Latest / NYPD Through The Looking Glass / NYPD Detective Mike Moy

Transcript

NYPD Detective Mike Moy · NYPD Through The Looking Glass

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: We're just standing there.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I I felt the bullet whiz past my ear.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like the wind of the bullet whiz past my left ear.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: And it ricocheted off the we're standing in front of the the van and it ricocheted off the whatever the wheel of the van, wherever it ricocheted from.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_02: Or maybe the the g the the floor, the gravel.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: But I felt the the the the bullet hit the soul saw my my boot.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: And then my partner who was standing next to me, you know, he didn't even know that the bullet went through his pants until he got back to the locker room when he took off his pants, had two holes.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: That means the bullet went through the flap.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: One bullet went right through the flap of it.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, on today's episode we have retired NYPD detective turned author Mike Moy, who's the author of a new book, Bad to Blue, the true story of a Chinatown gangster who became an NYPD detective, and it's available on Amazon.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Michael, welcome to the show.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, Victor.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Anytime, Mike.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Mike, please tell our listeners a little something about yourself.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh well, to sum it up, I was a former gang member in New York City's Chinatown.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: I was involved with the gang for nine years.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I hope uh you know people don't judge.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's a reason, you know, there's always reasons why, you know, I I got caught up in that life.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: But anyway, I was involved with them for nine years, and then um eventually uh I was able to join the NYPD in 1995, and I was on patrol uniform officer for nine years, and I got promoted to be a detective uh and I was a detective for 17 years, and uh and then I retired.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_02: I retired.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_02: I started a uh YouTube channel, uh, which I built up my platform, and once I built up my platform, uh I was able to get my book published.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the YouTube channel is called Chinatow Gang Stories, where I interview my uh former gangmates.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh they served their time, did their you know, paid their dues society, came out and they stayed out of trouble.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: Those are the only ones I interviewed, the ones who were still out there, you know, I stay away from them.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: Hopefully, uh it'll bring uh well my primary reason is to preserve this piece of history in New York City, Chinatown, because uh before my channel, you know, people were afraid to talk about it.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: You know, people in the community, um they they think that we're still active, and you know, that's how much uh fear and grip they had in the community.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um so you don't hear anything about it.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: So that's why I wanted to um preserve this piece of history and let people know what really happened, you know, and how we did things, and yeah, because there's there's plenty of um stories about the the time up, you know, the the bloods, cryps, Latin Kings, um even you know the motorcycle gangs, house angels, uh, Mongols, everything in all the gangs are uh out there.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um the history of the gangs are out there, but not New York City's Chinatown gangs.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_02: So so um that was my mission to um to uh preserve this piece of history and and tell our story.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Mike, reading your book, it's safe to say you had you had a rough childhood.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: You can say that.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's other people who had a lot rougher childhood than me, especially you know, my former gangmates, you know, people like Cambodian Peter, Shorty, you know, guys who were affected by you know, Shorty is from Law he's Laotian, Cambodian Peter is from Cambodia.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: If you know the history about the Khmer Rouge and the bombing and Laos, the whole family was disrupted.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you know, my my version of first world country poor is different than the third world country poor.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, Cambodian Peter was living in the jungles for two years with nothing, you know, going from village to village, trying to reach the uh the uh the border of Thailand, so he to the refugee camp to escape from the um the war between the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnam and the Vietnamese.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: I mean he saw his whole I mean his whole family had to dig their own grave and jump into the pit and and get slaughtered.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: So basically, uh his well m most of his relatives died.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, if you do your research, you see how many people died during the Khmer Rouge era.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: And um even shortly, you know, he came here, you know, the the church sponsored him to come here and then got their vouchers and and and after that, you know, what do they do?
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: They they neglected him and and he was just uh thrown into the the the uh the neighborhood in in a high crime neighborhood and to survive as you know back then there weren't too many Asians around.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, you you get bullied and to um to protect yourself from bullying, uh you you group up, you know, that's human nature, you know.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, when I was going to school, you know, I I guess that's one of the main reasons why I joined a gang, you know.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: I was the only Asian kid throughout all those years in uh in elementary school and uh middle school, we call it junior high school back then and high school and um you know I was uh a victim of bullying.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, what what were my choices?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: What were my choices?
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, if you were a victim and you were my shoes, maybe um maybe you would understand, you know, the things I went to, you know, as the you know, like uh yeah, the kids would do awful things.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, really, like um, you know, I mean, like these elementary school kids, like they they would call me a communist.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: You know, back then in the in the 70s, right?
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: I I didn't even know what communist meant.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I was born in this country.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: I how would the kids know what a a communist meant?
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: They don't know.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: So anyway, like w where do I turn to?
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: Like, w what do you do?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like what would what would most kids were bullied do?
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: Do they they turn to drugs, right?
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: They they um you know commit suicide, you know, I mean they maybe um bring a gun into the school and shoot them up.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, what were the choices, right?
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: What were the choices?
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, I mean, join a gang, you know.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_02: So I wasn't gonna do none of those none of those choices except, you know, maybe uh I got caught up in the gang.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_02: Because don't forget, in the 1980s, New York City was gangster city.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there was gangs everywhere.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: Everywhere.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: Every neighborhood you go to, they had a crew.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: You know.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it it seems like after you joined the gang, the violence escalated quickly because you have you have all these different rivalry gangs, and you guys are all trying to map out your little piece of turf.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: And on top of that, you got the police.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: You were in the gang maybe a couple of months, and you already almost got into a shootout with a with a with a rival gang leader over a dirty or a perceived slight or dirty look.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, those were days back then.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if you remember those days, a lot of shootings stem from disrespect.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: You could step on somebody's sneakers and get shot.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: You could look at somebody the wrong way and get shot.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: How many shootings and killings were there?
