Latest / NYPD Through The Looking Glass / NYPD Police Officer Richard Sharp

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NYPD Police Officer Richard Sharp · NYPD Through The Looking Glass

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we walked in once, uh there was two it was two good stor not good, but one we walked in on Raj's, I f I forget where it was.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it was uh three guys walked in with guns and tried to rob the place, and one guy that worked in there had a gun and they all shot each other.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: And the guy the one guy took them all out.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: So we show up there, you know, puddles of blood everywhere, multiple shell casings everywhere, and uh I walk in with my partner, and we're used to seeing it, it's not a big deal, whatever, you know.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's like so we see a guy, I see a guy in the back, and he's sitting on a cardboard box with his back to the wall, and his eyes have open, like this, you know.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I walk back there and I'm like, what happened?
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: And he's just sitting there looking at me, trying to talk to him, you know, for maybe 10 seconds, and I realized he got a bullet right in the middle of his head, like a little pinhole, a little pinhole.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it was a 22, and he was dead.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: But he was dead with his eyes open.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Richard Sharp is a retired NYPD police officer who was nice enough to be a guest on today's show.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Richie Sharp, welcome.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Vic, for having me on.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate it.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Richie, please tell our listeners a little something about yourself.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I grew up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, I'm 60 years old now, and uh I grew up in uh Brooklyn in the 70s and 80s when it was great, and uh I came on the job in uh January 9th, 1986.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, growing up in Brooklyn, I was thinking about this when you said you you grew up in Bay Ridge.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: You must have seen your fair share of mobsters running around the neighborhood when you were a kid.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, most of them were in the 6'2 in Bensonhurst, but we had uh social club on Four Hammer and Parkway, like two blocks from my house.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's just like the Bronx Tale, you know, guys sitting outside in the lounge chairs in their suits, and everybody went to them for any problems, and there was no problems in the neighborhood.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: It was your own people, there was no crime.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: My mother used to say, she told me the story, 1965, when I was born, they used to put the baby carriages outside the lunchonette, and they would walk in and get lunch, and the baby carriages would be lined up and nobody would touch them.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: The good old days, right?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: The lunchonette, the cigar stores.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like my neighborhood had the same, you walk in there, it was like a little bit of everything.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: The bakeries with the Mother Mary in the window, you know.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: So let me throw a couple of names at you.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Just curious if you've seen these guys or did did you see Sammy the Bull Gravano when you were a kid?
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: No, I didn't see him.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't see any really gangsters because most of them, they weren't that far away.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: They were in the next neighborhood over, but I didn't wasn't really aware of any.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: But like I said, there were guys in our neighborhood, but no one really knew who they were.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it was always low-key.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, low-key, yeah.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: So what years were you active with the NYPD?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: 86 to pretty much 06.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: And just tell us like how how did you come on the job and what it was like?
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll always tell a story, like, you know, growing up as a kid, I was I didn't think about it much, but my dad used to bring home the chief all the time.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: Remember the chief?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, you know, there was like in Brooklyn, there was like five things you could do.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: It was police, fire, military.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: If you're stuck around too long, you wind up dead or in jail.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: Those were the five options.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like you want to get a civil service job, or guys would go over to the military just to get out of the neighborhood.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: Not that you were a bad kid, but there was bad stuff going on around you, you know.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: So my dad always brought home the chief, and he used to always say pension and benefits, pension and benefits.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: And my dad was a World War II veteran.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I I wasn't interested in anything else.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't interested in sanitation or FD.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I just took the PD test.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: I was young, I was probably maybe 16.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think you had to be 16 and a half.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: I was 16 and a half, 17.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I got called pretty I got called for the uh July of 85 class, but I was born in December of 65.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I wasn't gonna be 20 until December of 85.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: And then they won't put you in the academy unless you were 20.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like you couldn't turn 20 in the academy, you had to be 20.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I got pushed back to the January of 86 class.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then, like I told the story before, I was taking the train into the city every day.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: I was working in a mail room, like 17, 18 years old.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I was saying to myself, I can't wait to become on the job, and I don't gotta ride these trains anymore.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then I got I got picked for transit and I had to ride them eight hours a day.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: What was your mindset?
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because back in the old days, it was like a lottery, and you had to go, at least for me, you had to go downtown just before you went into the academy, and there was like a thing on a wall.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like your name in alphabetical order and like Sharp Transit, Ferrari PD, Smith Housing.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: What was your mindset when you realized you were going to transit?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'll tell you how it happened to me.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's so wild that I remember everything from so long ago.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: I went down to the mini medical and he said, if we call your name, come into this room.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: And my name was called, and it was like maybe, I don't know, 15 of us.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't, it wasn't a big amount.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I had no idea what we were being called back for.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe something came back on the mini medical that wasn't good health-wise.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't sure.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I go into the room and he's like, You guys have been selected for transit.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: So my immediate my immediate thing was like, what if I turn it down?
