Ep 9: Ralph Friedman - Policing Fort Apache and Beyond

Join us as we sit down with retired NYPD Detective Ralph Friedman, who shares his extraordinary journey from an unplanned entry into law enforcement to becoming a legendary figure with over 2,000 arrests. Through vivid stories of camaraderie and peril in the 41 precinct, known as Fort Apache, Ralph paints a raw portrait of what it was like to serve during one of New York City's most challenging eras.

Imagine a routine purse-snatching call turning into a rooftop shootout that could have ended it all. That's just one of the many intense moments Ralph recounts, including the critical role Confidential Informants (CIs) played in operations and the unique bonds formed among officers during high-stakes situations. From tales of heroism to the devastating impact of the 1975 NYC budget cuts on police operations, Ralph's stories give listeners an inside look at the dedication and bravery required to survive in such an unforgiving environment.

As we reflect on the evolving landscape of modern law enforcement, Ralph discusses how tools like body cameras and shifts in public trust have changed the game. We explore the complexities of maintaining accountability and respect for the police while facing political interference and public scrutiny. Ralph concludes by contemplating the future of policing in New York City and beyond, paying tribute to the enduring legacy of those who serve. Don't miss Ralph's heartfelt tribute to his fellow officers and his encouragement for listeners to check out his book "Street Warrior" and the Amazon series "Street Justice: The Bronx." This episode is a powerful homage to the men and women who dedicate their lives to keeping our streets safe.

Produced by: Citrustream, LLC

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I have the pleasure of having retired New York City
police legend Detective RalphFriedman today on the podcast.
It's a real privilege to havehim on.
This is a person who servedduring the height of high crime
in New York from 1970 to 1984.

(00:21):
He was retired I'll let himtell you about that has over
2,000 arrests, has many medals,more than any other person that
worked street work in New YorkCity.
And, as you know, this podcastis not about politics within law

(00:42):
enforcement.
We're not going to have peoplethat were appointed politically
to high-level chief positionsand special agent in charge with
no experience and to on thestreets, to advocates, to

(01:05):
real-life prosecutors that triedcases that were important and
defense counsel who entered intocooperation agreements.
So I'm very honored to have himon and I say that because I
started in 1976 as a patrol.

(01:26):
They called them patrolmen backthen.
We had badges.
We called the women in mydepartment matrons, so you can
see how it was and Ralph had awonderful career in New York.
We're going to have a lot ofpeople from New York City on
that work there.

(01:46):
I can just give you a couplehints.
We're going to have a NewJersey trooper who worked the
Colombian cases.
We're going to have other PeteThron will be on the show, who
wrote my book, and we're goingto have a lot of individuals
associated with that error,which to me, was the high point

(02:10):
of law enforcement.
Myself I became interested.
I watched Kojak all the timeand that was my main thing, and
I thought you could solve crimein an hour.
Just like everybody thatdoesn't know that, you were able
to go out and kick somebody'sass because they were bothering

(02:30):
you and they were violating thelaw, of course, number one.
So it's a real pleasure.
Ralph has done a lot of things.
He's written several books.
He's been in Street Justice ofthe Bronx.
He's the creator of it, whichwas a featured TV series.
He's on other projects.
This one I love.

(02:52):
This is my favorite StreetWarrior and it chronicles what
he was.
He was a street warrior.
He's wearing the shirt today,but, believe me, when we talk to
him he'll tell you what it'slike and we're going to talk
about the differences today inNew York as far as the rising

(03:12):
crime rate.
In my opinion, A lot of that'sgoing to get worse because we
have open borders.
It's not a political statement,it's a fact.
I retired from ICE as asupervisor, so I can say that,
Okay, and we're going to getinto it.
So a real pleasure to have himjoin us today from New York.

(03:35):
How are you?

Speaker 2 (03:37):
Ralph, Thanks for having me.
Thanks Toby and Jeff.
Thank you very much.
Go ahead, Jeff.
Where would you like to start?

Speaker 3 (03:47):
Yeah, thanks for coming on.
It's a real honor, if you could.
We've been kind of starting offthe last couple of interviews
with just kind of like some youknow background stuff where you
were born, what your childhoodwas like, what your parents were
like, and then moved into howyou got involved with law
enforcement.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Well, I was born in the Bronx 1949.
I had my whole career.
I was schooled, raised, worked,you know, jobs as a kid,
everything in the Bronx and Ireally wasn't interested in law
enforcement.
None of my family or friendswere in law enforcement.
But one night I was out with acouple of friends on a Friday

(04:31):
night and I asked them what theywere doing tomorrow morning and
they mentioned they'd taken thepolice test and back in those
years it was a walk-in test.
You didn't have to register,pre-register or anything, and
they were giving it in the highschool that I graduated from in
1967.
I graduated from clinton highschool in the bronx.
So it was a walk-in test and Isaid knock on my door, if I wake

(04:54):
up I'll go.
You know, it was like verycasual type of thing.
I didn't take it seriously andthey knocked on my door and I I
was up and I went with them,took the test, I did rather well
and I got called pretty fast.
I got called less than a yearlater but I was too young.
So I was hired as a policetrainee.

(05:17):
And I was hired as a fingerprinttechnician because in 1968, new
York City started the rifle andshotgun registration and people
had to come in voluntarily andregister their lawn lawns.
So I was assigned to the 44thPrecinct in the West Bronx,
which was a very busy house butI was allowed to only do stuff

(05:38):
indoors and we specialized infingerprinting and when people
didn't come in I worked thetelephone switchboard, did
filing, took complaints ifvictims walked in, and I did
that for like six months andthen they invented 911.
That was invented in June of1968.

(05:59):
And I went down there in policeheadquarters at 240 Center
Street, which is now a co-op orcondo building because they
built 1PP a couple years later,and I worked there on the
midnight shift handling callscoming in from the public and
giving them to dispatches.
And then when I became 21,almost to the day two years

(06:25):
later, I became a patrolmanwhich Toby touched on.
We were called patrolmen backthen.
A couple of years later theychanged it to police officers
and I started out in the 4-1precinct, which is a great
command to learn in.
You see more stuff there in acouple of years than you do in

(06:45):
20 years in another precinct.
It was the South Bronx, alsonicknamed Fort Apache, and the
guys I worked with and learnedfrom were great and it was very
tight, a lot of camaraderie, andit was a dangerous area.
So we all watched each other'sbacks and I did about a year in
uniform and then I proceeded toget into what's called the

(07:08):
anti-crime, which they did awaywith I think de Blasio did away
with it right before Adams camein and because they said it was
too much of violence, followedthat unit or something, but
these were officers that werego-getters.
Too much of violence followedthat unit or something, but
these were officers that werego-getters, looking for violent

(07:30):
criminals.
And when you have run-ins withviolent criminals, some of them
are going to go sideways, youknow, and you're out on the
street all the time and our jobwas to be there during the crime
.
Detectives usually investigatethe case after the fact and
uniforms would deter crime, butanti-crime.

(07:50):
We didn't have computers backthen or cell phones or beepers
or radios, and what we did wasin the precinct, someone would
do like a map with pins and tryto pinpoint where these crimes
were occurring and what times,and you sort of get patterns and
then we would stake it out.
Our job was to blend in withthe neighborhood and be part of

(08:13):
the scenery and then, whensomething occurred, we could
take action, apprehend theperpetrator and be an expert
witness, because mostcomplainants or victims are not
familiar with the court system,don't know how to testify and
lawyers rip them apart.
And then perpetrators get towalk because of bad testimony or

(08:35):
not proper testimony or peopleare scared.
But as a police officer on thescene witnessing the crime, we
have a better chance a very highpercentage actually of putting
the criminal behind bars for aspecific amount of time.

