When Renzo arrived, few people outside the martial arts world had any clue who he was. Only hard-core martial arts types in New Jersey had heard of the Gracie family from Rio de Janeiro, or Renzo in particular. It was like suddenly having immediate and personal access to a great sporting figure whom you’d never even dreamt of meeting, like baseball’s Ty Cobb, football’s Jim Brown, or hockey’s Wayne Gretzky.
This gregarious and outgoing yet supremely confident fighter immediately earned the complete respect of all who came to train. Since the only people who knew who Renzo was were Special Forces types and ranking martial artists, he had classes filled with people who theoretically should have been able to hold their own in a fight with him, or perhaps win. I was a ranking black belt who weighed in at 240 pounds, while Renzo weighed just 178. We had Navy SEALS in the group, too, as well as some of the hardest street fighters around.
Renzo smiled while he destroyed us all so quickly and so efficiently that we were in total awe. This was a guy who was a legendary street fighter in Brazil, where no-rules, no-size-category fighting had gone on for years. Yet he stood undefeated. A shatteringly adept killer, Renzo was and continues to be highly sought after by Special Forces troops around the globe for his instruction.
Perhaps more important to me, Renzo is also one of the (if not the) most caring, decent and honorable people I have ever known. I value his close friendship now as I did then—way more valuable than gold. We share a passion for books and literature, too—though most people who train at one of Renzo’s academies probably wouldn’t think of him as a learned man who enjoys reading.
Renzo’s charisma and skills in fighting were earned on the very violent and mean streets of Rio de Janeiro, where on one occasion he was shot three times with a handgun by a drug-dealing thug. The gunshots didn’t stop him, and he used his BJJ skills to beat the shooter to near-death. His brutal and bloody no-rules defeat of the legendary Oleg Taktarov in the U.S. prompted Senator John McCain to call for, and subsequently see enacted, a ban on no-rules fighting.
In Brazil, Renzo fought a grudge match against a notorious fighter backed by powerful drug cartels. Renzo dominated the fight—despite getting stabbed by a spectator during the actual match. Ultimately, Renzo laid a beating on his opponent with his bare fists, and an all-out riot began. Rio de Janeiro, too, banned no-rules fights. That made Renzo responsible for the banning of real, true-to-life no-rules fighting both in the United States and Brazil. He has never lost a fight where rules are exempted, whether on the streets of New York or the beaches of Rio, or in the ring.
I had a detached garage at my home in North Middletown where I would often train with some of the guys from the Middletown PD. It had electricity, so we could continue using it late into the evening. And it was large enough for the hard-core weightlifting equipment I had as well as an open area for practicing Korean Karate. When BJJ came to town, I overhauled the space and put in thick rubber mats more suitable for grappling. I had the perfect spot and location to practice with my friends when not attending classes. It was our sanctuary, and on any given day, a world-renowned BJJ expert such as Renzo Gracie, Ricardo Almeida or Craig Kukuk could be working out with us.
It was during one of our countless training sessions that Renzo started to call me “Big Chuck,” a nickname that stuck. In BJJ circles, I am known simply by Renzo’s nickname. No one calls me anything else.
Jiu Jitsu is never forced. The adept practitioner merely attacks whatever appendage presents itself. It is practiced full-speed, and the person having his joint manipulated must signal submission by “tapping out” (smacking the mat or tapping the opponent) quickly before his body part snaps. Many of the moves are taught and used on the ground. Here, only the skilled practitioner has the advantage, as few people have a clue about how to fight from the ground or their back. A BJJ fighter is lethal even while lying on his back. We say: Take your opponent to the ground, where you can swim and he drowns.
One of the principal moves is called the triangle. Lying on his back, the practitioner wraps his legs around his opponent’s neck, cutting off the carotid arteries on each side. The opponent loses consciousness in three to five seconds. The closing of the carotid arteries by arms or legs is a safe way to finish the combat. If the hold is released quickly, no permanent damage is done.