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: He says, You could turn it down, but you're gonna go to the bottom of the list, and the list could expire.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: And he said to me, take the job, kid, and just roll over on the next exam.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I did.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: I took the job and then I rolled over.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: I came on January of 86.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: I got out in July or June, July, and I rolled over the next year, July of 87.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I did one full year out in the street in transit.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it was great.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: It was a lot of fun.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: It was fun working by yourself.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: You got no one else to worry about.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's your story and nobody else's story.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, but I mean, but you're riding the trains in '86 by yourself.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm a 20-year-old kid, you know, and I used to take, it was TPF, Tactical Patrol Force.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: It was 7:30 to 4 in the morning.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: The hours were horrendous.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, I lived at home, I was 20 years old, I didn't care about the hours.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: And you had to do three trips to Manhattan and back.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: You had to take it from Corney Allen, which was the last stop, take it to the last stop in Manhattan, I think it was 57th Street, and you had to do three runs in the course of eight hours.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: So we go back to Corney Allen, back to Manhattan, and then if you were writing someone a summons or you had to get off the train, you had to say why.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: Or sometimes if you wanted to get off, you just put something in your book, and uh and then you you you would wind up intercepting other guys and talking to them.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: So it was fun.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, I rolled over.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: I was a 21-year-old kid, I wanted to be, you know, hence a real cop and go to the city, you know.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, in in transit, I mean, you were in transit in the heyday when it was a shit show in New York in the subway system.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: I remember as a kid going into Manhattan, like, what the hell?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if the subway was bad.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: When you were a transit cop, I mean, how dangerous was it?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: It was a nightmare.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: It was a nightmare.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: And no one listened to you.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then you used to do these VEAPs, they were called.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what it stood for, but it was like visible platform stuff.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I would go to the 7-3, I would do New Lots, Sutter, and Lavonia.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: Now, anybody that, you know, is watching this, that's a police officer, worked in those areas, knows those stations were horrible.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: And you would always hear over the over the PA, pay your fare, pay, nobody pay their fare, no one listened to you.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you tell guys, take your hands out of your pockets, they tell you to go out for yourself.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, nobody would show your ID.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then now you're trying to call for another unit and there's nobody available, or they don't hear you.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: So it's uh, you gotta have a thick skin fast, and uh, you gotta pick your spots, you know.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: Did you did you handle any suicides in the subway system?
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: No, I I got one that it wasn't mine, but I showed up to they call it a space case.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the guy jumped, yeah, that's what it's called, space case.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: The guy jumps uh in front of the train and the train wraps his body up.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like it comes through, and it would like it pretty much cuts off half the body, but it sews up the bottom part of your torso, so all your organs are still intact and you're still alive.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: So you're pinned against the you're pinned against the platform.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so like your upper body is is like on the platform, like looking up, but the rest of the body's gone.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: And they, you know, there were stories.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't there for that, but there were stories where the guy would call his wife and say goodbye.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because once they lift the train off of him, everything would pour out of him and they'd be gone.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, crazy.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: Crazy.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: How big were the rats down there?
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, they were the size of cats.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: They were big.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: We used to try to mace them, they'd run away, but I don't think it really affected them.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I used to carry a can of ice all my jacket for the homeless guys because it was always wore the big, thick gray gloves.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: Because it the homeless were all over the place back then, like it is now, and they stunk to high health.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like you would see, you'd be on a platform, and it was crazy.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: It was so funny.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: Other transit guys would laugh when you listen to this.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: A train would come into the station, and let's say it's in the morning, and all the cars are packed of people going to work, and there's one car that's completely empty as it comes through, and you know there's a homeless guy there, completely empty, not one person on the car.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and you would walk in there, and it would the stench was so bad.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, we used to have to, you would go to the closed end of the station where there's nobody and have your sandwich or have something to eat and you're smelling bumpice, you know, it's crazy.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: But it was fun.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: It was a lot of fun, a lot of great guys.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, I mean, I wouldn't change anything.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: I had a good time.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Did you ever have anybody hit the third rail?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, again, I wasn't for that, but I've seen I've known guys that fried on it, you know.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: I I mean I I went onto the tracks once or twice, once to pull an EDP off, you know.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, they say you go over the radio, you tell them to cut the power.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: You don't know if the power's cut.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: You just stay away from the third rail.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: Completely stay away from it.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they have wood running across the top of it.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: You can put your foot on the wood, but you know, you know, you completely stay away from it and you get off the tracks as soon as you can, you know.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well the reason I ask is because, and you know this, I mean, the homeless live in the subway tunnels and they're ingenious.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: They'll they'll hook up power in there somehow and have lights in there and Yeah, it's amazing.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's really hot in those tunnels.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like you go, it's hot in the station at nighttime, but like especially a close, you know, the closed station, like the opening air station was the best.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like the B line had the open, like you know, Bay Parkway, and all those stations were above ground.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: So when you're above ground, those are great stations.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: If you can smell the fresh air, but you're down there and then you go into the tunnels, and it's like three times hotter.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's like it's like being in a sauna at 170 degrees.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: So eventually the next class over, you roll over after a year.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: How did they treat you like in the academy and then in the NSU?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you had a little bit of time on.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: They they didn't teach treat you just like a you know, like a recruit, did they?
