Episode 339: NYPD Chief of Detectives Bob Boyce

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
You're listening to The Mike the New Event podcast, hosted
by media personality and consultant Mike Cologne. As I was

(00:43):
telling UH producer Victor and tonight's guest off the year
the New York Yankees are going to be the death
of Me. Welcome Back, Ladies and Gentlemen's episode three hundred
and thirty nine of The Mike the New Avent podcast.
The excitement I have over tonight's show will take the
sting away from yesterday's loss. It was a bad one.
I was watching it with a couple of friends and
they just they always do it.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
It's just like I said before, it's not losing in October.
It happens. You're not going to win every playoff game.
That's any team, even the best of the teams. You
drop one. It's the playoffs. You're playing great teams. It's
the way they lose. So we'll see what happens tonight
with Game four. I know the Mets around in Game
five trying to stay alive, and they're up three to
one right now, so let's hope that they could force
a Game six. Theer still hope for now, at least
for a subway series. Let's hope we get that. But

(01:25):
in the meantime we'll forget about the New York Yankees
and all their troubles and we'll focus on tonight's show, which,
like I said, is one I've really been looking forward
to for quite a long time.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
I've worked years to get this guest. It took mutual
friends getting us in touch. And one friend I want
to shout out is Scott Wagner, retired in WEYPD detective
formerly out of the New York City Housing Police Too.
He came over with the merger in nineteen ninety five
former guests of this show, was one of the subjects
featured in my book Good Folks Matt City. Like on
the Edge of the FDNY and NYPD. Scott was instrumental

(01:55):
in setting up Tonight's program, So I want to give
him a quick shout, a real quick thank you very much,
my friend. We'll talk soon and very quickly. If you
have not checked out the previous episode that was the
Returning Tales from the Boom Room. Profiles of the NYPD's
Arsenon Explosion of Bomb Squad. Bill Ryan, retired NYPD first
grade detective out of Arson Explosion came back on the
show to talk about the nineteen ninety eight apartment fire

(02:17):
in Manhattan at mccaullay Culkin's family. That apartment they owned
where Unfortunately, in that particular blaze, which happened December twenty
third of nineteen ninety eight, four people were killed. So
interesting look back at that case. It'll be an interesting show.
Tonight has always will run a couple ads. We'll get
the guests on with an introduction momentarily, and since I
just mentioned Billy Ryan will run his ad first FC

(02:37):
excuse me, Ryan Investigative Group. The Mike thing you have.
The podcast is proudly sponsored and supported by the Ryan
Investigative Group. If you need an elite PI, look no
further than the elite Ryan Investigative Group, which is run
by retired NYP Detective Bill Ryan, a twenty year veteran
of the Department who served a majority of his career
in the detective Bureau, most notably in the Arson explosion squad.

(02:58):
So if you need a PI to handle anything from fraud,
legal services, and anything else that you might require, contact
Bill at three four seven four one seven sixteen ten
again three four seven four one seven sixteen ten reach
them at his website or the email that you see here. Again,
if you need a PI, look no further than Bill
Ryan and the Ryan Investigative for a proud supporter and

(03:18):
sponsor of the Mike de Newhaven Podcast. Proud supporter it need.
Always grateful for Bill uh and just real quick instead
of MC media editing services which you've heard about, we'll
highlight good folks, Matt City that picture if we could
pull it up real quick. As I just mentioned, it
is my first book. It's been out since the summer.
It's sold over two hundred copies, which I'm happy about.
Working on a second book, which I'll elaborate on as

(03:39):
it gets closer to completion. But yes, the link to
purchase it via Amazon is in the description and chronicles
twenty NYPD Stories, twenty FD and Y stories all excerpts
taken from this program. If you haven't read it yet,
if you want to get your hands on it, please
feel free to do so. I appreciate the support again,
good folks, Matt City, Life on the Edge in the

(04:00):
f and NYPD. All right. Thanks to Bill as always
for his support. As we said earlier, of the Mike
and Newhaven Podcast part of me. My next guest has
spent over three decades in law enforcement, rising through the
ranks of the NYPD to ultimately become its Chief of Detectives.
He started his career in nineteen eighty three, a much
different time for New York City, and quickly became immersed

(04:21):
in some of the city's most challenging times. As we said,
the eighties was not an easy time to be a
cop in New York, from the cocaine epidemic to supervising
major incidents and different precincts across the Brooklyn and the Bronx.
He led the NYPD's Detective Bureau through pivotal moments, as
we said, he was a responded to the nine to
eleven attacks and was also key and key moments for
the Organized Crime Control Bureau, as he'll disgusted with me tonight,

(04:44):
and since he retired from the NYPD in twenty seventeen,
he's continued to share his expertise as a contributor to
ABC News and as the narrator and consulting producer of
New York homm Side. And like I said, someone I've
been trying to get out for a while, Finally he's here. Tonight,
former NYPD Chief of Detective Rather excuse me, Bob Boyce
joined Steve Mike the Davin Podcast. Chief welcome. How are
you good to be here?

Speaker 2 (05:04):
Mike?

Speaker 1 (05:05):
How are you good? Good? Good to have you? Like
I said, long time coming. So before we get into
your career, two part question here. First, where did you
grow up and did you have any civil servants in
your family?

Speaker 2 (05:16):
So yeah, so it's a very planned response for me.
I grew up in Long Island, nice area in Nessall
County and came to the city and kmpsas city when
I was twenty eight. It became a cop, so a
little bit older, which helped, which helps a lot. I
believe I'm a little more mature, a little more pointed,
and then a little more focused. And there was no
one in my family at who was a police officer.
My father was a pilot for Pan American and that's

(05:38):
most people were in the ali business in my family.
So it's a little bit different. But I will tell
you this. I came on and sworn in January third,
nineteen eighty three, and I loved the job from day one.
So I was very fortunate.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
Now sometimes in terms of getting into civil service, it's
a friend or a family where it says I take
the test. You can always say no to the job,
but just take the test just in case you never know.
Or it's television. A lot of guys a certain era
point to Emergency as being the show, or even mash
or whatever the case is, as to why they ended
up pursuing that career. What was it for you of
the two scenarios, or even something else that may just say,

(06:11):
all right, I'll give this a shot.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
So so, being in a suburb of the city was
a lot different than living out in the city, and
whenever I went into the city, I was always felt
a buzz. I always enjoyed it more so than where
I was living in Naso County. And there was nothing
wrong with were living, but it was quiet and sedate.
Once I went to the city, everything changed. There was
a lot more action, more more people, a lot of
things going on, more cultures, all things. So every time

(06:35):
I went in, for whatever reason in that time, I
was always enthralled by it. I came to a point
in my life that I wanted to make a change.
Now I was working in the restaurant business support tender
and at that point I was going to open my
own restaurant, I said. A lot of my friends who
would come to see me at the bar told me
about the nypdy so I thought they'd give it a
shot than they did.

Speaker 1 (06:54):
And there you go to the rest of history. As
we mentioned in the introduction of you See gets worn
into January of eighty three, get onto the streets later
that summer, specifically in June of eighty three. Start out.
By then, we still have the neighborhood stabilization units that
went away morphed into FTU later on in the eighties,
close to the nineties, but in eighty three it's still
in existence. N SU two. Start saw you start out

(07:14):
in Manhattan South, so as a young guy, even then
at twenty eight years old, you're more squared away than
twenty one or twenty two. But even then, rookie cop
in Manhattan South someone as you just said, who loved
the bus in the city. How much fun was that
to work in a neighborhood that back then was pretty happened?
It was rocket in eighty three.

Speaker 2 (07:30):
It was an incredible time, and a lot of the
time we spent in the parks, Union Square Park and
more Shone Square Park and I was making your rest
of day one. So it was usually low level stuff,
but you got to know a lot of land on
time in the Union Square Park. Maybe a month into it,
I see a guy book book, you know, run away,
top speed, a little different run running for a bus.

(07:52):
I knew something was up and I pursued him. He
just grabbed the bag. I made my first pellty call.
I was always it was just all instincts at that time,
because you really know a lot at that point. So
I really enjoyed my time. It was the short six
months in Manhattan South, but it always left me with
the impression of this is the center of the universe
and there's a lot going on as commuters all kinds

(08:12):
of cultures. Involved a lot of housing developments too that
I never had any dealing with until that time. So
it was a lot of fun, and I became really
dependent upon what we call ftos. Field training offices that
we had were not soisted with detectives who showed you
the ropes, and they were just tremendous people and I
learned a lot from them and carried with some of

(08:34):
those things, those messages that they give me way back
when for my entire career about service and grit and
being tough in understanding that things just spolte e allapse. You
have to work for an arrest, you have to work
the case. Those things all meant were all developed in
those first six months. So I met a lot. And
after six months it was transferred to another part of Manhattan,

(08:56):
which I thought this was a tremendous place to work
as well.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
And that was the two four. In January of eighty four,
you were in Snow Street narcotics enforcement for a while.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
I was. I was very fortunate. After a year of
patrol and that was it, I was put in the
sue team. And back then it almost a mediately went
into it crack blew up. You know, it really just
took over the streets. Before that, we're making powder cocaine arrest,
some marijuana wrest, and a public on a private street.
People lived there. They didn't want we dealing going on

(09:25):
in front of the house, which was happening, but also
it was powder cocaine. Once that time happened really I
don't remember the exact time, but eighty five something along
those things. Eighty six I remember seeing the hand in hand,
the hand go by and then going making the arrest
of these bibles of crack. We didn't what it was
until we sent it down to the lab and they
had to cut to crack the product to really test it.

(09:47):
Once they did, it found it was crack cocaine, and
the whole city changed almost within within a couple of months,
everything changed.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
Crime the sky record, you saw it attack New York,
you saw it attack LA at that time. It really
just gripped the country, unfortunately, and became a major problem
for any narcotics cop during that time. And you feel
like it's a never ending cat and mouse game where
you're taking these dealers off the street and their product.
But again not only cat and mouse, but a little
bit of whack a mole too. Then the next dealer

(10:16):
pops up with the next dash, and the next dash
and the next dash. So you know, it can get
exhausting because you're chasing these guys. You're doing the best
you can. But it was a battle back then, and
dealers were going down. I mean, obviously they were in
competition with each other, they're killing each other. Cops are
getting hurt and even killed in the process trying to
take them down. For you being involved in that as

(10:36):
heavily as you were early on. What kept you motivated?
What kept you in the game, so to speak.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
You know, it's it's a great question because it's it's
your team. We were in a snoop team and it
was five of us, and we thought we're five against
the world because it was a lot of drug dealing
going on with the two forty up or side of Manhattan,
and so we got along so well and we knew
exactly what we had to do to do it. Gerley
speaking at that time. Initially when we started out, and
still you were playing close and within a months time,

(11:04):
I had a beard down to here and I was
walking around, I had Mike, I had two years on
the job. I was doing this now and just making
arrests all over throughout the precinct. Then a scandal happened.
We all had to shave our beers and go back
into control, not not with us, but somewhere else in
the city. So so that's but you still did your job.
You still you still went forward. So that happened for

(11:25):
you know, we just it was exhilarating. And you would
go down to to UH Central booking on the daisy
chain with five or six perps on you by yourself
and way outside to get in. Uh, you're right, you
felt like you were just making arrest. It wasn't really
going anywhere. You know, a lot of there's a lot
of the you know, the rest you were making for
uh felony sale b fell You know, it wasn't the

(11:47):
same when you looked at the bfel they looked at
for another another crime like attempted murder. It wasn't the same.
It was just there was so many coming in the
courts couldn't handle it, and so a lot of people
will get we're really just is I justice? A lot
I get is today and so it was spinning around.
But you still had to be done. You still had
to make that those efforts to make sure that the

(12:08):
streets streets were safe as you could.