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: About more than 2300 a year?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: Compared to now.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's a half.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you see some of these pranks they do on YouTube.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: I'm surprised like people don't get if you did it back then, you get shot.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, messing with people.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, messing with people.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: Right, my partner i in the squad, he got shot back then.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: He was uh he was uh a police officer at that time.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: And it was Halloween.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_02: So he decided to put a mask on and jump out the corner of a building and scare people.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that was probably like the he came on the job in 1968.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and that was probably the 70s where he got shot.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and then uh he scared somebody, that guy shot him in the ass.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Never got caught.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Mike, can you explain the differences between how the Chinese gangs and the mafia operate?
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: The differences?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: Not much of a difference.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_02: The uh difference is uh with the mafia, the money kicks up.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: With the Chinese gang, the money kicks down.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: Meaning, for example, like um, you know, when the Italian mobsters, they have a a crew and they earn money, they kick it up to the top.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um but to be a Chinese uh Dilo or um like a like a dragon head, so to speak, I don't I don't like to call him Dragonhead, but you know, they I guess the media calls them like Dragonhead, but for example, like the guy at the top, and he's got money.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: He's dealing, he's got his connection with the Tongs, he he's got his connection with the uh the triads.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: So he's whatever he's dealing with, whether it's counterfeit goods or or um drugs, he's making money.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: He's got the connection, he's making big money.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_02: So the money comes down, it kicks down to the to the guys in in middle in the middle and uh at the bottom.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: So now the the bottom of it is they're able to go out there under the umbrella of the name and make money through extortion, uh home invasions, uh robberies, whatever it means, and they get to keep all the proceeds.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: So that's how you build up the name of the gang.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Mike, when you were an active gang member, did you have any dealings or do you have any stories about Chinese gangster Uncle Benny Ang from Pell Street?
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: There's stories about him.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um Benny he was very respect, he was uh very respected.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: I have stories about him.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: To my grandmother, to other gang members.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody in the community knows Uncle Seven.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: He was uh a fixture on Pell Street.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um he does a lot of good things for the community.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: He's uh he's looked upon as a community leader.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, but uh he's respected.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we all the gang members uh they they know his background.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: They they know uh how he um took a murder rap for somebody and you know and uh did his time, you know, didn't cry about it, came out, and uh the all the OGs respected.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh another Chinatown, I know you were in Brooklyn and then but you would bounce back and forth to Chinatown in Manhattan.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um the fifth precinct had police officer Gratis, who immersed himself in Chinese culture.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Did you have any run-ins with him when you were a gang member?
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the name that was out there was Mike Lau.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if you heard of him, police officer Mike Lau.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, eventually he became a um uh deputy inspector and the commanding officer of the fifth precinct.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: But he was um he was out there, he was very active.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um maybe you might want to interview him on your channel one day.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: He has plenty of stories about the gangs, and I used to avoid him.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: Everyone in my gang knew him, knew of him.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh some even had interactions with him, which I mentioned in my book.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, we avoided him like like the plague.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: He's very active.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: Like back then, uh the the cops would take pictures of you, you know.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: And you have a running when they would take pictures pictures of you.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, I didn't want that.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that's why I stayed away from when my dialogue got gunned down.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_02: I stayed away from the funeral.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, and then sure enough, you see uh the Fuqqing members, some of the Fuq Ching members in the newspaper.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: Usually that photo, if you type in Fuch Ching, you're gonna see uh those Fuq Ching members in the uh in the news.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: They take pictures of you back then.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: So that's one thing I avoided.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: Mike Lab was very active back then.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's an interesting story in your book that I found fascinating.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to ask you about.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: You had a friend that was in a coma for a while and then he he recovered.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: But what I found interesting.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Two friends in a coma.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: Which one are you talking about?
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Two of them.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, one guy, the one guy who, when he came out of a coma, he said he heard everything that was going on in the hospital, and that amazed me.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: That amazed me also because um, you know, he yeah, he was he's a big guy.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: He's he's like six foot tall, you know, he's he's um muscular and he's built because he took karate, shoulder con karate, ever since he was like 14 years old.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: So I guess he had this uh false sense of confidence.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean he took karate for all those years.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: He's a black belt, but he never won a fight.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: But he's always picking fights.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: He's always picking fights.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: One time he got whacked in the head with a baseball bat, and um he was out, he was out for a while.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_02: And um and the the the thing is, you know, we we thought uh you know what the doctor said he didn't have much chance of surviving because uh you know, like during the uh early stages in the beginning, because with you know the blood and and the swelling in the brain and all that.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: So he was in a coma.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, so me and um me and my uh uh wife now, uh back then, my girlfriend, we were just by his bedside and we're just talking, talking like amongst ourselves.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: And then when he came out of the coma, he goes, Mike, I heard everything you said, and and and he repeated word for word what we said about you know uh about him and all that.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: And um he said, I just couldn't move.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like he like he heard everything clearly, but he just couldn't move.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: So now after he told me that, it's like sometimes I I wonder like the people in the coma, do the doctors know that you know he they can hear?
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_02: Because doctors didn't tell us you know anything that whether he can hear us or not.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: You know, he's in the coma, you know.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: And um sometimes like you get guys you get people in the coma for many years.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: There's a possibility that they know what's going on.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I I found that fascinating.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: I it's just because that I mean, of all the things in your book, and there's a lot going on in your book, but that one, I just stood up, I was like, wow, I I had never heard that before.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: He did this in my book as well.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: I put uh he was in a coma for many months.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: He didn't come out of it.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: And when he came out of it, the the nurses and the doctors, they were all screaming.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: They're like cheering, like they were sh they were shocked.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_02: They were shocked.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I didn't mention that in my book, but they I mentioned about him being in a coma, but I didn't mention the fact that when he came out of it, they were all screaming and yelling and like they were happy for him.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like they were amazed that he even came out.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: They said that there might be 20% chance of him pulling out of it, you know, like from the surviving.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: Those odds weren't good.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Mike, you guys used to carry guns quite a bit when you were an active gang member.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: Where did you guys get your hands on the guns?