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: No, they were good.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, they're cops just like us.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like when we first came on the job, we weren't really cops.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're PPOs, you know, preparation apologists ring summons.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: Come on.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you're still a civilian and you're and you're being told by a cop what to do.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: So you're gonna listen for the most part, and you want to graduate your class.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: So, but now when you're rolling over, these guys and instructors know you're a cop.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: So you treat it completely differently.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's a two-week like refresh course.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because, like I said last time, we used to write the tab summonses, which was transit adjudication bureau.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: So then they update us on the new summonses in the city and things we never really handled, like family disputes and car stops we didn't really do as transit cops.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: So there was like a two-week course, but it was like really low-key and laid back, and then you uh went to NSU.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: But it was funny because when you rolled over, you got a transit, you got a uh a tax number of a guy that was going into the academy.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: So when you went to NSU, you had a tax number of a guy that was uh actually in the academy.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: So you look like a brand new rookie to all the people around you, but you weren't.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: I remember that.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that was a problem for a lot of those guys because it you you rolled over relatively quickly, but a guy that did like four or five years in transit rolled over.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he's getting treated, you know, people are looking at him like he's a rookie.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: What was your first precinct after NSU?
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, 7-2, which I love.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: Great guys.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm still friends with a lot of guys from the 7-2, and it was a fun house.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: I was there and um I got there in '88.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: And what kind of house is it?
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: It was busy.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: It was busy.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, it was mostly Spanish.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, uh, you break it down, these are the facts.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, black priests are shootings, Spanish uh priests are stabbings, you know, and and white priests are related to not much prime.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, so I mean most of it was stabbings and family disputes.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: Stabbings, family disputes, drunks, you know, there were shootings, but it wasn't as as much as other priests.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: But it was definitely uh, you know, I mean, there's 12 priests in Brooklyn South.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's probably in the top, it's definitely in the top five as far as being busy, you know, and um I had a lot of fun.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: Great bunch of guys.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like there was a um one of the guys got into a bad motorcycle accident a couple years ago, and we I went to visit him in the hospital, and there was like eight, nine guys there from the eighties that were in the hospital.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like they're a very tight group of guys, and uh, I still talked, I spoke to a 7-2 guy today, my friend Mario.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, yeah, so it's uh it was good there.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then I got shipped to the 6-7.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, 6'7, I mean, I I don't know Brooklyn that well, but I know the 6'7 is a busy housework in the West Indian Day parade more than one, and I remember that those guys from the 6'7, everybody seemed to have a combat cross.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we used to call, I mean, I I don't know if I called it or I got it from somebody else, but the 6'7, 7-0, and 7-1 was the triangle of death.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's where all the all the shootings are.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: And unfortunately, that's where a lot of cops have been shot and killed.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, you're shot.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: And uh the 6-7, same thing.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to a reunion uh in two weeks in Clearwater Beach, you know, uh to see these guys.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: So we still talk to each other, we still always there for each other and um great bunch of guys.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, I I got there in 89 and it was a busy command.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: It was busy, it was jumping.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think they were like averaging 60, 70 motors a year, you know, shootings and uh I mean you would come in on the midnights and they're holding 40 jobs.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know, not even exaggerating, they're holding 40 jobs coming on the midnights in the summertime.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: You would do 30 calls a day.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you would do uh maybe even more than that.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: I would say four calls an hour.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, a lot of the calls were bullshit, a lot of them were shootings confirmed.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: You got a man shot, a shot's fired, it's confirmed.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, if you're getting multiple calls, then you know it's definitely confirmed.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: That was always like the thing, right?
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you you always just say, hey, Sandra, how many calls you got on this?