Speaker 1 (12:11):
Were talking with former NYPD detectives Keith and detectives rather
Bob Boys here in the Mike and the New Even podcast.
If you have a question for the Chief submitted in
the chat and no highlighted at the appropriate time. Now
you alternated a little bit in nineteen eighty seven between
Manhattan South Narcotics and Queen's Narcotics. So again different boroughs
with the same problem. Did you find that it was
more prevalent in Manhattan than it was in Queens or

(12:32):
vice versa? Was it just about even at that time.

Speaker 2 (12:35):
It was a little different in Manhattan South. There's a
lot of stuff in the parks in Manhattan, a lot
of sales and parks and around and some and some
housing developments things of that. Not so much was in
the streets I remember in in like on Eighth Avenue
in Manhattan, in Midtown it was really rough. But one
thing that stuck to me there that I brought back
and we'll get into as I go on to become

(12:56):
cheap to day we would have a federal day. My
little tenant at the time when I was in Maddi
South Narkle was William la who later became the chief
of Detectives, and as I did, and he would do
federal days where we would take the prisoners we arrested
and put him in the federal system. And at that point,
if you wanted the federal system, you went into that

(13:17):
federal system. You didn't come out. He took a long,
a long sentence, and you went out west, so you
didn't come back to New York that stuck with me
how effective that was when we took down the street
corner of crack cells, because you're right, there would be
It's spawned violence, shootings and all kinds of stuff. So
that again, I came back to Manhattan, you know, later on,

(13:39):
and brought those same thoughts. When I came back. I
remember I would because I was a big guy, I
would ghost the undercovers, meaning that I would make sure
that they would get onto the same girl up to
set that being bothered. So I would do that a
lot too. My thing I was from New Jersey and
it was by drugs for the day. That was my
m O. Why didn't used to do that? So you

(14:00):
deal with some undercover workers too, and I'm not buying
so much as you are guarding them under covers and
helping them out, make sure they're okay. And you're also
making the US so a lot. I learned a lot
of the time I was there, and at that point
went out from Eddie Burne was murdered and I went
out to Queens Queens after a certain amount of time.

Speaker 1 (14:17):
I'll get to burn in a second, because that's the
major turning point and policing, not just in New York City,
but across the country as a whole. But let's stay
on Bill Ali for a second. I would have loved
to have had him on the show. He's one of
the many guys from the NYPD who we've lost to
nine to eleven illness in the year since the attack.
And as you said, chief A detectors from I think
nineteen ninety seven until two thousand and three or so
when he retired. A lot of guys have a lot

(14:39):
of great stories about him the way as he was
actually called. So when you look back on Bill, what
are your favorite memories of him?

Speaker 2 (14:45):
A tough guy, pardicok, and you learned a lot from him,
no nonsense. He would try to control the set and
I never seen that before. He would go up on
an opa and send his undercovers in and tell each
one who to buy from because he wanted to take
the set down. Very organized man, very very strict and
disciplined type of guy. But you liked him because he

(15:06):
told He didn't hold anything back. He told you right
where you were with things. So I learned a lot
from him. And I tell you what I was. I
was in the hospital that Sloan kettering with him when
he was in the hospital bed after Sweden, all he
wanted to do was talk about police work. I was
cheap in detectives at the time we passed, and all
he wanted to do was talk about policing. He would
ask me about what about that we haven't made a
collar and see I did a big case. That was

(15:28):
Newsworth the other time. So he never talked about his
illness and his cancer that took his life because he
was just that guy. He was just just a cop,
cops cop, that's what he was. I really minded him greatly. Again,
tough guy, had to be on your toes that all
the time. With William ll you better have answers to
his questions.

Speaker 1 (15:44):
Oh yeah, yeah, I've heard. I've heard. He was not
easy that way. But for as firm as he was, again,
guys loved them. Guys went to bad for him all
the time. Brelli was that way too. Guys certainly went
to bat for Brelli when he was achieving detectives in
the mid nineties before he retired. Now I meant and
I would get to burn. This was a very, very
tragic but unique time. We all wish it didn't happen,

(16:07):
but at this time, you guys were ready at a
war with drug dealers. This kicked the war into overdrive.
It was personal to begin with, because you love these neighborhoods.
When you're patrolling, you get to know the good people
the neighborhoods. You want to fight for them. You want
to do what's right for them. One of your own
was killed and killed brutally in this war, which made
it especially personal heading out to Queen's after a time

(16:27):
like that where there's a lot of determination, but a
lot of anger too. A lot of cops are pissed
off about this murder and they want revenge. What was
that like? Where you're angry for sure? Who could? How
could you not be after something like this? But you
got to be controlled. You don't want to you know,
you don't want to fall into the drug dealer's hands.
You want to make sure you get them off the
street in a controlled manner, but send a message that

(16:48):
we're not going to stand for this.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
Oh, Mike, is hard not to think like that. You remember,
this was an assassination. They come up and try that
bond bond his pack bl head off. It really did,
and it was It was a tough time and I
became really close friends with his family, especially by the Larry.
After that, yeah, a couple of years later, and it
really core apart their family and you put yourself in
that position. I remember going to the to the wake

(17:10):
and the funeral was by my house here at the time,
I was living on Long Island. He only lived about
maybe half a mile away. So in that area of
Nassau is heavily uh NYPD. So he was the brethren
that could happen to him can happen to you. So
here we have a drug organization. Now who takes to

(17:31):
the police like that was? That was the war and
now you have to look differently, and it did at
that point because that at this point, they poured hundreds
of cops into the OCCB Narcosis and we saturated the
area and we started taking down these drug gangs there,
and we took a lot of them federally. Again a
lesson for me to me then we'll talk about that

(17:53):
later as I progress in my career, what the federal
courts can do for you. They started taking these drugs
groups down. You know the fact that Nicholas the whole thing,
just trying to remember the guy who put the order out,
you know, for to kill, dye all these things. You
look at these things, you say, wait a second, this

(18:13):
is real time. I will tell you. When I went
to Queens, I thought, when you think of Queens, you
think of shay Standing, you think a nice neighborhood. You
don't think about it. And they were nice neighborhoods being
overrun by these kids who grew up in these neighborhoods
who are now making fortunes in selling drugs. So you
had to understand that too. You know, you knew where
the sets were, you knew how to make the arrest,
and you learn how to start talking to people exactly,

(18:35):
you know, who do you work for, what are you doing?
And you do that through rapport. So you start getting
your ground, gett going, how to your communications as a cop,
how to speak to people, how to break them down,
sit down, talk to them, you know, and and all
of a sudden they'll tell you things that you didn't
know before. I started learning that at that point out
in Queens.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
It was definitely a great education that would serve you
well as your career progress. So nineteen eighty eight is
a pivotal year in your career. It's one of several
turning points. But this was the first promotion you make
sergeant at the tail end of the year in nineteen
eighty eight December to be exact. And from Queens you
go out to Brooklyn the seven to three and you
work in anti crime for a while. Now anti crime
it exists in a little bit of a different form
today as the community Response team. But anti crime was

(19:18):
pick a peak, I should say, plane closed policing, not
to be confused with street crime. Street crime was citywide.
Anti crime was strictly for these precincts. So being involved
in that, I mean you'd had experience in plane closed
operations of course during your time previously in narcotics, but
anti crime was different in that you're not chasing calls
in the radio. You really have to exhibit a lot

(19:38):
of patience for someone like you that clearly loves the action.
How hard was that because sometimes hours could go by
in certain days before something would happen.

Speaker 2 (19:46):
Ike, it's funny you should said it, because it's there
are some nice where you really have to work very hard,
sitting on symbalances. I would sit on say Saratoga Lavonna
for like an hour if I knew there was a
robbery the night before. I was check all my you know,
all my data even before we did this is well
before constant, and you would grab sixty. Once you go

(20:06):
out there, you get the descriptions and you would sit on
a corner for hours and then maybe the next night
you make your call. For you for your call, and
you had the gun. Other nights you can see guys
carrying guns. You talk to them. All a sudden, they
run and you chase me. You had a gun and
they were jumping into the car. So it was kind
of like a feast of famine type of situation. I
tell you what, Deville Brownsville, Brooklyn. I really feel for

(20:28):
the people living there because it's a tough life. It
really is, and you really don't know how much they
need you until you start working in in that community.
I went back twice to Brownsville. I was. I was
a sergeanty for four years in anti crime. I got
made lieutenant. It came back for two months before I
took back to the detective Bureau. And I'll explain it
as I go well later on. That's how much I

(20:50):
liked it. I had a great team. In fact, some
of the detectives that that worked for me there, worked
me at headquarters in my office. That's how close we
got there. And it was it was I'll tell you
it's it's a tough neighbor to grow up. And there's
a lot of houses glopment instead that people were on
top of each other. And when gangs hit, it took

(21:10):
that place harder than any place when the gangs hit
New York City. So and it became more and more violent.
One of the things I looked at. I was there
in ninety five, there was two hundred murders between Brownsville
seven three and East New York seven five. Two hundred
murders in one year. When I left in twenty eighteen,
they were twenty and twenty seventeen in the year to day,

(21:30):
So that's ten percent. What was We really did something there,
really changed things. So that's important to understand. And it
wasn't all about arrests. It was about way of thinking,
you know. And and so I was very more, probably
more than anything. But one of the biggest things proud
of is is that changed in that community. Now it was
slipped back a little bit because I still keep an

(21:50):
eye on things, but it's not as bad as it
was back in ninety five, in ninety four, ninety three.
That's so those are tough times, but you got to
use it. Back to the beard, to the field jacket.
Still doing the same stuff, wearing a pair of snakers,
and you'll be running all night. Got shot at twice there.
I never hit in Brownsville. Takes punch to stay up there.

(22:10):
So it's a tough neighborhood to say at least. But again,
when you go through it, I always tell anybody to
still join the o IP day because you'll meet the
best people in the world there people sitting and it's
had the coss next year, so still friends with all
those people that was back then. So I'm happy I
was there, and I really enjoyed the command to believe

(22:30):
it or that, because when you came to work, the
next thing you do it's time go home. It went
that fast your tour, so I like that, and the
same thing in the seven to five.

Speaker 1 (22:42):
I'll continue with your career in a moment, just a
quick question and your promotion to sergeant. But Steve Irado's
got a question that chat. Just to go back to
Eddie burn earlier, he says, was the killing of Eddie
Burn actually targeting him specifically or could have been any
officer station in the r and P that night.