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: Depending on like what year.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: Depending on what year.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like you know, people would like the uh 90s, we get it from the American blacks.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they they go out of the out of state, pick up the guns, whatever we want.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_02: We order whatever we want.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: And in the during the 80s, um we get it amongst uh our own crew.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, flea markets, out of state flea markets, you know.
• 15:38
  unknown: Yeah.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: There's this story in there that fascinated me too about counterfeit money.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_02: The counterfeit money back in those days, um they they they have different denominations.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: Different denominations.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: And the hundred dollar bills, um, they were like I wasn't the uh the person who was getting it direct, so I was getting it for 50 cents on the dollar, which is high.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_02: You know, but even then it was worth it because the quality was very good.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_02: So I can imagine just like mm the sauce that I was getting it from, uh, how many hands it went to um before it got to me.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_02: So they probably got it like really cheap.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it then that time the uh hundreds you remember you see the blue and red threads and and all that, they it they had everything.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: It just feels like the real thing, also, even the texture and everything.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: It felt yeah, it felt real.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: Unless you had the pen, you know, to the counterfeit uh pen.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_02: But back then, it wasn't even common.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_02: I would say like nine out of ten stores didn't even have the pen.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: They just go by field.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: I was thinking like, if I remember correctly, like my Dilo was um was getting his hands on these bills.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_02: And if I remember, don't quote me on it, but it's something about North Korea, right?
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_02: That it was coming from North Korea.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know whether I saw something about North Korea doing uh counterfeit or he mentioned something about because I remember when I was uh I was a uh a kid and I asked him, I said, Oh, where where did this come from?
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_02: China?
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: And then he mentioned like that wasn't the source.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: How often you guys were it Chinatown in Manhattan backs up to to Little Italy where the mafias was at that time was alive and well.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: Did you have any dealings with the American mafia?
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um I would say yes, um, because I own a car service.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: I own uh a car service called On Time Car Service on Renoft Avenue U.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: So um yeah, had bad dealings with them.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'm not gonna get into details, but yeah, um they're very, very good to me.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: You know, very good to me.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh if it wasn't for them, I would not even be able to be a part of that business that I was in.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: Let's put it that way.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: So um we we had a lot of respect for each other.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's so amazing, you know.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, me as a 19, 20 year old kid dealing with like uh someone who's who's in their fifties, you know, the mutual respect that we have.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: He's like a father figure to me, you know.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: I was you know, I see him every day.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: Who's my mentor?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean I was closer to him than my own father, you know, like he would guide me, you know, um teach me things and gave me the opportunity to be in a business where, you know, I had over like 20 employees working for me.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_02: And these guys are like Vietnam vets, um people from like the the the low-income neighborhood in Garrison Beach at that time, and and they're all older than me, you know, mostly Irish Irishmen, mostly um, you know, you know, other Italians.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: They all fell in line.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: They had no issues taking uh orders from me, uh a 19, 20 year old Asian kid, because they knew, you know, who was behind the scenes.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I learned a lot from them.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I learned a lot from um you know how they operate and you know I and I carried that throughout my life, you know, like carried out throughout, you know, like a lot of things that I learned from them.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: I I mean you know, they they could be from the streets, you know, they could be, but I can tell you not all criminals are bad people, you know?
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_02: I mean you could be a criminal, but there's that like you know, every when I'm when I came on the job, you know, like people say, Oh, a perp's always a perp.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: You know, but sometimes these perps have more values and principles than some of these cops I work with.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I'm saying?
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: So um yeah, I learned a lot from them.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: When I sold the business to move on to uh other things, because eventually I opened up a pool hall, a 6,000 square foot pool at the junction, and I used the money to open like three retail stores.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and I used the retail stores as uh like a fund for the uh a gambling house at in the basement.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: I remember I gave him uh an envelope, uh,$30,000 just as a token of appreciation, you know.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_02: Because he he was getting his money besides you know whatever he's getting, the cut.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: But I gave him an additional$30,000.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: That was in 1990, 91.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, as just out of respect, you know, out of respect.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I gave him a uh a little handgun.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um, that he thought it was like because when he saw that handgun that I had, it was like a a 22 caliber, it was so small.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, he he held in his hand, he started laughing, he says, This is a girl's gun with his Italian accent.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_02: And then I said, um I said, hey, he said, my daughter would love this.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: He said, I said, I said, is it gift for you?
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_02: You know?
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: And you go, yeah, really?
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's a lot of good memories of him.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then he's in my book, also.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: I go about him in my book.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: See, in your late twenties, you decide to get out of the gang life and clean up your life.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: What made you pivot and want to become a member of the New York City Police Department?
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it was always in the back of my mind, like, yo, like I said, don't judge what made me get involved with the gangs.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um I knew the difference between right and wrong, but I just didn't have the proper guidance, you know.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: Absented parents, parents always working and they were home.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I used to read the daily news every day because I follow what's going on because a lot of the things we did, we made it to the papers, our crew.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: And um and a lot of times they didn't know what the reporters didn't know was our.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Crew, but they wrote down uh whether it's not gang related, or they wrote down it was the flying dragons.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, we used to laugh at it, you know, because they didn't know about the Fuch Chang until Fuch Ching made the papers with the you know, headlines with the Golden Venture.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_02: But they really didn't know about us.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: So we were under the radar for the longest time.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_02: So that I would always read the newspaper and see what's going on uh with my friends, my my gangmates, because when somebody does something, we don't tell each other.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's a need-to-know basis, you know?
