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

by Steve Osborne

  Out in the street there’s no honor among thieves. They have no problem killing each other over the dumbest stuff, but don’t ask them to be a rat. That seems to be the only thing these shitheads can agree on. Never talk to the police, and never be a rat.

  Fuck it, if he wanted to play hardball, so could I. There was no reason to baby this little prick, so I explained to him that he was shot up pretty good and just might die. I didn’t know if he was going to die or not, I just wanted to scare him into talking.

  I asked him to help us and not let the guy who did this get away with it, but he didn’t even flinch. He just kept looking the other way, ignoring me. He would rather let the guy who did this get away with it than die like a rat.

  People in this neighborhood don’t talk to the cops much, even in the face of death. The kid was a stoic little bastard, and I like to think I would be as tough as him if I was lying there with a bullet in my gut. I didn’t know whether to be pissed or to admire him. Actually it was both.

  As I was talking to him I lifted his shirt and saw the tiny bullet hole in his stomach oozing blood. To anyone watching, it must have looked like I was trying to help him—but I wasn’t. I was checking to make sure he didn’t have a gun on him. This kid was no choirboy and most likely got shot for a reason. I also patted down his pockets, looking for a wallet or anything with his name on it so we could ID him, but nothing.

  Even on those rare occasions when the victims do talk to you, they usually give you a bullshit story. They try to tell you they were just walking down the street, heard a pop, felt a sharp pain, and realized they were shot. Ninety-nine percent of the time they’re just full of shit and we know it.

  EMS pulled up to the scene within a few minutes with one of my sector cars pulling in behind them. Now the entire block was aglow in swirling red and white lights.

  Sector Charlie heard I had a confirmed male shot, dropped what they were doing, and came over to help. Midnight cops are always watching each other’s back. We made some small talk and I filled them in on what I had so far—which wasn’t much. We all agreed this dispute most likely started down the block on First Avenue, where the dealers all hang out. The kid probably ran with the shooter chasing him, maybe throwing shots along the way, until he caught him and finally put one in him.

  I wanted them to rope off a crime scene, then walk down the block and do a “search for evidence”: shell casings, drugs, money, broken windows, or cars with bullet holes in them. Anything that may shed a little light on what happened. Maybe if we got lucky we could find a witness who was peeking out a window, but I wasn’t holding my breath on that one.

  The detectives would be here soon, but some good police work by the first cops on the scene always makes their jobs a lot easier.

  As I was talking to the cops, a Hispanic woman in her late thirties walking arm in arm with a teenage girl started to approach us. As they got closer I could tell they were both crying and visibly upset. Before they said a word I knew they had to be the victim’s mother and sister. Apparently right after the shooting one of the victim’s buddies ran to his house and told his mother what happened. It was a common scenario. Good, now maybe I can get this kid identified.

  The tears really started to flow when the mother and sister saw the kid in the back of the ambulance with two EMTs sticking an IV in his arm and cutting off his clothes. I grabbed the woman and asked her if that was her son. In between sobs and gasping for breath she answered yes. Good, we’re making progress.

  I told her to relax and tried to get her to calm down by telling her that he would be all right. I tried to reassure her he was in very capable hands and the doctors at Bellevue Hospital were the best. Again I was just giving her my regular feel-good speech I give all victims’ mothers. I needed her to settle down so I could get some information.

  I pulled her off to the side so we could talk in private and I could have her full attention. I took out a pad and pen and started asking some questions, but as soon as I asked for her son’s name the crying stopped. She put on her game face and said, “What name did he tell you?”

  Un-fucking-believable! In this neighborhood even the victim’s mother won’t help you. She had no intention of answering me or helping the police in any way. She knew her son was a little prick and into some bad stuff, and she wasn’t going to give me anything that might be useful to the investigation. And when I pressed her, all of a sudden she started speaking Spanish and made believe she didn’t understand what I was saying. She was full of shit and we both knew it.

  If she wanted to play hardball so could I, so I told her without identification the hospital may not treat him. This time she knew I was the one who was full of shit. The hospital treats everyone and she knew it. So then I tried telling her that if her son died, the morgue would not release his body until he was properly identified, and that could take days or even weeks. This she believed, and it seemed to bother her, so she started talking, and miraculously, her English got better.

  As I was talking to Mom and the daughter I could see something distracted them. Suddenly their eyes popped open wide in terror and disbelief. They weren’t looking at me anymore, but at something behind me, just over my shoulder. I turned just in time to see a woman with a zombie-like thousand-yard stare on her face stumbling directly toward me. She was wearing a white nightgown that went from her neck to her ankles. She had no shoes, no coat, and was covered from head to toe in blood.

  It was dark, but through the flashing red and white light from the nearby police cars and ambulance I could see she had stab wounds all over her body. Everywhere you looked blood was oozing out of a hole or an open gash. Somebody had hacked her up pretty good. I’ve seen a lot of people shot and stabbed over the years, but this was definitely a good one. We all had that “Holy shit” look on our faces.