Speaker 2 (22:55):
It's a great question. They they do that Eddie was
had to post a lot to statement about him prior
to that. We have that that was documented on d
DE five, so they knew it was him. He took
the post a lot so it was against the police.
It wasn't against Eddie, it was it was sending us
to the police, but it was through him. So they
did some work prior to that to understand who it

(23:17):
was going to be him that night. I believe that
anywhere to this day.

Speaker 1 (23:21):
I believe that too. Thanks Steve for submitting that question. Now,
with a sergeant promotion, do you feel that you know
what you had done earlier as a police officer guarding
the undercovers helped prepare you in a way for what
you would have to do as a sergeant. Do you
feel like it made that transition a bit easier?

Speaker 2 (23:38):
It does? Your experiences do can come into play? I
was very fortunate I was promoted a sergeant with five
years long so I did have a best man of
I covered a lot of ground from patrol and then
snowing into Nakata's division. So it helped me understand it
and module concept, team concept. Uh, and that was important
in anti crime. And when I got to Brooklyn, you know,

(23:59):
you work in Manhattan, you work in different parts of
the city increase. You really don't know what in urban
crime is until you get those sports of program, right,
there's a whole different when you went to work each day.

Speaker 1 (24:11):
Oh absolutely, that's that's that's saying quite a bit. As
you said January of ninety four, you get to the
seven to five, you give us twenty two minutes, we'll
give you a homicide. That was their slogan back then,
and it's an unfortunate one. But as you said, two
hundred murders at one point in that neighborhood as a
detective squad supervisor. And what's interesting there is is a
heavy ESU imprint there because a lot of the guys

(24:31):
at the seven to five, you have seven truck right
next door. Doesn't hurt to have them in your back
pocket on heavy jobs. I don't know if you had
him in your squad prior to him going to ESU.
Did you have Jovi Giano on your squad, I did.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
Joe actually was in the ram which who we spent
the time with Ripped. Probably he was in Ripped team,
so I knew I knew Joe. Yeah, so you know,
Joe's Joe. He was a Scot. Joe had to be
the forest back through the door. He was that kind
of guy. He was just his personalities larger than the
life guy by the way. Uh. And it was just

(25:03):
a lot of fun to be around. You know. We
could we could actually trade Joe Vinch stories all night
here because he had lots of them. And a highly
decorated guy. All of a sudden comes in one day
says I don't want to the same war, I want
to go to the a c uh. So we're all
surprised about that, and actually went to the chief at
the time to make the decision. He went to the
chief of department. I went to the chief an of Moan,

(25:24):
who I respect. I know you've had him on your show.
I respect tremendously. And I think it was the chief
ad of Moana and we must go to su and
go and because I think Chief and a moone had
a background in the SU and he went there. So
we lost him in the snow because he was a
seven five homegrown cop. His wife worked there. You know
we uh we, of course, how can you not know

(25:46):
Joe if you worked in the Semi.

Speaker 1 (25:47):
Five, I wanted to bring him up there. I'm glad
you mentioned him, and again it was an interesting place
to work, Chris from the standpoint of the high homicide rate,
but a big imprint was made there in terms of
being able to get that murder rate down. So you
mentioned that made me want to bring them up. But
before I go into another transition in August of nineteen
ninety six, besides the work being done there, you have

(26:07):
interesting detectives underneath you, and you want to make sure
you played to their strengths. Obviously they have investigative idiosyncrasies
that has made them them. So tell me about you know,
the balance between knowing when to send them in and
knowing for their own benefit on certain cases, when to
pull them back.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
I'm sorry you talking about it on the coup of work.

Speaker 1 (26:25):
With running a detective squad of the seven five.

Speaker 2 (26:28):
Oh okay, so the squad there I was famous, it
still is. They do amazing work. We had an off
of the police officer killed in a robbery situation where
his cousin was selling a car by the pig houses,
and so not to get too far into their case.
I covered for an ABC and I knew they had

(26:49):
to find out. I knew that they and they did
almost because they know the area. Really really talented detectives
in a tough spot. When you catch your homicide, you
you're type to it for several days, and sometimes you
would live in the same suit, the same shirt, and
you're ready to burn that shirt when you get home
because now you're doing so much in it. So in
that respect, you will sit there and you watch them work.

(27:12):
You watch them on the stand, start breaking down motives,
start talking to people in the rooms, going out and
doing canvases. All these things matter. You know, the gut
work of doing homicide investigation, and they solve a lot
of crime. I will tell you that if you look
at the homicide room in the seven five, I'm sure
they still have it there, all the homicide cases they've solved.
It's just folder after folder after folder, and you see

(27:36):
what they're up against. You walk into a case with nothing,
and all of a sudden, now you start working it back.
You identify the victim, you start talking to his family,
you start now, and now we wear a video. It's
very important to understand. I had a case in the
seven five cover for ABC again where a man that
dismembered a female and left her body parts on the street,

(27:56):
and it turned out later on they made the arrest,
of course within twenty four hours, not forty eight twenty four.
And the case I had worked the case on him
back in eighty four in the two four he killed
another woman and then in sixty three he had killed
another woman in this memory, So we have this person

(28:17):
now he's a serial murder thing because of New York
State kept arroling. It made no sense at all. So
and they solved it very quickly, as did the detectives
from the two four way back in the eighties. So
it's not the police department that it's working to solve
in these cases. Is sometimes the mistakes made in government
put these people out over and over against you learn

(28:39):
lessons even though you're well and well into your career
and even passed your career, that ones is going to end.
What are we going to corect the public? Right?

Speaker 1 (28:48):
I mean, you see that even in instances where police
officers were killed as you were talking about that recently,
the anniversary of Freddy Darbias's murder lieutenant that got killed
responding to a call of a man stalking a woman.
I believe that was in the Bronx just past. That
happened in October of nineteen ninety six. The guy that
shot and killed them, who was later shot and killed
himself by responding officers, had been paroled recently. You look

(29:10):
at Sean Carrington's burder in nineteen ninety eight, same thing.
You know, it was the guy that killed him, who
was killed by Shawn's partner in return fire, was killed
by in that instance, Protective Carrington was killed by someone
who had recently been paroled for murder in the eighties. So,
you know, it's an interesting point that you bring up. Unfortunately,
because bloodshed then, if not properly dealt with, leads to

(29:31):
bloodshed in the future. And then what so definitely a
sad point there. August of ninety Actually, before I get
to August of nineteen ninety six, David Burns, via LINKEDN
submidst the following question. He wants to know when David's
former guest of this show, good to see You, my
friend was the Palm Sunday homicide on your watch.

Speaker 2 (29:49):
It's happened in seventy five, But I was not there. Okay,
I did not work the case. I know people who did.
I wish, but I didn't work themes.

Speaker 1 (29:56):
No, all right, thanks for your question, David, appreciate you
tuning in tonight. But August of nineteen ninety six he
made lieutenant, and you had two different detective squads, both
in Brooklyn eight eight and the seven to nine. More
of the same. But it's different because in August of
ninety six were in a better spot. Bratton Well Ray
Kelly had started the decline in the early nineties when
he was commissioned. The first time Bratton comes in, we

(30:17):
get that thirty nine percent overall crime drop. Now by
August the ninety six, he's not there anymore. Howard Safer is,
and Howard Safer former guests in this show missed him
very much. He continued that crime decline too. So it's
a good time to be a New York City police
officer because the numbers are still up there, but they're
going down from two thousand to ones out one thousand.
By the end of the nineties. I think it was
in the six hundreds. So tell me about the work

(30:39):
that was being done at that time where the pendulum
has swung. Proactive policing is being encouraged.

Speaker 2 (30:44):
It is, and so let's start with the detective Squad.
I went there, I was saged with the seven five squad. Well,
I got promoted lieutenant and went for short time backs
for seventh three at my choice, and then they picked
me up for the ANA squad. So busy squad, but
not overly south beautiful party. I tell you what. Fort
Greene is one of the nice sports of Brokeram by far.
But you had some work. You had you had the

(31:06):
you know, metal Avenue stuff, and you have some stuff
on Fullen Street that you had to address. I also
had a bombing there, terrorist bombing there. We actually prevented
it from happening. The AA squad did so very happy
with that. First look, I had a terrorism you know
because uh we grabbed the guys and yes, you pulled
them out of a building, actually shot them. And so

(31:27):
first time I got a look at terrorism. I went
to uh A c H. Kings County Hospital and spoke
to them. Theyre it was it was an interesting time.
Uh straightly thereafter I was sent to the seven nine
squad and usually it's a CompStat and you know, you're
familiar with the compt. You make your bones there all
the time. You have one bad day and uh, you
got it takes you about a year to recovery. However,

(31:49):
I kind of picked it up and I was fortunate,
and I think it was probably the most important thing
in my career is that is that when I went
to Compstad, I was sort of prepared, ready to be
ready to present. So went to the seven nine and
then the seven nine is now what it is now.
It was a lot busier then and now you see
these beautiful but it always was a nice praising with

(32:11):
beautiful brownstones, you know, these coffee shops. It was not that.
It was a little bit different, a little bit, a
little bit more wild West. So tough times. You work,
you worked your cases and you did well, and you
also hone your craft. And again I mess some tremendous
detectives along the way there, and it was fun to
lead them, it really was. And we counted on them,
and you were expected to make to make the arrest

(32:33):
on the shooting and a hum sell, and we did
more often than that. So I had some very big
cases here when I was there, and and really developed
a really strong appetite for the attended girl, really enjoyed
the detectives, understood them, respected them, and treated them with
as much respect as I could be there. Boss.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
Now, I wanted to stay on that terrorist event terrorists
buying for a second, because you just jogged my memory.
I did a whole show on it as part of
the Tales from the Bloom Room series. So members of
the s U and the Bomb Squad, seven truck and
a truck and Rich Teams, but the late Rich Teams
who passed away from nine to eleven cancer a little
while ago, and Paul Yerku from the Bomb Squad, former
ESU cops in their own right went to the went

(33:10):
to the house that night where two hamas guys I
believe we're going to set off that bomb the next morning.

Speaker 3 (33:16):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (33:16):
And the Atlantic Avenue subway if I'm not mistaken. Freddie Manzililo,
who was an arsenal explosion at the time a sergeant
was there as well. So just besides what you mentioned earlier,
when you hook back on that job and what would
follow in later years, which we'll talk about in depth
as we get there, tell me about your recollections from
again a crazy job that all things considered, ended quite well.

(33:37):
ESU and the bomb squad did a great job, and.