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: I got one call.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's okay, maybe it's maybe it's not confirmed.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: We got multiple calls, then you know it's definitely confirmed.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: You're going to a dead body or you're driving and there's something shooting, you know.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: I saw you on Mons on the Mic podcast.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: You said your first day in the 6-7 was a wild day.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: First day there, you know, I went to uh September of 89.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, every place when you go to when you're new, you're supposed to give you orientation, like a day or two, and they show you the maps.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: And back then, crack, crack was a was a pandemic.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: So they would show you where the crack dens were, what to stay away from.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you're going to here, make sure you have another another car with you.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: They would show you a place to get something to eat, you know, and um, so you're supposed to be in the house doing orientation.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: They just hand us the keys and they said, You gotta set the mic, and we went out on the street.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: We were, I was already a cop three, three and a half years, and the guy I worked with was on the job about the same, maybe a little less than me.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: So we're like, okay, you go out on a day tour, out of out of the box, you know, as soon as we get out in the car, man shot church in Utica, confirmed.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: We go there, go to Brookdale, you know, notify the family.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: Squad comes down, we come back in, pretty much our tour was over.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: That was our whole day.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I hand the keys to this this guy.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: I looked, I just happened to look and see his name tag.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know anybody there.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's my first day there.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm still 20, I'm 23 years old, I'm still living in home.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: I get uh I get home, six o'clock news, the the police officer was shot in the vest and he killed the perp.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: The car I was in two and a half hours ago.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: That was my first day in the 6'7.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: You must have seen a lot of crazy stuff in the 6'7.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: We walked in once, uh, it was two, it was two good stories, not good, but one we walked in on Raj's, I forget where it was.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um And it was uh three guys walked in with guns and tried to rob the place, and one guy that worked in there had a gun, and they all shot each other.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: And the guy, the one guy took them all out.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: So we show up there, you know, puddles of blood everywhere, multiple shell casings everywhere, and uh I walk in with my partner, and we're used to seeing it, it's not a big deal, whatever, you know.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's like so we see a guy, I see a guy in the back, and he's sitting on a cardboard box with his back to the wall, and his eyes have open, like this, you know.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I walk back there and I'm like, what happened?
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: And he's just sitting there looking at me, trying to talk to him, you know, for maybe 10 seconds, and I realized he got a bullet right in the middle of his head, like a little pinhole, a little pinhole.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it was a 22, and he was dead, but he was dead with his eyes open.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: So uh, and then EMS comes in with the paddles, and my partner's like, we're not gonna need those, you know.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then we had a we had an inspector who was our CO who was like awesome with he loved active guys, he loved police working, active guys.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: He showed up, so he got us somebody else to help us with the well, you know.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: Now you gotta call a medical examiner, you gotta voucher all the shell cases, you gotta notify all the family members, you know.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: You got it's like you got toe tags, you got you got so much shit to do.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a, you know, you're gonna get overtime.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: And uh what was the other one?
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: The other one was um a a drug deal.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: We went to an apartment and there were three people tied up to the chairs, and they were shot in the back of the head, dead.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and that's what the drug dealers would do.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: They would, you know, send a message to the other drug dealers in the neighborhood so nobody would mess with their territory.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: So that was, you know, it was it was wild.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: It was a lot of stuff.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: I I mean I could go on and on.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: Please.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: Other things.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just trying, I'm trying to think of other ones.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: I can't think of any more.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: Those were the two that always stood out with me.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, well, there was one, I tell you, I just wrote down some stuff on my uh on a paper here, just to like refresh me.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: There was one story I wanted to tell you to go back to the 7-2.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: I never told this story on video before.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: There was a stabbing at a crack den.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was on 8th Avenue and 15th Street or 17th Street, somewhere over there, and it was like known crack den.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: It was known it was it was always a problem in the precinct.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: Multiple calls, stabbing.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm driving there with my partner.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: I only got two years on the job, two and a half, whatever, you know.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: So you're when you're a young guy in the job, you're always trying out smart.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: The rest of the guys, you want to be like, you know, make the you want to, everything is like it was always a competition.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: Who can bring in the most guns?
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: Who can make the best uh uh felony collar, you know?
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: And like you want, it was like bragging rights when you're young.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: You were, you know, we always going at each other, you know, like peacocks, right?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: So uh we're all peacocking, right?
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: And and at that age, you're you're indestructible.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing's gonna happen to you.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: And that and and that that's proven.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like for I think between the ages of 16 and 23, you think you're never, nothing's ever gonna happen to you, because you think it's gonna be the other guy, you know?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: So it gives you, it gives you uh balls, but it also gives you, you know, is it smart or is it just because you're a young kid, dumb kid, you know?
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, so we're driving there, and uh, I just turned to my partner, I go, you know what?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone's going in.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: There's like six, seven cars going in.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: I said, if I was a perp and I had to stab somebody, I want to get off the street.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: I want to get off the street immediately.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: I said, the train station's right there.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's right by Frows.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: I said, let's just go over to the train station and just check.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: It was a goof, it was a hunch.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's so funny.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I go down the stairs, and it was three perps, right?