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_02: Unless you're real you know, like what so we we just check the newspapers.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: And um during that time, uh Stephen McDonald got shot and he was left a quadriplegic.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_02: And uh the person, the reporter was covering the story, you know, I just kept following his story all the way to the end.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: And and then um eventually by that time when you know, like during the trial, he he forgave the the kid who shot him, you know.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_02: So that show like to me, like that was like incredible.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's something that's against everything I believe in.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like I believe in revenge, I don't believe in forgiveness at that time with the stage that I was in.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: And um I thought that was like incredible what he did, you know, the compassion that he had, and I'm like, wow.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: So I start to um ask myself, like, what like self-do a lot of self-reflection because the reason he said that he forgave the kid is because he the kid was a product of his environment.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I never heard that before.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: I never heard that phrase before.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_02: And especially in the 80s, and I'm a teenager, and then the first time I heard that phrase, uh he was a part of so I did a lot of self-reflection, like, am I a product of my environment?
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like, so I start to ask myself these questions, you know, like I know what's right, what's wrong, but you know, like I I just imagine like how he felt forgiving the person.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like I try to like put myself in his shoes, like how do you feel?
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: Angry, like happier?
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_02: So um you know, I did a lot of bad things in my life and I felt good doing it, but then you know, I would feel good doing good things also.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: So then I start, you know, uh I I kept it in my in the back of my mind, like I really gotta get out of this environment that I'm trapped in.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_02: Like I'm sucked into this life and it's hard to get out.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_02: Because once you get a taste of it, you know, you can't get out.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's so you can't just like s say, oh, you know what, I'm out and then and disappear.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: But you know what?
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_02: All the stars fell in place, it was all aligned because during that time the feds came down and arrested everybody who was a somebody.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_02: And our crew, um, the people who did the human smuggling, people who did drugs and all that, because just like the mafia, the Italian mafia, you have different crews, right?
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like the Gambino, they have um, you know, Roy DeMayo's crew, right?
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_02: With Nino Gaggy, right?
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_02: Then you have uh Sammy the Bull, he had his crew.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_02: So you got different crews, but with the same thing with the Chinese, right?
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_02: Same thing with the Chinese, so we had different crews.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_02: And luckily, our crew dealt only with the gambling and made us tons of money with the gambling houses.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_02: We had gambling houses all over.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: And uh we had gambling houses on Eldra Street, um, those high-rise candles in um in Flushing in Brooklyn, you know, um, and one on uh Bowie, and they were making a lot of money.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um because, you know, Sister Ping, I don't know if you heard of her, you know, she was the one who um organized the golden venture and all that.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, okay.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, she was making so much money, uh her brother would come into these gambling houses with like hundreds of thousands of dollars and he would lose in one night and he'll come he'll come back the same week and and pay his debt and and continue to gamble again, you know, like like why would why would our crew need to deal in in drugs, you know, when I mean back then the gambling houses were making so much money, right?
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_02: For example, if if you have one, let's say for example, you have one blackjack table, right?
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: And if you have let's say six people playing blackjack and or seven people on the table playing blackjack, so the person who bets the most will be in the front, you know.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just saying blackjack, but with let's say pie gal, okay.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_02: But so now the person who's betting the most will be in the front, and then the and then you got like six deep behind that one person.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_02: So how many people you got betting?
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_02: You got like stacks of money and like this, you know, so yeah, and uh just e even if you if if uh if you read the book in the ghost shadows by Peter Chen, you know, uh he was pulling in, um, and that's just uh uh the gang members, not the tongues, the gang members.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_02: The ghost shadows who had 11 gambling houses in Chinatown.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh that was during the 70s, 11 gambling houses, and each gambling house was paying the ghost shadows$10,000.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_02: So that's$110,000 cash a week in the 70s that they were pulling in.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_02: And that was for the gangs.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_02: All right, the tongues get even more.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, the gangs get uh the tongues get even more.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: So if think about it, you got these 15, 16, 20 year old kids in that crew, because most of the ghost shadows are anywhere from 13 to about 20, 21, 22.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: The leaders like around that age, pulling in that kind of money in the 70s.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: So by the 80s, uh the Dongwang gang established control on division in East Broadway.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then by the mid-80s, um Dongwang was in the uh uh 79-80.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: And then by 80 85, uh around that time, the Fuxing came along and established their gambling houses on Eldridge and in the outer outskirts of Chinatown.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_02: And they they really couldn't get into um Ma Street, the inner Chinatown, because it was controlled by Flying Dragons, Ghost Shadows, and the Don Wong.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_02: These three main gangs.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: So they really couldn't get you know, we we couldn't get a foothold in there.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_02: So we had to expand to Flushing and expand to um to Brooklyn.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: So that's why I ended up being recruited.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: They sent out, you know, recruiters.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: Cambolden Peter was a recruiter, and he was sent out to recruit in Brooklyn, and that's how I got caught up in the gang.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: So we both were on the same job, but I know what the process is like to become a cop and dealing with the applicant investigation unit, filling out all that paperwork that's supposed to go to your house, supposed to interview your former employees, and then you're on two years probation.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, probation was like two years, like was like ten years for me.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna ask you that.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, what were you going through like knowing that the other shoe could drop?
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, that was in my mind.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: But you know what?
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: To me, whatever comes my way, I'll handle it then.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like a lot of people, they fear the unknown.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm the type who's like, okay, I welcome the unknown.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_02: Alright?
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_02: If it comes, it comes.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I survived, I'm not even supposed to be alive.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: So what what's what's the worst that can happen to me?
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I'm saying?