Another move is the figure four, in which you grab the opponent’s wrist, reach under your opponent’s arm with your other hand, circle around and grab your own wrist and then—slowly—begin to apply pressure to your opponent. Do it too quickly and your opponent’s shoulder will be forever damaged. Do it slowly and you gain control of your opponent, no matter how big he or she may be.
The sessions with Renzo created a fierce comradery born from shared risk and brutally difficult training. In BJJ you have to trust your training partner with your life and health. The moves we practiced were designed to break bones, break necks and destroy your opponent’s knees. We went full force, and tapping submission quickly was the only way to save yourself from injury. It was training on the edge. Everyone suffered injuries, and no one placed blame.
Often, after weekend sessions, we would grab our wives and girlfriends and feast in the local restaurants. Anyone was welcome to train with us. We had just one rule that could not be broken: you had to conduct yourself in a humble manner and treat your training partners with real respect. Violate that rule, and you risk a beating before banishment.
In this environment, in front of no judges other than ourselves, we became warriors of Renzo Gracie Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. To a man, we would have happily caught a bullet for our leader, Renzo. Honor and loyalty were not token concepts to us. Death before dishonor was not a cliché. We lived it.
At that time, only a rarefied few had knowledge of Gracie Jiu Jitsu—and anyone hoping to learn the art had to go through brutal training that few would even entertain. We literally sacrificed body parts to learn the skill. But if you knew the techniques and the other guy didn’t, well, the fight was pretty much over before it started. Gracie Jiu Jitsu gave me an ability to subdue virtually any bad guy that I came across—without resorting to weapons. I brought people into the Middletown Police Department cells in handcuffs, which seemed far preferable to sending them to the hospital or the morgue.
The patrol squad I was assigned to was okay, and I liked my co-workers for the most part. But I could never understand why so few of them opted to train with Renzo. Maybe they were scared of getting hurt. But somehow it made more sense to me to train in a controlled environment with experts and not have to worry so much about getting hurt when I was out in the field, confronting a violent felon.
The few who trained with Renzo became remarkable fighters who were very adept on the street.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
DENNIS THE MAD DOG
“Where the fuck is Mad Dog?” Dave Lentz shouted as he slammed down the phone.
The two of us were standing inside Dave’s office at his Red Bank fighting academy. I’d gone there after my shift one evening in late 1993 to work out with Dave and a few other guys, including my longtime buddy George Sammett, who owned a successful tree-trimming company in town. None of the guys had arrived yet, and I’d wandered into Dave’s office to say hi.
I’d just walked past “Mad Dog” outside the school seconds earlier. That was the nickname Dennis Downey had adopted in his on-again, off-again career as a professional kickboxer. A career sadist and convict who’d been in and out of jail for assaults and thefts, he managed to fit in a couple of paid fights in Atlantic City when he wasn’t behind bars. Mad Dog stood about six foot two, weighed 210 pounds and was a natural heavyweight, with very solid leg kicks. His long hair, demonic eyes and thick beard created a sinister appearance that he positively reveled in.
Dave and I checked the school’s classroom and then ran to the front door. Mad Dog had bolted. Dave told me he’d just gotten off the phone with George Sammett
’s wife, Kathy, a pretty, petite brunette who didn’t have a single enemy in town. Kathy was crying and absolutely beside herself, he explained. She’d found George beaten to a pulp and barely conscious in the gym they had in a massive, two-story garage behind their house. The structure also served as the base of operations for George’s business. She knew that Mad Dog had been there earlier in the day and believed he was responsible for the assault, but she had no proof.
Kathy told Dave that she’d gotten George into the house but that he was in really bad shape and she wanted to take him to the hospital. He’d refused.
The next morning, I met George and Kathy in the emergency room at Riverview Hospital. She’d finally convinced her husband, who had uncannily good boxing and Jiu Jitsu skills and would be a tough opponent for anyone, to get treatment.
George was usually a witty and gregarious guy. The man I saw in the ER was obviously in bad shape, groggy and barely able to move. He’d clearly been subject to a severe beating. In the gym, George and I had fought dozens of times, and I’d won maybe twice. Most of the time I tried to end the bouts in a stalemate. Whoever had done this to him was either incredibly powerful or had gotten the drop on him.
George thought nothing of allowing people who were broke to come to his house and spend the day chopping firewood or doing other menial work to make $100. He’d always be around, and was confident that he could maintain control no matter what the circumstances.
Kathy explained that Mad Dog had come by the house early in the day, and that he and George had gone out to the garage, which was tucked into the woods behind the house, to work out. George didn’t need to be at a job site until later in the morning, and he rarely missed an opportunity to improve his fighting skills. Kathy said that she got worried about her husband after she didn’t see or hear from him for a couple of hours, and she went back to the garage to see what was going on. She found George on the floor in the training area, barely conscious and moaning in pain—the first time she’d ever seen him that way.
George groggily said that Mad Dog had suggested that they do some sparring, and he had agreed. The fighter asked George to put up a 75-pound heavy bag so he could warm up his legs before the fight.
While George was hanging the bag, Mad Dog whipped a near-lethal round kick to George’s temporal lobe that knocked him to the floor. George said he couldn’t remember much of what happened next but that he did recall Mad Dog throwing a weighted barbell onto him while he was lying prone. He also dimly remembered a series of kicks and punches raining down on him.
The incident didn’t make a lot of sense unless something had been taken while George was down or the beat-down was part of some larger plan that Mad Dog had in mind. George was my friend, but I was also a cop, so I did what made sense: I filed an assault report that day and began an investigation. In the course of talking to George and Kathy, I also learned that Bob Smith, a local plumbing contractor, was supposed to have come by that day but, as far as George and Kathy knew, had never shown up.
As I drove away from Riverview Hospital, I thought back to the time in about 1991 when I ran into Mad Dog deep in Hartshorne Woods, a hilly and wooded 787-acre Monmouth County park. Located just south of Sandy Hook, the park overlooked the Atlantic Ocean and the Navesink River. It contained miles and miles of hiking trails and the remains of World War II–era concrete bunkers that once housed heavy artillery to protect the entrance to New York Harbor.
My Akita, Bushi, was a handful, and I had to keep him on a short leash at all times; letting him run untethered was not safe, for either animal or man. As we meandered through the trails, I heard an odd thumping sound coming from a deeply wooded area. Bushi started to growl with real malice as we walked closer, and almost ripped my shoulder socket out trying to attack something.
When I turned a corner, I saw Mad Dog standing in karate pants and wearing 16-ounce boxing gloves, kicking and punching a tree. He looked deranged. Mad Dog took a couple of steps toward the dog, but then thought twice and stopped in his tracks. Bushi seemed anxious to eat him for dinner.
“Hey, that’s a nice dog,” he said, keeping both eyes on the Akita.
“Yeah. Looks like he wants a piece of you.”
Mad Dog had the distinction of serving in a Florida chain gang during one of his many arrests. He’d been caught hanging around local Veterans of Foreign Wars halls and stealing money off aging combat veterans. The guy could be charming. But most of the time he affected a wild persona, exuded true menace and was more than willing to fight the police.
In addition to holding the leash on Bushi, I was carrying my Smith & Wesson that day. I had nothing to fear from Mad Dog. But I wondered about the safety of the young women who jogged these trails alone. I yanked on Bushi’s leash and we continued on our way. I couldn’t help but think that this guy was a danger to everyone who lived in the area. It was just a matter of time until something bad, really bad, happened involving Mad Dog.
Following a series of interviews, I learned that Smith, the plumbing contractor, had indeed gone to the Sammetts’ house that morning. He’d pulled into the driveway, saw Mad Dog by George’s house and rolled down the window to say hello. Without saying a word, Mad Dog kicked the driver’s-side rearview mirror off the truck and punched Smith in the face. Smith put the truck in reverse and left. He could meet up with George some other time, when Mad Dog wasn’t around.
My guess is that Mad Dog had planned to knock out George and enter the house, where he would have raped Kathy, who weighed maybe 110 pounds and would never have been able to fight him off. It was only the plumber’s arrival that stopped Mad Dog from entering the residence and carrying out his plan. Mad Dog also knew that Smith could have placed him at the residence, which was not at all what he wanted.
I’d known Kathy for years and would have been horrified if something had happened to her. I needed more than an aggravated assault case to put Mad Dog behind bars—and keep him away from Kathy for years to come. So I went back and talked to George and the plumber again.
George searched his memories and recalled that he’d had two $50 bills in his pocket when Mad Dog arrived that morning—the money that he was going to use to pay the man for his labor. But the two bills went missing. I obtained sworn statements from both George and Bob Smith, and used them to get an arrest warrant for Dennis “Mad Dog” Downey on charges of aggravated assault and strong-arm robbery. The combination, along with Mad Dog’s long criminal history, would have serious repercussions in a court of law.
Now all I had to do was arrest a very violent guy who was likely to become desperate when he was made aware of the robbery charge. Mad Dog was living in a shotgun shack in Highlands, much of which was blue collar and depressed. It had five times as many bars as churches.
Detective Lieutenant Timothy Lake, Detective Sergeant Richard Dieckmann and I decided to pick up Downey around 6 a.m., when we expected him to still be sleeping—and hence less volatile. There was some tension between the three of us, in part because of my union activities, and in part because I didn’t much care for the way the other two handled themselves.
Lake and Dieckmann wanted me to sit in the car while they made the actual arrest. But there was a jurisdictional issue at play here, too. The Borough of Highlands had its own police force, and we would be on its turf. When we arrived at the scene, a patrolman from Highlands decided that the bungalow was too small for five men, and that no more than two men should do the takedown. The cop knew me because of my martial arts training and wanted me at his side. Lake and Dieckmann had no choice but to cool their heels outside.
Mad Dog was already up and wearing work clothes when we knocked on the door. He saw the Highlands cop first and smiled as he opened the door. He asked about the officer’s health, and then turned to me, asking how I was doing. I told him I had paper on him for the George Sammett beating.
“I know you and George are tight, Detective,” Mad
Dog said. “But me and him, we just had a rough sparring session. You know. I have a fight lined up with Dennis Alexio, man. I needed the training; George is like one of the only people that can hang with me. He just, you know, came up short. Walked into a kick. He’s alright, isn’t he?”
Dennis “the Terminator” Alexio is a former world kickboxing champion, and I had no doubt that Mad Dog was scheduled to fight him.
“Dennis, George is hurt, but he’s going to make it. But between you and me, bro? I don’t think you could beat Sammett in a straight fight even if you had a hatchet in each hand. But that’s not what this about. You’re thinking it’s all bullshit. A he-said/she-said about a sparring match. Think the fuck again. I am taking you for strong-arm robbery. You know, bro—the two U.S. Grants you stole from his pocket after you suckered him.” I suggested that I had also figured out his plan to take Kathy that day.
“Fuck that shit, fuck it. This is bullshit. I never stole nothing from that man,” Mad Dog said. “I got nothing going on with Kathy, and that cunt knows it.”
“Yeah, well, tell it to the jury,” I said. “With these charges and your record, getting close to any women will be a distant thought. You can sit with your Aryan Brotherhood inmate friends and lie about pussy all you want. You sure as shit will have plenty of time to discuss it. By the time you max out, you will forget what to do with pussy. One more thing, hope you ate steak last night. They don’t serve that kind of food where you will be hanging your dick.”
Mad Dog bladed on me, turning perpendicular and positioning himself for an attack. I could feel the tension in his body. The patrolman and I bladed as well. We expected this fight was going to get bloody and dirty, real quick.
But Dennis Downey decided to fight another day. He turned his back to me, put his hands together for the cuffs and offered no resistance. He went to jail without incident.
Jersey Tough Page 28
