mondays and Tuesdays for like four weeks or five weeks at a click, because it'd be Monday, Tuesday, Monday, Tuesday.
41:02
SPEAKER_00: So you to get to weekends, it took even longer than a regular rotating patrol chart.
41:07
SPEAKER_00: He easily could have given me steady weekends off, whatever tour I wanted, but I chose not to.
41:13
SPEAKER_00: But whatever.
41:14
SPEAKER_00: It is what it is.
41:15
SPEAKER_00: Those those that chapter is a long day, long past in my life.
41:17
SPEAKER_01: They usually take care of guys that are involved in a shooting like that.
41:21
SPEAKER_00: They usually, they usually do.
41:22
SPEAKER_00: Good shooting, recognize for chiefs of the police department and everything.
41:25
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I uh maybe I rubbed him the wrong way when I saw him.
41:29
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
41:29
SPEAKER_00: Some of these supervisors on this job are just completely different people when they're at work.
41:33
SPEAKER_00: Because when they're at home, they get pushed around by their spouses, or they have drinking problems, or they have financial problems.
41:38
SPEAKER_00: So now they take their frustrations on the guys at work.
41:41
SPEAKER_00: But I'll never see that guy for as long as I'm alive.
41:43
SPEAKER_00: So kill us.
41:45
SPEAKER_01: So that shooting ultimately ended your career.
41:48
SPEAKER_00: Can you go into that?
41:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
41:49
SPEAKER_00: So the shooting, so since there was 22, there were 22 rounds exchanged in total.
41:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, and the shooting had taken place between two project buildings.
41:58
SPEAKER_00: So the echoing and the popping, I have like I hear it actually right now a little bit, since I'm sitting in my office and it's quiet.
42:03
SPEAKER_00: I have severe tinnitus.
42:04
SPEAKER_00: I also have hearing loss in my left ear.
42:06
SPEAKER_00: So I went in front of a medical board.
42:08
SPEAKER_00: Uh, initially they had denied my early retirement.
42:10
SPEAKER_00: My distance surgeon's like, how'd you how'd your board go?
42:12
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh, they had denied me.
42:13
SPEAKER_00: And he tells me, he's like, quote, it's a big game they play, don't worry.
42:16
SPEAKER_00: Three months later, I went up in front of the medical board again.
42:19
SPEAKER_00: 90 seconds, in and out, instantly approved one, two, three.
42:22
SPEAKER_00: My wife looks at me and goes, How do you feel?
42:25
SPEAKER_00: I go, I don't know.
42:26
SPEAKER_00: Truth be told, Vic, I love being a cop.
42:28
SPEAKER_00: I love the job, okay?
42:30
SPEAKER_00: Mind you, a senior veteran officer way back in the day told me this.
42:34
SPEAKER_00: I'll never forget these words.
42:35
SPEAKER_00: Never love the job.
42:36
SPEAKER_00: The job is a horse.
42:37
SPEAKER_00: I'll never love you back.
42:38
SPEAKER_00: Now, as it as a retired, I understand what that means now.
42:41
SPEAKER_00: I understand what that means.
42:42
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, but now I wouldn't, you couldn't pay me enough to be a cop in any department, in any police department.
42:49
SPEAKER_00: There's no backing from the legislators or the executives or any higher up.
42:52
SPEAKER_00: Cops can't do their jobs nowadays.
42:54
SPEAKER_00: There's no way I would last today now with all the technology.
42:57
SPEAKER_00: You have to fill this report out, you have to fill this out, you have to do this, blah, blah, blah.
43:00
SPEAKER_00: It's not for me.
43:01
SPEAKER_00: That's that's not, no.
43:02
SPEAKER_01: Steve, I know you're a proponent for cops with mental health issues because you're going to be.
43:07
SPEAKER_00: I am.
43:07
SPEAKER_00: I am, guys.
43:08
SPEAKER_00: I it's I am a huge proponent for the mental health because I'm an advocate for that.
43:12
SPEAKER_00: Several years ago, we're going back three or four years ago, I had developed really bad PTSD because coming to my attention from a shooting, one of the bullets was 18 inches from quote, hitting me in the head, end quote.
43:25
SPEAKER_00: Now, I wish my commanding officer had never told me that information.