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: So if if I'm in the academy and internal affairs, come into the classroom and pick me up, okay, so be it.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: You know?
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_02: What is the worst that can happen when you when you're a person who shouldn't even be alive?
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: So that's how I see it, you know?
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_02: People fear the unknown.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_02: What's what's their fear?
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_02: We're all gonna go to the same place anyway at the end.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_02: Just deal with it when it when it comes, right?
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, forward look at it.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I look at it to mentally ease myself.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: When it comes, it comes.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_02: And that's how I look at it.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: What could have derailed you was when you were in the police academy, you got called into a Brooklyn precinct and you were questioned about a friend's death.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: That was an incident where they pulled his body out of a park way right out of the ocean.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_02: And um and he owed me um$22,000 or$20,000 at that time.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_02: It was$20,000, and he was paying off that debt to me.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: And the detective.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it went from uh like a cordial interview to like a more, you know, how they escalate the interview, try to get you to confess, and he slammed his fist on the table.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_02: You know, he's got you got 20,000 reasons to kill him.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's like, yeah, read the book.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_02: Check it out, because a lot of details in the book that if I if I went on with the story, it's gonna take a a while.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, no, no.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: No, I just I just found that amazing because you know, you're walking on eggshells every cop for their first two years.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: And you're getting called into a you're getting called into a detective squad about a homicide, but it's it wasn't a homicide, but they thought it was a homicide at first, and you got called in.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: So that that I would have thought they would have given you a hard look after that.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: If you you you read the book, you know why they didn't give me a hard look after that.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_02: But but the thing is, um, yeah, uh, I was in the in the CPOP right after I came out from the Academy.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_02: Chief Brennan um brought me over there because the community just wanted a person who speaks Cantonese to work in Chinatown.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_02: And that's how I ended up being in Chinatown.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: And um what happened was once I got pulled over to work in the 6-6, assigned to the 6-6 priest, they they sent me to the Prospect Park Detail.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_02: And that detail F, I don't know if I remember correctly, I think it lasts like five to seven months or something like that.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure, but it was a long time.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_02: Standing in the park watching squirrels.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_02: That's it.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_02: You know, then and I loved it because it kept me out of sight, out of mind.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I loved it because I was doing it was during my probation error uh era.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_02: During those two years, I'm like, how do I I didn't really want to be standing right in the heart of Chinatown in uniform.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_02: Well, luckily they so people see as a punishment to get sent to a detail like that away for the summer, right?
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_02: But uh I saw it as a uh a blessing, you know.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, hey, I'm here, out of sight, out of mind, I'm in the park every day.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_02: And then after that, there was um they sent me to um I think uh my mom is hospital had a uh strike with the union or the nurses, I forgot what.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_02: And then I was uh I was there for uh a while standing in the uh foot post.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_02: So I was I was on foot post for probably like a good six months, even more, before I even saw a sector car.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like yeah, that was how it was back then.
• 33:34
  unknown: Yeah.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: When you went back to patrol at the 6-6, you and your partner responded to a home invasion where the guy came out shooting at you guys.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_02: That was uh that was the uh Prospect Park detail.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we had we came all the way from Prospect.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: That was like uh like a after midnight, uh yeah, after midnight.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_02: So we raced from Prospect Park, and then the 7-2 had one sector who was first on the scene.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't know whatever happened with that because the uh every helicopters, the aviation came, the the Bloodhound came, and you know, so I mean we were patrol, so yeah, the uh the squad took over after that.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody got hurt.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: So there's another story in your book from um working the West Indian Day Parade where your partner got shot in his pants.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah, it made the news.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um I was we were talking, like we're you know how loud the music is down at Juve.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_02: We were shoulder to shoulder.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_02: His shoulder was touching against my shoulder, right?
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_02: Because it was so loud that you know we just needed to be close so we can hear each other talk in case anything, right?
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: And all of a sudden, there were we heard bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, five shots.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_02: And you see like the crowd like just parted, like Moses parting the SC, you know, just like parted.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_02: Like we're trying to like we're like we're in a shock, we're just standing there, and I I felt the bullet whiz past my ear, like the wind of the bullet whizz past my left ear.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_02: And it ricocheted off the we're standing in front of the the van and it ricocheted off the whatever the wheel of the van, wherever it ricocheted from, or maybe the the g the the floor, the gravel.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_02: But I felt the the the the bullet hit the soul saw my my boot.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_02: And then my partner who was standing next to me, you know, he didn't even know that the bullet went through his pants until he got back to the locker room when he took off his pants, had two holes.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_02: That means the bullet went through the flap.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_02: One bullet went right through the flap of his and yeah, the department game did the right thing.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_02: It gave a voucher for a free pair of pants in headquarters.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: And people listening to this that don't understand the NYPD, when you buy your slacks from either the equipment section or one of these police equipment stores, the pants are always baggy.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: And 99% of NYPD members are not going to Taylor to get those pants fitted.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: So every cop, if you see, usually wears baggy pants.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that's probably why it went through because it was baggy on him, and the bullet went in and out of uh out of his slacks.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so it looked, you know, luckily he yeah, luckily went right through his pants and shoot him in the leg.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: There's a sad story from your book about a small child being crushed that you had to respond to.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah, the box truck.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_02: That was like one of my very first um encounters with like a kid, you know, like one thing that hits me um hard is any any um any crime or any victims who like vulnerable, you know, like female kids and like and yeah, that I felt bad because uh the grandmother was pushing the stroller, trying to cross the street.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_02: That it was closed.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_02: It was uh the the street was closed for like a uh lock party or something like that.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_02: It was a function that's going on.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the box trucks was I don't know if the box truck was making deliveries, but it was parked there, maybe trying to get out.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_02: Already made the deliveries, but it was backing up.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_02: She was pushing the uh the stroller, trying to cross in the middle of the street.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_02: And it crushed the stroller and it crushed the baby, and all the baby's in it came out of his mouth and squirted all over the the street, the sidewalk.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_02: So and it was like one of the hottest days during that time, and I see it cooking on the sidewalk.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_02: The like you it's like you put uh an egg on a hot pavement, it's gonna cook.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: What I found interesting from your book, there was a story, and I I I think I remember this story in the news.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: You knew or rubbed elbows with a corrupt bank employee who scammed Chinese immigrants out of at least$9 million.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_02: More than$9 million.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_02: The paper said$10 million, but uh it's obviously a lot more than that because it's all cash.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_02: She she cleared all the safe deposits.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_02: She was a customer of mine in my gambling house back when I was a gang member.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_02: And she was one of the high uh high rollers in my place.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and I always wonder like what she did for a living.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_02: You never ask.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_02: You don't ask these questions.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_02: You don't you don't ask what people do.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_02: If they're a customer and they're spending money at your place, you know what?