Speaker 2 (33:39):
So the NA detective. Still by the way, they did
tell you so what I was and I love it.
No slap to them. We set the whole thing up
for them to hit the door, and when they did.
I remember going out there. One of the individual walks into percinct,
says they're trying to walks into grabs two MPa cops
and says it's involved up station tomorrow. TA brings him

(34:00):
to the aa AA brings him up to the squad
and we start breaking them down. Now I'm at home.
I come in and we start talking to this guy
and you can see almost me. This man was genuine
and the persons he talked about the two others. There
was three people living in an apartment. They hated America.
They couldn't stand it, couldn't stand. They wanted to do something.
They were following the blind sheet at the time and

(34:20):
his messages. And you saw this fellow dressed nicely with
a nice pair of slacks and silk shirt. He loved America.
Because I don't want to die and I want to
stay in America. I don't believe in any of that stuff.
He gave us. The apartment actually told us where the
big was, a black big who with the bombs in
with the homemade I d sent all right, So we
had all that. I think the captain was Ralph Pescoulo

(34:42):
that night and now wonderful man. And remember in the
AA squat saying this is where the this is where
the black satchel is, this is where the bombs are.
If they go for that, they want to set up
the bombs because this is what this is the best
thing I can give you. And so I remember we were.
We were at that time on on on Atlantic Avenue.

(35:03):
We were in Flatbush. I forget where exactly where it was.
We were getting people out of the apartments as much
as we can because if that blows, that's gonna blow.
It's quiet. We hit that door at like four o'clock
in the morning, so it was unusual. And I remember
I'm sitting in the straight waiting for the go down.
I had my my my ray Jack on narcotics and
sitting there and that guy walks up to us in

(35:25):
Maga's office. We just woke up marriage Orliani just so
you know, and I'm thinking, I hope this is a BS.
I hope actually is a bomb here because I just
woke the mayor and then I hear the machine guns
go off. Oh, and I know we had something. So yes,
you brought the purpose out into the street, and it
is with most purpose. There's one real bad guy and
one real soft guy, and that's exactly what this was. Yes,

(35:49):
soft guy's gonna tell me everything. Bad guys, I canna
tell me nothing. So I jumped in the bus with
the ambulance to the hospital with and we had a
fed there to it. I don't know FBI I came
out of nowhere. We put him in with with with
another guy. So we went to the hospital and he
gave up the entire events, which we called my detective
call's first name, Paul, who was on the scene with

(36:11):
with with the bag at the time, and we explained
everything to him. It was rigged. And I don't want
to go into it right now because I don't want
to give that information out to anybody. But there were
pipe bomps with nine inch nails as anti personnel's ovisis
was going to go out shrap and they're going to
blow up the five Bushadow station. Mistakenly think they were
killing a lot of Jewish people. If you know Brooklyn,
there's not a lot of Jewish people out there. We

(36:31):
have plenty Jewish people in the Brooklyn but not there.
So their information was wrong and they were kind of
happifesses and a lot of things. And so we made
the arrest in the next day in the A squad
and I'm exhausted by this time, of course, because you're
around the clock and JGTF books and were taking the case.
I was yours. I go back to my bad guys

(36:52):
on the street. I want nothing to do with this nonsense,
because these guys were really crazy. These terrorists told me
a lesson going forward that you know, defense have protocols
for that, and and I'm fine with that, but then
we you know, you don't stop. I went to the
bomb squad and I said, showed me the bomb thing,
and the lieutenant at the time didn't want to show
the us. My professionals took it him to see what

(37:14):
those bombs look like, because I really wanted to see
see how good you know that this guy told us
he was what Paul was looking at Ka was looking at.
And he showed me how they were wired, and they schemed,
you know, and what kind of what was the detonation
device and how that got. I really wanted to see that,
even though it was not my case at that point,
and they showed me. He showed me how it was done,
and that stayed with me going forward. The next week

(37:35):
they transmitted to a seven nine squad. No my time.

Speaker 1 (37:40):
What a way to go out though, And.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
And I'm still ting. I still have that.

Speaker 1 (37:46):
I can I can see why. And I'll never forget
Richie telling me, God, I missed Richie. Another great one.
We lost too soon. But he's like when he went
to the precinct that night with Paul, because they had
been partners and patrol partners, and yes, you partner, and
the partners in the bomb squad as well. He's like
to the guy, all right, draw me a picture of
what you saw. This part is kind of humorous, he says,
to be out there for you. He's like Mike, he

(38:06):
drew the He couldn't have drawn a more accurate picture
of pipe bomb if he tried. So that's when they
knew yeah, this was real and thankfully, you know, the
only people that got hurt that night were the bad guys,
and everything ended well all things considered. Next week is
the seven nine, So you stay in Brooklyn and again
more work to be done.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
So tell me about the work that was being done
there at the time, in the area that it covers.
For those who may not know.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
Suspens like Brooklyn's, it's the it's the western part of
Best Life, because that's on the other side of the
Ate one and that's still best life. But he was
on Tompkins Avenue. You have a lot of developments there
at the time that we're kind of I got honest
with each other. So you had a lot of murders,
you know, you know, a lot of blood was hoping
John Bills and stuffs like that. I really did a

(38:50):
lot of presentations and constat where so much so I
think I was up at least twice a month talking
good fun. You've had the moon and everybody else, so
what do you do? You hone your drift at that point,
you're ready for anything. And I always thought and I
still think that when I tell people at comps that
want to do presentations in the NYPD training thing. No

(39:11):
one should know your precinct or your shop or your
squad better than you, so understand what they're going to
ask you, but also know they don't know as much
as you do, and you might as well tell them.
One you're up there, you're gonna eat the crock. You're
gonna tell them stuff, and you canna tell them things
that they don't know. I told her. I remember telling
the chief had them all one time I found a
guy owned a photo manager thing because what we did
was put in is uh his day of birth. People

(39:32):
lie to you, you know when they get shot there Lawrence,
they don't want to go to show. So this guy
got shot and I remember telling him, mom, you know
he gave us. They always give me the right birthday,
but they canna be wrong there. So if you run
the birthday this picture pop. We knew what he was immediately.
We knew we got tomorrow and we were able to
close the case. He was able to give us the
shooter because of things technology that that headquarters was giving

(39:53):
us that we didn't have before. So it was an
exciting time to understand this unfolding uh stuff like there
was systems, cars, computer assistant robbery systems. I tell you
what it was, the best information I could find from
the street. Remember how when you start out in the eighties,
you go down and you do a report and you

(40:14):
hand it in. There was a UF ninety. You hand
it in and you wait for someone to come out
maybe a week or so, to send you the information
you need. It was so slow. Now it was coming
out really fast onlan computer. And then here we are
in the nineties now and we're expediting our cases and
we're closing exacts much faster, helping us reduce crime by
taking a shooter up the street.

Speaker 1 (40:33):
And I imagine by the time you made captain in
the fall of nineteen ninety eight, and granted there's still
more work to be done, you got to look around
and say to yourself, Man, from when I started to
in eighty three to where we are now, we've really
cleaned this place up. This is amazing, Mike.

Speaker 2 (40:48):
It's almost like it's like a drug, you know, crime retouch.
You want to keep going, you don't want to stop.
And so I'll tell we'll talk later about the end
of my time and where we were when I left
in twenty eighteen. It is and you want to you
want to know what the next big push is, how
you make how you can drive crime down even lower.

(41:08):
And the police only have a role in trying to
crime there. There's a whole lot of the factors, social
factors go in. These kids you see're walking around the
middle of the night. It's a school night. What are
they doing out there? You know it's it's it's And
you understand the way of things that you're never going
to save that kid because he's already gone, but you
want to save that you know, maybe his brother or
whatever the guys may be. Keep them off the street,

(41:29):
go take them home to the parents, tell their parents. Listen,
you can't have this. We're going to call a CS.
And you know, if you're PCW whatever it was at
the time, you can't have this kid walking around and
you've got it. I don't care if you lock the
door and put the chain on it. You can't let
him out of the house. You would do stuff like that.
You would do stuff because it was the right thing
to do. And again at that time, you would seem
still see the same woman on a canvas on the shooting,

(41:50):
and now she trusted you, and you and you talk
to them, she would tell you which way is up.
So those are the things you learn by working a precinct.
I always liked to work in a precinct. You know,
the COTS was great, but it was a broad application.
Snow was on that bracinct alone. I always liked to
work in the precinct concept and it helped me when
I became a precinct commander going forward from there.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
Now that would happen in September of two thousand. Now,
to this point, you had been a Queen's cop. You
had been a Manhattan cop, you had been a Brooklyn cop.
You had not been a Bronx cop. So now you're
getting a flavor of an entirely different bro getting to
the four to Roho in the fall of late summer,
early fall of two thousand. How much of a I
don't want to say culture shock, I don't think that's
the right word. But how much of a shift was
that for you mentally? Because each borough has their own

(42:34):
way of doing things on either side of the isl
FD and PD. What was it like finally getting a
taste in the Bronx so not I don't want to
say late into your career, but at the midway point
of your career.

Speaker 2 (42:43):
Yeah, it was. It was two thousand when I got
the shop. I had three years ago. I was living
my twenty and seventy eight years long so before that,
it was also the the seven five. Back to the
seven five. It worked for Entity IZO there and we
had a really strong crime reduction. I learned a lot
about the patrol side because I remember I was off
control for a while, I was doing the techtive work.

(43:03):
So now I'm a captain. I'm an exile in the
seven five, and we had a really strong, strong, strong
year there and I was sent to the four Roh.
At that point, uh Commisia Kirk had taken over the
place department. Yes, and I went up there with a
package from Brooklyn North into the Bronx and I knew
they're called parish mutes now, like when you go in

(43:25):
from outside and you take a command in a different barrel,
you know, well, liked it took someone's spot, was quite
at that spot. I understand it completely. I understand that,
you know, because it happened to me in Brooklyn North.
I was supposed to get a different spot, didn't get it.
So I was angry about it. But that's all right.
So you go into the four roh and you really
don't know the lay of the land. So you start
building your team really quickly. Now and so I remember

(43:48):
the people we put together. I had just one of
my lieutenants, my special option I walked in my first day.
There he goes, I'm leaving, I'm retiring, and the other
one walked into other special projects with it goes, I'm
going to the barron leaving something. I said, believe it.
And so I sort, that's the way things are, I guess.
And so with that, the next day I wanted I'm

(44:09):
going to pick incomes Joe Dowling. Uh. He ended up
his retired chief of a job played the place smartings lieutenant.
He was my crime sergeant seven nine. With a stroke
of guess, why show you now my spots shops guy,
Joe brings a lot to the job with intensity, smart experience.
So we started building a team almost immediately in a
place that I did nothing about. I didn't know. It

(44:31):
was tough and allows a lot of housing developments and
are really busy to main streets one foot an Street
and one thirty Street, and I had to win those blocks.
One foot a night. During the day, there was a
lot of her own being sold there. I want thirty
I want thirty eighth Street at night because there was
a lot of a lot of crime, a lot of
robbers there. So you learn how to see what your
tough spots are immediately, and you start figuring things out

(44:54):
and so building the team, getting the cops on your side.
And I remember them saying to me, well, this is
a busy command came from the seven five. I understand,
I understand, they know busy. He said, I know, busy.
It's fine. And I tell you, I really liked the Bronx.
I really liked working there. I liked a lot of it. Uh.
And I noticed that that people on the folks in

(45:14):
the street were really friendly the cops. You know, that
was the way it was in Brooklyn. It was a
little bit stand off and the Bronx was wholly different.
Oh and people who would go from the from Brooklyn
to the Bronx, who understand that these folks are really
nice people's living in a tough environment. Someone one of
the one of the politicians that told me that it

(45:35):
was the pourse course, I forgot what I said. Part
of the part of the nations can congressional district in
the Nation, and I was shocked by that. Smiles. It's
roughier there was. There was so along a lot of
the two years I was there, and that tappened in
the middle of a nine one one.