Speaker 3 (08:52):
Wow, that's fascinating.
That reminds me of my favoriteTom Cruise movie, Minority
Report, with pre-crime and allthat stuff.
I thought that was a completefiction, a work of fiction, but
it seems like it was actually.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
I'm not familiar with that movie.
So yeah, it's blending into theneighborhood.
You know, we dressed like thepeople dressed in the area.
We wore jeans and what waspopular back then was army
fatigue coats, dungarees,t-shirts.
We also dressed as constructionworkers.
We put on hard hats.
Work at a Con Ed site, drive amilk truck, drive a taxi camp,

(09:30):
lay on the street as a bum.
We do anything to blend in,maybe working on a car standing
there with an unmarked car thatthey don't know, because we took
cars out.
We took a lot of cars out ofthe pound.
We used them for patrol becauseeverybody knows the Crown Vicks
and the Valaris and the carsthat were typically used.

(09:50):
But we had the luxury of takingcars out of the pound and we
could put the hood up or layunder the car and watch the
neighborhood or look under thehood like we're working on the
carburetor or something you know, just to blend in.
That was the whole thing.
Blend in so when a criminallooks around he doesn't see any
cops or detectives or marked orunmarked cars that are standard

(10:11):
issue for the department and, uh, the 41st precinct.

Speaker 3 (10:15):
Like I said before, a lot of camaraderie and a lot of
smart, intelligent street copsthere and I learned from the
best wow, so so uh, so youweren't looking for anyone in
particular, it was just more ofa location based thing, and
you'd hang out until somethingpopped off, right.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
That's correct Until I got promoted to detective.
Then later on I started lookingfor specific people when I was
investigating uh crime reports.
But I had it in a way that uhthe boss knew I was very active
and I would go out to interviewcomplainants and witnesses and I
would still make pickup callerslike I was working anti-crime.

(10:53):
So they gave me a lot of leewayand I usually worked with
anti-crime cops from theprecinct, even though I was
assigned to Bronx Detectives,assigned to the 5-2 Squad.
I'd work with other, you knowgo-getter cops that would want
to make arrests on the streetbesides their regular caseload
of investigating cases of crimesthat occurred already.

Speaker 3 (11:16):
So was this like a blanket program for all of NYPD
or was it like certain places,certain neighborhoods, it
existed and then maybe notothers?

Speaker 2 (11:27):
Well, there's crimes all over and certain precincts
are busier than others.
Certain precincts areclassified like shithouses or
a-houses or active commands andthey would get more coverage the
poorer the neighborhood or themore ghetto the neighborhood is.
They actually get betterservices than a better

(11:50):
neighborhood because you putmore police and more detectives
there to handle the crime that'sgoing on.
And back in the 70s crime waspretty rampant.
Drug use was really flourishing.
You know, I got out rightbefore the crack era but we
dealt in the South Bronx.
All you dealt with was heroinand the city tried to contain it

(12:11):
with methadone.
But that was the same thing.
That was just like heroin.
It was only a liquid form givento them for free.
But heroin use was really badand you know they were stripping
the buildings, stripping cars,pulling burglaries, robbing
people and this went on on acontinual basis.
When I first started in the 41stPrecinct, I mean I never was

(12:34):
exposed to this kind of stuff,even though I grew up in the
Bronx, because my whole policecareer was in the Bronx also,
but it was only a few miles away.
I thought it was in anothercountry.
You know, I saw things and thedisregard for human life and how
some innocent victims had tolive under this cloak of terror

(12:56):
from the criminals and theshootings and the stabbings and
the stuff that went on.
I was never exposed to thefirst 20 years of my life, so
this was all new to me.
But I was trained very good inthe academy and then working
with these 401 cops.
Uh, I was taught how to handlethis stuff and then I just
exceed, you know, excelled in it, I guess, but I enjoyed it.

(13:17):
It was an adrenaline rush and Ienjoyed taking bad guys off the
street that prey on theinnocent.
And this program went until,like the 2010s kind of Well,
when you say that program youmean like the anti-crime program
.

Speaker 3 (13:33):
Yes, yes.

Speaker 2 (13:35):
Anti-crime was only disbanded a few years ago.

Speaker 3 (13:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:38):
I think towards the end, if I'm correct, towards the
end of the de Blasio era.
Okay, yes.
You know, because they feltthere were too many shootings.
But they don't understand thatthese are the best of the best
cops and you're dealing withviolent criminals and it's
really the criminals that makethe decisions, not the police
officers.

(13:58):
You know, if we tell themthey're under arrest, if they
put their hands behind theirback, we cuff them, take them in
.
That's case closed.
But you get criminals that wantto fight you, they want to stab
you, they want to shoot at you.
So they make the decision.
If they start shooting, apolice officer has no choice but
to fire back to protect othercivilians, his partner and his

(14:20):
own life.
And if they want to fight byhands, they make the decision.
Believe me, cops don't go outthere wanting to shoot people or
hurt people or fight withpeople, and they don't want to
get stabbed or shot or killedeither, you know, but the
criminals make the decisions onhow they're going to react.

Speaker 3 (14:38):
Do you have any like number one?
Craziest story of the pre-crimeera.

Speaker 1 (14:45):
We'll extend this five hours today, John At least.
Well, I have a lot of stories.

Speaker 3 (14:51):
But like anything that's like the craziest like by
far, you know, or a whole thing.

Speaker 1 (14:57):
That's like what do you want to put on the Sunday,
you know, yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:02):
I mean, I'm just curious about what you think is
the craziest.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
Okay, I'll start off with.
Well, I've been involved in 15shootings 13 with people and two
times I had to shoot to stop anattack dog, which is, I think
it's way over the average amountof shooting.
Most cops could go throughtheir career without firing
their weapon, but I did have toshoot eight perpetrators,

(15:26):
killing four of them.
I'll start off telling you oneof the more outstanding stories.
Me and my partner we had to doa day shift because we got
called to court and stuff.
So we were finishing near theend of our tour and we wound up
seeing a purse snatch.
So we chased the perpetratorand we caught him.
And we wound up seeing a pursesnatch.
So we chased the perpetratorand we caught him and we had to

(15:48):
complain and we went into theprecinct to process the arrest
and while we were there it woundup extending past our tour,
which was ending at four o'clock.
So my partner went home, I tookthe arrest and I'm doing the
paperwork and processing theprisoner and one of my CIs, a

(16:09):
confidential informant, comesinto the precinct, says he wants
to talk to me and he startstelling me that there's this bad
guy in the neighborhood thatwants to sell a gun.
So he says and the deal's goingdown this afternoon, like in an
hour.
So I go to my boss, sergeantCantor, and I tell him what we

(16:33):
got going.
And then my partner went homealready it was the end of the
shift and I'd like to follow upon this case because it's a gun
sale.
So he says no problem.
So he says no problem, he'll bemy partner and we'll formulate
a plan with the CI to take downthis gun deal.
So we formulate a plan that he'sgoing to go to the building and

(16:57):
he'll have to buy money andhe's going to go up to the roof
to meet the guy.
We're going to go down theblock and this was a block that
we already knew and all theroofs were connected and the
only thing that separated thebuildings were like small
parapets, like you know, liketwo to three feet high, and all
the roofs were connected.
So we could go down the block,go up on the roof, and we'd be

(17:19):
pretty far enough away from theguy, but we could see him.
You know, see the transaction.
So he goes in the building, hegoes up to the roof to meet him,
and we got them underobservation right and right away
.
We see there's a couple ofthings wrong.
First we get up there andthere's another two perpetrators

(17:40):
.
We expected one, one gun dealer.
Now there's two.
Next thing we know, instead ofa hand gun which the CI was
going to get possession of, andthen we were going to move in
and make the arrest because wefigured it's in safer hands with
the CI.
But what happened was the guy.
It wasn't a handgun, it was ahunting rifle a 30-30 hunting

(18:03):
rifle.
So that sort of changed things.
So we were waiting for the CIto get possession of it and then
we would go in.
Then the whole thing wentsideways because the perpetrator
turned on the roof and used theledge as a support and started
firing off the roof to show theCI the gun worked.

