Latest / NYPD Through The Looking Glass / NYPD Detective Carol Orazem

Transcript

NYPD Detective Carol Orazem · NYPD Through The Looking Glass

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: I get out of the car, take take my nightstick off, I have my gun belt on, my uniform, no hat, and I start walking up Broadway.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd see like a block ahead.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'd see the DeMonty game set up.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, okay, cool.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: So now I just keep walking.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm walking with all these Wall Street people and I walk, walk, walk.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: And there's the guy set up on the box and he's bent over.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I get into the crowd.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: I get behind him and I put my hand, well this one, around his neck, and I said, I'm a police officer.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Don't run.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: Don't run.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: And he looks back at me and he stands up.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: And when he stands up, he lifts me off the ground with him.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: And now I wrap my legs around his waist.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm hanging on to this guy in uniform.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: And he starts running up Broadway.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, holy shit, people are like clearing the street.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like all these Wall Street people are just like, uh it was the parting of the Red Sea.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm yelling, knock him down, knock him down, trip him.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I pull my radio out and I'm trying to hit him in the head.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, he's saying, Stop hitting me in the head.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I call uh 85.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, Central, I'm in pursuit of a male, male black.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I look down, he's wearing a blue shirt, he's wearing white sneakers, he's wearing jeans.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm looking over his shoulder at the clothes he's wearing.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: And we're running south on on Broadway.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: We're heading towards City Hall Central.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Can you get me some backup?
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Carla Raison is a retired NYPD detective who was active from 1983 to 2003.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Carol, welcome to the show.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Carol, please tell our listeners a little something about yourself.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I um I became a police officer when I was 20 years old, back in 1983.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um I did uh just about 20 years with the MYPD.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: I retired, um, did some security work, did some bartending, did all kind of crazy stuff after retirement.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: And now basically I have grandchildren.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: I have three grandchildren.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: I have a son that's on the job.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um I don't know how he does it.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think I could do it in this day and age, but he's got 14 years on, and and I hope he has a really quick and easy career.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: So Carol, where did you grow up?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up in Staten Island, um, one of six children.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: My mother wasn't very happy about me being a cop.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: She wanted me to be a nurse.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh she was like um old-time Irish.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so girls aren't supposed to uh do men's jobs.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: So she was not happy about my career choice.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: Why did you want to become a member of the New York City Police Department?
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: I had no clue about the New York City Police Department.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: I was working um for a German bank down on Broad Street, and I hated it.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: And um I was dating a guy and he was going to 1 PP to pick up uh an application or to become a cop.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: So on our lunch hour, we walked up there and he got an application and the cop that was handing them out said, Why don't you take one too?
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, No, no, I don't I don't want to be a cop.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, Well, just take one.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you might change your mind, take the test.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: I said, All right, so I stuck it in my bag and uh we went back to work and I said, You know what?
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'll take the test with you.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I filled out the paperwork, he filled out the paperwork, and I get called, and he gets called too, as a matter of fact.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: And um I was like, Well, I don't like working in this bank.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, 18 at the time, because it was a couple years before I actually went on.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I was like, if I don't like it, I can quit.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: I could try something else.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm still young enough.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: So that's how I ended up going on the police department.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: Had no interest in ever being a cop at all.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: What did you think of the police academy?
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I was in shape.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: I was I was when I went in, I was 20.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: I went in January of eighty-three and I turned twenty-one in April.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I was in shape.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: So the police academy was easy.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: It was easy.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: The gym was easy, the curriculum was easy.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like I I, you know, I didn't find anything hard about it.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't like the hours, but and the commute and carrying that bag full of like 50 pounds of uh books and equipment every day.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: But I I found the I found it easy.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: So you get out of the police academy after six months.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Where did you do your NSU?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I got sent to NSU 1, which was the Lower East Side, um, the first, the fifth, the seventh, and they also sent us over to the 9th, too.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: So um I went from like this Staten Island girl that wasn't I never even been to Manhattan before, like before I be before I started working downtown, which the furthest I went was like Broad Street to go to work.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: And now here I am, like in the lower east side in the early 80s, and it was like it was uh it was it was dangerous and it and it was like a hellhole over there, not like it is today.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well you said you the ninth is Alphabet City.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: What was that like?
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Alphabet City was definitely interesting, um, very busy.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um as long as the s as well as the seventh, Rivington Street, there it was a four-man foot post on Rivington Street.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's how bad the streets were back then.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: So the two of us would be on one side of the street and two of us would be on the other side of the street.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: And wouldn't you know, like some schmuck in a car comes rolling through four cops and shoots a guy probably 50 feet from where we were all standing.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like it that's how bad Manhattan, the Lower East Side was back in 83.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what what happened with what what happened with that?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: So um, you know, you're in the academy and they teach you all these crazy things like shoot the car, don't shoot at a car.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: This so one of the guys that that we were rookies, we were we were just out of the police academy.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so this car rolls by and we're talking across the street to each other because you know you're not supposed to be on the same post or whatever.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: So we're yelling back and forth across Rivington Street, and uh, you know, typical night, it's a four to twelve, and this car comes rolling through, and there's a guy walking down the block, and the car slows down and puts like three bullets in him, and then starts taking off down the block.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: And the one guy was lurking with this guy, Ivan, he runs out in the middle street and he's in a stance with his gun out and he's yelling, should I shoot the car?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: Should I shoot the car?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like it was we didn't know what the hell to do.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: So we just put over a description and a plate, and uh ninth precinct guys picked up picked the guy up.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: But we had we had a homicide right like 50 feet from where we were all standing.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Did they have you guys process it, like you know, safeguard it?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: No, are you kidding me?