Speaker 1 (45:55):
Before I get to nine eleven. There's a couple of guys. Well,
i'll actually touch on it right now. There's a couple
of guys that one of the one of which I
know you knew because he came on the job with him.
But the other one he was in the four roh
and respond he was retiring that morning. That's John Perry.
I don't know if you knew John well at all,
but if you did, any memories of John.

Speaker 2 (46:13):
John was one of my cops in four oh and
he was John's different almost a different cat. He was
this tall guy who was an athletic guy, swimmer, runner,
spoke five languages. He was in at Parney. He was
just you know, jack of all trace and what a
nice disposition he was. And so something happen. He ended
up in a four oh. I forgot what it was
from headquarters and and I would talk to him. I

(46:36):
talked a lot of my cops because and he was
really interesting John. And John was a was a member
of the a c LU. Total everybody was. And that
doesn't sit well with a lot of people in law enforcement.
And so I said, John, I would have turned that download, buddy,
And he was like, no, I'm gonna it doesn't matter
to me. I'm gonna keep saying it. I believe that,
John Cole. So he came into me, I go a

(46:59):
couple days one, I want one, he said. Listen wasn't leaving.
He said, well, you know, he goes, I got a
job in the private center for with the firm, with
the law firm. John's gratulations. You're sure you want to
leave this because I know he was an adventurer. He
really was in one of those adventures that he go
over to Europe and live for a while in different
placing things. And I said, he said, so against your nature, John,

(47:20):
You're like this guy he swammed the I think the
Hudson River in a race. He was a runner who
was an actor. He said, You're all, what do you
what do you what do you know? And he goes, no,
I really want to do this is I guess I
have to grow up. I says this guy got his
real life change and I'm looking to make a chance.
Oh God, bless you know, good good luck and said
you everything for me, just call me. And then he
went down the headquarters that day and he came in

(47:42):
to say goodbye. I didn't have time to speak to him.
It burns me to this day. And I didn't have
time to spending time with him. But you should any John,
good luck and best in life. And that was it.
You know you wanted to talk somemore. I just didn't
at the time. It was four. I was this manic
commit and he goes down in there and he responds
and he's killed and killed them there and he's right
neck to an individual who knew who I knew very
well and called me and I don't want to give

(48:05):
you his name because he's involved with a lot of
things in Manhattan right now. And he says, he says, Bobby,
did you see John? You see John said no, he was.
I was down there with them when the when the building,
when the building collapsed. So we went to John's house
he lived in Manhattan. We knocked to the door, we
took fourth centuries to the door. It wasn't there. So
we know he was gone at that point when we

(48:27):
drove out to see his mom and dad have a
seat long Aland and we told him we don't take Johnson.
We found his body in March, almost intact. It was
scary like like he was almost intact and the building
had collubs around him. He was not burned up. It
was like a powder on and then we carried his
bodyet and in most two two so tough times. Was

(48:51):
a genius guy, you know is uh. He was a
very interesting man. And Pat Perry, his mom, and I
became very close for a while.

Speaker 1 (49:00):
You knew Danny Richards too, from the bomb squad. You
came on the job with Danny. Danny was in your
academy class and he went to the bomb squad in
nine eighty six. That's where he stayed and that's where
he responded from a nine to eleven and he died
in the collapse of the North Tower. I don't know
if he kept in touch with Danny throughout your respective careers,
but just being in the academy with him, What do
you remember about Danny, Mike.

Speaker 2 (49:18):
He came from a part of Long Island too cause
to me and we used to talk on the train
in the way in and he told me what he
was going to do. He was going to go into
into the bomb squad because he had that experience in
the service. That's really, really, really squared away, dude, man,
I'll tell you right so bad like an army ranger.
That's that's it. That's that guy. And he had the

(49:38):
mission munitions expertise from from his time to service. He said,
I gonna do three in the street going to the squad.
We did exactly did. He was friends with another guy
in the bomb squad now and.

Speaker 1 (49:48):
So Danny McNally, no.

Speaker 2 (49:51):
No, Georgia, Georgia saying, oh, come to me in the man.
So I knew a couple of guys and he worked
out of sixth Pracings, No and so, and there were
great bunch on it. So Danny was exactly that Merriton
had the bearing, the military bearing that we all look at,
perfect clothes. Everything bump just right down today, right down
to his last detail. Wonderful man.

Speaker 1 (50:13):
Thanks for opening up about John and Danny. And like
I said, I know I wanted to see if you
knew John. I'm glad you did, and I know you
knew Danny because I remember you commenting such, and yeah,
I heard the same thing about him. Very squared away guy,
very meticulous, very disciplined, and that's kind of copy wanted.
Like the bomb Squad. He did very well for himself
in the bomb squad. He saved a lot of people
on that feet for morning, as did John, as did Joe,

(50:35):
who responded with two truck e s U that morning
with Mike Curtin, and.

Speaker 2 (50:40):
If I can inject one thing. When I came on
at eighty three, they kept us for a couple of
days on seventh d Avenue at a high school there
for swearing in, and I started right next to a
guy and we became friends and we say my way,
same everything in Long Island. We had a lot in common,
and we're going out to lunch for a couple of
days together, Prince. After that, I never seen him again.

(51:02):
His name was Tommy Langa. Wow again guy, and I
had never seen tom after. The job is very big,
and once once you get separated from someone, you may
never see that person again because the job is so best.
So I remember Tommy life still today. And we went
out to lunch. His brother showed up, who was also
lost in eleven to join us for lunch. Strange. Strange.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
Yeah, Pete was in Squad two F two FDN Y
and Tommy. Of course he started out, but I think
he worked in Brooklyn for a little bit and then
he went to Queens. So when he joined emergency service
in nineteen ninety one, he was in truck ten. He
was a Truck ten guy from ninety one up until
the end. Another him and his brother just tremendous people
and tremendous assets to both the police force and in
the fire service as well. Thank you for opening up

(51:46):
about them a year after the tragedy. September two thousand
and two. Another turning point. You go back to Brooklyn
in the six seven, promoted to inspector around this time.
You stay there for a few years, and then it
comes October of two thousand and six where you're commanding
officer of the city wide Gang Division. You're a deputy
chief now, so gangs from what they were when you
started are dramatically different to what they were in two

(52:08):
thousand and six. But then again again still work to
be done. Where were we in two thousand and six
in terms of the biggest threats and in terms of
the gangs with the largest operations throughout the city, and
what was your goal to mitigate those problems.

Speaker 2 (52:23):
So let's break it down a little bit. When I
go out to Brooklyn, it's in two thousand and two,
UHL six seven, probably the best priconinct that ever worked
in anywhere. The men and women there are just incredible.
So I spent four years. I was along when that
it wasn't high school. But I tell you what, I
don't want to leave and never had big gang problem there,
and I understood there was there was a change. Now

(52:45):
the bluzz and crypt culture came in, but it didn't
really it came down to neighborhoods. They came to we
US called pocket cruise at the time. It was smaller
gangs so that they would like themselves with bloods of crypts.
But in that part of Brooklyn was mostly crips in
the six seven where Brownsville is mostly bloods, and you
had to make sure those people never met all right,

(53:07):
because the time there's a lot of flolence. But a
lot of the crews came down to the neighborhoods and
in Brownsville as well as many us A sixty seven
fifty Third Street was a big problem for me in Browns.
So on other parts there, these little pocket crews were
fighting with each other for nothing more than just there was.
It wasn't what it was about drugs at that point.

(53:28):
It was more about turf and and who's who's stronger,
who's big and tough. So you learned that. So four
years there and I learned. We have a big celebration
there every year for for Clabor Day. It's called Juve,
and I did four jus a few bays there. It's
tough times there too, and we're able to get that
turned around to through some strategies and things we employed.

(53:51):
One one year I had ten people show, and the
next year we had one. In the year after that
we had won and one year we took twenty gunsut thist.
So you're facing with these problems as a priest and commander.
It's up to you to solve them. No one's going
to help you from the borough, or really really so,
no one's going to help you from downtown. It's up
to you. You're that spot, you're that face of the

(54:14):
the NYPD in that community, and you have to come
up and rally of men and women to come up
with initiatives to slow that down, which we did. So
I'm probably as proud as anything in my time. At
six seven with that, Yousposito called me Chief of the problem.
He says, Bobby moving and I said, we're am my
moving to He goes take over again. I said, I'm
good here, you could do it. He goes no, he

(54:35):
goes your likavag but you like it or not, So
I want you always do what Spo says. And so
I went to the gang division and I saw it
was one hundred and twenty people. We should have had
four hundred and twenty people because it was how many
gangs coming across the city. It was the new crack.
Great Chief Jimmy's creole told me that. He says, you
know you got the new crack. Good luck, it's these gangs.

(54:55):
He was right. These kids were shooting each other left
and the right of it and still are certain sadly,
and it's no recourse. This is all they care about
is the gang. And you would bring them in and
you arrest them. And he tried to talk to them,
and you really couldn't. It was so vapid. It's so
plugged into the gangs, So we had that and one
a couple of things. My takeaways from the gang division

(55:15):
was we were running cases out of upstate prisons. Gang
members were going We put them away from murder, but
they were still not going out shots in their neighborhood
on murders. So you know, usually they'd send someone up
to talk to the gang leader, usually a young lady,
and she would tell him what's going on. He'd send

(55:36):
a hit to that, you know, to that team. This
guy's got to get hit because he's not whatever. That
was another game. Whatever the case may be is they
were still running their gangs from upstate prison so that
took that way too. I wanted to open some federal
task forces and I could don't know, so I wasn't
happy about that. So fans forward that I did four

(55:58):
years there and I tell you what he worked on
in the early and gangs and its still uh. The
motive of gang shootings was growing at that time. It
was lessening with drugs and growing at the gang related
shootings modest are important is how you know, you write
your strategies and you look and you look to see
where it's happening, what you're going to do about it

(56:19):
and then if you can plug in as many resources
you can. You talked specifically assigned gang das to help you. Well,
you got a case, you have somebody. So this was
important to me at the time. Did four years there
and did a city wide city white open, you know,
each borough head at a gang team.

Speaker 1 (56:37):
You mentioned ESPO. I wanted to mention Ray Kelly here too,
because he's back for his second go round as commissioner,
which was his longest and I don't think anybody will
ever hold the spot as long as he did twelve years.
You'll probably never see that again. And counter terrorism was
his baby, but he still wanted to keep an eye
on everything that was going on in the department. I
think that was his military bearing. I know he was

(56:58):
a marine in Vietnam, so that's kind of what was
his nature's police commissioner as well. What was he like
in briefings about your cases whenever you had the opportunity
to brief him, and what was he like in general
to work for it was tremendous.