  I don’t know why, but out of all the people standing there, she came straight for me. And as she got closer, she reached out with those bloody hands and tried to grab my arm. I didn’t understand exactly what she was saying, but I knew she was pleading with me in broken English to help her.

  I pointed to the curb and told her to sit down and relax, that we would take care of her, and she would be all right. Again I was lying. I was giving my standard feel-good speech I give all my stabbing victims. She was cut up pretty bad, and I really wasn’t sure if she was going to make it.

  She kept trying to grab me while I kept trying to back away from those bloody hands. It was obvious she wanted to latch on to me and pull me somewhere. I kept trying to ask her what happened, but she had no interest in answering my questions.

  I looked at the open slash wounds all over her arms, neck, and scalp, and then I glanced over at my shooting victim in the back of the ambulance. The obvious question was: what did the stabbing have to do with the kid being shot?

  I pointed to the kid in the ambulance and asked her what happened, but she just looked at me with that same vacant stare and didn’t answer. She seemed to not know anything about the shooting, which confused the hell out of me.

  I asked the kid’s mother and sister if they knew the bloody woman. Both furiously shook their heads no.

  I looked around to the now stunned crowd for help, but nobody seemed to know anything about this woman, or if the stabbing had anything to do with the shooting.

  As I stood there for a moment trying to figure all this out, the woman reached out and tried to grab me again. And again I did my best to sidestep those bloody hands. Now she was pleading with me in English, but all she could say was “Help my sister. Help my sister.”

  She was in shock and her broken English wasn’t that good, but I could tell she wanted me to follow her. I tried to ask where her sister was, but all she kept mumbling was “Help my sister. Help my sister.”

  She started to back away while frantically motioning with those bloody hands for me to follow. She obviously wanted to take me somewhere and show me something, and she wanted to do it—now.

  I tol
d the two cops in Sector Charlie to stay with the shooting. My driver and I would check out what was going on with this woman.

  We followed her, barefoot and bloodied, as she led us down the street and around the corner. Along the way I was still peppering her with questions, trying to get some information, but in her zombie-like stupor all she kept mumbling was “Help my sister. Help my sister.”

  I didn’t know where we were going, and I didn’t know what she was leading me into, so at this point all I could do was follow. And as she walked she left little petite-sized bloody footprints on the sidewalk.

  I don’t like walking into a situation blind. I wanted to know where we were going, and what was waiting for me. I wanted to know if the person with the knife had a gun also. But she wasn’t answering any questions. She just stared straight ahead, walking and mumbling.

  She took us to an apartment building on Eleventh Street, an old five-story walk-up, and stood at the bottom of the front steps afraid to go any farther. She stood terrified and frozen, just pointing at the front door and crying, “There, in there.”

  I asked where? What apartment? But pointing at the front door was all I was getting out of her. Whatever happened to her happened inside of this building. And somewhere inside was her sister.

  I grabbed my radio and notified the dispatcher that I had a “pickup” of a female stabbed and needed another ambulance. I gave Central the address of the building and said we were going in to search for a possible perp and another victim. I also wanted the dispatcher, and anyone else who was listening, to know exactly what building I was going into, just in case I needed help in a hurry.

  I pushed open the front door and walked in. It was your average Lower East Side tenement, five floors with four apartments on each floor. I didn’t know which apartment to go to, but I didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure this clue out. On the worn-out, dirty tile floor were bloody footprints leading to a half-open door at the end of the first-floor hallway. We found the apartment a hell of a lot quicker than I thought we would. Lucky me.

  I stood there for a moment taking it all in. Quietly looking and listening. There was no yelling, no screaming, no glass breaking, so there was no reason to rush anywhere. I was trying to listen for voices, children, a dog barking, anything that might give me a clue as to what was inside the apartment, and what I might be walking into. But nothing, only silence—and bloody footprints leading the way.

  I pulled my gun and slowly walked down the hall toward the door, careful not to step into the blood. I now had another crime scene to protect. I also turned down my radio. No need to announce my presence too early, just in case the guy who did this was waiting for me on the other side of the door.

  The entire building was eerily quiet, and nobody knew we were here yet. Tactically speaking, that’s a good thing. I had the element of surprise on my side.

  I approached the partially opened door as quietly as I could and waited for a second, still looking and listening—but I heard nothing, only silence. I don’t get excited too easily, but this whole thing was a little spooky and my heart was pounding like a drum.

  After listening for a few moments more it was time to go in. My driver was right behind me, gun in hand also. I turned around and whispered, “Ready?” I got back a whispered “Ready.” The door was half open, so I gave it a soft kick, just enough to nudge it open the rest of the way. At this point in my career I had seen a lot, but when the door opened I was stunned. There was blood everywhere. It was all over the floor and the walls. It was across the refrigerator and in the sink. When I looked, up there was even splatter across the ceiling. I had been to many crime scenes, but this was definitely a good one.

  The apartment was a typical Manhattan one bedroom—small. The front door opened into the kitchen, there was a tiny living room, a bathroom off to the right, and a bedroom to the left.

  The kitchen table was pushed over, and the chairs were lying on their side. A fierce struggle clearly took place here. There were bloody hand and footprints smeared all over the dingy linoleum floor. It looked like someone had been scrambling on all fours trying to escape their attacker.

  I quietly stepped through the door, my gun out in front of me, tightly gripped in a two-hand hold, looking and listening. Right now I was wishing I had about five more cops with me, but I didn’t—and there was no time to wait. I had a sister to look for.

  I was waiting for the guy from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre to jump out with a butcher knife in his hand, and if he did I was going to light him up. No questions asked. I was wound up like a top. I made sure my finger was off the trigger. I didn’t want to let a round go because some cat ran across my foot.

  It was easy to see there was no one in the kitchen, so I eased on over to the living room and poked my head in. It was tiny, with just a few pieces of ratty-looking furniture that had seen better days. There was no place for anyone to hide, so I stuck my head into the bathroom—nothing.

  The last place to check was the bedroom. I was tiptoeing across the kitchen floor trying not to step in the coagulating pools of blood. Blood can be slippery, and I didn’t want to fall on my ass. That would have been noisy—and nasty.

  I walked up to the bedroom door as quietly as possible. We hadn’t made a sound coming in, and the element of surprise was still on my side. If the perp was on the other side of the door, I was sure he didn’t know we were here.

  I stood along the side of the door frame with my ear to the crack, listening. Was the maniac who did this on the other side waiting for me? Who knew? But one thing was for sure, the apartment was small, and this was the last place he could be hiding. I waited and listened for a few seconds more but heard nothing. It was time to go in.

  If I was sitting in a theater watching this scene in some horror movie I would be saying, “Don’t go in there, you’ll be sorry.” I reached out to grab the doorknob and turned it as quietly as I could. To me the clicking of the lock sounded like thunder. I was thinking, “He’s got to hear that! He’s got to know I’m coming for him!”

  I opened the door just a crack, then stepped back. It was showtime! I hauled off, landing my black boot squarely in the middle of the door, and kicked it open. My adrenaline must have really been pumping because the door just exploded open. I kicked it a hell of a lot harder than I needed or wanted to.

  With a loud boom, the door flew open and crashed into the dresser behind it, bouncing off. And just as violently as it flew open, it swung back and slammed closed in my face. Now I’m standing there, gun in hand, staring at a closed door, feeling like a dope.

  Things don’t always go as smoothly in real life as they do in the movies. When I think about it now, it seems funny, but it wasn’t so funny back then.

  The boom was so loud the people in the upstairs apartment must have heard it. I’m pissed because now I lost the element of surprise! He has to know I’m out here, so I have to move fast. I step back and kick it again. This time I stop the door with my foot to keep it from closing on me.

  I stepped through the door, gun in one hand, flashlight in the other. I was looking left and right, and up and down, as fast as I could, ready to shoot if I saw a hand with a knife in it. I had already decided that if I saw a guy with a knife and he stepped two inches in my direction, I was going to light him up.

  The room was dark, but the curtains were ripped down from the window. There was just enough ambient light from the apartments across the alley to let me see. There were two small beds in the tiny room—one against the far wall and one under the window to my right. The mattress on the bed against the wall was half on the floor, and there were bloody handprints smeared high across the wall. It looked like someone had run across the bed trying to climb the wall in order to escape from the knife-wielding psycho chasing them.

  I shined my flashlight around the room, under the bed, and in the closet, but nothing. For sure, I was relieved there wasn’t some maniac behind the door waiting for me, but I was also a little disap
pointed. I wanted to get this guy!

  It looked like most of the excitement was over, so I holstered my gun and turned on the lights. I looked around at the bloody hand- and footprints on the walls and bed. This must have been some fierce struggle. I couldn’t believe one of the neighbors didn’t hear it and call 911. But New Yorkers, especially in this neighborhood, don’t like to get involved—even if your neighbor is getting butchered.

  I walked around the apartment looking for anything that might shed a little light on what happened: drugs, money, or the knife. Maybe this was a drug deal gone bad. Or maybe a home invasion–type robbery. Or a really violent family dispute.

  I stood in the middle of the kitchen looking around. The apartment was quiet. There was no television or radio on. The only sound was the hissing of the air conditioner. I stood perfectly still staring at the hand and footprints and pools of blood on the linoleum floor. The whole scene was eerie and was getting spookier by the minute.

  The air conditioner was on, but it was still stifling hot. I wanted to get the hell out of there and get some fresh air, when suddenly, I thought I heard something. I didn’t know what it was, but it was something.

  I stood there for a moment trying to figure out what I just heard—but nothing, only silence. It was all quiet except for the hissing A/C and my own breathing. I stood very still for what seemed like a long time, just listening, and just when I thought maybe I had imagined it, I heard it again. A very soft, very faint moan.

  I looked around the room again, but there was no one here. And the sound didn’t come from the living room or the bathroom. It must be coming from the bedroom!

  All I could think of was “Oh shit, I missed something.” A small person or a child hiding somewhere. I rushed back into the tiny bedroom and did a quick search. I flipped over the beds, nothing. I pulled the clothes out of the closet, but nothing.