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: Those kind of guys from the ninth grabbed that shit right up.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: We were rookies, we didn't know to fight for something like that, you know.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: We were too busy laughing at the guy yelling, should I shoot the car?
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: Should I shoot it?
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: Should I shoot it?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like, we didn't know.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: We're supposed to shoot it if it's flinging, like he got from Staten Island, which I'm sure there wasn't the amount of drugs, obviously, is Alphabet City.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: That must have been like culture shock for you because it was a wide open drug market.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was complete culture shock for me.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: And like I said, like I wasn't even uh my mother was very strict.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: We weren't even allowed to go to Manhattan.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like, so when I got a job in Manhattan right out of high school, working in a bank, you know, that was like a big thing for my mother that, you know, I was traveling to Manhattan.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: But then when she found out I was down in the lower east side, she was like, you have to move out.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: So she threw me out.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: I was um 21, told me how to get my own apartment because um she no daughter of hers was supposed to be a cop, and um she wasn't gonna stay up all night wondering what's going on when I was working.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: So my I so I had my first major job, which was NYPD, and then my first apartment, and I was still only 21 years old.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: So after you do your NSU, you wind up in the first precinct, which I'm sure most cops working in Staten Island would love, would kill for because you're right next to the ferry.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: What was that like going to the first?
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: The first precinct was great.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was great.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: I really loved the precinct itself.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: I loved the area.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: Big, the first precinct is a very big area and very hard to learn because it's not numbers and letter streets, it's all different names and south and north and east and west.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I enjoyed it.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: And it it wasn't a bad commute at all from Staten Island.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um I probably would say I had some of my best times working in uniform in the first precinct.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh at on the weekends and at night, there was no there was no lofts, there were no apartments down there.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: It everything shut down.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like when business shut down, everything shut down.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: Soho was all warehouses.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: There was no lofts, all those stores weren't there.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: There might have been a little deli here and there, but it was like uh at night it was like a ghost town.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was what a complete change it went through.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um with them putting in like Battery Park City and taking down those um those uh piers that were out there and and people moving into Soho.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: If I would have known back then, I would have tried to buy something in Soho.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: There was a lot of crime down there by the piers, correct?
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: There that there was a lot of crime, and we also had the fish market down by South South Street.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: It was a the the precinct was big.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's probably one of the biggest precincts, and there was only four sectors.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: It was only Adam, Boy, Charlie, and David.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: That was it.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: Four sectors covered the entire precinct.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: And if there was an extra car, they would make a boy too or David too or Charlie 2.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: But we covered a lot of area, and I guess I guess being that it was considered more like a financial area, that's probably why the precinct was so big.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: I guess they figured it wouldn't be so bad.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, there was a lot of drugs.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, back then a lot of it was um pot, believe it or not, marijuana and stuff, and and they would have drug wars down on Wall Street over um pot, over Mar marijuana.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm I'm guessing their client they catered to a lot of the the the brokers down there, right?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: So the the one uh I had made an arrest, I had locked a woman up, I think it was for possession, and um I was probably looking for some overtime.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I take this girl in and she ends up having a gun on her.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: So um I'm I'm talking to her in the back and she said, listen, if if I give up something, would you like uh, you know, work it out with the DA?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, well, what do you have to give up?
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, Tomorrow, there's gonna be a drug war down on Wall Street.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, broad, broad and um, let me think, broad and water.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be a drug war on broad and water.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: This rival uh marijuana drug group is coming in and they're gonna be armed.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: And they and I'm like, okay, so I I go talk to the boss, and he's like, all right, well, let's sit on her and we'll we'll take a look at this.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: So the anti-crime uh unit, I think I was I might have been in anti-crime at the time, or I'm still in uniform, but we all we all set up down on um Broad Brook Street and Water Street, and wouldn't you know, here comes this car.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: And we get out and we surround it and and the guy, they had guns, they had a they had a um hand grenade that they were gonna throw at the first um police officers that showed up.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like they I mean it was real.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: It was real.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like in shock that if we hadn't, if I hadn't grabbed this woman and she hadn't given up this information, Lord only knows what was gonna go on down there at at at Broad and Water.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: I I so it ended up to be a really great collar and we stopped, you know, something that could have been major back then.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: Do you do you remember where the perps were from?