Speaker 2 (57:11):
Uh, he's marine. Understand that where you're going to you're
gonna even even be pointed, You're gonna get your message
across and you have to punction with facts. So I
did a lot of presentations to Commissioner Kelly. By the
way he hold me four times, I love the man,
all right, So it's since not so, and it was.
It's one of those things. And so but today he
hasn't lost meat at all. He's the same guy. He

(57:34):
was able to run this apartment. He understood the optics.
Our successes are optics mattered to the people. So at
that point I worked, you know, did a lot of
police shooting presentations. There always boom, boom, boom, always as
a matter of fact, where is this going? What is
to look like? You know, did we do anything wrong
in this? Is there something bad with the shooting that

(57:55):
I need to know? And that's where it was with them,
very straightforward guy and Joe.

Speaker 1 (57:58):
Espo is the ship of the part, and Joe Esposito,
you'll never see a guy hold that spot as long
as he did. From thousand to twenty thirteen. There was
another guy who again no, yeah, absolutely another guy again
we lost way too soon because nine to eleven. Illness
just keeps taking all these great ones from us. And
he's another one it took from us. But his legacy

(58:19):
lives on. He was a tremendous, tremendous officer. He was,
as they say, real police. And there's not a higher
compliment I think a cop can get. But he deserves it,
and he's missed. Commander as an assistant chief of the
Detective Bureau in the Bronx, also later on Detective Bureau
in Manhattan. And this is leading you up towards the
big moment in March of twenty fourteen, which we'll get

(58:40):
to in a second, but just to go back a second,
we'll break it down here too. Being back in the
Bronx for a little while August to twenty ten, being
back in Manhattan for a little while before the bigger
promotion that would come later, tell me about seeing things
on an entirely different level. You had been a precinct
commander in the Bronx. Now you're commanding an entire bureau
of detective shifts in that borough alone. So you get there,

(59:00):
you had three years there. What did you most enjoy
about that assignment?

Speaker 2 (59:04):
Just about everything. Those people I met there I brought
with me for the rest of my career. A lot
of the people that might be Mallionaire Corps was in
the Bronx. I thought the detectives were tremendous, very very
mistreated by the police department. And when I say that
nobody had any special assignmony, no one had very few

(59:24):
first and second grade emotions. There A lot of the
bosses went I promoted special assignment or commanded detective squad.
O langry be honest with me, and I saw the
case stone was crushing there. So at the time someone
called me up my first day. They said, good luck.
You just went to mypd's Siberia and you will in
your career. Went there. Someone who I actually worked for

(59:46):
a couple of years, and I was a langry with
that too. I said, just I saw a look at
the cases. I said, well we got to get I
called Chief Peleski up at the time. Who sent me
up there? They said, Chief, I said, any detectives. So
this is the question here, I can be able to
work here with all these cases? He says, all right,
you can start doing interviews. So he promised me. I

(01:00:09):
think sixty or seventy branded white shields into the squads
and it changed everything because I need to view at
each one. At the time, telephone depths were very big
there at the time when the iPhone was out the
at first apples were at and they I don't want
to go too far into that, but there was some
big time casework there. We're able to get that turned around.

(01:00:32):
That I brought down to CompStat that what did the
rest of the city wasn't doing some of the things
these detectives were telling me and we we were brokering
or no one was doing in the city where we were,
which was really important to share that with the rest
of the city. So I was really proud of my
time in the detectives and I was shocked he gave
you two stars, Tom when Commission Kelly called me up

(01:00:54):
and give you a second start. But loved the place
and again back to get down. I liked it very
much and we had it really it was there three
plus years, really strong times. And they saw the more
arrests we made, the more detectives we have, you wouldn't
get burned out. You can make your arrest on big case.

(01:01:16):
You brought out all all this talent from from UH
patrol in tournament to detectives, and some of those people
right now are all first graders and UH and big
time bosses and attend there was that much talented. And
here's the place where like I thought we were stuck
in the sixties. They were going to show the hole
suits and ankle boots. It's gone, let's ski skill with

(01:01:39):
the program and so uh and and we did, we did.
And it's like I tell you, I put the put
Bronx homicide above everybody in a police that's how good
they were. Four fourth squad and you keep four seven squad,
so many and I'm not gonna stop there. There's a
whole bunch there. Four Oh you know, they're tremendous, tremendous
squads doing They knew everybody, every bad guy in the play.

(01:02:00):
And I would do what they called boys stats. I'd
bring them in and go through the case work at
least once a week, and you learn about your sergeantcy,
you learn about the working field. So it was a
very positive experience to me. It was back, you know,
to the Tetor bureau because gang was at OCCD. Good
back to the Tetor bureau. So it was fun doing that.

(01:02:20):
And I saw which we didn't have when I was
We had the electronic case management system that wasn't there
when I was running in the seven nine squad and
working the seven five squad. So now we had it.
I could read all the cases in one in one,
sitting in front of my type, running from my computer.
I was astounded by it. Probably was how good a
management roll was. So that helped a lot too. So

(01:02:43):
that's then things were changing. There was a new mayor
and a new police pussion.

Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
Now we'll touch on that momentarily, but just briefly. I
don't know if you remember him. Richie Thick and former
gets in the show. H He says was in the
seventh three rip in ninety three when the chief was
the crime sergeant. So he sends his regards, Richie m
a street crime cop. Yep, yeah, very good guy, fellow
Ranger fan. He's on this show previously a number of
I think a couple of years ago. Good to hear
from you, as always, Richie, thanks for tuning in tonight,

(01:03:11):
so we'll get right to it. March of twenty fourteen,
Phil Pulaski had definitely say what you will about him.
Some people are fans of his, some people aren't. But
regardless of that, he made his print on Detective Bureau.
Another very meticulous guy who've ran it like a tight ship,
but he doesn't stick around. He leaves in twenty fourteen.
Bratton wants to naturally, as any news police commissioner does

(01:03:34):
have his own people there, so he taps you to
be the Chief of Detectives. This is a legendary position
in the NYPD amongst many, and you think of the
greats that have held it. We talked about Bill Ali,
we talked about Joe Borelli, We've talked about quite a
few other people over the years who've had this spot.
And now it's you. And not only are you someone
that's so invested in the NYPD in terms of your cops,

(01:03:56):
you're clearly someone who's invested in it from the history
of the department as well, so as a as someone
who had been a thirty plus year veteran by that
point of the department, and as someone who is a
student of the history of the department. Tell me about
what that moment meant to you.

Speaker 2 (01:04:10):
So it's something you never thought you to reach it all.
Even though I was moving pretty well, I was moving
pretty well around the job. I just picked up the
second star went to Manhattan Chief of Manhattan Detectives. There's
no small job either, and just everything was going really well,
and I really liked to be chief Manadon Detectives as
well as all the other spots, but Manya Detectives, that

(01:04:31):
was prime, the center of the universe. So when Bill
Braden came in, Christian Bragden came in, everybody submitted their resumes,
and I think my resume was like three or four pages.
He's not going to read this, but he wanted detail.
So I pointed out everywhere I went in my career
and what I did, the metals I had, and my

(01:04:53):
education was all these things, you know. So so I
sent it in and I get a call from John Miller,
you know, the great Joman the Deptic Comission at the time,
and he says, let's go have dinner. Says, okay, let's go.
So we'll go ahead dinner with John and we're talking
and I figure he's interview with me because he's very

(01:05:15):
close to the boss, and so we're having a very
time to talk and laugh and talk about you and
this this man is brilliant, and so he goes, all right,
then this over, let's call beet Breton. We've got another restaurant,
uh near He's on the Upper East Side, and in
the back is just the man Bill Breton. And at
that point it was a short conversation, and he says
to me, pointedly might take away from that meeting was

(01:05:38):
you know, I don't talk about crime. You are can
you do that? He is, well, how do I know?
It's not already done this? So I've done prescotts before,
and I've done twenty two years of constant I'm used
the Beast podium. It's not a big not a big deal.
So he hired me at that night, and then the
rest I swear I never disappointed. I told him that,

(01:05:59):
and it never did. And rallying people together to the bureau,
and and the bureau changed in my four years because
he knew I only had four years left, because they
tell you, Jeph, and he knew that. And I told
him that, Joe, I said, look, we'll give you four
years and so and then I have to leave by law.
So he goes, says, all I want is four years.
So he goes, I's great. So that's what we did.

(01:06:20):
We walked away and I got the job that nice,
and then Phil was gone. Phil retired maybe a day
after that, and then I assumed his responsibility saiduntil I
was sworn in on St. Patrick saying forty fourteen.

Speaker 1 (01:06:36):
By the way, so it's a seven of moment in
your career, easily the defining moment in your career as well.
But now comes the standpoint of okay, here's what I
want to do. We're again, crime wise, we're in a
great spot in twenty fourteen in New York City. Things
aren't moving well. Ray Kelly's years were good years. Bill
Bratton's back and the crime crime decline continued under him.

(01:06:58):
But there's short term goals and there's long term goals.
And you know you only got four years, so you
want to make those goals happen in that span. So
tell me about your mental list or even written down
list of Okay, here's what I want in the short
term to accomplish, Here's what I want in the long
term to accomplish, and how you would about accomplishing it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:14):
So here's the thing with gangs. We'll start with them.
I told you back then when I had a gain division,
I wanted federal tales forces. Why did they want that, Well,
the reason is that they were calling out hits from
the from the jail sales upstate on president of Cell Box.
They can't have that, all right, So if we now
take them into the federal system, we're going to put

(01:07:35):
them out in place like Sandstone, Minnesota. You know where
they're going to just whether they'll have no contact to
can pletely severed from their game. They won't be doing
anything because no one's going out of their visit. So
my plan was to start federal tales forces and other
task forces. They hit the gamething as hard as I could,
the number one motive in twenty fourteen for shootings this game.

(01:07:56):
So I'm back to thinking a gangs, even though I
knew the well from Bronx and and they're in every
development in the city. And the problem with gangs is
that the kid doesn't get the good chance to grow up.
They reediately take it into the ganges in a life
of crime. I mean, this is how bad it is
and so and that's all they know, that's all they know.
They leave their own family, don't care about their own family,
and they're attached to this gang family. So that has

(01:08:18):
to change. So I went to Bill Brad and I said, well,
do you mind if I opened up the task force
with the FBI and the gangs. He said. His Boston
girl said, Bob, I don't care what you do. You
just just bring great crime out. He goes, open as
many as you want, and I did, and I did
so that in my team. My EXO is Michael the Suda.
I was still in the job, a tremendous, tremendous chief.