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, she so she's spending a lot of money uh and um then sometimes I would see her in Atlantic City spending like hundreds of thousands of dollars, you know.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_02: And um I'm always like wondering, like she's not she's not a gang member, she's not in uh Al circuit.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_02: Like we don't we don't know much about her, like a lot of other gang members.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_02: Because usually, like, if you're dealing with drugs or anything uh illegal like that, the streets would know.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_02: But we didn't know much about her, but she has all that money.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_02: So many years pass.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_02: Now, fast forward, I'm a cop now.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_02: I'm on a foot post in Chinatown, and I walk into this bank called Abacus, and I'm like, wait a minute.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_02: She looked familiar.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, so we know it.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_02: So she's shocked now, and I'm just as shocked as I'm in uniform, right?
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_02: And you and then like I'm looking at her, she's looking at me, but we don't say nothing to each other.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_02: Then I'm thinking, like, then I find out she's the branch manager.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_02: Then I'm like, how the hell does a branch manager have this kind of unless she came from money coming from the family, you know?
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, of course that's what you think.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe she has a rich family who owns buildings in Chinatown, and right, but I don't so I'm I didn't think nothing of it.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_02: So fast forward another year or two.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_02: I walk I walk in to work one day, and the death sergeant tells me, Mike, get suited up and and shoot over to Abacus Bank.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_02: There's a there's something going on over there.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_02: You you gotta be there for crowd control.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_02: So take your scooter.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_02: So now I go there and I see that there's a line wrapped all the way around the block, like as far as you can see.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like all the way around the block.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_02: And it's all these people who have money and jewelry in the safe deposit.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_02: So they have all so they're all panicking, like, because they heard that somebody broke in the safe deposit, but they don't have the details, right?
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_02: So they all panic, and it's like there's a commotion, and so I'm there for the crowd control.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_02: It turned out that she took all the money, emptied out all the money from the safe deposit.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_02: And you know that back in those days, the Chinese people they keep all cash in the safe deposit.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_02: And you can just imagine how much cash and jewelry jewelry is in there because they they're into 24 karat gold.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, you when you see Chinese people, they don't wear the 18, 14 karat gold, they wear the 24 karat gold.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so you can just imagine how much she could.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_02: So, how did she do it?
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_02: Based on my information in the streets, how she did it.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_02: But I whatever they did the investigation, I wasn't part of it, I was in patrol and I didn't say nothing.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_02: So this yeah, I'm not gonna expose my because once you offer information, they can say, How you know this person is oh, I didn't offer no information at that time.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_02: So, based on what people told me is when you go into a safe deposit during that time, during that era, you need two keys.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_02: One is the the bank employee, and one you keep.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_02: So you need two keys to open it and two keys to lock it.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so she's over there talking to the customer, blah blah blah, distracting the customer, take the customer's key and take her key, right?
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: To lock it, right?
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: But she only locked hers, right?
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: And not the customers.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_02: So the customer's part, that part of the side, that side of the lock is unlocked.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_02: She goes like this, make it appear that she's locking it.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_02: But meanwhile, only her her side is locked.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_02: So now she did that to all the customers.
• 42:22
  unknown: Oh man.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_02: And one day, she just decided to clear it all out.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_02: And then she fled.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_02: She fled to this day, I don't think they caught her.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, they never arrested her?
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_02: No, as far as as far as I know, she left the country.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_02: She left the kids, she left her husband, and I don't even to this day, I don't think they caught her.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_02: Because I was just checking some updates and you know, done over the years.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_02: Well maybe uh maybe you could find out that she got caught.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_02: But think about it.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_02: That's why I say gambling is the worst disease out there.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah because she's a heavy gambler.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_02: You would lose all your morals, principles, you would even leave your own kids, you would leave your own family.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's just destructive, right?
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_02: To people around you.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_02: Because I see it.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_02: I see the people, the gamblers.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_02: I've been around, you know, these people in the gambling houses, and I see what they do.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_02: So there's some stories that so crazy that, you know, I know I know females who just gamble wouldn't even wouldn't even go to the uh the bathroom to take a bathroom break, or just pee right on the chair.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's why some of the that's why these casino in the chairs there's they're dirty.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_02: I don't trust those chairs.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_02: I make sure it's clean before I I sit on it.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't even have thought of that.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_00: Mike, you did some undercover work in the brothels in Chinatown.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah, yeah.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_02: There was one incident.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_02: I I bumped into this uh known ghost out of member.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_02: It was a hero situation.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't want to be exposed, so you know I had to I had to worry about the people outside, I had to worry about the the guy passed.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: Recognizing me, the Go Shadow member, and um it's just um a heavy situation.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_02: I I detail in my book, but if you want me to go into details, I I can't.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_02: Do we have enough time?