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think they were from Brooklyn.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: I think they were from Brooklyn.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was it was I mean, it was crazy to find a hand grenade too.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: I you know, like I was like it they had to rope everything off because they didn't know, you know, if it was active hand grenade.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like it was it was a big deal.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: So in the first the first precinct, I mean now you have all these neighborhoods that have popped up, but what what different neighborhoods is the first cover?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it covers Wall Street, it covers um Soho, it it covers south of Houston Street.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: So Houston Street all the way down to the ferry.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: It it covers um uh these all these new neighborhoods that they put in there on the water.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um Battery Park City, um, and it covers from it covers from Battery Park City, from the water over to Broadway.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: And then on the opposite side of Broadway is the fifth, fifth precinct.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: But it it's a big area, Houston Street all the way down.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's a couple miles.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's funny.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: I made a couple of collars in the first during my career, and I wanted to ask you this because you might have been there.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Were you in the first when they were filming uh Ghostbusters?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that was right around the corner.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: Right around the corner from the precinct.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the famous firehouse scene.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: The fu well the firehouse is right around the corner.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Did you guys get to meet any of the actors or see what was going on during it?
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know what?
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: No, I was, you know, I'm sure some of the guys did, but I was never I was never into like uh chasing celebrities.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: There was a lot of celebrities that that moved in and to the first precinct.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you had John F.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: Kennedy and you had Robert De Niro and you had um Cindy Law, but they were all over the place.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: See, even Trump was down there a lot.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't I no, I didn't go wasn't my thing.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: I I I thought I was more important.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't have to worry about like chasing some celebrity for a picture or an autograph.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Did did you ever have to deal with any of them or were you ever working where one of them got locked up or came into the station house?
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: Not locked up.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: I well I no, I didn't I didn't lock any of them up from the time that I was there from eighty three to ninety.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, they would they would come in.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they would come in too.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: They used to do um coat coat drives.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: We used to call it coat coats for cops, but because you'd go through and say, oh, this is rich people.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe they dropped off like something good, but they would drop clothes off for the for the coat drives that uh NYPD used to do every year.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I never really had any one-on-one dealings with with any of them.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: So after a couple of years in the first precinct, you you worked your way into the anti-crime unit.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us what that was like.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there weren't a lot of women in the first precinct.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: There weren't a lot of women on the job when I went on in '83.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so it was tough.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: So even when they um they had spots in anti-crime, there were like no other there was just a handful of women.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: They really weren't looking for women.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: But I was very active.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: I was very active.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: I was collaring, me and my partner were collaring, and I applied for the spot in anti-crime, and the first time they gave it to uh another another female cop that was in the precinct, and um she was in anti-crime like two weeks or something, and I don't know, somebody popped out on her when they were following them or something, and she she decided it wasn't for her.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: She didn't want to be in plain clothes.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I eventually got it, got the spot in anti-crime.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: And and um I loved it.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: We had a lot of fun.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: We had a lot of fun chasing people and and um making arrests.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: I liked to I like to be active.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't, you know, I wasn't into answering phones and and and 124 room, like stuff like that would drive me crazy.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: I liked being out in the street.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: So my basically my whole career, except when I was pregnant um with my two kids, uh, that was the only time I was basically off the street.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, I worked in anti-crime in the Bronx, which is a lot different, obviously, than lower Manhattan.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: So was a lot of your time in anti-crime spent on foot following people around?
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, we had um we had um some on, you know, the plaincloth cars, we had a taxi, um, we had uh a Hyundai, we had a little Hyundai, like nobody would uh ever believe this was a uh anything.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: And you had to basically put your feet out to get it to move.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um but a lot of, you know, it because because it's so congested, you know, especially Monday through Friday, you got traffic up and down Broadway and stuff.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of stuff was done on foot.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: And um you would drive around till you spotted a group or somebody that to you books out of place, and you get out and start start following um on foot.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it's funny because the one night um I was working actually a midnight in crime uh with this guy, Greg Jacobson, and we were um we were down on Nassau Street and in the plane closed in the uh plane cl on my car, and we see this group of kids.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I said to him, Let me jump out, because he was driving, I'll follow them.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I start following these kids, and there was another group of kids behind them.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm following three kids, and there's like two or three that are behind me, and all of a sudden I hear my partner yelling, Carol, they're gonna jump you.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: They're gonna jump you, get out of there, get out of there.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like it was crazy.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm following this group, and then the kids behind me were following me because they were gonna they were gonna rob me down there.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: It was like it was crazy, it was crazy.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: So he called over in '85, and everybody came and they all scattered, but we grabbed them all.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: But that that's what their intention was.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: They saw little white female walking around at like two o'clock in the morning, and I was gonna be the victim.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, most people wouldn't think that that the first precinct has a lot of stolen cars.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: When I w when I worked in autocrime, the the first precinct's commanding officer would call our office every month about him losing stolen cars, but specifically more so, motorcycles by the Traveler's Insurance Building.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Guys would steal a van, two, three strong kids, they take the seats out, pull up, pick up a motorcycle or two, and throw them in a van and drive minivan, and then just drive off.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Did you come across that quite a bit?
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, as a matter of fact, one of the guys in crime, we sat we set up on one of them and uh they and we ended up catching them.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: They they stole a motorcycle, they had ramps out on this on this minivan, and they rode it right into the damn minivan and put the ramps up, and then we we we grabbed them.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, there was a lot of the um Soho, there's a block called Wooster Street, and we used to say there's a booster on Wooster, because every time you went down Wooster Street, they were either breaking into a car or they were stealing a car, or it I don't know if it's still the same, but it'd be like there's a booster on Wooster, and we'd all go, you know, we'd all go up there.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: You'd hear it come over.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, the the the motorcycle ring was uh was big for a while, and um the the crime team actually did catch them.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: So, Carol, after your tenure in the first precinct, you worked in the Manhattan South Anti-Crime Unit.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that's anti-crime, but on a grander scale with more toys, and you covered more area.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: What was that like?