43:29
SPEAKER_00: He easily could have suppressed that.
43:30
SPEAKER_00: He didn't have to tell me that, but he told me it is what it is.
43:33
SPEAKER_00: So now, mind you, for example, Detective Diller, I mean he rest in peace.
43:38
SPEAKER_00: Why was he killed?
43:39
SPEAKER_00: Why wasn't I killed?
43:41
SPEAKER_00: And I would say to my wife, why him, why not me?
43:44
SPEAKER_00: What and she goes, you can't think of it like that.
43:47
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't your time.
43:48
SPEAKER_00: But what had occurred was I was developing, okay, survival, survivor's guilt and survival's remorse because these other officers were being shot and killed into the line of duty.
43:59
SPEAKER_00: And I would always go back to my shooting and say, Well, how come I didn't, why didn't I pass away?
44:04
SPEAKER_00: Why why was I spared?
44:05
SPEAKER_00: And once again, my wife would say, You can't think like that.
44:07
SPEAKER_00: But it's very difficult.
44:08
SPEAKER_00: So at night, I'd be randomly crying at stuff.
44:11
SPEAKER_00: I was very short-tempered with my two small children.
44:14
SPEAKER_00: And finally, one morning I woke up and I looked at and I looked at my wife and I was waving my flag.
44:19
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I need to get myself help.
44:20
SPEAKER_00: We both hug each other.
44:22
SPEAKER_00: We're both crying.
44:23
SPEAKER_00: And you know, I was very embarrassed.
44:24
SPEAKER_00: And you say, Steve, why are you embarrassed?
44:26
SPEAKER_00: Because we're these big macho tough guys, right?
44:29
SPEAKER_00: You're you're supposed to be the backbone of your family.
44:31
SPEAKER_00: I'm the one calling for help.
44:33
SPEAKER_00: And let me tell you something.
44:35
SPEAKER_00: It's probably one of the best things I ever could have done was to seek professional help because fast forward to this day, I'm a thousand percent better than I was four years ago.
44:46
SPEAKER_00: I was isolating myself, my family, and friends.
44:48
SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to see anybody, and was heading down a very, very dark road and a very dark path.
44:54
SPEAKER_00: And if anyone watching, if anyone listening is going through, you don't have to be a cop, financial problems, alcohol, any addiction issues, anything that's wearing you down as a human being in itself, you need to get yourself better.
45:05
SPEAKER_00: And it's okay not to be okay.
45:07
SPEAKER_00: It's okay to request help.
45:09
SPEAKER_00: Mental health is just as important as your physical health.
45:12
SPEAKER_00: Because if this isn't right, this does not matter.
45:14
SPEAKER_00: So, guys, please, if you're going through anything, you have to try and please get yourself better.
45:19
SPEAKER_00: Reach out for help.
45:20
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing to be ashamed about.
45:21
SPEAKER_00: And I'm I promise you, I am living proof that things will be better.
45:24
SPEAKER_00: I promise you.
45:26
SPEAKER_01: Steve Padula, thank you so much for spending your time with us today.
45:30
SPEAKER_00: Vic, it's been an absolute pleasure having me.
45:32
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for the opportunity.
45:33
SPEAKER_00: I greatly appreciate it.
45:34
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
45:35
SPEAKER_01: And as always, I'd like to thank everyone for tuning in, especially my listeners in Poughkeepsie, New York, Brampton, Ohio, Chapman, New Jersey, Richmond, Visit, Richmond, Virginia, Walnut, Pennsylvania, and Evans, Georgia.
45:45
SPEAKER_01: If you worked in the law enforcement and had an interesting criminal background, please drop me a note on Twitter or Instagram at VicFroy50.
45:51
SPEAKER_01: If you watch it on YouTube, please hit the like and subscribe button.
45:54
SPEAKER_01: On your mobile app, please hit the hype button.
45:56
SPEAKER_01: And if you enjoy the content, check out my Amazon author page where you can find my series of behind the scenes NYPD books.
46:01
SPEAKER_01: They make great$10 Christmas gifts.
46:03
SPEAKER_01: Just go to Amazon, type in my name, Vic, for Roy Like the Car, where you can preview all my books for free.
46:08
SPEAKER_01: Thanks again, everyone, and I'll see you next week.