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: And they gave a description.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I have my radio crank targed, and I see these guys on the platform, and it's late, it was late at night.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it was on a midnight tour or four to twelve.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was a four to twelve, but it was like probably like 10 o'clock, 10:30, toward the end of the tour.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: So the train station's not crowded, you know?
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: There's only three people on the platform.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I go, Central, can you 10-5 that description?
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: So anybody who doesn't know what 10-5 means repeat, right?
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: I got the radio blaring, right?
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: So that's my mistake, right?
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm looking at them.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: They're like, maybe, they're like maybe 15 feet away from me.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm on the I'm on the stairs and then on the platform, and I'm walking down the stairs and I stop.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: She identifies these three guys to a T, and these are them.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, blue jeans, white shirt.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: He's got blue jeans, white shirt.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, blue jeans, black shirt.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: He's got blue jeans, black shirt.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: And for a moment, it was so wild because I'm looking at them and I'm looking at me, and we didn't say a word to each other, and they just took off.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I get into a foot pursuit, I put it over.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: We chased them on the underground.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: They come up, they come up by the park, Prospect Park, on the other side of the street.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we didn't go through the tunnels.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: It was like an underground tunnel, but that was a walkway, you know.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: So we didn't go on the tracks.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: So then we chased them down to like 9th Street, and I don't know, I don't know if it's PPW or PPSW.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: It was Prospect Park West and Prospect Park Southwest.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: And there was a uh a restaurant on the corner, I believe it was called Nightfalls.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: They always changed this name, but it was windows on the corner here and here.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: It was a corner spot with all windows.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: We got the perps.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: We threw them against the glass at gunpoint, and people were eating dinner.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we got these guys at gunpoint, we're like, show us your hands, you know, screaming, cursing, you know.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: So we lock them up.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: On the way to the precinct, two people go DOA.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: I got a homicide collar.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: Just because I was wanted to check the train station.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: I got lucky, you know.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: So uh I get into the precinct, and this is they had this lieutenant on the desk.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: He everyone in seven, two dollars a month.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't like to say names, right?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: So um, great.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: He he he was a good boss.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know what?
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: He was very hard-nosed, he was very strict, but you knew he was that's the way it was.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: If he was on the desk, that was it.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: You didn't, you know, he wasn't he never flip-floped he was one person always.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: I know that that's the guy you want.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want the flip-flop.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: I want the guy who's gonna be either you're not a nice guy or a nice guy.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: Don't be in between, you know.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: So um I mean, he put me on once um to get off the subs.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: He put me on outside station security they used to have.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you're still outside the precinct.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: On the midnight in the pouring rain, and I couldn't stand in the lobby.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there was a little overhang.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: When you walked out of 7-2, so I stayed a little drive a moment.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: But I couldn't even stand in there.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, most precinct, you open a set of doors as a little lobby, another set of doors.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't even stand in there because it wasn't outside.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: But that's the way he was.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever, you know.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was a 22-year-old kid.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna, I'm gonna listen to whatever the lieutenant tells me to do, you know.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, we come in and he says to me, Hey Sharp, you and your partner, you gotta do a prisoner transport.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, no, I'm like, no, we got a collar.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, no, they went DOA, and it's the detectives take it now.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I went from making a homicide arrest to doing a prison of transport.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like 10 minutes later, I'm on I'm on the paddy wagon with 12 guys handcuffed to each other, going this central book.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, Are you kidding me?
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and that was it.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I put myself on the write-up, I can't remember.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: But it was it's so crazy how the job was back then.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: And like I got in it, and he goes, Oh, yeah, he goes, That's detectives upstairs are taking that.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's nothing to do with you now.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, whatever.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: They'll interview you.
• 23:01
  unknown: Yeah, yeah.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: They'll do a DV5 and then Thanksgiving.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: So then there was another one.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, not it's not anything about uh a 6-0 scooter cop.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: I always remember this.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: He went to the 7-3 because I think I was working on some of these.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: I knew him.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: He went to the 7-3 because the um what do you call those uh when you go get your car fixed?
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like the shop.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: There was a shop in the 7-3.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: 7-3.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: There was a shop that's there was a shop in the 7-2, and there was a shop in the 7-3, but each each uh borough had its own shop, right?
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: So uh he was getting something fixed in a scooter.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: On the way back, he gets hit by a livery van and he gets knocked off the scooter unconscious.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: And he's in the 7-3.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: The savages that live there are trying to take his gun out of his holster.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: They're pulling on his gun.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: They don't know that it's locked in, and they're pulling on his shield.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: I just wanted to tell this story.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: It has nothing to do with my career, but um uh construction workers were working on a site like a half a block away, working on a building, and they ran over and chased the guys away.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: But that just goes to show you the people that are gonna listen to this, what we dealt with as cops back then with these savages.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then there was a, I wrote down something else where um, you know, going to funerals, right?