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I went into the Manhattan South um borough anti-crime, and that was the unit that was like just starting up.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: It was um it was pretty new.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: That was in '90.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: And um we were originally in the seventh precinct with the task force, Manhattan South Task Force, and then they moved the Manhattan South Task Force and the Borough Crime up to a building on 42nd Street.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, 42nd between 9th and 10th, as they they put us in a building up there.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: And we covered all of Manhattan South.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: So we could go to any precinct.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um which which was nice because there was more pickings, there was more movement or stuff, but it was also hard because like you had to figure out like where you thought the crime was gonna be now, you know.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like when you're in one precinct, you know your precinct and you you know where the crime is.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: Now you're covering, you know, a whole slew of precincts.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well you I mean, you were there when 42nd Street was 42nd Street.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: What was that like?
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: 42nd Street was was uh it was craziness.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: It was absolutely craziness.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: And every other block was like peep show, a strip joint, uh pimps, hookers, you know, like it it it was actually crazy back then.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: It uh it it now it well it then it turned into like Disneyland.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: It got all cleaned up, but now obviously it's going back to shit again.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: Although I don't think form shops and and strip joints are all up there anymore or back, but it it made it's making uh it's coming back to crap again.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: It was crack, it got really good, and now it it's it's circling around again.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: Then working in anti-crime, I know they didn't really want the plainclothes cops in anti-crime to make drug collars.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: They wanted more robberies, pickpockets, burglaries, etc.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: Did you guys come across though?
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, sometimes you just can't do anything about it.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Did you ever come across a decent sized drug collar down there on 42nd Street?
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: We ne we didn't know.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: No, because we really didn't deal with with the drugs because you had narcotics out there.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, sometimes um things would be going down with narcotics and we'd run into it, be thinking like somebody's getting robbed or whatever, but meanwhile it was narcotics and their UC and like it it, you know, like we being that we were covering more broad of an area, a bigger area, we didn't know them, they didn't know us.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of you know what I mean?
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: Until we got to know being in all the precincts, you see people, you say, okay, we gotta remember this dude's an undercover, this dude's an undercover, you know what I mean?
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um the one of the craziest undercovers was um Office of Venable.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: He was in Transit District Two, he ended up getting murdered.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um and he worked Transit District Two and I was in the first, and we'd go down the subway and we would toss this man all the time.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: He had All different disguises.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he was phenomenal at what he did.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a it's a it's a shame that he was uh he was murdered on the police department when one that we lost.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: But the guy was amazing.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: He was just amazing.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Working in Midtown, did you come across a lot of pickpockets and set up on them?
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we also had um we also had the Grand Larceny uh team that they started, the pickpock pickpocket team that worked out of our office, but they were different guys, and they had pictures all over of these people that did pickpockets.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: But we would come across it because you'd be standing um just say like the tree lighting ceremony um for Christmas and they sent Prime and and you're standing in the crowd.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: You're standing in the crowd, and then all of a sudden you look down, and there's a guy who got his hand in a woman's pocket or a guy's pocket in the bag.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: So we did we did pick out a lot of those.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: We did make a lot of pickpocket arrests, like when we were sent um to on details into crowds.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: But mostly we looked for um robberies.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: We did mostly robberies.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: And we'd sit a lot at like three, five, and eight, which is like a block away from the midtown south precinct, and you wouldn't believe how many robberies went down on that corner, and then they run down into the suburbs because the subway would take them to Brooklyn, up upper Manhattan, it would take them all over the place.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: It was a huh.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: But as far as um as the crime unit being, there was a pickpocket squad that was out there as well, they dealt with that.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: We dealt with more guns and robberies and narcotics dealt with the drugs.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it was all combined.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, whatever you whatever you found, you got, you got.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: But we really didn't go out looking for pickpockets.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: We stumbled across them.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: Did you come up with a lot of guns down there?
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: Manhattan, a lot of guns.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of guns, yeah.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of the collars were guns and and um razors.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: They like to carry razors because they were they would um split, slit your pocket.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like men, if they were if your target was a man, they would slit his pants leg.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: And of course they'd slit the guy's whole leg open to get the guy's wallet.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like, so there was a lot of weapons, and all these kids were coming from Brooklyn.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: They'd take the train over to Midtown, they get off at 35th Street, and walk the area.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: The area was really not not nice.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: So, Carol, you said you had a really funny three-card money game story.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, one you'll probably never hear again.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: Although my if any of my friends are watching this that worked with me, they'll know this story.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if they were working that day.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: But my it was right around it was this weekend.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: It was the Friday before um Labor Day.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: And my partner um got notified for the West Indian Day Parade.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: He got notified for for Monday.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: So back then, if you made an arrest on Friday, you were in the system a good five days.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like you, you so he said, We got I gotta make an arrest.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: It was a day shift.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: We were working a day shift on a Friday in uniform, and we were out there all day.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: And you had Century 21, you had a lot of big department stores.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: They always had holding ones, always had holding ones, but wouldn't you know?
