The Job: True Tales from the Life of a New York City Cop

by Steve Osborne

  It was a good feeling getting the gun, I was starting to win, but this fight was far from over, so as soon as I got the gun, I hauled off and smashed him right in the side of the skull with it. BAM! I nailed him right in the temple as hard as I could. Now he was out of breath, and seeing stars. That seemed to take a lot of the fight out of him. Then I pointed the gun at number two and yelled for him to back the fuck up and to put his hands on the car.

  At this point I could have shot the both of them. I could have executed them right on the spot, and they would have given me a medal for it. Thinking back, I probably should have, the world would be a slightly better place without them. But contrary to what a lot of storefront reverends and cop-bashing politicians would like you to believe, cops aren’t trigger-happy. Nobody wants to get into a shooting. Nobody wants to take a life if you don’t have to. Not even these two assholes.

  I pointed the gun right between number two’s eyeballs and told him to get back on the car and if he didn’t, I was going to shoot him right in the fucking face. I was a little spent from fighting with the first guy and had no intention of doing it all over again.

  I finally get the both of them spread-eagled over the hood of the car. Number one is moaning a little because he’s still stunned from that whack to the temple I gave him, and number two doesn’t want to get shot in the face. I’m pointing the gun at one guy, then at the other, telling them to keep their hands on the car, and that’s when I realize—I’m using their pistol to hold them down at gunpoint. I look at the little gun in my hand and it’s a piece of shit. It’s a silver .38-caliber revolver, a real Saturday night special—and I’m not even sure if it works. So I slap it into my left hand and pull out my gun. Now I’m in the middle of Houston Street with a gun in each hand, like in some movie, pointing them at their heads.

  And all the while, cars, taxicabs, and early-morning delivery trucks are passing by. People could not care less. Back in the bad old days of New York City, a little gunplay in the middle of a busy street was apparently no big deal. So everybody just drove around us and kept on going.

  Finally I shoved their gun in my back pocket, grabbed my radio, and told the dispatcher, “Central, Houston and Elizabeth, 10-85 me one unit forthwith—I got two under.” That was all I had to say, everybody listening could tell I was out of breath, and the next thing I knew there were sirens in the distance racing in my direction. The cavalry is coming—it’s a great feeling.

  In the first car to respond were two cops I had known from my previous command, and when I told them the story we all had a good laugh. Cops have a sick sense of humor.

  We did a show-up at the scene with the robbery victim, and he positively identified them as the individuals who stabbed him. I also showed him the watch I recovered, and he identified that as his property. This was turning out to be a nice, ground-ball collar—an easy one for any assistant district attorney who catches it. I was positive we weren’t going to trial on this one.

  I gave the collar to one of the sector cars and got ready to go back to the park—and riding in circles again. But before that, I had some unfinished business. I grabbed our victim and not so nicely asked him, “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me they had a gun? You almost got me killed.” He was very apologetic, and stammered on about how they stabbed him, and all he could think about was the knife.

  I would later find out that a few hours earlier, they had robbed another guy at gunpoint on the Brooklyn Bridge. Turned out these pillars of society had been on a robbery and crack-smoking spree for the past three days! The detectives would end up doing some lineups and closing out a few cases on these two.

  Two hours later, I was back at the station house, and the night was finally over. I had changed into civilian clothes and was hanging out behind the desk waiting to sign out. My first few days at the Ninth were interesting, to say the least, plus I had quite a few laughs. A normal person with a half a brain would have said, “Get me the hell out of here.” But not me. I really liked the Ninth. I really liked the salty cops that worked here, and the station house that was crumbling around us. But more than anything I liked the neighborhood. It made you feel alive, and it made me feel like a cop. And as I stood there watching the day tour head out to go on patrol, I looked around at the dingy floor, cracked walls, and peeling paint, and I couldn’t help but think—I finally found a home!

  —

  A few days later I was behind the desk again getting ready for another night on patrol. I checked my mailbox, and inside I found the arresting officers had left me a copy of the paperwork from the two collars, in case I needed it for the grand jury. When I flipped through the packet I found the ballistic report from the lab: that piece-of-shit-looking gun was loaded and fully functional. It worked just fine!

  Buried underneath the paperwork was a large manila envelope with a return address from the Manhattan South Borough Commander—the Chief. When I opened it, there was a nice-looking certificate inside for “Outstanding Police Work.” I read the letter that came with it and couldn’t help but laugh. It was for collaring the guy in the park for trying to climb the fence and hang the banner.

  And in big bold letters—in the middle of the certificate—he spelled my name wrong.

  7.

  Midnights

  When the sun goes down—that’s cops and robbers time. That’s when the real police work happens. The city may sleep but crime never does. And the later it gets, the busier it can get. During the day cops deal with all kinds of stuff, but at night is when the craziness starts. That’s when the violence happens.

  Especially after midnight, when the rest of the world is in their pajamas, safely locked behind closed doors, the creatures of the night come out to roam the streets. That’s when it’s just us and them: junkies, crackheads, prostitutes, drug dealers, rapists, robbers, and murderers.

  During the day the world has some rules; people go to work, kids go to school, and stores open for business. But when it gets dark, and the normal people pull down their shades, and barricade themselves in for the night, the rules go out the window—and the bad guys get bolder. They’re like vampires, and for some reason the lack of sunlight seems to energize them.

  Even the regular, law-abiding people who were out for just a good time find themselves in trouble. After hours of boozing, partying, and barhopping, that’s when stupidness happens. Motor vehicle accidents tend not to be just fender benders. More likely they’re “rollovers” or “pin jobs,” with the occupants trapped inside waiting for us to save them. Alcohol-fueled disputes often escalate quickly, with the winner going to jail, and the loser going to the hospital—or worse, the cemetery.

  And when it comes to drunken nonsense, the girls are just as bad as the guys.

  Years ago the Ninth Precinct on the Lower East Side of Manhattan wasn’t the chi-chi hipster place it is now. There were no cafés with tables outside, and yuppies sipping their lattes. Back then it was the Wild West. Shootings, stabbings, and robberies happened constantly and bloodshed was a nightly occurrence.

  The Ninth was less than a square mile, but it was filled with twenty-story public housing projects, tenement apartment buildings, and five-floor walk-ups. There were a lot of people crammed into a small area. Block after block was packed with residents, except for the countless burned-out buildings and empty lots. They were filled with homeless, squatters, junkies, and drug dealers.

  And the neighborhood seemed to revolve around one thing: drugs. At any given time there were at least twenty or more spots dealing all hours of the day and night. Narcotics would come in and make collars almost daily, but it was useless. It was like swatting flies in a shit house. Crime was everywhere.

  I had only been assigned to the Ninth for a couple of months, but I loved it already. It was the most interesting place I ever worked. If you wanted to do police work, this was the place to do it.

  I got to work early, found a safe place to park my car, and walked into the precinct. I had that spring in my step
that said I was happy to be here. It may sound crazy but I didn’t want to be home curled up in bed, or out at a party somewhere. I wanted to be…here. And unlike most normal cops, I really enjoyed working midnights.

  The station house and most things in it were almost a hundred years old, and they looked every minute of it. The building was a dump—everywhere you looked something was either cracked, broken, or peeling—but the place had character. It had an outpost-like charm to it. It was a sanctuary in a dangerous world where people could come for help—and a place that cops called home.

  I was a rookie sergeant, young, in my early thirties, and still trying to get a handle on being the boss. I always felt that I was a pretty good cop, but being the man in charge, the one with the stripes on his arm, the guy everybody looks to when the world is turning to shit, is a lot more challenging.

  But I was doing good, and catching on fast. Not because I was smarter than anyone else, but because it felt natural to me. It felt like home. Like this is where I’m supposed to be. I loved police work.

  My eighth-grade English teacher, Sister Kathleen, would beat the crap out of me on a regular basis—usually for being a wiseass. She would preach to me about hell and tell me I was never going to make anything out of myself. I never got upset, because I never believed her. Deep down, I knew she was wrong. I knew I was going to grow up to be a cop someday. And five minutes after the beating stopped, I went back to being a wiseass again.

  One of the things I liked best about working midnights was you hardly ever saw a boss above the rank of sergeant, and tonight there would only be two supervisors working. I had patrol and the other sergeant had the desk. So for the next eight hours everything that happened out in the street was my responsibility. And as usual I was shorthanded again.

  I had three two-man sector cars, and a driver for myself. I also had a two-man Tompkins Square Park auto, but they were untouchable. Their job was to stay in the park and make sure the squatters that the city threw out didn’t return and make camp.

  It was the same in every precinct in the city. The late tour was always the busiest, and the least manned. We were the hardest working, least appreciated, and the most sleep deprived. Midnight cops are a different breed.

  I checked the roll call, made some changes, and headed for the locker room. I opened my locker, ripped off the plastic dry cleaner wrapper from my uniform shirt, and got dressed. Sometimes it’s easy to take for granted how dangerous police work can be, but when you strap on a vest, two guns, thirty rounds of spare ammunition, mace, and a nightstick it can be a little bit of a reminder. We don’t carry all that cool shit for nothing.

  I headed back downstairs twenty pounds heavier than I was before. The clock on the wall said it was time to get this show started, so in my best sergeant’s voice I barked out to the cops mingling around the desk, “Fall in! Attention to roll call!”

  Roll call went fast, there wasn’t many of us, so there was no need to drag it out. I told them their assignments, then walked down the line of cops standing at attention and gave them a quick inspection. There weren’t many sharp creases in their uniforms and not everybody’s shoes were as shiny as they should be, but they were all really good cops. The tired looks on their faces told me some were probably in court all day processing arrests from the previous night. The rest were most likely working a second job during the day, just to make ends meet.

  I gave them my usual pep talk about being careful out there. We were shorthanded, so we had to listen to the radio and watch each other’s back. Midnight cops also tend to be a tight bunch.

  The four-to-twelve guys were outside the front door waiting for me to finish so they could unload all their cool shit and go home. So again in my best sergeant’s voice, I finished up by barking, “Take your posts! Fall out!”

  The radio was jumping already, so there was no time for screwing around. We hit the streets taking two and three jobs at a time, trying to clear up the backlog.

  First I took a ride over to Seventh Street. There was a “heavy bleeder” job. Turns out one of the neighborhood homeless guys had a little too much to drink, fell down, and busted his head open. There was a lot of blood but no assault. No arrest necessary, and no big deal. The only problem was the guy didn’t want to go to the hospital. He didn’t want to leave his shopping cart full of his “stuff” behind because he was afraid somebody would steal it. Finally we found a homeless buddy of his who promised to watch it until he got back.

  He probably lost another half pint of blood while we figured out who was going to watch his shopping cart, but he didn’t care. He had some old keyboard with a dangling cord that was attached to nothing. But he thought it was a computer and must be worth something.

  We handle the jobs as fast as we can because they just keep coming: dispute in the street, dispute in a bar, a family dispute, a “man with a gun,” “shots fired.” The radio never stops. Why can’t we all just get along?

  I look at my watch and it’s one o’clock already. The night is flying by and I haven’t had my coffee yet, so we head over to my favorite bagel joint and grab coffee and something to munch on. Then we find a quiet corner to park the car so we can eat without anybody staring at us. People always seem to want to ask you a question when you’re wiping cream cheese off your chin.

  I unwrap my bagel and just as I’m about to take a sip of coffee, Central interrupts and asks me if I’m available to handle a report of “shots fired.” Tough luck for me, coffee is going to have to wait.

  Shots fired over at Twelfth Street is usually no big deal. The neighbors like to call it in once in a while, so we could get it a few times a night. That block, and twenty others just like it, are what we call a “drug-prone location.” The people living there get tired of seeing the dealers hanging out on the corner, so they call 911 saying one of them has a gun.

  We usually roll up, throw everybody on the wall, and toss ’em. You’ll never ever find a gun on any of these assholes. They’re not that stupid. The guns are always hidden close by, usually in a mailbox, under a car, in some bushes, or even in a hole in a wall somewhere. But we kick everybody in the ass and send them on their way. It cleans up the corner even if it’s only for a few minutes.

  As I put the lid back on my coffee and wrap up the bagel, the dispatcher advises me additional calls are coming in, stating there is a “male shot” at the location. Without saying a word my driver hits the gas, and I can feel myself being pushed back into the seat as the engine roars to life. Additional calls usually means it’s for real.

  The turret lights on the roof illuminate everything around us in flashing red and white lights as we weave through the late-night traffic. When we’re about a block away I unlock the snap on my holster, just in case all the fun isn’t finished by the time we get there.

  As we turn the corner some do-gooder in the street is waving to us with one hand while pointing to a small crowd gathered halfway down the block. Here we go—this one’s definitely for real.

  Driving down the block, my gun is now in my hand and my head’s on a swivel. I’m checking out everybody and everything. Is the shooter still on the scene? Is anyone running away? Things happen fast and I’m trying to take it all in.

  The crowd backs up a little when we screech to a stop and jump out. The street is dark, but the red and white turret lights swirling across the nearby cars and buildings light up the scene.

  Everything was strangely quiet and under control. There was no yelling or screaming and nobody seemed too upset. Violence around here is a common occurrence, so nobody found this too unusual. In this neighborhood dying of natural causes includes getting shot.

  In the center of the crowd, lying on the ground, was our victim. He was a short, thin male Hispanic and couldn’t have been any more than seventeen years old. He wasn’t moving or making any sounds. He was just lying there staring straight up, holding his stomach, with a scared look on his face.

  I snatched the radio off my belt, keyed the mike,
and told Central we had a “confirmed male shot.” I also told her to advise EMS (Emergency Medical Service) “forthwith on the bus [ambulance].”

  As I walked over to the kid, I was still scanning and taking it all in. I wanted to make sure the shooter was gone and all the excitement was over. I didn’t want to get shot in the back by someone I didn’t see or overlooked. We’re here to save people and catch bad guys, but survival always comes first.

  As I approached the crowd and the kid lying on the ground, I threw the question out to no one in particular, “Did anyone see what happened?”

  My question was met with blank, uninterested faces and shrugging shoulders. I didn’t really expect an answer out of these pillars of society, but you have to ask anyway.

  Next, I knelt down next to the victim and told him, “Relax, kid, the ambulance is on the way. You’re going to be all right.”

  Actually I didn’t know if he was going to be all right, but I gave him my regular feel-good speech I give all my shooting victims. When someone gets shot, the bullet goes in one place, but then it can go anywhere and you can never tell how serious it is just by looking at it.

  Once I had a guy with what looked like a minor gunshot wound to the arm, but actually the bullet went through his armpit and into his heart. He was dying as I was talking to him.

  I recognized the kid and I’m sure he recognized me. I’d seen him hanging around with the dealers down the block. I’d thrown him and his buddies up on the wall more than a few times. When I asked him what happened, and who did this to him, he just turned his head to the side and closed his eyes. He was feigning unconsciousness.

  At the age of seventeen this kid was hard-core already. He had no intention of answering me or cooperating with the police in any way. When I asked him for his name, he just kept his eyes closed, hoping I would go away. He wasn’t giving up anything.