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: No, I just I just I just found it interesting that you that to do that kind of work because you know as a former gang member who's in there, how those places operate.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the NYPD, the vice unit, or what they they know, but they don't know.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_00: If that makes any sense, you you had insight and you almost got into like a road rage incident with this ghost shadow member, right?
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: He came at you with a machete a couple of weeks earlier.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and that's the same ghost shadow member that I saw in the in the pasta house at the bottom.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_02: And um, luckily he didn't look in my direction.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_02: I went straight into the bathroom down the hallway.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_02: And then uh and I'm like trying to gain regain my composure to see what I'm gonna do.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_02: And then when I went in, I saw three girls on the couch, and I saw the one in white that I was gonna choose, and then I just like yelled out from the bathroom hallway to to those two guys who was there.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_02: I said, I'll take the girl in white, and then I went straight into the room and they sent in the girl in in white.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_02: So I I saw him, but he didn't see me.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_02: And then you know, I gave the code, and that's well, once the money was, you know, offered or whatever, once the uh service was offered and and the price was uh arranged, and that's when I gave the code and they came busting in.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_02: But that was the Go Shadow member who came at me with the machete and had my 32 centennial right on my lap, and when he came up to to my window, he all he saw was the barrel of my gun pointed directly at his chest and his knees buckled.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: So that was um that was a hairy incident.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_00: Mike, you worked in the 6'6 detective squad for many years.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have a case that haunts you?
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um no, nothing.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_02: I guess maybe I'm so desensitized to everything.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_02: There's really nothing that um I mean there's some cases that stand out um that is difficult to forget, but I don't know what I'm saying.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_02: Had a yeah, had a homicide.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_02: I called a homicide, it was mob related.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_02: It was mob related.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_02: I really wanted to solve that case.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_02: We went through so much, but um Yeah, I I even went to um had the aviation come and and follow the uh the uh the suspect who we thought is, you know, we had a suspect and we I had aviation come and follow the guy.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he went to the funeral with the guy he killed.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_02: That's how Italians do it.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_02: You kill the guy and you and then you go to his funeral.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_02: So I had aviation up in the sky following him to see where he went after the funeral, and I had Taboo over there.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh put cameras, wire-up cameras and uh in front of the funeral home to see who's coming in and out.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_02: I did a lot of work on that, but couldn't um couldn't crack the case because the guy who killed him already did 15 years in in prison, came out, did the hit as a favor.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but he wouldn't talk.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_02: You know, he's a seasoned criminal, so he ain't gonna he ain't talking.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_02: I tried getting him to talk.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_02: He couldn't couldn't get him to talk.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um so what happened is uh, long story short, many years later, uh the feds came in and asked for my case.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_02: So they uh make copies of the paperwork.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_02: Because by that time, there's no OCCB anymore.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_02: You know, back in your days, there was an organized crime control bureau, right?
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_02: And within the NYPD, but no more.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um so the feds came over, they took cop they made copies of uh my case, and ultimately they still couldn't get him on that case, but they got him on other cases, and he's serving life.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_02: But they still, you know, I wanted to bring closure to that case.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_02: And but even the feds can do it.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_02: If the feds can't do it, what makes you think that NYPD needs?
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right, right, with all with everything they have.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_02: So the feds got him on other things, which put him away for life.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_00: I there's a st there's a there's a story in your book that I laugh I burst out laughing, like I had to read it twice because it made me laugh so hard.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: You get called into an IAB G0 15 hearing, and they shoot you a photo of a bunch of your anti-crime buddies, and you turn around and you go, I don't know, all white guys look alike.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't stop laughing.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then could you go on to like what you told them about if there if you if there was a cop in China?
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, they wanted to get these guys, you know, these anti-crime guys.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_02: I I guess I could say an hour so long ago, back in the 90s.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_02: They wanted to get them these guys for um, I guess, use of force.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they had they were heavy-handed or whatever.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they wanted to get them.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_02: Uh these guys are good to me.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_02: If it wasn't for these guys, I'll tell you right now, I would not be on the job.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_02: I would not be on the job.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_02: Because these these anti-crime guys, they would they stopped me and and my boys with handguns.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_01: They they gave us break, cut us loose.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_01: I back when I was a gang member.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I would I would bend over backward for these guys.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: Then they should then they call me as a witness to a case and they show me a photo of these guys.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I'm new, I said, I'm new.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_01: I just came to 6'6.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm a I'm a rookie.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm still on probation.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_01: I said, I'm new.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know any of these guys.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_02: He said, how can you not know?
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_02: You work with these guys for months, how can you not know?
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_02: I said, I work solo, I'm I'm a so I'm solo on foot post and uniform.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_02: These guys are plain clothes.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_02: All you white guys look the same to me.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_02: I said, imagine you go to China and you work in the Chinese police department and all these Chinese guys running around with shield around their neck, would you be able to recognize them?
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_02: And then they had to like shut the recorder down, take a break.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_02: They look at um uh Mike Emmett.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_02: He was with the Mike Emmett looked at me like I'm crazy.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how can you say that to uh internal affairs like that kind of look, you know?
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't give a fuck.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like, there's no way I'm ratting these guys out.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_00: Mike, I have to tell you, I enjoy your YouTube channel, and it's called Chinatown Gang Stories Podcast.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_00: You have great guests, it's very well produced.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think I was telling you off camera, I think my favorite episode was your um your buddy that you interviewed uh Cowboy.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_02: Cowboy, he was the main distributor to the guys in Bronx.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, Cowboy was the distributor to this kid, boy George Rivera, the Hispanic kid, who in turn he was making like tens of millions of dollars in in the in uh the heroin, the China White, okay, because uh and he was getting it from Cowboy.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_02: He was getting it from Cowboy.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I'll tell you a story about that, right?