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: You're standing at a funeral one day of a colleague of ours that was killed, and these animals are screaming out the window, F that pig, F him, and you guys standing and listening to this shit, you know?
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then we I got cinder blocks thrown off the rooftop, I'll be twice, once in the 7-2, and once when I was at Brooklyn Solid Task Force.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: They threw a cinder block off the rooftop at us.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: And this is what we dealt with all the time.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then you had something today, right?
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: You see the Times Square thing, the lady gets killed with the knife, right?
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: Just recently.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: And these people are trying to defend her mental illness.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: She murdered somebody.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: I don't care.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: Listen, I mean, the insane asylums are gone because it was against their rights, whatever, right?
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: Now they're out in the street and the cop has to deal with it.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: They feel bad for her because she's mentally ill.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: What about the person that she murdered from Bank of America?
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: What about her and her family, you know?
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: But this is the mentality of today.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, working in Brooklyn, you probably and you came on a year and a half before me, so you must have been at the Crown Right, uh, Crown Heights riots, and then later on the year after the Washington Heights riots.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because I was at both, so uh obviously you probably were there too.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was in Brooklyn's Heart Task Force, so it was like, you know, a riot unit, BSTF.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I was in the Crown Heights riots I was like, the third car there.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it was uh August, uh end of August of 91.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you were at the car accident where it jumped?
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, because what happened was uh, like I said in the last podcast, I um I was in McDonald's getting something to eat on 36th Street in 400 park with my partner, and uh this guy's calling an 85 on a 53 with injuries.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: So everybody doesn't know 53 is a car accident with injuries.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember saying, you know, why is this guy calling the 85 with a car accident?
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: What could be happening, you know?
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: And this is what happened.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: We go up there with like the third or fourth car, we we're still we're starting to get airmail.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: We're getting bricks and bottles wasn't past our head, and uh that's where it started.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, in a matter of a couple hours, it was a THR temporary headquarters set up, and it was a full-scale riot.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: And we were there every day for uh, you know, massive overtime.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: I remember, you know, back in the day when I liked Howard Stern, he was on the radio, we're listening to him in the car all the time, and he was talking about the riots and how the cops have it so hard, and I wish them to be safe or whatever else.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, we were there for uh I think it was it lasted four or five days.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: On the fourth day, we said we're taking the streets back because we can't watch them burn cop cars in front of us and destroy police vehicles and get away with it.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so we took the streets back and it was over.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: It was over in one night, you know.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I always say, I always say violence is the answer.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: When when you're dealing with violent people, it's the answer.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: You got you have you have to take care of business.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, you you you know, there's no rules out there.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know why we have rules, but the probes don't, you know.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like Crown Heights and then the year after Washington Heights, the I think the difference with Washington Heights was, there were so many NYPD cops up on Washington Heights.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: And for those of you who don't know, Washington Heights is a is a drug hub.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Wholesale cocaine comes into Jackson Heights from the Colombians and the Dominicans buy it, it goes into Washington Heights, and then that's the hub.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's where it goes out.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: And there were so many cops on on every corner that the drug dealers couldn't do business.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: And they eventually, they were the ones promoting the riot, but then they realized they screwed themselves because nothing was getting no nothing was getting in and out of those neighborhoods.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: And you're right.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then after a couple of days, they said, enough of this shit.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, these guys want to burn cars and stuff, start cracking heads, and then basically, like you said, it it went away.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, uh uh 34 was uh was uh a third world country.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: It was all Dominican, it was all it was South America, and and what drugs South America is full of drugs.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's like down here in Miami, Miami's South America.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: I always say to people, like, if you want to compare Florida and New York, Miami's Brooklyn, Palm Beach County is Long Island, and then Martin County, which is north of us, is upstate New York.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: Am I right?
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same thing, you know.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I I'm fascinated.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: You worked the Coney Island detail for a while.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: And being a Bronx guy, we would get flown out there every Memorial Day, Labor Day, uh, yeah, and 4th of July.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: You did that for us, it was a shit show.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: There was always a kid getting lost.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: For us, there was no place to hide.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: They were all over us.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: You obviously knew the ins and outs of work and the Coney Island detail.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: What was that like?