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody had a holding one on this day.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: And my partner's like sweating, he's panicking, he doesn't want to do this parade on Monday, and he's like, I don't know what to do, we gotta make an arrest, we gotta find something.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I said, All right, I said, go drive over by like Ann Street or like go go drive over by Fulton Street and Broadway, Nassau Street, park the car.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna take my hat off, and I'm gonna walk up Broadway, and I'm gonna grab a three-card monitor.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: So he's like, They have they have like 20 lookouts.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: You ain't getting a monitor.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: I said, they don't see me.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody sees me.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: I made some crazy arrest in uniform with where it basically happened in front of my face because they never saw me.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't know if I was a chameleon or what, but so I said, All right, I get out of the car, take, take my nightstick off, I have my gum belt on, my uniform, no hat, and I start walking up Broadway.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I see like a block ahead, I'd see the DeMonty game set up.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, okay, cool.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: So now I just keep walking.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm walking with all these Wall Street people, and I walk, walk, walk, and there's the guy set up on the box and he's bent over.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I get into the crowd, I get behind him, and I put my hand, well, this one, around his neck, and I said, I'm a police officer, don't run.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: Don't run.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: And he looks back at me and he stands up.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: And when he stands up, he lifts me off the ground with him.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: And now I wrap my legs around his waist, and I'm hanging on to this guy in uniform, and he starts running up Broadway.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, holy shit, people are like clearing the street.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like all these Wall Street people are just like, uh, it was the parting of the Red Sea.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm yelling, knock him down, knock him down, trip him.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I pull my radio out, and I'm trying to hit him in the head.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, he's saying, Stop hitting me in the head.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I call uh 85.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, Central, I'm in pursuit of a male, male black, and I look down, he's wearing a blue shirt, he's wearing white sneakers, he's wearing jeans, like I'm looking over his shoulder at the clothes he's wearing.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: And we're running south on on Broadway.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: We're heading towards City Hall Central.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: Can you get me some backup?
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: Now it's like 3.20 in the afternoon, so the shift is almost over.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: So there's some cops still out, some cops coming out.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: Next thing you know, I hear all these people coming.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody's coming.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: My partner, I turn around.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm s I I it it this was so surreal.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: I turn around and he's like two blocks back.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: I can see him running.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, holy Christ, Central.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: I say, I you know, you you got Brooklyn on the air because this guy might be running for the bridge.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: He might be running for the bridge.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think we're gonna go over the bridge.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: This is this is how fast this dude was running with me on his back.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: So so the guy's running.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: With that, a first precinct radio car pulls up um with my my now husband.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't even dating him at the time.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: Him and his partner pull up and they'll they're riding next to us and they are laughing.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: They're just laughing.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: They're like in shock.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm yelling, stop 'em! Like, knock him over.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: So they pull up right before the Brooklyn Bridge.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: They turn the car in front of us, and the two of them jump out and they knock the guy down, and we all go rolling on the ground, and we get the guy handcuffed, and pe and and the the cops that showed up are all just standing there hysterical, laughing, like, how did you end up on the dude's back?
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like, that's all I need to know is how you got up there.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: And he was like six foot four.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: The guy was tall.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm like, if I didn't have witnesses to this, like uh nobody would ever believe that uh a full dressed uniform cop would be riding on somebody's back in Manhattan, up Broadway.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: My my partner took the collar.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: But we got in the precinct.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: I said to him, I'm taking this collar.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: I rode this dude took blocks.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: I said, I gotta take this.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: He's probably no, no, you can't do that to me.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: I need a collar.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm just messing with you, Vinny.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: So he took the collar, got out of, got out of the West Indian Day Parade.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: He was happy.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody in the precinct had a good laugh.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the guy, we got him into the precinct, and he we get him to the death, and he says to the lieutenant, I want to file um a civilian complaint.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: I want to file a complaint against this officer.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: So the lieutenant hands him the slip of paper and he's like, What did she do?
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, Listen, you want to chase me, that's fine, but you are not allowed to ride on somebody's back.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: The guys are like crying.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm probably the only cop on the NYPD that's rid somebody, rode, rode somebody.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: When your ability to to blend in, did you do any decoy work?
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: I did.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: When I was in borough crime, they used me as a muggable Mary.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like they they would put me in stores with a pocketbook.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: They'd put me in Macy's, and I'd sit there pretend I was like trying on makeup or uh doing makeup, and they would all I I would get robbed every time I was in there.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: I would get robbed every time I sat down.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: They came for me.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: I just I just must really look like a really good mark.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'd put the bag down, you know, we'd have a credit card in it, we'd have money in it, we'd have like to make it a felony.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, as a matter of fact, one of my bosses after I left Borough Crime, uh, he said to me, We put other women in there, nobody gets robbed.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what is up?
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: What is it with you that they want to rob you?