(18:26):
So he was now became a sniperin the neighborhood right and
he's letting off shots.
So now we have no choice but toblow our cover, jump up, run
towards him screaming policefreeze, right, and we both had
our guns out and the guy withthe rifle turns on us and fires
around.
We open up and we shoot the guy.

(18:47):
I think my sergeant, we bothhit the guy and he went down.
The other guy runs away and heruns behind like what looks like
.
I think it's called a kiosk,but it looks like a chimney
coming out of the roof of thebuilding.
You know it might've been anincinerator system or something

(19:08):
like that.
Anyway, it's probably abouteight or nine feet high and
about three feet in square andhe hides behind that.
I already emptied my gun on thefirst guy, so I pull out a
second gun right, and I start tocautiously go around this turn
to see where he is and as soonas I turn he has the knife

(19:28):
raised above his head in astabbing down position to stab
me in the head and I tighten myfinger on the trigger to shoot
him.
But before I could even pullthe trigger I hear a shot.
My partner, the sergeant, wentaround the other side, saw that
he was going to stab me and shothim in the back Right.
So he goes down and at thattime my partner screams get the

(19:50):
gun, get the gun.
So I had to cross the prisonerthat my partner just shot to go
get the rifle.
And there was a very small areabetween where he was laying
against the kiosk to the roofledge, probably about three or
four feet.
I go to cross that and the guyleaps up again with the knife.
Now I fire my second gun at thesecond perpetrator, shoot him

(20:13):
in the stomach, killing himright there, and I run over, get
the gun, kick it away from thefirst perpetrator, who's alive
but shot, and meanwhile the CI.
He was smart enough to hit thedeck but shot.
Meanwhile the CI, he was smartenough to hit the deck.
Now calls are going in from allover, from 9-11, 9-1-1, and the
police are responding.
We hear the sirens, Cops arerunning up.

(20:34):
We cuff up the two.
The guy shot and the guy, theCI, the other perpetrator, is
dead.
We treat the CI like a prisoner.
So the other guy doesn't know,uh, that he was the one who
informed on him and, uh, thatwas it.
You know, we got the gun thatwas stolen hour just hours

(20:54):
earlier.
That's why he was so hot tomove it.
He stole it in the neighboringprecinct, in the four, six,
precinct hours earlier in theburglary.

Speaker 3 (21:03):
Wow, so full rooftop shootout.
That's crazy.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
Let me give you a little follow-up that you might
find interesting.
I knew this was coming.
A few months later, I meet thisgirl on the street, a very, very
pretty Spanish girl, and westart dating, right.
So we start dating, we're goingout a couple of times and stuff
, and now it comes to the pointwhere she's inviting me up to a

(21:28):
house and you know, I guess thisis the point we're gonna have
sex, you know.
So she invites me up and I'mworking at night and I'm
supposed to meet her after work.
Everything's set.
We didn't have cell phones backthen.
You have to remember that,right.
So I wind up obviously making agood old days no cell phones
like every day, but this wasmore involved carla with a gun

(21:50):
and stuff, and there was somedetails of vouchering things and
I was going to be tied up.
So I call her through a hardline from the precinct and I
tell her I can't make it tonight.
You know we'll have to make itfor the next night.
And she gets really upset.
You know we'll have to make itfor the next night.
And she gets really upset, youknow, and saying, oh, you got
plans, you got to come over.
You know you got to come.

(22:10):
I say, well, I can't, I'm tiedup, I can't leave.
So anyway, she keeps callingthe precinct and I'm telling her
I can't come and I'm like sortof happy she's so into me.
I think, right, so the next dayI'm out on patrol because I had
to go to court and then I'mgoing to come, go back to her
house and we get it.

(22:31):
We're driving around, me and mypartner.
We get a 10-2 forthwith, whichmeans respond to the precinct,
someone wants to talk to you.
You got to come right in.
Forthwith means immediately.
So we drive into the precinctand I'm walking towards my
boss's office on the secondfloor and I see two suits
sitting there, right.
So the boss comes out and saystells my partner go back on

(22:55):
patrol or go out and investigatesomething, tells me to come in.
I sit down with these two suitsI figure they're internal
affairs, you know and theyidentified themselves as a
lieutenant and a detective, bothfrom the intelligence division.
And I'm a little surprised,especially since they wanted to
talk to me alone, you know.
I figured whatever they had totell me could definitely be said

(23:17):
in front of my partner, butthat wasn't the case.
So the guy starts off withsaying are you dating a girl
named Lucy?

Speaker 3 (23:24):
Now my head's spinning.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
How can a guy from intelligence know I'm dating a
girl, lucy, and then the otherone says you had a date last
night with her.
My head's spinning around andI'm going yeah, you know, yeah,
I had a date to go over there.
And they say, well, you know,she set you up to be killed.
There were two or three guys inthe closet with guns that were
going to shoot you.
And now I'm saying, like whatthe fuck is this all about,

(23:50):
right?
And they say, well, this girlyou've been dating and
everything has been setting youup this whole time and going out
with you to get you up to herapartment so that she could have
you assassinated.
You killed her step partnereight months ago and the so they
didn't arrest her.
I never saw her again.

(24:11):
I never picked up calls orcalled her, obviously.
But they had a CI and CIs arerated.
I know Toby would know this.
Cis are rated on how good theyperform.
Like to give you an example ifthey give you 10 pieces of
information and 8, 9 or 10 aregood, this guy is a great CI.
If someone is a CI and givesyou ten pieces of information

(24:35):
and two are good, you knowthat's not so reliable.
But their CI was a ten for tenguy.
So first of all, you never wantto burn and second of all,
nothing was recorded and therewas no witnesses.
So it's a he said.
She said it would definitelynot be prosecutable, so they
didn't lock her up and this waythey wanted to keep their CI

(24:55):
alive and everything.
When I say alive, I don't meanthat, but I mean, you know, as a
good operative and not exposedas a CI.
So that's one of the storiesthat stood out.
I got many other than, likeToby said, I could go on for
five hours.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
Yeah, but not like that.
We'll hear about the othergirlfriends.
We'll just spend the next twohours, Ralph, talking about that
.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
I mean I had a few others.

Speaker 3 (25:24):
That won't kill me, but I can imagine some serious
trust issues developing out ofthat situation situation.

Speaker 2 (25:36):
But you know, a lot of my stories are profiled in my
book Street Warrior, which isavailable on Amazon, and I did
have a series called StreetJustice, the Bronx, which was
started on Discovery, then wentto ID and right now presently is
on Amazon Prime and I have oneseason six shows and they
profile some of my better casesor more outstanding cases that
would be.

(25:57):
You know, the public would eatup, you know.

Speaker 3 (26:02):
Yeah, I'm on it.

Speaker 2 (26:03):
I'm on it tonight, Amazon Prime, but I'll tell you
with all the story, all thestories I have and all the
arrests and incidents I've beenin.
It's really because I've beenvery lucky to have great
partners.
You know, when I was in the41st Precinct, my partner was a
guy named Les Rudnick and I'mtelling you, this guy is top,

(26:23):
top cop.
I was lucky to have him as apartner.
And then when I went to theDetective Bureau, I had Roger
Cortez I broke in with and thenI had Timmy Kennedy, which was a
great partner of mine, and justto show you the camaraderie we
had, I mean I still talk toLester.
I got involved in a couple ofthings that I've done.

(26:47):
Sadly, roger Cortez passed awayMay he rest in peace.
And Timmy Kennedy I talked tohim and I'm retired now 41 years
and I still talk to Timmy everysingle day.
And just last week he was here.
He lives in Florida.
He came up here I live in theNortheast.
He came up here and visited forthree days and stayed at my
house.
But I mean, that's the kind ofrelationships we have.