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_02: So what happened was Cowboy was supplying Boy George, okay, before Boy George became big.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_02: So Boy George had a demand for this this stuff.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_02: Then what one day um the Chinese, because you know Chinese dominate like almost 75 to 80 percent of heaven coming into this country back in the 80s.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_02: So it one one day it became dry.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so now they Boy George couldn't get any from uh Cowboy because there was uh uh a dry spell going on.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_02: So the Boy George said, Alright, I have a another Kinect, and it's actually cheaper.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's coming from Colombia and they're and let's let's go get this deal together.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_02: So Boy George and him went over to uh to deal with this lady, right?
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_02: And the middleman uh took the money, um, it was like hundreds of thousands, like a little less than half a million, let's put it that way.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_02: Took the money and um went inside to the uh the building to do the exchange while Boy George and Cowboy was outside waiting for the the the goods to come out.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_02: So they thought it was only one way in, one way out.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, because they I guess they didn't know that there was a a back entrance that the guy slipped out from and took the money and and and left.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_02: So now Boy George is on the hook for a couple hundred thousand dollars.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_02: Now he owed Cowboy that money because he lost that money.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, because through his connect, he lost that money.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_02: So now Cowboy thinking that uh there's gonna be a there's gonna be problems, right?
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe a war gonna happen or whatever, somebody's gotta gotta be accountable for this kind of money.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_01: But boy George um in the car told uh cowboy that you know don't worry about it.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'll take care of it.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_01: So of course you're gonna take it with a grain of salt.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_02: But they call for a meeting with the flying dragons um a short time later.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_01: And they they went to Chinatown and actually delivered on his promise.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that money he took care of.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_02: So d I mean d these this is like from the streets, you know.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_02: You got people who owe people$35 and run away.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_02: But Boy George didn't run away with a few hundred you're talking about more than a quarter million dollars, okay.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_02: Under half a million.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_02: He delivered the money to the flying dragons.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_02: And that's when they built that trust, and that's how Boy George became big is because of that incident that he made good on his promise.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_02: So now Onion Head and Cowboy eventually got their goods coming in and gave Boy George the stuff instead of one or two bricks, it gave him like ten bricks at a clip on consignment.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_01: Meaning take it, sell it, and then bring the money back.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_01: So you told him out a lot of money, you told him out.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_01: So that's how he became big boy George.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh because uh China White was big back then.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_00: Mike, what what what was the deciding factor after you retire to write a book about your career and your life?
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody was trapping my ear.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_01: This person worked with me for many, many years.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we were on a job together and he knew me for decades.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_02: And he doesn't know anything about my past.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_01: I don't say I don't tell anybody about my past.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_02: But he see I guess he saw that like I I'm a little different how I handle things, how I do things and he go, Mike, you have a book in you.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_01: I can see you have a book in you.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_02: I mean I'm talking about things that I do that a lot of uh regular people like wouldn't do, wouldn't take that chance, or wouldn't even whatever.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, he was like um uh surprise, I guess, you know, like somebody from the outside looking in.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_02: But I don't s I don't see it, but then I I thought about it, I'm like, you know what?
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_02: What I just did, you know, most people won't do.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_02: You know, regardless whether I'm on the job or outside, like before I came on the job.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm thinking, nobody's talking about the Chinatown gangs in New York City.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody even spoke about there's nothing on YouTube about it, there's there's no literature on it.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_02: And even if there's literature on it and there's books on it, it's it's coming from a non-Asian, or it's coming from a reporter, or it's coming from uh uh a law enforcement officer, uh, but not from the horse's mouth, not from what I saw personally, you know, okay, not from the people who live through it.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_02: There's nothing out there like that.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_02: You got these you know professors writing books on Asian gangs.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_02: What do they know about Asian gangs?
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_02: You know, or that's why all these terms you know that they use, I wouldn't even use in it, we don't even use in the streets.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_02: I say, you know what, let me set the record straight and and and and write a write a book.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_02: And and you know what?
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_02: My my life story is uh like a roller coaster.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, uh I mean how many people you know who who went from uh a gang member to a business owner to a police officer to a detective and uh uh a YouTuber and author.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_02: And now and now I'm an actor.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I just finished uh acting gig for the last couple of months, and the show is coming out.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um I I was fortunate enough to get um called and to cast for this TV show, and it's gonna be on Peacock next year.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_02: So stay tuned.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so now I'm in the acting uh industry.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_02: And hopefully open some doors for other things, you know, other parts.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_02: I play a gangster, by the way.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_02: I play uh uh OG Chinatow gangster in in that uh TV show.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's uh I believe it's three seasons and it's eight, seven or eight episodes per season.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_02: So stay tuned.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_02: Mike, last time, what's the name of your book and where can our listeners pick up a copy?
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_02: The name of the book is called Bad to Blue.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_02: My YouTube channel is called Chinatown Gang Stories, and you can always pick it up on Amazon.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_02: Bad to blue.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'd rather go from bad to blue than blue to bad.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'll say.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_00: Mike Moite, thank you so much for spending your time with us today.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Vic.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_00: And as always, I'd like to thank everyone for tuning in, especially my listeners in Lawnmont, Colorado, Dobbs Ferry, New York, Lawrenceville, Indiana, and uh let's see, uh San Pedro Carmichael.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_00: If you worked in law enforcement and had an interesting criminal background, please drop me a note on Twitter or Instagram at VicFerroy50.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you're watching on YouTube, please hit the like and subscribe button.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_00: And if you enjoy the content, check out my Amazon auto page.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_00: Just type in my name, Vic, Ferrari Like the Car, where you can preview all my NYPD books for free.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks again, everyone, and I'll see you next week.