(01:08:41):
And he said, Michae, let's get it done. And so
we went to the FBI and we started opening these
task forces up and they were very, very great partners,
the FBI. So we opened up the Straight State Streets
Task Force that Chungjure Commission. Bradd rebbed me, goes, Brob,
I want a hybrid to attack the gangs too, and said,
what are you talking about? He goes, You have all

(01:09:01):
these silos of bureaus here, you have tati b areos,
you got patrol. How come were not on the same
feet all. They're all sudden different horses. All. Give me
a hybrid that you're in charge. So we came up
with the Gun Violence Suppersion Team, which is probably one
of the most successful divisions we have in the police department,
and they've been rewarded with all the accolades and because

(01:09:23):
they deserve it, detrimentous, go hit the gangs, but this
time you do so with an investigative bent, all right,
and you go to where they're talking, and where are
they talking on social media, where are they bragging, where
are they threatening, where they're doing all these things, and
what's the next sus with with hip hop as well,
because that's there too. So I want people to understand
that everybody's a soft close with meet's no more suits

(01:09:46):
and you must find spots for you and you start
working these things down. So then we went about looking
for the best people in the city for these spots,
which we did, and we had teams. We had a
team that would elect the best cops for these things,
best investigators and put them in the be ganging business,
which we did paid dividends. In twenty sixteen and twenty seventeen,

(01:10:11):
we took over one hundred and fifteen gangs. Now in
that time frame, now with it changed everything, the numbers dropped.
Now just not to get a out of ourselves, but
when you look at numbers homicide numbers, the lowest number
in gang in homicide was twenty seventeen. It was my
last full year there, and we were moving quickly. We

(01:10:33):
were taking down gangs bots all over the place with
HSI was another part of us, the FBI DEA with narcotics.
The AATF was something called SPARTA, which I'll explain later
about robberies. We started taking these things out. There was
no tomorrow. It was just great, and so we were.
We closed out twenty seventeen with two hundred I think

(01:10:57):
it was two hundred and ninety two murders under three
hundred for the first time just before word we're doing
or somewhere around there. So that's that happened before, less
than eight hundred murders when we used to average eight
hundred shootings, when we used to average five thousand shootings
a year. And it was not me, it was the
men and women. I'll tell you. They really responded and

(01:11:19):
they liked. They liked the Federal Task Forces. We opened
them up in cybergrim cyber crime too. One with the
fbig with the man in Das. We opened up a
said SPARTA, and I'll read it for your strategic pattern
Armed robbery, technical apprehension. That's the SPARTED team with the ATF.
Two things they did, commercial robberies and home invasions. They

(01:11:42):
wonstrated on that, and he took those perpetraies they made
and took put them into the federal system the Eastern
and Southern districts, and there, all of a sudden, the
same thing we're doing with the game members used to
doing to a career robbery people. And so all of
a sudden, there were months gone by when we didn't
have a single home division because took down all these stamps.
So everything was clicking point in twenty seventeen, going into

(01:12:05):
twenty eighteen, my last four months on the job, everything
was pomp, pup, pup. You know, you know, we were
really moving forward to low level numbers, and you look
at it. I did some work now in that time,
in twenty seventeen, we had fifty five, six hundred and
seventy six glas GLA. Is not the end of the
world crime, but it is. It is something you have

(01:12:25):
to look at. And last year in twenty twenty three,
the last recorded year that I found was they had
fifteen hundred and fifteen thousand, seven ninety five. So that's
ten thousand plus more than they had in twenty seventeen.
What are we doing wrong? Now? I look at these things.
Then we get the Betty, but you have to with
all the technology and sell on property. Grand loss is
the same thing. We came up with a Grand Lassy

(01:12:47):
division that was looking into all kinds of different scams
around the city outside outside the US to do with
the credit card thanks again, Chames, that we're using all
over the place. We started taking those people as well,
So we were doing a lot of work. I had
at one point in my time eight detective burrows and

(01:13:09):
about twelve detective divisions, and then comes twenty six sixteen
was kind of changed everything for me. Bill Bratton gave
me an vision who gave me a CCP want to
blind the two on a on a re engineeringthing. So
now I had this going on, and now I add

(01:13:31):
all of my college division, all of my division all
at a crime as well, So big changes. They are
close to six thousand people, just under six thousand people
in the Detective Euroa at that time. Lots of work.

Speaker 1 (01:13:45):
I was gonna ask you about that, like that is
a big bureau in and of itself, you know, and
it has its own prestigious history in and of itself
taking down the mafia, taking down different gangs of different
sorts throughout its time. And then they decide to put
it in the detective bureau. So that's quite the task.
And outside of the merger of the three police departments
in nineteen thirty five transit housing into the NYPD that spring,

(01:14:08):
that's probably the second largest merger the NYPD has seen
in the last thirty years or so. And I'm sure
you didn't handle it alone. You had to help, But
just to handle that in your last year, what helped
that process? Move it out over time? Because you're getting
it's on the good side, you're getting a lot of personnel,
but holly crap, that has quite the work to do.

Speaker 2 (01:14:26):
As you said, yeah, so, and I was in by
the way, I was in their copee vision, so I
understood they had the affinity for the union and so
you had really had to sell yourself. I remember going
around to different squads, different places and talking to them.
So this is going to give you opportunity now I
will tell you I did in the comics. It's a grind.

(01:14:47):
It's a rough life, it really is. Even though you
were self closed. You work in all hours and you're
chasing guys on foot the os. It's a lot. It's
a lot of work and it's kind of like a
young man's game, because you need to be youthful to
chase bag guys. And so now I'm giving you opportunity.
Now you come work and do something else if you
want to do. And so we did that, and I
brought over to chief Brian McCarthy, who helped me a lot.

(01:15:09):
He was chiefing narcotics at the time. I wanted to
keep him because I needed his knowledge. And then we did.
We kept him. We gave him all the units, the
specialized uites in our guards, uh, you know, the DEA
Task Force and all the other stuff that they had too.
And I will tell you I was getting dailies from Brian.
I was so impressed with them, and you can't even

(01:15:30):
talk about what they've done. For the most part, you
couldn't release it because one case let it into another case.
So you couldn't put it out of press that he
just took twenty kilos outside of the city coming in
from Mexico. You couldn't put that stuff out because you're
going to take that and work on the next, on
the your next thing, or that you just recover thirty
keys up in the upper ice. That happened a lot

(01:15:50):
a lot. It was not unusual to see that coming in.
You were dealing with the coast Guard down there. There's
a lot of stuff you were done with the borders.
It meant a lot. Brian and briand and bore a
lot of that for me, which I still appreciate to
this day. So I was in charge of it. But
you still have the same mechanisms right with arctics and
narcotics as far as crimeization of crime was on the wing,

(01:16:15):
but was still there were still ruining lives and still
still destroying a part of our city. So you have
to keep doing it. So it was important to do
that again with with when I. When we got advice,
it was really understaffed, the Vice Divission and in humane trafficking.
We started the Humage Task Force just to do something

(01:16:35):
about the South American women coming in being brought into workers, prostitutes,
tax workers in different parts of the city. We opened
that just for that, and we wanted to ramp up
our efforts too. By this time, the strolls, the street
stuff was gone, so now we had to look at
the computer things. It was ruining people's lives, and so

(01:16:56):
I got a great Jimmy Kline to run that for
me take over provide. He did a great job with
that and we saw the tests with the FBI. Another
test was which helped us out which was involved in
the FCTY case and big other big cases as well.
So tremenous park time by.

Speaker 1 (01:17:13):
A lot of talented Oh absolutely, and shout out to
them for the work that they've done then and continue
to do now. Of course, the age limit makes you
retire after thirty four years on the job in two
thousand and seventy se which always sucks because you know,
especially if you really love the job. Yes, there comes
a time where you have to move on to other things,
but when you really enjoy it, it's hard to walk away.
There's very few professionals you can say that about policing.

(01:17:36):
Certainly is one of them. But like I said in
the introduction of you in an hour or so ago,
you've kept busy. One of the gigs that you have now,
I'll talk about New York compiside at the moment, but
ABC News they frequently consult your expertise and experience on
different matters. So tell me about how you were going
to say, how did that opportunity came to be.

Speaker 2 (01:17:52):
They hid to me, I, you know, what do you
think You don't retire just yet? You still got plenty
of life in you. So thinking abut getting the head
on her and go out and get a corporate job,
which I really didn't want to do, but I would
have done it at least for two years. And so
I didn't do that. They came to me, name this
offer to speak for them. Now they knew I had
the Weinstein investigator and I had a lot offation on

(01:18:14):
that to talk about, you know, some of one of
my bigger cases and others. So I actually they I've
been with them now I am. I think it's sixth
year with ABC, so I still and I know I'm
like a fireman. They called me, you listen, we got
a shooter, an active shooter down in Georgia. Getting on
the line and start talking, and I do I understand

(01:18:35):
it's not I don't have a lot of information, but
I want to give people a base what that chief
is going through and what the protocols are that they
have to you know that they have to go in
immediately and in neutralize uliss that threat. So I talk
about that, I talk about homest investigations at length on Gilgo,
at length on I O state now, and those things

(01:18:55):
what an investigators looking for once happens after after the arrest,
which is important. How investigations now after the arrest, accumulation
of evidence, and you see that in Gilgo, they go
and they hit the computers and they get all this
stuff now they didn't have before, you know. So these
are all things, like I say to everybody, a technology

(01:19:17):
based investigation, evidence based investigation in a homicide case is
the best because it's human error free and it's also
biased free. Science doesn't lie, you know, and DNA avants
doesn't lie. And the probably the biggest case I had
the DANA avants was h community uh pronto. So it

(01:19:38):
you know, it shuts down the whole thing, all the
noise people making on the side and saying it's this
and it's not. It's not sexual assault. And I have
his DNA under a fingernails, you know. So that those
are the two main things there, and other big cases
as well, this technology and one in the shout out
to Phil Pulaski. He built a great forensic investigation division

(01:19:59):
which sold most of my big cases, and just just
a great bunch of people there working, you know, twenty
four and seven and out in the cole and heat,
doing a great job for us. Without the collection and
with the evidence, with the ability as we have now,
it's incredible, it's incredible, and you're going to see the
UH clear's rate. So homicides go through the room, which

(01:20:21):
we lead anyway in the country. So it's gonna be.

Speaker 1 (01:20:24):
Going more now, absolutely absolutely, And that's again a testment
to the work that's been done over the years that
be toront Okay. So I remember it well. Jimmy O'Neil
had just become police commissioner. That was I think one
of his earliest weeks in the job. He had been
Chieva Department when Bratton retired and he took over. And
she was such a beautiful girl. They're all heartbreaking no
matter what happened, but there was a girl who was

(01:20:44):
so full of life, had a great life ahead of her,
just an absolutely gorgeous girl who has her life and
so violently like that. So I'm glad you guys took
care of that case because that really that really broke
my heart. I remember that case like it was yesterday.

Speaker 2 (01:20:56):
I find of mine. One guy in my office studio.
Saloon comes into me his first grade work for me.
One of my main guys. He goes, my brother's in
England right now and they're all talking about you in England,
in London. In London, he goes, you're on the telly
over there and you're starting in this case because it
went worldwide. Here now women are not safe to go
run and that was the takeaway on it in their

(01:21:16):
own neighborhoods by themselves and that's scary. So that was
it was a really monumental case at the time. If
we solved it six months to the day, which is crazy,
but great work all the way around. It goes back
to my original thing, technology science. It solves cases. Now,
it's going to solve this thing out in Idaho State.