Speaker 1 (27:09):
Back then, Wow, we still have them.
My friends I've known from 40plus years and you know, you
know we still go to reunions.

Speaker 2 (27:23):
Every three or four years we have a 401 reunion and
same guys are there and theystay in touch and they come from
all over the United States togo to the reunion.
The 401 was a very tight-knitprecinct but I broke in with
guys there that were just I mean, I can't even tell you the kind
of work that I've seen them dowhen I was a rookie there.

(27:45):
You know, first you start out,you're on a foot post and we
didn't have units that taughtyou how to be a cop back then.
This was, you know, all onyourself or on the people that
work with you or around you.
We didn't have like a trainingofficer.
They would give you a post.
You spent a whole tour, thefirst tour, trying to find out
where your post was.

(28:05):
You know you're staring at amap.
You know they didn't haveGoogle and how to get to places.
You know you walk around andyou're trying to figure out the
streets and I just saw policework.
These guys were my heroes and Igot to work with a couple of
them later on, like Stanley Gamm, a top cop, every day coming in

(28:26):
with a felony narcotics arrestand he sadly passed away.
Also Richie Biller guy broughtin a gun every single day.
We had a george wadeka.
He went out in uniform and hewent on a burglary run and he
went up on top of a building andthey were the two perpetrators
waiting for him.
It was pretty close to theprecinct and they're waiting for

(28:48):
him on top of the roof, of theway you walk out onto the roof,
like the landing, and theyjumped them and stabbed them in
the shoulder and, with the knifesticking out of his shoulder
straight up, he beat the shitout of the two of them and
dragged them physically into theprecinct.
I can't even tell you what thiswas.

(29:08):
It was like just amazing stuff.
I mean, I idolized these copsand, uh, you know, I later was
had the honor to work with themand you know, my career
flourished and, uh, I justlooked up to them, I just wanted
to be like them and that's whatpropelled me to keep going
forward and doing what I did wow.

Speaker 3 (29:30):
So when you became a detective, was there like an
adjustment you?
Had to make?
Was there like adrenaline?

Speaker 2 (29:36):
that you were used to .
It was definitely going to be achange.
When I went before thepromotional review board, they
asked me and here's where I madea mistake they said how would
you feel if we promoted you todetective and you stayed in an
anti-crime unit?
I said, oh, that would be great.
You know, I would love that andyou know, obviously they put

(29:57):
you the other way.
You know, and, to be honest,back in the early seventies,
when I was making collars everysingle day and making quality
collars, I really didn't getalong with detectives because a
lot of them back then would stayin the precinct, listen to the
radio and if you made a goodcollar, they would come out and
try to take your collar.

(30:17):
They'd say, yeah, we got it,kid.
I'd say you got what.
You know, my cuffs are on likea racist, you know.
And they wanted to take thecollars and it was a different
ballgame, you know.
But I never gave up my collarsand a few times if you ever
heard the expression fist thecuffs, it wasn't only with

(30:38):
perpetrators.
Sometimes I had fist the cuffswith detectives because they
wanted to take my collars andtake my cuffs on and put their
cuffs on.
But I had a few incidents withdetectives, which straightened
itself out over the years.
But you know, when I became adetective, you know I had to
deal with a whole differentmentality and a different way of

(30:59):
doing things.
But my bosses my boss gave me afew tests.
He put me with a seasoneddetective and wanted to see how
I would handle things, you know.
So some of them I describe inmy book but I won't go into them
too much.
They're not as entertaining assome of my other stories.
But he tested me.

(31:20):
But then I showed him what Iwas about when I first got into
the squad.
The squad there were 19 guys andthey made $38 for the entire
year all combined.
I went up there the first yearand made $160 on my own.
So at first they thought I wasnuts and then they understood
that that's me, you know, and itwas going to be hard to stop me

(31:42):
and that's what I wanted to doand I had a way of covering
myself and I made my bosses lookgood and they appreciated that
in ways by giving me the shiftsI wanted.
I always wanted to work atnight and they advised me not to
put in for a night differentialbecause that would be
disapproved.
So I just took nightdifferential for one week and

(32:05):
the second week I would not getpaid the extra money for working
nights but I didn't care aboutthat.
I wanted to work night and theylet me dress the way I wanted
and they knew I was always goingout.
Every time I put down going outto interview witnesses or
complainants that I was going tomake a pickup arrest.
You know I would followsuspects, I'd stop cars and my

(32:27):
detective partners were goodwith this and we started making
the bosses look good.
So instead of going to court ateight in the morning, they
would let us go to court whenthe DA called us at home and we
would start our shift at thattime.
So if the case didn't getcalled till 11 or 12 or after
lunch, then we could start ourshifts later and work later,

(32:49):
come back from court and makeanother arrest.
So you know we made them lookgood.
It was what we wanted to do.
We felt good about it, theyfelt good about it, it worked
for everybody and I sort ofcreated our own niche in the
detective bureau and we startedwhat was called they were
starting at that time what wascalled a RIP units, r-i-p,

(33:12):
robbery Investigation Programs,and we handled robberies and
guns.
That was our specialty.

Speaker 1 (33:19):
Okay, I'm going to ask some specific things and I
think I know the answer to this.
1977, there was a bigdownsizing of the New York City
Police Department right Due tobudget cuts.
How did?

Speaker 2 (33:36):
everybody.
No, it was actually 1975.

Speaker 1 (33:38):
Okay, 75.
How did you, as a workingdetective, compensate for that?
How did you have teamworktogether with everybody to
overlap, obviously, the problemthat you had with non-hiring and
freezes that were going on?

Speaker 2 (34:02):
Well, this is a very interesting story, glad you
touched on that.
In 1974, I was working on letme see, it was 1975, I think it
was the bombing of downtownManhattan.

(34:22):
I forgot the name of it.
It was a big case, one of thefirst terrorist attacks in New
York where four people werekilled and like 52 were injured,
and I had some leads on thatcase and I was working on it off
duty, right, I was the only oneinvolved and the only person
who knew about it was my captainof the 401.

(34:45):
And he gave me full authorityto work off duty and on duty on
this case by myself, the CI,which was a very good CI, he was
excellent, he was a 10 out of10.
And he gave me information andI was following the leads and
stuff and we got down to thepoint where we knew where the

(35:09):
bombers were going to be and Iwas going to arrest them.
But it was a very big event thatthey were having and my boss
said at this point, which wasCaptain Tommy Walker, who was
the best boss on the NYPD everhe said we had to notify other
authorities within the NYPD andwe need their help in taking

(35:32):
them down and at that time therewasn't a terrorist task force
or anything.
It was called the AustinExplosion Squad that handled
these kind of cases and therewas a sergeant there that I
guess you could say me and himdidn't get along, but anyway he
had a different way of operatingthan me and anyway we went to

(35:57):
the scene.
We were going to go to thescene.
So what they did was they putunmarked cars following me with
my CI in the car with me, andthen they had unmarked cars
following with an unmarked vanwith like emergency service
units in there, everythingundercover.

(36:17):
And while we're driving ohbefore that they wanted to wire
up my, my ci.
He wouldn't do it, he refused.
So I said you could wire me, Ididn't care.
So they wired me up.
And we're driving to thislocation where a wedding was
taking place and there was goingto be a lot of terrorists there
, and especially four who didthis bombing in Manhattan.