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: I said, I I don't know.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: I just I just must look like some little blonde doot dude or something because uh the minute I sat within five minutes, they were stealing my stealing my bag.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: One time I was in crime in um, I think it was in borough crime or first person crime, and we're driving down um Wooster Street, because there's always a booster on Wooster, and I'm in the backseat and I said, um, I said, pull over, pull over, let me out, let me out.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: There's a guy breaking into a car.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: So they go, okay, so I jump out of the car and they pass me, and I get on the sidewalk, and the guy's coming out of this car, and he's got like a, I don't know, a car radio or something, and I'm running towards them, and he's he yells to me, don't be a superhero lady.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I pulled my gun out and I was like up against the wall.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: The guy was like, Oh, dick! Like, throw himself on the wall.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: He goes, No, freak your way.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: So then the guys will like be like, Oh, now Carol's superhero.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: Don't be a superhero lady.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I had all kind of nicknames because of stupid things.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like, nobody expected me to be a cop, especially in plain clothes.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and uniform too.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: They they never saw me.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: So Since you said you worked in Midtown, I was curious, did you come across any of the gypsy scams?
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know what?
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: And they're back.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: They are back, and I can't believe people are still falling for that crap.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: The um, the the jewelry, the jewelry, or I wanna I want a uh lottery ticket, you know, I got this lottery ticket, can you hold it?
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: Just give me some money.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: I can't, I can't cash it in because I'm illegal.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it's it's and it's still out there.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: I can't believe that people still fall for this stuff.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: Hold my jewelry, and then they give you a crap, and meanwhile, you gave the money, and yeah, the gypsies, the gypsies are still out there, they're still doing their deal.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: So after Manhattan's South Borough crime, you went to Brooklyn South uh Brooklyn North to Brooklyn South Narcotics.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: Brooklyn, Brooklyn North.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: Brooklyn North Narcotics.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's another culture shock going from anti-crime to narcotics.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's a totally different animal.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: And from going from Manhattan South to Brooklyn North.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was uh it was it was a shock.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: It was a culture shock.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: I I will say that.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: But um, I had a lot of fun times in there too.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we had a lot of um, a lot of good rests, you know, we had really great undercovers, and um we made we made a lot of overtime back then.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it was like that song, The Hotel California, like once you get there, you can't ever leave.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like nobody was is gonna trade swap out for you.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody wants to be in Brooklyn North.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody wanted to be there.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: But it worked out.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: It worked out.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, we covered a lot we cover covered a lot of areas.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: We had um, you know, all different teams, groups.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: You had the 9094 team, the 8381 team, 79 team.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like, so, you know, there was always cops out there.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: They they were making arrests like crazy um with for drugs.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: Although we do did have um we did have one incident where uh an undercover ended up shooting uh sergeant, you know, on on one of the the buy-in bus operations.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, that that that you don't, you know, it that it it it happened, he got c sa c uh caught up in crossfire, but for the most part, you know, it was pretty cut and dry.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you went out, you did what you think.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe every once in a while you'd come up with a search warrant, somebody would give you something good, you do, you know, you'd do a search warrant.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: But most of it was like the the B and B stuff, buy and bust.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: You buy and then you bust the guy.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: Case B and You know, i i it it got to the point where we were locking up the same people because it was like the same people were out there dealing, the same people were coming in and buying.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it it it um you almost knew all the players when you went out there, but no, nothing crazy.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: I really had nothing crazy in narcotics that I can even remember, but most of it was just kind of cookie cutter, cookie cutter stuff.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: There because there was there was so many cops working the areas.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: There was I mean, they did a big NYPD did a big um push and they put everybody in narcotics.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: I was I had originally interviewed to go into uh a rip, robbery, uh rap the rapper rip back then, a detective squad.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: And because narcotics was so out of control, they took everybody that interviewed for everything and they they just threw them in in Brooklyn.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: Most of them went to Brooklyn North.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: Many guys that I worked with ended up in Brooklyn North with me.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: From narcotics you went to, and this this this this unit sounds interesting, the pawn shop task force.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: How was that?
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I had an opportunity to get out of um Brooklyn North narcotics.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um a captain that worked in the in the command had just left and he went to this pawn shop task force, and it worked out of the eight three precinct.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: So um I had called him up um because I was I was kind of done with narcotics at that point.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, Listen, I can get you in this pawn shop task force.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I said, Okay, so I get transferred that afternoon to uh the 8-3 precinct, pawn shop task force.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: And um I get there and and meet the other guys and the sergeant and the horses that are gonna work the area, work this unit.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: And then they they they're like, okay, so you know, we're gonna go through 61s and we're gonna, you know, see like your burglaries, we're gonna see what kind of jewelry was taken, and we're gonna check all the porn shops and and see if we can come up with any missing property, maybe we can come up with some collars, you know, and and I'm sitting there and I'm like, horn, on.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: I thought I thought I thought I was going to the porn shop task force.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like I thought we were gonna go into strip joints.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like it was laughing.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: My my my old boss was hysterical.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: He goes, I if anybody, it's you is gonna say something like that.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: But I stayed there about six months, maybe a little bit longer.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um it was interesting, something different, something um a little bit different from what I had been doing.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I had interviewed for um um the intelligence division.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: They were opening a new unit, um, criminal intelligence.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I I interviewed for that and I ended up getting picked up.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: And um I ultimately ended up in uh Brooklyn South Intel, um, the criminal division out of uh the Brooklyn Army term, that term.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: When you were in that pawn shop task, was I was curious, were the pawn shop operators were they cooperative or were they shady?
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: No, pretty much most of them were cooperative because they didn't want, they didn't want, you know, like if they didn't cooperate, they'd get shut down.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: They they knew the deal too.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of times they would call and say, listen, this this guy came in, I got his ID and stuff.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: He looked really shady, he brought a bunch of stuff in.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: They would call us and drop a dime.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because, you know, this is their business.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: This is their, you know, this is how they make their money.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's some that that I'm sure uh are taking stolen crap, you know, uh on the side or whatever.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: But for the most part, any of the ones that I dealt with were all pretty uh they the minute you walked in, they they had their books open, you know, they were like, whatever you need, just let us know.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you guys closed out a lot of burglary 61s.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, they did come up with some stuff.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: They they came up with stuff, and mostly, like I said, it was the owner, the guy calling up and saying, Listen, I took this stuff, I really think it's I really think it's hot.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: I really think it's stolen, you know what I mean?
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: And we go in and look, and then you say, Okay, this this is the stuff he gave you, okay, and then you start going through 61s and in the area and and and around the precincts and stuff.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, a lot of times you did come up with stuff.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: You did recover, and uh when you pawn something, you have to give ID.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: And these all these pawn shops also have cameras everywhere.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: So they had, you know, you had your you picked your ID, you had you on film, you know, the so it was actually pretty cut and dry.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: There was like no big investigation once uh once you linked the jewelry to burglary.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and for those of you that don't know, a 61 is a complaint report.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: So when someone comes into the station house or calls the police, said their place was broken into when their property was stolen.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we call it's a complaint report.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's a 61.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what we're talking about.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: Carol, you went to the intelligence divisions.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: Could you go into that, what that was like?
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I went in in 90, the end of 99.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I had been in the unit.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I was working, I was working out of um PSA 1 in Coney Island.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: I had a little office there.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: I was getting CIs, you know.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we were doing um, we were doing BBs.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we weren't doing B and B's.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_01: We were doing uh mostly search warrants.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: You would you would go in and interview arrests that were made.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_01: So every detective worked with a sergeant.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I had a sergeant from PSA 1 and myself, and we would we would work cases.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: We would go in, we would do interviews there.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: They had arrests in in uh PSA 1, we'd go in, do interviews.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we'd go into you know Coney Island precincts, do interviews, but hoping to sign people up as CIs.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: So you sign them up as CIs, they give you some information, you pay them, you go do search for them.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: So um that was before 9-11.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um also they had they were opening um that that stadium in Coney Island um for the minor league baseball.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_01: Cyclones.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: Cyclones, that's the name of it.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so they had a lot of hookers out back then.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: So they were trying to clean up the area, so you know, because they didn't want people coming with their kids and going to a baseball game and walk into their car, and there's hookers walking up and down Surf Avenue and drug dealers.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: So they they approached me and they were like, um, listen, we know you had uh press training in Manhattan.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: Would you now I was detective and I and I didn't even actually work in PSA one.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_01: I had an office in PSA 1.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: I worked out of Intel.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: But they were like, would you um would you go out and and um hook.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_01: Would you go out there and walk the streets and and and get guys?
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I sat down with the CO and I was like, listen, I'll absolutely do it, but I'm only doing it on overtime.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not doing it as a regular shift, you know, because I got other work to do during during my shifts that I have to complete.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: But I will do it on overtime and uh I won't take a copper fireman.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: If we get a copper fireman, you gotta cut them loose.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like I don't care.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't want my name in the paper tomorrow and and and drag this, drag these guys through the mud trying to pick up a hooker.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: So um I did a lot of that.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'd um at night, you know, they I'd I'd get dressed up and stand out on Surf Avenue and get John's, get John's.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: But the one night I was out there, I hear somebody yell, Carol, what the hell are you doing standing out there?
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I looked and it was my cousin's husband.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_01: He worked for um Con Edison or something.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: He was in a Con Ed truck.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: They were doing work over there, and he looks over and I'm standing on the corner.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_01: So, like family things now, people are like, remember the time I saw you hooking out on Surf Avenue?
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, yes.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm telling him, keep going, keep going.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because I had I had a kel on, I had guys all around me, you know, um set up for the sting operation, and and my cousin drives past my cousin's husband, which was which was fun.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to go back in time, which kind of comes full circle to the end of your career.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: In the early 90s, Thompson Square Park was a thorn in the side for the NYPD.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: There was drugs, fireworks, riots, you name it.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_00: In August of 1991, you were assaulted in the park.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: Could you go into that story?
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_01: So they were these these riots were like nightly.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: They were daily, they were nightly, they were all day, all night.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_01: These these people had no lives, no jobs, or whatever.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: So there was um they were gonna do a march, and um they were gonna march from Washington Square Park over to Tompkins Square Park, and they were, you know, screaming and throwing bottles at cops, and I mean, I mean, it was a riot.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_01: Cops all had their riot helmets on and stuff.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I was in anti-crime, and they put us in, you know, walk around, walk through the crowd, see if you spot anybody, you know, spot anybody throwing things at the cops or whatever.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, okay.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm working with this guy, Kevin, and he's a real big dude and me, and we're just walking along, and we don't fit in because we don't look like them.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: But at one point it starts getting dark, and we're walking along at chanting.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: This march is going on up and down all the side streets, and um there was a kid in front of me, and and I see him wearing this fanny bag, and he takes it off and he's holding it, and and he's opening it, and he pulls out uh an M eighty and he lights it and he sends it sailing over baboon into the the cops.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm like, holy shit.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I grab him because I'm behind him.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: I grab him from behind and I'm like trying to pull him out of this crowd now.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: And he starts screaming, cops got me, the cops got me.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I get surrounded.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: I get surrounded.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: And they're like uh grabbing my shirt and trying to get me to let go of him.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I am not letting go of this guy.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: So he he's he has this bag in his hand and he swings it and it wraps around and it hits me in the right side of the back of my head.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: Through all this craziness, I get clobbered with something.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_01: My adrenaline was so high I had I just knew I got hit with something, but I wasn't letting him go.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm still hanging on to him.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_01: He's still screaming, he's flailing his arms.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_01: I have my my nails dug into this guy's body because I I I can't even get a hold of him and I have people all over me.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: And the Manhattan South Task Force sees me, and they all know me from Borough Crime, and they did a wedge, which I never seen done, and it works.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_01: And they wedged in and they pulled us out.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_01: They pulled us out of this crowd and got the guy.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: I had one handcuff on.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they got the guy cuffed up, and I um was standing there, and um I looked at the sergeant and I was like, I think I need an ambulance.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_01: I said, I I got hit in the head with something and I'm not feeling right.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_01: And it was a female from the seventh precinct, and she was like, All right, listen, just stand here, we'll get you, we'll get you an ambulance.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_01: So we got I mean, the crowd, it was it was absolute mayhem.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_01: It was mayhem.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: And that's like the last thing I remember because once my adrenaline went down, I hit the floor.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_01: I I lost consciousness, I was on the floor.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I was told that they picked me up, one of the guys picked me up, a uniform guy ran me to a paddy wagon, they put me in a paddy wagon, and now they had to fight the crowds to get out of this area and the riots, and they shut down the streets and they brought me up to St.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: Vincent's um in Manhattan, which is no longer around.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: But I spent um ten days, ten days in um uh St.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_01: Vinny's Hospital with smelling and and a concussion, amnesia, and um all kind of craziness.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_01: And you had amnesia for quite some time.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that that's the weirdest thing I've ever experienced in my life to um look at people and not know who the hell they are.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_01: And know that you should know them, like I should know this person, I think I should know this person, but having no recollection of of who they were, um just just the area of the brain that that I got struck, it took a long time to actually be get back to normal.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they they broke those little bones in my ears, my eardrum was broken, um had vertigo, I had memory loss, um uh i it it was um it was an experience.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_01: And you know what?
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_01: Even twenty odds, some odd years later, I I still have um repercussions of it.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's but you you kinda your your brain learns how to compensate for for what was damaged.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I want to end on a lighter note.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_00: I was in the police I was on I was in the police academy the day the stock market crashed on October 21st, 1987.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: You were interviewed by a newsday reporter if you had seen anyone jump from the New York Stock Exchange.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: Do you remember that?
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 47:44
  unknown: No.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_01: What did I say?
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_00: You said I haven't seen anyone jump lately, but I'll let you know.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'll say I'll send you a copy of the article.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know what?
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_01: We used to get we we used to get jumpers.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_01: We used to get a lot of jumpers down on Wall Street, believe it or not.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_01: We had a lot of jumpers.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, guys would be be, you know, high on the hog, and next thing you know, they lose all this money, they'd jump out of a building.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so I don't remember the guy asking me that, but uh obviously I said I haven't seen any lately.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_01: So um there were a lot I I've listened I handled a lot of jumpers in downtown Manhattan.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_01: I forgot all about them.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_01: As a matter of fact, one of them was on Nassau Street, and the guy landed on a um he landed on a van and he landed on his back and his bone from his elbow, his arm went through the hood of the the the roof of the van so that he was impaled and they couldn't get him off.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_01: And we were down there and I was backing people up and I was like, you know, back up, back up, people.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody wants to see what the hell's going on.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_01: The guy just jumped out the window and I'm pushing, pushing, pushing.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the, there was a a guy friends of my husband's and his girlfriend at the time, and they're like, Aren't you going out with Joe DiPallo?
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Yeah, yeah, keep going, keep going, back up, back up, back up.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_01: So they called them up.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_01: They were like, Man, that girl you dated, man, she's a little rough around the edges, don't you think?
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I I couldn't stand there and not have a conversation.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_01: Friends are still friends with them to this day, but it was just so funny.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_01: That was my first encounter with them.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, aren't you going out with them?
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_01: Keep backing up, back up, come on, back up, never see you, you know.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a dead guy.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_00: I say, it's just a dead guy.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_00: Cal Erasmus, thank you so much for spending your time with us today.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_01: I had a good time.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_01: It was a lot of fun.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_01: Brought back a lot of memories.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_00: As always, I'd like to thank everyone for tuning in, especially my listeners in Russell, Ontario, Pleasantville, New York, Quincy, Massachusetts, Greenville, Texas, and Shalotte, Shalot, North Carolina.
• 49:44
  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.
• 49:50
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• 49:53
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• 49:56
  SPEAKER_00: Just type in my name, Vic, Ferrari Like the Car, where you can preview all my NYPD books for free.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks again, everyone, and I'll see you next week.