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: So these people would purposely lose their kids because there were so many cops on every corner.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: They would just walk away from their kid so they could go party all day and drink on the beach.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: We would come back to the priest at five o'clock and there'd be 25 kids in the priest running around.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: And you know the cops are gonna take care of the kids, get them ice cream, hang out with them.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I did it myself.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, but it was uh summer detail was a lot of fun.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're on foot, I mean, you're on the boardwalk facing the beach every day.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's a lot of crime.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, when you won when you swung into the night shift, you know, Nathan's and uh the El Dorado and all those rides over there.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: There was another one I can't think of it offhand, but they used to go to like two in the morning, partying, drinking.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: So there'd be some, you know, shooting here and there, stabbing, fish fights, you know, and it was wild.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: But it was a lot of fun.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I was a young kid, and I was in good shape, so you didn't mind if any.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: We would run three blocks to a job on foot, you know, a shot fire job or a man with a gun, you know, and uh it was a lot of fun.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of a good bunch of guys, you get a break from the summer, you're not in the radio car, you're not handling 30 calls a day.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: You could go if you want to hide for an hour or two, you could hide, you know, get something to eat.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if if it's if it's 10 blocks for your post, they're not gonna call you.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's 10 bucks away.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: But your radio car, they'll call you for three miles away, you know, five miles away.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: So so it was fun.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: I had a met a lot of good people there.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: The 6-0 was a great command, super busy too.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I mean, but you had some places to get something to eat.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: You had good spots as a young kid that were looking at bikinis all day on the beach, which was great.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: Then you have Seagate, which was nice, but then you had the projects, and there was a lot of shootings in the projects all the time.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and um and then you boarded you boarded the 6-2, which was nice.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: You had plenty of restaurants.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: So you had you boarded the 6-1, which was Sheeps Abbay, which was on the water.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: It was a lot of fun.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: But it was this different mentality back then, because back then we had respect, people were afraid of us, and uh, that's the way it should always be.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not that way.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: Always saying, like when you were a kid and your father told you to do something.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: Not the way everybody's daddy, but your father tells you to do something, you don't do it, you got smacked.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: That that that then it worked, right?
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's the way it was in the police department.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you don't you don't comply, you don't do something, then we do something, and then uh everybody complies.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have any stories from that Nathan's hot dog eating contest or the freak show?
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like anything jog your memory about those two things?
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because I was always fascinated with both when I was down there.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: No, yeah, it was fun.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: I never worked them.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was working there when it happened, but I wasn't working on the day shift.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the one guy did 70 hot dogs, but it was fun doing security there.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: This guy got his finger cut off on the boardwalk.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: They were robbing him, and he wouldn't give up his ring.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: So they actually cut his finger off to uh take the ring.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then we we caught the guys and we had to put the uh finger on ice and bring it to the hospital.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: It was crazy.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: Was he able to put it back?
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they put it back on and reattached it.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh, but it was a lot of fun.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then after that, I went to um Brooklyn South Task Force, and then in '93, I bought a house in Long Island in Westbury.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: And uh sorry about this.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: You're okay.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um so uh I was still driving into Brooklyn every day for three years.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: I was taking um the Wontour to the northern state, to the Interborough, to Eastern Parkway, all the way through Prospery Park, which was like an hour to get there.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I um I transferred to 105 in Queens.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: I did a mutual with a guy who came from the task force, went out there, didn't like it, and wanted to come back.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I just did a swap out with him.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: I went to the 105, which was 14 minutes from my house.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so for three years I drove into Brooklyn.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: I was just getting tired of it.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't want to leave.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I loved everywhere I worked, and I didn't know nothing about Queens.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I grew up in Brooklyn my whole life, and I didn't know nothing about the Bronx.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: All I knew was Brooklyn and Manhattan, really, and Staten Island, which was right there.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: But I didn't know nothing about Queens or the Bronx.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like I I have a lot of my friends that are retired from Bronx PD and they they tell stories about Arthur Avenue and everything else.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I don't know where that is.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: Or I mean I knew it.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: I I watched it on TV and stuff, but I don't know anything about it.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I went to Queens and the 105 is enormous.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: The 105 is like like the 122 and the 123 and Staten Island, I take the size of those commands.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: It was like it went from Long Island Jewish to JFK Airport.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: If everyone knows Queens, it's it's a long way.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if you're rolling around and you call for help and there's only one other car, it could take, you know, six, seven minutes to get there.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that precinct covers a lot of territory.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: What was the biggest difference that you noticed immediately working in uh from Brooklyn to Queens?
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, I went to Queens and it's funny because they teach you they say Queens Marines, whatever, right?
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh I'm on Merrick Boulevard, I'm like, this isn't really that great.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean, it's so like yeah, yeah, yeah, Cambria Heights, Lawleton, Springfield Gardens, they're shitholes.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: They're not really good commands.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you had, you had, I mean, not good uh neighborhoods, I'm sorry.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: You had some nice houses.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: There are brownstones there, and you have some working people.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, it w it was busy.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the 103 and the 113 were the busiest commands, and they were super busy.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: They could they could go up to any Brooklyn command, right?
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: And they they were bad.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: But we boarded both of them, you know.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: So it's kind of like the 105 is like a 6'9 in Kenasi.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: The 6'9 got swallowed up by the 6'7, the 7.3, and the 7.5.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: It got swallowed up.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: Khanassi was a great neighborhood 40, 50 years ago.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what happened to the 105.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: The 105, you know, 30 years ago, maybe even 40 years ago, was a good neighborhood.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it just got swallowed up by Jamaica and the 113, you know.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I would say the 113, I don't know who's busier.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: 113, 103 were pretty close to being busy.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: And then we were probably the next busiest.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, oh actually, no, I'm sorry, the 101.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: The 101 was super busy.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: That was far walk away.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I would say if you did it in order, we're probably fourth.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: I can't think of anybody else that was busier.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: 101, 103, 113, and then probably us.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: And it was so big, we got like, like I said before on the other podcast, we had like nine neighborhoods.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, when you worked in Brooklyn, you worked in the 6.8 with Bay Ridge, you worked in the 7-2, Sunset Park, you worked in the 6-9, Kanasi, you worked in 105, you got Cambria Heights, Lawerton, Springfield Gardens, uh, Glen Oaks.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: You have like nine different neighborhoods of one command.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: Were there a lot of homicides in the 105?
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: No, not that, not that many.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I can't recall how many there were, but there were.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: There were homicides because there were some bad neighborhoods.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if I had to guess, maybe 20, 20 a year, 25 a year, whatever, maybe, maybe 30.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it was uh it was busy.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: When I got there in '96, it was super busy.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: I was shocked.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't think, because you always hear these stories about, you know, how it's different in Brooklyn and it's nicer, and I didn't get that impression, you know.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: I I tell you the truth, I didn't, you know.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I didn't care.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when you're a cop, you don't care.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't care.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: Most guys I work with were the same way.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: Put me anywhere.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: Put me anywhere, I'll make it work for me, and I'll do anything as a cop.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: I don't care where I work, you know.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, do you want to work in a quieter command?
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's less chances of getting jammed up, less chances of something happening into you.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's probably a little more fun.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: But then you get like, you know, the thing is the cops in the busy commands are always seem to be more tighter and better than the cops in the quiet commands.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's just a that's what everything.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like I noticed that you went in the fire department.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you're if you're working in a heavy firehouse, as opposed to guys are working in a house where there's no calls or there's one fire a week, they're they're a lot closer and they're a lot they're they're actually better because they're so used to working constantly and going to calls, they're actually better cops or better firemen, you know.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: Unless you want to go Yeah, that and they depend on each other.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: So uh, you know, I I didn't I I just wanted to be closer to home.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: So, and it was 14 minutes away, and I loved it there.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: A lot met a lot of good people there, and it was a lot of fun, and then I wound up with retiring out of there.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: So it was uh it was a it was a good career.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: I loved it.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: I met a lot of great people.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, unfortunately, you guys are still getting sick from 9-11.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: I got 9-11 stuff, you do too, I'm sure.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: I got a good friend of mine that works for Tunnel for Towers, and um, he's really like, you know, he's high up there in his position, and uh he's a good friend of mine.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: He was a cop with me.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I try to do stuff through him, like to get grants for other guys.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: There was a poor St.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: Lucie cop down here that was sick, and um, a guy I work with is a poor St.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: Lucie cop, and he contacted me.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I was able to contact Brian.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: We were able to get him a grant.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it wasn't a lot, but it was just to help them out.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I've been doing like a lot of stuff for that, just like working as a middleman, you know, trying to help out guys that are sick or any family members that need help.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: So that's one thing I enjoy doing.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like I always said, which you know, to give is to receive.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: I always I always like to give and do the right thing and take care of my brothers and sisters.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: Richie, you got a lot of great stories if you considered writing a book.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, everyone tells me I should.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe one day I'll get to it.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: But everyone tells me I got some really good funny stories.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, funniest stories outside the police department, too, my personal life.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: And just uh I've had a great life and I've had a great run.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: And uh maybe one day we'd uh we'll talk about that off camera, me and you, because I can see in the background you got some experience.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: Richie, Richie Sharp, thank you so much for spending your time with us today.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for having me.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: I am honored.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Vic.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry about the camera glitch.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: But uh I really appreciate it.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: And uh we'll definitely talk soon and stay safe.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: As always, I'd like to thank everyone for tuning in, especially my listeners in Valley Stream, New York, Cincinnati, Ohio, Alexandria, Virginia, Waukegan, Illinois, Holyoke, Massachusetts, and Washingtonville, New York.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you worked in law enforcement or had an interesting criminal background, please drop me a note on Twitter or Instagram at VicFerrari50.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: If you're watching on YouTube, please hit the like and subscribe button.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: If you enjoy the content, just check out my Amazon author page, type in my name, Vic, Ferrari Like the Car, where you can preview all my NYPD books for free.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks again, everyone, and I'll see you next week.