(01:21:38):
Solve this thing in the beach, Yoga beach. It's it's
the way forward now. There's no Uman error in this thing.
You're not going to get a reversal that someone goes
back on an day. This is something important. Don't work everything.
Because if the killer on for Toronto did, it happened
right next to Bell Parkway, so we couldn't get any

(01:21:59):
training elation on the phones. There was so many, but
once we got his phone, he was there at the
specific time. So that'll post arrest evidence that came through
things you're seeing now. In the big cases, you don't
stop with the arrest. You keep going. Then you build
a case so compelling that that person's going to lose.

(01:22:20):
Trying to take a play the best I can.

Speaker 1 (01:22:24):
Oh, yeah, absolutely absolutely. And since you mentioned Gilgo Beach
front and center and that investigation was another former red
WYPD got you know quite well, Rodney Harris did a
great job overseeing that, uh that task force of detectives.
You were able to solve that case former n WYPD
chief department in his own right for a brief time
before he retired.

Speaker 2 (01:22:42):
So the great man, and not only that Rodney and
Robnie will tell you this, just about the entire self
County District Rear's officer around yp They people work for
me tremendous that they really are turning continuity smucker. He
grabbed people, we talked and he grabbed me. He gave
them jobs out there and look what they did.

Speaker 1 (01:23:01):
Yeah, did a great job, that's for sure. That's for sure.
Before we get to the rapid fire, of course, as
I mentioned the introduction of you New York Homms side,
So this is another extension of your involvement a TV business.
To look back on these cases of yesteryear, and they
may not have been cases that grab significant international headlines,
but they still exemplify the great work that MIPD detectives
have done. We talked about our future friends Scott Wagner,

(01:23:22):
and you featured him, which I appreciate. So tell me
about being able to start this, being able to narrate it,
serve as a consulting producer on it, and of course
the all two critical thing that's the hardest thing of
all sometimes getting a network to buy in and accept
it and put it on the air.

Speaker 2 (01:23:39):
So it's quite a tale. Now, I did not seek this.
They came to me. They went to Bill Driven first,
the producers, and said we're looking for someone to do
a case on New York Comers sides. He says, one
of them talk to Bob Boys as we does to me.
We start talking. Now you look at the timeframe here.
It's in the aftermath of George Floyd and police are

(01:24:00):
getting destroyed around the country and by everybody. It's just
a bad time and it just nobody wants to fund
the police all started, and I was like, it's not us.
Look what we do. We're the good guys. So why
don't we show who the good guys are and show
you what we do and how we feel about our
victims and how dedicated we are to our cases and
in that, in that pursuit, NYPD detectives have no peer.

(01:24:23):
They're the best. You know, I don't, but that's the
way I look at this. So that so we took
a look at that, and I said, I will never
hurt the mothership. I'll never hurt THEMYPD. So so you know,
now if that happens, we stop, every thing stops. I
went to the show not about ripping the police here.
I want you to show how we break down and
do these you know, these cases. So the first year

(01:24:43):
and we you're right, we're just about selling it. My
wife's retired homicide and had idea. It was before me too,
by the way. She made her own bones and it
was out homicide all right. So she we went out there,
pitched the show and uh uh loved her and loved me.
We went there, we were sitting there and start died

(01:25:04):
looking at very myp dish and they were rolling jeans
and T shirts, solid wood and we sold the show.
We went to three H three Networks and Oxygen brought
the show and then we put together spoiler that something
like that little capture and trailer a sizzler. They called

(01:25:24):
us and we did that on the show and we
showed them what it was, knows work and things like that,
and we put the first put together the first year
twelve to four episodes, and there was a lot of
me and my wife calling talking to detectives and asked
them to come on the show, which we did. So
we put the first year in. You really don't understand

(01:25:45):
how long it's going to go. We met our statement
and they called us up in the next year and
said we went twenty more, did that and now in
which we did camreated Bachiano. In the second year, we
did l Bastamoni Gardens and now we're doing the twenty
which I'm filming now, which I'm doing right now. We
film those in East New York, Brooklyn, by the way,

(01:26:06):
just so you know, we don't leave the area. We
stay in the same place. But the thing is it's
about the detectives, about the family, and that's what's important,
and I want to hit the neighborhoods. It's not just
Midtown and so it's it's just for our our our audiences,
Midwest folks and throughout the country. I want to show
them every little community we have, and we do. That's

(01:26:29):
why we take them to Brooklyn for to take them
to the Bronx and Queens and all these other Saturn Island.
We hit a lot because those are those are New
York ethnic neighborhoods that we have to show. And it's
it's a melty body, still is after all these years.
So and the detectives don't look well, there's some mansome people,
but a lot of others look like tough, tough, tough,
gritty detectives. And they are with New York accents. So

(01:26:51):
it's not law and order, it's not cojacking, none of
those things. It's NYP Day And that's you see our
detectives doing their job and how they how they're feeling
the time. A couple of guys really show you that emotionally,
which is really important the show and the families really
love it because it gets to show that loved one
and people didn't forget about them. They still be really

(01:27:12):
remembered on the show. So it's important. It's really has
been so much more than I thought it would be,
to be honest, you know, in dealing with Hollywood types
and putting the shows, going back to headquarters, getting detectives
to come on the air, find finding good, really interesting cases,
which is a lot of these. These detectives solve their
cases within twenty four hours. They got a person. You

(01:27:32):
see them on the purp walks. I mean, that's how
court they are. So now you want a little something
more that you can spend an hour and show them
that they did it. And that's the hardest thing to do,
is find out. But once the cases they take a
little bit longer.

Speaker 1 (01:27:45):
There's not a lot of them, thanks to the work
that they do and the expediency at which they do
it with. But you know, listen, sometimes there's patience in
this struggle because some of these cases are cold cases.
They take a long time to solve. But NYPD detectives
exhibit it sometimes her state side in the cases of
some detectives, sometimes in different parts of the world, especially
Joint Terrorism Task Force detectives think about where their journeys

(01:28:07):
take them. It takes them all over the world, quite literally,
to where I'll never forget. One former guest of this
show said that one of the nicknames, a federal agent
came up and told them the department had, amongst other
law enforcement agencies, was NYPD the World Police, And in
many senses, the NYPD is indeed the world police, not
just in terms of how they go about solving their cases,
but how they are presented in media. Everyone knows two

(01:28:30):
departments from this country. That is the LAPD and that
is the NYPD, And that is certainly another factor that's
covered quite extensively with New York Comic Side. So I'm
glad you opened up about that. It is now time
for the rapid fire section of this program. We're gonna
do a little bit differently. They'll be normally do tonight.
Five hit and run questions for me, five hit and
run answers for me. You could say pass if you want.

Speaker 2 (01:28:51):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:28:51):
You answered one of the questions already when you discussed
the vertrontal case. I was going to ask you what
was one of the more challenging cases you encountered the
Detective Bureau. You mentioned that one skip ahead to the
second one, which is what did it mean to you
to be a part of the NYPD during nine to level.
We talked about it earlier and how did it shape
your style leadership to go through a major event like
that and see the resiliency of the agency.

Speaker 2 (01:29:12):
Responded with, well, you know what, it's I had anger.
So we all were angry. We're angry people because the
Tacto city and you really want to you want you
want to know where who did this, and you want
to bring them in the customer. You want to fight them.
But we took that and we went down to the
largest crime scene in the world, and a lot of
us got second died over that too, a lot, and
we're still dying from it too. That's a painful memory here,

(01:29:35):
but it gave me a lot of pride. That was work,
and I will tell you I remember driving down West
Street and people cheering for us, cheering, you know, whatever
we wanted because we were exhausted. We were working seven
days of week, twelve hours a day for four months. Afterwards,
it was exhausting and you're almost ready to drop and
people would buoy you up and clap when you walk in.

(01:29:57):
And I haven't seen that since. I haven't seen that
since where people really behind us in the city's police
department had to fight department too because they were our brothers. Uh.
They messed all those folks down there. There was a
lot of police departments who took part in the cleanup,
and also the site and state Allen, you know that
that we went through each finding little pieces of information

(01:30:20):
to give to a family. It was an honorable pursuit
and I look back at it now. People are dying
from that exposure to those toxins there, and you don't
know your own what's gonna happen to you. You really
don't know what's going to hit you. I was down
the until it's still tastes that put it's particulars in
my mouth from those first couple of days there, still wearborne.
So you remember you think about that. Oh and but

(01:30:43):
again against pride in the NYP day by big takeaway
by agency the leadership at the time. So it meant
a lot to be part of that and to be
part of that effort. And understand, we have outside enemies
in this city, not just you know people, We have
the hawks, you know, different people will hate to spin
out recently and we're freedom stores there, so they're going

(01:31:05):
to come to us in New York first, all the time.

Speaker 1 (01:31:08):
Great answer. The one of the other questions you answered too,
So I won't ask you that. I'll skip ahead because
I was going to ask you how did the landscape
of crime in New York City change from the crack
era to post nine eleven, But you've described that in
depth pretty well, so we'll skip past that one and
I'll ask you. Just as much fun as it can
be in front of the camera, there's plenty of fun
behind the camera too. So what's your favorite behind the
scenes moment from working on New York com site.

Speaker 2 (01:31:29):
From New York Come Side. I think it's uh that
I just uh when I called it attentives and I
talked to him, I hear them opening up with pride. Uh,
you know, because I talked to everyone who comes on
the show, either me and my wife does, and we
hear them take pride in their work, and they tell
us things that we never knew about the case, and

(01:31:50):
they're like, you know, boss, and they go into a
hawk thing And we never expected this guy to do it,
so it was a little bit of surprised that he did.
I remember, I will tell you a career for Toronto
when we have the perpetrator. The sage came back to
me and told told the chief, they go it's not him. Well,
we talked to him. You know when when we went
to get the DNA on Shane Lewis, it's not he's

(01:32:14):
a nerd. He's a weirdo nerds And he goes he's
got no friends in the basement. You know, he's a
weird guy. I said, oh, are you just described the
zero murders. So I said, we're gonna understand it anyway.
You know, we got to hit the next door the
next day. The first call was to Jim O'Neill because
I promised that we got the arrest. I knew we would.
It's just amount of time. You just have to depressing. Sometimes,

(01:32:35):
the grit, the determination, all that matters.

Speaker 1 (01:32:39):
Indeed, and the last question that racket a rapid fire,
I should say, is after decades in law enforcement and
still involved in it in the private sector, what advice
would you give the next generation of detectives?

Speaker 2 (01:32:49):
Specifically, develop your communication skills, because that's the most important
thing you can do. Sure, it's it's great to have
experience in being savvy, but build the ability to talk
to someone to get extract information that they may not
want to give you, and also in other instances, show
sympathy and empathy for your victims and even people and
sometimes even the perpetary. I feel sorry now, it's just

(01:33:12):
the way it is, and so understanding that communication is
the key to making bigger rest and having a successful
police career. Being able to communicate, Understanding people, Understanding when
they put you in the neighborhood you know nothing about,
but all of a sudden you're part of the neighborhood now,
and understand they need you there, and the best way
you can help the job is communicate. Well, that's the

(01:33:34):
corner stowing them.

Speaker 1 (01:33:34):
Any great detative once again, well said Chief, this has
been fantastic stick around. We'll talk off here. A couple
of things I wanted to run by off their, so
we'll talk before I say goodbye to the audience. