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

by Steve Osborne

  When she walked into the bedroom, her eyes almost popped out of her head. I was standing there with a drained, exhausted look on my face and a bloody red lump in the middle of my forehead that was growing bigger by the minute. My wife’s usually not very good in stressful situations, so I braced myself for the impending drama. This was going to be bad. She took one look at my bleeding forehead and started yelling, “What happened to you? What’s going on? Where’s Griffin?” I tried to think of just the right words but nothing was coming, so I blurted out something like “Griff got hit by a car.”

  I don’t remember exactly what I said because I had half a concussion going on at the time. She heard what I said about Griff, though, and it shocked her, but she was also fixated on my bleeding forehead. And from the looks of me, she immediately assumed I got hit by the car also.

  To her credit she took it well. She could tell I was a mess. We had known each other for several years, and she had never seen me like this. She was used to that hard cop exterior that’s difficult to shake, even when I’m home. She knew something very bad had happened to me and wanted to help.

  She ran downstairs and got me an ice pack for my head. Then we sat down on the bed and I told her the story. She was such an animal lover I didn’t know what to expect, but luckily my bleeding lump and near-concussion gave her something else to worry about.

  In hindsight, whacking my head on that door was a stroke of brilliance. It really helped defuse the situation.

  She was relieved to hear that I wasn’t hit by the car also. But I had to explain to her what a head-butt was. She was no wrestling fan. As big a softy as she is, in this crisis she rose to the occasion. It was clear how terrible I felt, and she took on the role as the strong one. I sat there, depressed like a little boy who just lost his best friend, while my mom hugged and comforted me, and held the ice pack on my throbbing noggin.

  A week later my wife had another problem to deal with. She told me there was a surprise birthday party for my cousin Tony and we were invited. I told her I didn’t want to go. I was still feeling crappy and in no mood for a party. What I did not know was, the party was actually for me. It was a surprise party that had been planned weeks earlier to celebrate my promotion to lieutenant. My family was in a panic. They had spent quite a few bucks renting a nice hall, and about ninety people said they were coming. My mother called to plead with me, explaining that Tony would be very disappointed if I didn’t show up for his big party. My head had healed, but my heart was still broken. I was still in no mood to go to a party and have fun.

  I like to think that I’m a sharp investigator, but I never caught on. My wife, mother, and sisters were taking turns begging me not to disappoint Tony. Luckily, right before it got to the point where they were going to have to tell me the party was for me, I agreed to go.

  When I walked in, everybody yelled, “Surprise!” And it certainly was. Either I’m not as sharp as I thought or my wife’s a better liar than I give her credit for. Maybe that knock on the head was even harder than I thought it was. I was totally and completely surprised.

  As I looked around at all the people who came to celebrate my promotion, I realized life wasn’t so bad. At the party I was surrounded by people who really cared about me, and it helped snap me out of my doldrums. One of my buddies gave me a golf club for a present, so when I grabbed the microphone to thank everyone for coming, I looked like Bob Hope at a USO show. I had a great time.

  During my years of police work, I’ve seen people die in almost every way imaginable: hit by cars, trucks, buses, trains, and even a plane (an Airbus A300). I’ve seen them shot, stabbed, bludgeoned, hanged, and drowned, and seen them jump off buildings. But nothing ever got to me like that puppy dying in my arms. It was the one time that the wall I had built between my feelings and the outside world didn’t help. Maybe cops don’t cry, but daddies of little puppies do.

  The week prior to the party, life had sucked big-time. It would continue to suck for a few more weeks until my wife had a great idea: we would get another funny-looking little Brussels griffon. And we did. His name was Spanky.

  13.

  Big Day

  The hot shower felt good on my aching, stressed-out muscles. I hadn’t gotten much sleep the past couple of nights, and all the running around was starting to catch up with me. So I stayed in there, taking my time, letting the steamy water do its job while I enjoyed the last few minutes of solitude, before what was going to be a couple of really hectic days.

  I had been working on a big case—a major narcotics investigation—and there had been a million tiny details to deal with before we finally shut it down. When we shut down a case we go out and lock up all our subjects at the same time. We call it “takedown day,” and today was that day. This was going to be big for me and the Gang Squad, maybe not the biggest day of my career, but definitely one to remember.

  The case was called Operation Gladiator. It was in the making for almost a year, and we had put a lot of work into it. After a period of time, cases reach a natural conclusion because you’ve taken it as far as it can go, and over the past twelve months we had taken it pretty far. Through some good police work we managed to infiltrate three separate crews of Bloods that were dealing drugs up in Harlem. My undercover detectives had bought drugs and guns from these guys, and in the process we identified fifty-two subjects. Today we were going to start “hitting” doors, and putting handcuffs on these assholes. The plan for today was to start scooping up our main subjects, then hit seventeen search warrants simultaneously. And I figured before this thing was over, we were probably going to have at least another seventeen to hit. It was too much for just my squad to execute, so every gang unit in the city was going to lend us a few teams so we could get most of it done in one day. It was going to be a big operation, and just the thought of it had all of us wound up.

  My squad consisted of almost fifty cops, detectives, and sergeants, and anything gang-related on the island of Manhattan was our responsibility. It seemed like every other day we would get involved in some kind of caper that would cause you to pull your hair out. Maybe that’s why mine is gone. I didn’t mind giving my heart and soul to the job, but I would really like my curly hair back.

  Before we started this investigation a couple of my detectives spoke to the commanding officer of the precinct, figuring it had some potential to be a good long-term major case. The CO was getting his nuts twisted about his crime stats, and the Detective Squad had a few unsolved homicides and nonfatal shootings that were going nowhere fast. The more I looked at it the more I liked it, but I had to pick my battles carefully.

  The case centered around a housing project and the blocks that surrounded it. For a long time the neighborhood had been plagued with drug dealing, shootings, stabbings, robberies, and any other crime you can think of that occurs when junkies and drug dealers take over a neighborhood. Murder and mayhem were a daily occurrence, and most of the problems in the neighborhood seemed to have the same root cause, drugs—and the drug of choice around here was crack.

  When you just look at pin maps, a neighborhood can look like a war zone. We had one color for homicides, another for nonfatal shootings, while other parts of the rainbow represented felony assaults, robberies, burglaries, and grand larcenies. Each pin indicated where a body dropped or a life-changing felony occurred. If one of those little pins was you, you might be dead, or in a wheelchair. Or maybe if you were lucky, you ended up with just a busted head, and a little PTSD that keeps you awake at night and afraid to leave the house.

  It seems hard to believe that some really decent people live in these neighborhoods because we hardly ever get to see them. They wake up in the morning, send their kids to school, then go to work. When evening comes, they barricade themselves inside their apartments and lock the door, afraid to come out. When the sun goes down there’s not too much hanging around, unless you want to get caught in the cross fire of two assholes shooting it out, and maybe end up as a colorful dot on t
he map. So at night, the only people out in the street were the gangsters, junkies, crackheads, prostitutes, and otherwise useless individuals who had nothing better to do with their lives. And us.

  Locking up fifty-two really hard-core shitheads makes you feel good about yourself, and about being a cop. You learn early on that you can’t save the whole world, but you can make an impact on one neighborhood at a time. And with some hard work and a little bit of luck you can make that pin map a little less colorful next month.

  When a problem becomes so bad that it is necessary to start a major case, it gets a name. Just like when a storm gets big and bad enough to become a hurricane, it gets a name. Only we don’t give it a sissy name, we think of something cool, and so we named this one Operation Gladiator. People often ask how we come up with these names. It’s not that complicated. One night, after doing a gun buy from one of our main subjects, we were sitting in the office eating takeout and discussing the case. On the TV was the movie Gladiator, which we were watching for probably the tenth time. And as we sat there watching Russell Crowe whack some bad guy’s head off with a sword, my lead detective on the case says, “Hey Lieutenant, what about Operation Gladiator?” All I could do was smile.

  On TV there are always one or two heroes working the big case, trying to take down some drug crew. In reality it’s not like that at all. None of us are heroes, and if anybody tells you he is, he’s full of shit and has an ego problem. It’s always a team effort, and I was lucky to have some genuinely talented and dedicated investigators working for me. Without them, none of this would have been possible and that neighborhood would continue to be a war zone.

  When we started this case, I had no idea it was going to turn out to be as involved as it did, but these things tend to take on a life of their own and when they do, you give up your life. You start to eat, sleep, and breathe the case. The closer you are to takedown day, the more hectic things get: drug buys, gun buys, and surveillance operations at all hours of the day and night. You start to replace sleep with power naps in the office, and real food with cheeseburgers, pizza, and Chinese. I was going to be glad when this case was finally over. Then maybe I could get back to somewhat of a normal life, at least until we started another one.

  I stepped out of the shower and toweled off. I was surprisingly wide awake, considering the amount of sleep I had been getting, but I think it was more nerves and adrenaline keeping me going than anything else. I checked my cell phone and had no missed calls. I had some of my guys doing late-night surveillance on our main subjects, so we could find them in the morning. We called it “putting them to bed,” and if I had no early-morning calls, that meant no problems.

  I sat down on the bed next to the clean clothes I had laid out and got ready to get dressed. Today there was going to be a lot of running around so the “uniform of the day” was going to be jeans and sneakers. I had the nice suit and tie in my locker for another big day, tomorrow—the press conference. I also told my lead guys to have a nice suit ready because I wanted them up there with me. Two days before, when I briefed my boss on the case, he said the Chief of Detectives liked it so much he wanted to make a big thing out of it in the media when it was over. That is, of course, if the takedown went well. If it didn’t go well, there would be no press conference, no pats on the back, and my career would come to a grinding halt. If something went wrong, no matter whose fault it was, even if it was no one’s fault, the big finger of blame would point at me. That just added to the stress I already have when taking down a case like this.

  I turned on the TV and switched it to CNN while I got ready. I finished getting dressed, then patted myself down, going through my regular daily checklist: gun, spare magazine, shield, money, handcuffs, and cell phone. I was half paying attention to the TV when I noticed that CNN had switched to a live shot of the World Trade Center. There seemed to be a fire in the upper floors of one of the towers and smoke was pouring out the windows. I turned up the volume just as the reporter was saying a small plane had flown into the North Tower. The live shot they were showing was taken from a helicopter, and the first thing that struck me was how absolutely clear and blue the sky was. There was not a cloud anywhere in sight—it was a beautiful fall morning. It was Tuesday, September 11, 2001.

  My wife grew up in Manhattan, and I knew she would want to see this, so I called her over and said, “Hey honey, check this out. There seems to be a pretty big fire going on at the Trade Center.”

  She came into the bedroom, and we both stood there watching the smoke pour out of the upper floors. “What happened?” she asked. I said, “I don’t know, they’re saying a small plane flew into the tower, but I don’t know how that could happen, there is not a cloud in the sky.”

  Just then, as we stood there watching, a jetliner came into view and flew into the other tower, causing a large fireball to explode. Now both towers were on fire. I don’t think I said a word, I was completely stunned, but my wife let out a scream I’ll never forget for as long as I live—it went right through me. It was a harsh, guttural scream that came from deep inside her, like she was in pain. I reached out and grabbed her, pulling her close to me in a bear hug, and held on tight. She had her face buried in my chest, crying uncontrollably. I kept pulling her closer and tighter, telling her in a calm voice to relax, that everything was going to be okay, but that was bullshit. I knew nothing was gonna be okay. Right before my eyes the whole world had changed and nothing was going to be all right—ever again.

  At the time most of us had never heard of Osama bin Laden or al Qaeda, but one thing was obvious: this was no accident, it was terrorism. And when I heard the reporter say that the United States was under attack, a cold chill went through me. What I saw was New York City being attacked, and I was a New York City cop. Now the big case I had been working on for almost a year and the fifty-two individuals I planned on arresting this morning were already forgotten.

  I stood there holding my wife, while staring at the TV screen. On the outside I had to stay calm and reassuring, because she was flipping out. But on the inside my mind was going a hundred miles an hour. My voice was barely above a whisper as I kept telling her everything was going to be okay, but my brain was screaming, thinking of all the things I had to do, and the first thing I had to do was get to work.

  My wife was holding on to me as tight as she could, as her fingers dug into my back. I could feel the front of my shirt was wet from her tears and hot, hyperventilating breath. I hadn’t said anything, but she knew what was coming next, and it was going to be as painful and difficult to deal with as watching that plane hit the tower. She only looked up long enough to say, “Please don’t leave me…not this time.”

  At a time like this, most wives who have a normal husband expect their spouse to race home and take care of them. But not us; being married to a cop is anything but normal. While most other women’s husbands were heading home, I was heading for the door. Being a cop’s wife is a tough life. I don’t know how she put up with me all those years.

  Whenever I could I would try to make it easier for her. Sometimes when I was working late I would call her—and lie. I would tell that I was having a quiet night, that I was in the office doing paperwork. I would convince her that I was fine, and she should go to bed and get some sleep. But in reality while I was talking to her I was about to enter a very dangerous situation, guns at the ready.

  I stood there holding her, trying to calm her down while staring at the screen for what seemed like an eternity, but in truth it was probably only a minute or two. When I loosened my grip on her she knew exactly what that meant. I tried to step back away from her, but it wasn’t that easy because she held on tight and wouldn’t let go. When I finally got her to let go, she just stood there with her empty arms folded in front of her, staring at the floor, scared and lonely. It broke my heart to see her like that, so I reached down, held her wet, tear-soaked face in both my hands, and very softly said, “You understand, don’t you?” She didn’t say anyth
ing, she just gave me a halfhearted nod because I wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know. But that didn’t mean she liked it.

  Sometimes people ask how cops can see the things we see, and do the things we do, and not let it get to us. The answer is, very early in your career you learn how to build a wall between yourself and your feelings. It’s not easy to leave your family like this, just like it’s not easy to stand over some dead guy out in the street, or especially some dead kid. From day one, every time you have to deal with something that would give a normal person nightmares, it places another brick in the wall. And the wall protects you. It helps you detach and lets you do your job. It doesn’t always save you from the nightmares later on, but it does help you do your job. If I feel the need to shake my fist at the world and ask God why, there will be plenty of time for that later. Right now, all I could think about was logistics: people, cars, equipment, and the fastest way possible to ground zero.

  I darted over to the closet, grabbed my small gym bag, and threw in some clothes because I knew I wasn’t going to be home for at least a couple of days. With my bag stuffed with whatever I could grab, I turned to my wife and said, “I’ll try and call you later.” But when I tried to leave, she reached out with both hands, grabbed me by the arm, and pleaded with me, “Just wait a second.” It kind of shocked me back into the moment, back into that bedroom, and back to being a husband again. She said, “I know you have to go—but can you just wait a second?”

  At that moment, the clock stopped ticking, the earth stopped rotating, and it was just my wife and me. For a very brief few seconds, everything around us melted away, and nothing in the world mattered but us. I dropped the bag on the floor, reached out, and took her in my arms. I held her so tight I thought I was going to hurt her. I placed a finger under her chin and tried to lift her head so I could look into her eyes, but she wouldn’t budge. She just kept her face buried in my chest and held on tight. I asked if she was going to be okay, but she just shushed me. There was nothing to talk about and we both knew it, she just wanted a moment of my undivided attention—before maybe never seeing me again. The hell with the rest of the world—even if it lasted for just one brief moment, this was our time. And as we slowly let go of each other, she looked up at me with her soggy face and bloodshot eyes and very seriously warned me, “You better call me later—don’t forget.”