(36:41):
And during the ride the guy,the CI, pulls out a gun and
tells me he has a gun and saysdon't worry, ralph, I got a gun
and everything.
And when they heard this, thissergeant pulled the plug on the
whole operation, right, and heputs on the siren pulls me over

(37:02):
and he brings us into theprecinct and accuses me of
giving the CIA an illegal gun.
I'm going, listen, go to thelocation, arrest these people,
you know, but they wanted tohold me there, investigate this
whole thing they held me forhours and finally I got the call

(37:23):
.
They didn't say I was underarrest, but they were detaining
me and stopping my case.
I got to call my captain, tommyWalker, who came down and
verified everything and got meout.
At the same time, within a fewcouple of months, the layoffs

(37:43):
started.
They told me I'm getting laidoff because I was still a police
officer at the time.
Right, and they said they werelaying off guys who had five
years or less.
So I told them I have seven.
I had to deal with the employeerelations.
So they said, well, we onlyhave you down for five years.
I said, well, I have seven.

(38:03):
They said, well, how's that?
I said, well, I have my paystubs.
I kept my pay stubs and,believe it or not, it saved my
job.
I was working in 68 and 69 as apolice trainee, but that's a
member of the NYPD and I savedthese stubs that I was making.
I made $4,000 a year back thenin 1968 and 69.

(38:27):
So I went down to employeerelations and I showed them my
pay stubs and they canceled mylayoff.
And at the same minute, in thelast promotion, I got promoted
to detective and that was afreeze on hiring, except for a
few battlefield promotions forthe next seven years.
And then seven years later Igot promoted again to second

(38:51):
grade detective.
And then seven years later Igot promoted again to second
grade detective.
And I was going to get promotedagain in 1983 to first grade
detective, but I'd already beennotified that I would around
June or July.
They said you're gettingpromoted at the end of the year
because there's always been bigpromotions around Thanksgiving
and Christmas.
But then I got hurt in the lineof duty and they retired me

(39:14):
Because back then there was only115 first graders assigned to
the city and a 232nd grade.
The numbers were very tight andthey just didn't open them up
or give them out that easy.
It was very, very tough becauseit's a very prestigious
position.
But I wound up getting promotedin 1975, right when they were

(39:36):
laying people off and then thefreeze came on.
But that was the first time incivil service history that civil
servants got laid off, becausethey always said you know you
make a little less money thanthe private field, but your job
is secure and you had goodbenefit.
Ironically I had a brother mybrother's on the job.

(39:56):
Then he got laid off.
He got laid off the same day hegot awarded the combat cross.
He would get home and there's aletter in the mailbox saying
you're laid off because he hadlike four years on him.
But it was a terrible time forthe city.
You know Lindsay was the kindof mayor that gave everybody

(40:17):
what they wanted.
You know, sanitation wanted toraise fire, wanted to raise
police.
He gave away the city, whicheverybody in civil service
enjoyed.
But then it backfired when theycalled in to balance the books
and Abe Bean became the mayor,called in to balance the books
and Abe Beam became the mayorand he had to balance the books
and they said the only way theycould do it stop borrowing from

(40:38):
Peter to PayPal was to lay offcivil servants.
And that's when it happened andsome guys were laid off
anywhere from six months to twoyears.
They slowly hired them back,but some guys were out for two
years.

Speaker 3 (40:56):
And it didn't even matter.
It wasn't a merit, merit-basedthing, it was just based on the
amount of time you know it wenton time.
Seniority yeah, that doesn'tseem very efficient or uh wise
in the long run.

Speaker 2 (41:08):
They drew a line and that was it.
You know, thank god, I saved mypay stubs.
It's the only thing that savedmy job so there.

Speaker 3 (41:15):
So they didn't have a record, though, like the the
paste or they were justoverlooking it.
There was no computers in the70s no, so they, they were just
like whatever we're not handrecords that got lost or damaged
or yeah, you know whatever.

Speaker 2 (41:29):
Triplicate typewriters, nothing like
triplicate paperwork carboncopies yeah, no, we fished.

Speaker 3 (41:36):
We fished through the garbage.
If, if you're, if you're yeah,if your boss.

Speaker 1 (41:40):
If your boss lost the report, you had to go into the
trash and take it and, you know,make a copy of it.
It was.
It was insane they.
They had every.
Everybody that was aninvestigator or a police officer
.
They'd go through whiteout likeit was toothpaste.
That was the norm, whiteoutcarbon paper.

Speaker 2 (42:02):
We had those Underwood typewriters picking
peck.
You know I was fast but I onlyused two fingers.
When we look back now, when youtalk about justice then and
justice now, it's likeeverything was antiquated.
Then you really went out there.
All you had was your gun andyour shield and your guts, your

(42:24):
training you had when I firststarted.
We got radios a little whilelater, but they didn't hardly
work.
We didn't have radios.
We didn't have beepers, wedidn't have when I first started
.
We got radios a little whilelater, but they didn't hardly
work.
But we didn't have radios, wedidn't have beepers, we didn't
have cell phones, we didn't havecomputers Today.
The shame of it today is that wehave such better training
methods, we have such betterequipment and the technology and

(42:50):
we got cops, male and female,that want to do the job and they
don't let them be cops.
They don't let them be cops.
You know, back when I was, wedon't have the backing.
I mean, I know this isn't apolitical show or anything, but
the politicians today aren'tlike the politicians of
yesterday.
They used to address us at rollcall, or captain, or commanding

(43:13):
officer or lieutenant, theywould tell you go out there and
get the bad guys.
Take them off the street.
We don't want them prying onour citizens.
They encourage you to go outand make arrests, take action,
and the way we were taught, itwasn't like we were doing
something wrong.
By today's standards, they saywe were wrong, but we weren't

(43:33):
doing things wrong.
We were taught to deal withviolence, with more violence.
If they hit you with your hands, you hit them with your stick.
They hit you with a stick, youshoot them.
You shoot them.
You were taught to overcome.
Crush them.
You don't let the criminals winat any cost.
You don't let them win.
As a police officer, you comeout on top and there was no such

(43:57):
thing as a retreat or um,what's the word they use now?
Um, uh, de-escalate, uh, theydon't use nightsticks.
I mean, if you crush them inthe beginning.
Just to give you an exampletoday, how these things with the
colleges and the tents and theencampments and the hate and the

(44:19):
protests and blocking of cars,if you stop the first ones, you
never get to these points.
Take down the first tent, closeit down and that's it, if you
allow it to build up wherethere's going to be chaos, even
if the police are called inafter and then told not to use
necessary force.
They call it violence or policebrutality.

(44:42):
But you're taught to usenecessary force to effect an
arrest or for people to obeylawful orders, you know, but if
you let, if you take down thefirst two tents and don't allow
any, that's the end of yoursituation.
If you allow 300 tents to go upnow it's going to be a thing

(45:02):
that's going to be very hard totake apart and it's going to
cause more conflict.
But they let everything get outof hand.
It's a different age ofpolicing.
I understand that Things aredone differently and things are
looked upon by the public in awhole different manner.
They want to be loving andhands-off and peace, love and

(45:25):
all that kind of stuff.
But policing isn't always aclean job.
Sometimes you got to get yourhands dirty.
You know you're enforcing thelaw and when you enforce the law
sometimes it results in takingaway a person's freedom and they
don't like that and they'llfight you and then you have to
fight them 100%.

Speaker 1 (45:47):
My other question was and I think I know what the
answer is going to be, and Ithink I know what the answer is
going to be Body cams.
What do you think about that?
I know some people.
I'll tell you my opinion ofthem real quick.
You got to inform it right away, okay.

(46:07):
What are you supposed to do?
You pull somebody over and theysay to you hey look, I got the
man who's got the gun here, yousee, and the Coke or whatever in
the car.
You know.
You got to show the body camsrecording all this and it's
discoverable.
It is discoverable and you'reputting that potential CI at

(46:28):
risk.
See, things like that aren'taddressed because you know this
at risk.
See, things like that aren'taddressed because you know this.
You can be the toughest guy outthere, but you need your CIs.
I don't care if you're withNYPD, if you're with DEA or
whatever.
And the 10 of 10, as Ralphtalked about, they make your
cases okay and I refer to themin my book as the ride-alongs

(46:56):
and those were agents that Iworked with that, oh, you got a
hot search warrant, you got anarrest warrant, you've got this,
and you don't see them in theoffice.
They were the guys that had twoguns on in the office and they
walked around and they didnothing.
They did absolutely nothing,but yet when you had a situation

(47:17):
like this, they wanted to comeout.
But going back to this, it'sall about your sources of
information that make it happen,and that's one thing they don't
talk about with body camps,because it creates somebody that
can cooperate like that withyou not doing it.
My opinion, ralph Friedman,your opinion.

Speaker 2 (47:40):
Well, you touched on two points and you're 100% right
.
First of all, the people thatmake these laws.
They don't understand how thepolice operate.
You must have CIs.
There's no department thatcan't work without CIs.
It's one of the things thatthey need an operating tool.
That's very necessary and, likeyou said, if you have a body

(48:02):
camera on, you're recording itand the attorneys are entitled
under discovery rules to exposeyour CI.
It's ridiculous.
It shows that people that aremaking the laws aren't aware of
how police work works.
I was a thousand percent againstbody cams.

(48:23):
I wasn't involved with thempersonally because I'm retired
41 years.
They're only out maybe twoyears now, maybe something like
that.
But I was totally against itfor police because I feel
they're being watched, they'remicromanaged.
They get out of the car,there's enough cell phones,
people with cell phones filmingthem all the time also.

(48:44):
But I think it sort of makesthe police a little more
hesitant in taking their actionsbecause they feel like they're
on a movie set.
They're being filmed.
Everything's going to becriticized afterwards, but the
other side of the coin is, intoday's policing world, the cop
on the street.
I think these cameras now Itried to change my opinion are

(49:07):
protecting them because somehowthe public has lost trust in the
police.
We know that and they don'ttake their word or take them
seriously.
So now people make allegationsand it's proven that they're
lying with the body cams.
It's sort of been helping thepolice because the police are
more laid back now and they'renot doing the kind of policing

(49:29):
we did 20, 30, 40 years ago.
So in a way it's helping.
I'll give you a small example.
I was doing a bouncing job once, right, and I was working.
It was a side door, it wasright from the front, but they
called it the back door.
This was the entrance, so I wasassigned to watch the door

(49:50):
there.
And a girl comes up and youknow everyone's trying to get in
and you know to bypass thefront door who won't let them in
or whatever, for whateverreason.
And the girl tells me I want tocome in.
I said, well, you got to go tothe door and there was a camera
above it.
And she says to me well, I'mgoing to call the police if you

(50:10):
don't let me in and say yougrabbed my breast.
I said, well, you could do that, but if you look up there and
see that camera, when the policeget here, I'm going to have you
arrested for making a falsereport.
She looked at the camera andwalked away, knew she was beaten
, you know.
But in that kind of respectpeople make a lot of allegations

(50:31):
about the police.
You know, either bar stops orinteractions on the street or
responding to someone's house,any kind of call they get.
The camera goes on now and itprotects the police because
they're not doing the kind ofpolice work that we have done
and people make theseallegations still.
So I guess I changed my mind alittle on that part, but it's

(50:53):
still micromanaging and besidesthe body cam, everybody has a
cell phone.
Everybody has a camera.
They're filming every minute.
You walk in for a coffee or aslice of pizza.
There's 30 cameras on it.
It's a different age of policingand I guess the compensation,
the balance, is today's officersmake a lot more money than we

(51:15):
did 30, 40 years ago.
When I came on as a trainee, asI said before, I was making
$4,000 a year for the first twoyears.
Then, when I got hired as apatrolman, top pay was $9,600.
Today officers are making$150,000.
$100,000 to $150,000,.
Today officers are making$150,000, $100,000, $150,000,

(51:37):
detectives making money.
I mean we got forces on the jobthat made more than the
president of the United Stateswhen I was a cop, and they're
trained different to handle thekind of public that they have to
face today.
I think they have a harder jobtoday than we had.
We had to fight theperpetrators, but they still got

(52:00):
to fight perpetratorspoliticians and bosses, you know
, and the public.
Everybody's against you.
At least we had the public, thepoliticians and bosses on our
side.
So I think today's policing iseven tougher.
I only had one person to fightthe criminals.
They're getting it from allsides, they're boxed in.
I feel bad for today's men andwomen and they want to be cops
and they're trained better andhave better equipment and better
knowledge and they don't letthem do the job.

(52:21):
It's a sad state of affairs andthat's why you see crime rising
.
And, like I said, I don't wantto make this a political show,
but one of the problems withpolice departments is they're
being ran by politicians.
Politicians can't run a policedepartment.
You need police officers thatwork their way up the ranks.

Speaker 1 (52:39):
They won't be on this show.
I'll tell you that right now.
Those kind of guys.

Speaker 2 (52:45):
It's like you know what I go into a hospital for
heart surgery and having ajanitor run the surgery.
You have politicians run thepolice department.
They don't know what they'redoing.
They never walk into a darkalley or a back street three in
the morning or did patrol andget on neighborhoods or handled
a man with a gun or a knife or apsycho oh, excuse me, epd,

(53:07):
emotionally disturbed personYou're not allowed to say psycho
anymore but they don't have nohands-on training.
You're not allowed to saypsycho anymore but they don't
have no hands-on training.
You know you have policedepartment bosses that have
knowledge, training, experience.
Those are the things you needto run a department.
Like I said, you wouldn't have ajanitor running your heart
surgery.
You go in.

(53:31):
You want the best doctor, heartsurgeon to run your heart
surgery.
But this is how it is today.
You know it's a different world, different world for everything
and especially in policing, andpeople don't realize how much
it affects them.
You know men and women todaythey want to go out.
These are the people that'lltake a bullet for a stranger.
You know when those bulletsstart flying, you don't see the

(53:52):
NFL or the NBA, nba or act isrunning that way.
You're not running the otherway.

Speaker 3 (53:55):
You see cops going that way so I, I, uh, I love new
york.
I'm up there a couple times ayear and, um, I always hear,
every time I'm up there, someonesomewhere has a conversation
with me about how crazy it wasin the 70s with the burning
trash cans and the, and thestreets that you couldn't walk
down, you know, after dark orwhatever, and and now you're

(54:18):
starting to see, you know, withlike the zero cash bails and
like the, the, the news justreporting on all the, you know,
crazy people attacking innocentpeople and all that stuff.
Do you see like, um, maybe like, do you see a return to what it
does?
It?
Is it starting to feel like itdid back then, like a back to
the future type thing, yeah, oris it a completely different

(54:41):
landscape?

Speaker 2 (54:44):
well, crime is going back.
I mean, I don't even think thepolice.
It seems like they don't evenhave a chance to handle the real
crime.
They're're so busy with otherthings, with protest.
Every day there's protests.
I love New York.
I love New York.
I moved out of New York onlyfor personal reasons and stuff,
but I was born and bred in theBronx.
I have across my chest istattooed Bronx, new York.

(55:06):
I love New York but I hate whatit's become.
It totally changed the policies,the agendas.
The news doesn't report thenews fairly.
It's very biased and theyreport their agenda and the city
has just ran terribly.

(55:27):
It's just not ran right andthat's why things are getting
worse.
Um, it's like I say before theydon't stop it in its tracks and
if you let it fester it getsworse.
You know, if you get a cut onyour hand, you wash your hand,
you put bacitracin on your,bandage it, then it gets better.
If you leave, do nothing, uh,it's going to get infected and

(55:51):
that's what's happening with thecity.
The city is infected, theillegals.
Migration didn't help.
They don't handle that right.
They invited them here.
Then they complain about it.
They let crime go on.
Like you touched on Jeff.
The cash bail is a total, totaldisaster.

(56:11):
They really we used to make funof revolving justice and they
get out, but now they really aregetting out before the police.
They don't even get in.
They don't even get in.
They don't even DAs are notdoing their jobs.
They don't prosecute.
That's what they're hired for.
A DA is a prosecutor.
They don't prosecute, theythrow everything out.

(56:39):
You know the police are just onesmall cog in the wheel.
You know you need the DAs to dotheir job, you need the judges
to do their job, you need paroleboards to do their job.
But if the others don't work,the police are like spinning
their wheels.
You know the police at thebottom they do the job and then
they throw the case out.
How does that help anybody?
How does that help society?
You know what we lost the wordvictim.
No one cares about the victim.
Everybody cares about theperpetrator's rights.

(57:01):
These perpetrators, not only arethey getting out, they're suing
and collecting money all thetime.
The public doesn't even knowthe city created a job for these
perpetrators.
They actually get paid everytime they get arrested.
They make complaints.
The officers slapped me, theymistreated me, they didn't give
me water, they didn't treat mewith kid gloves.
De Blasio started this program.

(57:23):
Every single person who gotarrested was getting like $900
to $1,500.
As long as they said they weremistreated or manhandled or
anything.
It's just terrible what's goingon.
They don't even know how badthings are.

Speaker 3 (57:37):
But this sounds kind of like a systemic thing, like
there's so many layers.
How do you pull the city out ofthat?

Speaker 2 (57:45):
Well, you know, I feel it will get worse before it
gets better.
But the pendulum always swingsback, you know.
It has to.
Look how bad it got untilGiuliani got there, you know,
and then he curbed it in, youknow, he brought things under
control again.
But it'll swing, you know,worse before it gets better.
But the pendulum will swingback, you know, because then

(58:05):
it'll just turn into a jungle.
You just need a few morepoliticians and their families
getting mugged, you know, andjustice will turn around.
It has to, otherwise we'regoing to go back to the jungle.
It's going to be chaotic.

Speaker 3 (58:25):
What's the reason the DA is not prosecuting?
Are they prosecuting otherthings?
Are they focused on otherthings?
Are they hiding what's going on?
They they focused on otherthings?
Are they hiding what's going?

Speaker 2 (58:34):
on.
They're focused on their ownagenda.
We all know everybody's heardthe name.

Speaker 3 (58:40):
DA Bragg.

Speaker 2 (58:42):
He has his own liberal agenda.
There's people out there thatbelieve in no prisons, no police
, so they certainly don'tbelieve in arrests.
They don't want the police toenforce the laws.
I personally think they'rewired something different.
I don't believe in arrest.
They don't want the police toenforce the laws.
I personally think they'rewired something different.
I don't understand it.
I was grown up, I was born andraised with law and order.

(59:03):
If I saw a cop, I never reallydid anything wrong.
If I see a cop, I wasrespectful of him.
I feel the way the whole systemhas to work is decent.
People have to respect thepolice and criminals have to
fear the police.
That's how the system worksRight now.
It's not working.
Law enforcement is a very goodjob.

(59:26):
It's a job that should berespected and it needs backing,
and you would think that thepublic would want to back it.
You're protecting them.
How do you turn on your ownprotectors?

Speaker 3 (59:39):
Do you feel like anytime there's a scandal, you
know within the police, like thepublic gets this idea of like
all the everyone else is goingto cover for the bad apple to
make themselves not seem likepart of a bad group, do you
think?
Do you think that, um, do youthink that, like holding
individual people, bad apples,accountable, uh, improves the

(01:00:03):
public trust on policing as awhole?

Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
I feel I believe in holding everybody accountable,
but the problem is today theyonly hold police accountable.
They're not holding DAs whothrow these cases out and not
doing their job, judges whodismiss cases or give them a
three-month sentence instead offive years.

(01:00:27):
No one's held accountable.
And then you see everyone.
They lock up today for everymajor crime.
You see, the guys arerecidivists.
I mean, you hear guys with 50arrests, 25 arrests, 100 arrests
.
There was a guy with 204arrests.
How could that be?
You know, don't you see apatent?

(01:00:48):
This guy is not going toconform to society.
He doesn't belong in society.
That's why there's jails.
But these other people are notaccountable.
You know, if an officer screwsup, they hold them very
accountable.
You've got to account foreverything you do.
It's micromanic, but no onelooks at the DAs.
The cop brings in a serious,violent felon and you don't

(01:01:11):
prosecute him, or you bring uplesser charges, or the judge
gives him a month instead of 10years.
What kind of justice system isthat?
There's no accountability afterpolice officers.

Speaker 3 (01:01:24):
So we had a session recorded this morning and we
were talking about sanctuarycities and sanctuary states and
things like that, and Sam, ourguest, was saying that he really
doesn't see much you can doabout it, until victims start
holding these DAs and thesejudges accountable monetarily,

(01:01:44):
like when the first one is ableto sue him because they let the
guy out 15 times and then hekills your wife or your husband
and you're able to take that tocourt and win.
Maybe that you hit him in thewallet, maybe that starts you
know, um, you know having aneffect.
What do you?
What do you feel about that?

Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
I think that would be great that's part of
accountability if you could holdsomeone accountable, because
that is happening now.
People are coming out of jailand that they're not being held
for the right time or cases arebeing dismissed.
Their rap sheets are a milelong and they're still
committing crimes.
And the sanctuary cities, themoney that we're spending on

(01:02:24):
these?
They're illegal.
You know.
They can give them all thenames they want undocumented
migrants.
They're illegals.
If you did this stuff in othercountries, they'd shoot you at
the border.
If you fly to Florida, they'rechecking your ID to get on the
plane.
If you go to the Bahamas, yougot to have a passport.
These people are walking across.

(01:02:44):
They're holding our own peoplehostage and letting the illegals
do whatever they want.
I believe in helping people, butafter you help yourselves, you
take care of your family, thenyou help your neighbor.
But we should have in America.
There should be no homelessveterans, no hungry people, no
homeless people.
We take care of all of them.
Look at all the billions thatthey came up with to help the

(01:03:06):
illegals.
Why didn't that money go tohelp our own people before that?
You know we shouldn't havehomeless.
We shouldn't have anybodyhungry.
You know, especially veterans.
You know why?
Why did all these billions comeout of the woodwork and help
them before these migrants evencame here, these illegals?

(01:03:26):
Why?
Where was that money being held?
Why wasn't it?
Why would there be someonehomeless or hungry in America?
And we give plane loads ofmoney to countries that hate us.
They're chanting death toAmerica and we're shipping them
pallets of money.
How is that?
We can take care of othercountries, but take care of

(01:03:47):
America first, america first.
No homeless, no hungry, noveteran in need.

Speaker 3 (01:03:56):
America first, but I think friends second, and all
the enemies can go screwthemselves right.

Speaker 2 (01:04:03):
Exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:04:03):
Exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:04:07):
But where was all these billions that are being
shipped out to other countriesand the billions being spent on
these illegals?
Here?
They get everything.
They're actually giving thempensions.
They get like these debit cardsand credit cards of like $350 a
week.
That's $1,400 pension, you know.

(01:04:27):
Plus, they get free food, freehealth care, free lawyers, free
medical, free college, freeclothes, free books.
Where was this money when ourhomeless and our hungry are
still around Everywhere in theUnited States?
We could have taken care ofthem.

Speaker 3 (01:04:46):
Probably for a fraction of the cost that we
spent.
So you retired in the early 80s.
I got hurt for the first timein 1984.

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
It was due to a line-of-duty car accident,
responding to an officer thatneeded help and I just got back
from a motorcycle trip.
I was down in Virginia Beach.
I came back and I was likestill vibrating, you know.
So I told my partner, you coulddrive, because I used to drive
like 90 of the time.
So I let him drive and, uh, notthat it was his fault, we don't

(01:05:23):
know whose fault it was but wewere responding to this officer
calling for assistance and, uh,we got t-boned by a police car.
We were in an unmarked policevehicle of a lorry and we got
hit by a blue and white.
A rookie was driving with aseasoned female officer in the

(01:05:44):
car.
We were all hurt, but they wereall treated and released within
12 hours.
I wound up in the hospital foralmost three months and then I
left the job in a wheelchair.

Speaker 3 (01:05:54):
So was that a forced thing?
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:05:58):
Yeah, I couldn't run anymore.
It took me well into like ayear and a half to be able to
sort of get my body backtogether.
I didn't want to work indoorsor anything like that.
My injuries were very severe.
I broke 23 bones.
I shattered my hip in 100pieces and I broke my pelvic,

(01:06:18):
left, right, upper and long.
I didn't get any surgeriesbecause I had a lot of muscle on
my body and they said you mightlast two years, you might last
20 with the hip.
But I cut out all sports and Icut out jogging.
I used to play a lot ofracquetball, so I cut all that
out.
And now I went on 41 years andI still didn't get a new hip.
But I walked, you know okay,but I can't really run.

(01:06:42):
Even if I'm sleeping and lay onmy right side, I wake up
because I feel pressure, youknow, and sometimes the weather
really bothers the hip.

Speaker 3 (01:06:51):
Wow.
So I'm sure there was plenty oftimes that you wished you could
have gone back and done whatyou were doing before.

Speaker 2 (01:06:58):
Oh man, I still miss the job today.

Speaker 1 (01:07:00):
The real guys think about it every day, okay.
That's why I'm in the PIbusiness, jeff, okay, because I
still go on the fringe and Iwork with some of my supervisors
sons and daughters, which isreally cool.
I knew them when they were likeeight years old, ten years old,
okay.

(01:07:21):
I probably gave them theirfirst beer when their father
wasn't looking.
So I look at it that way uncletoby I still miss it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:32):
But I don't miss.
I probably wouldn't misstoday's job.
I miss, you know, from back inthe day when, when we were
actually allowed to do policework, you know, and not be
micromanaged, and do the jobthat was necessary to take the
perpetrators off the street.
You know, I don't think there'sany police officer, I'm sure
there's no police officer.

(01:07:52):
I'm sure there's no policeofficer that wants to see
innocent people or the elderlyor babies abused by these
vicious animals.
You know, and it gives you asense of pride and a good
feeling to take these people offthe street.
You know I had cases where oldladies are beat up, old men are
beat up.
I had infants burnt withcigarettes.

(01:08:14):
You know it's hard for thepublic.
They hear about it on the news,they see it in movies and stuff
, but it's like they're used toit, it's words.
Even if they see it on TV or amovie, it's not like seeing it
in person.
You see blood and guts andstuff like that.
What one human could do toanother human.

(01:08:35):
You know only police, policeofficers, and you know federally
, people like that, lawenforcement, see the underbelly
of society.
Yeah no, you're right.

Speaker 1 (01:08:50):
You're right about that.
And the book and I'll do alittle self-promotion here
Behind Blue Eyes it's meant forit's a 1972 song by the who and
I'm sure Ralph likes that stuffand rock and roll, like me, and
that's how the number came up.

(01:09:11):
But if you don't experiencesomething, uh, personally you
don't have the perceptive I.
I have people.
You have people that talk aboutthings and they've never done
the job.
You know, like you know, I'msure you're frustrated.
You see these law enforcementexperts on the major cable and

(01:09:34):
news shows and you know I don'tcare, they haven't done shit.
Some of them, that's just toput it mildly, they don't.
They haven't thrown cuffs onanybody, you know, and and stuff
like that.
We we've had people in thefederal government that probably
can count their arrests on onehand.
Now not to say that you knowthat's a bad thing, say they

(01:09:58):
went on to do other things, butyou know.
And then you have someone herethat's made 2,000 collars and
not in a career that was cutshort by injury.
So the respect level goes outto that.
So I'm so glad you're heretoday, ralph, and the experience

(01:10:21):
I hope we can do is put out theword to get more recruits.
I saw something the other day onthe news that recruiting is
actually going back up and Ioften wonder, you know, are they
back interested in the job oris it the state of the economy
too?
I mean, like Ralph said, youcan make $150,000 a year.

(01:10:43):
When I started, I left thelocal police department in
Massachusetts and I went to be adeputy US marshal and I went
from $17,000a year down to$11,000.
Took a cut in pay, but as wetalked about with the unions and

(01:11:03):
stuff like that, I wouldn'thave seen patrol on the day
shift for about 15 years.
So you know, you have to weighthe balances in what you do, and
I didn't come from a lawenforcement background either in
my family.
I just was interested in thejob, you know, and I think it's

(01:11:24):
a calling to the real peoplethat stay in law enforcement and
love it.
It's a calling, you know, hey,ralph.

Speaker 3 (01:11:34):
I asked this question earlier and it was pretty cool
and I got a good response what?
It's a two-part question.
What freaks you out the mosttoday?
What?
What freaks you out the mostand what gives you the most hope
?
2024, we're talking 2024, us ofA.

Speaker 2 (01:11:54):
Well, like I said before, it freaks me out that
they let certain situations getto a certain point and I don't
see cops carrying nightsticks,you know, I believe there's
sometimes more justice at theend of the nightstick than in
the court of law and I don'tlike to see the police be abused

(01:12:16):
and stuff.
That bothers me to no end.
You know, I still respect thejob and I respect the men and
women that do it and theydeserve everybody's respect and
that just ticks me off.
You know that they let thepolice not being police, don't
let them be, you know, do policework?
That bothers me?
Don't let them be, you know.
Do police work?
That bothers me and I don'tlike to.
I don't like what theseprotesters block traffic,

(01:12:43):
interfere with people going homefrom work or going to work, or
block emergency vehicles,disrupt people.
You know decent people's dailylife, you know.
I think it's a travesty ofjustice and I it bothers me that
the politicians, how it'schanged over the years and they
have a different agenda today.

Speaker 3 (01:13:01):
Any hope, anything good going on there's always
hope, there's always hope.

Speaker 2 (01:13:07):
Just that men and women want to become cops today.
That gives us hope.
And we do hear from somepoliticians and council people
and stuff that you know somepeople do want to change it back
.
You know there is hope, there'salways hope.
People like us that still talkabout it and bring it to the
public's view and let them hearus and let them know.

(01:13:29):
You know there are people thatstand up.
You know I think most people dorespect the police.
It's like the broken wheeltheory the squeaky wheel gets
the oil.
It's a small percentage ofpeople that are very vocal.
They've got nothing else,nothing better to do than start
a crowd with decent people busyworking and living their lives.

Speaker 3 (01:13:55):
Well, I know, I for one, I'm going to read the book,
I'm going to watch the uh, theshow and, um, anything else.

Speaker 2 (01:14:00):
Anything you want to shout out, anything, uh, you
want to plug, I want to promotethe book again street warrior by
pat piccarelli and ralphfriedman.
Uh, street justice, the bronx,which is on Amazon right now,
and there's six shows, oneseason, six episodes.
And again, thank you guys forhaving me on.

Speaker 1 (01:14:21):
Thank you very much.
It's a real honor and apleasure, and not from the
nostalgic point, but I think wetry to project the future on
what's going to happen, and Ithink that's really, really
important.
And through the series, if wereach somebody and recruit them

(01:14:42):
on the job, then that's awonderful thing.

Speaker 2 (01:14:48):
Well, prayers out to all law enforcement.

Speaker 1 (01:14:51):
Yes, our Blue Brothers, this is Police Week.
Thank you for the job you do.

Speaker 2 (01:14:53):
Yes, yep this is Police to all law enforcement.

Speaker 1 (01:14:54):
Yes, our blue brothers, this is police week.
Thank you for the job you do.
Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:14:56):
Yep, this is police week too.

Speaker 3 (01:14:58):
Yes, Thank you so much, Ralph.
Thank you Ralph.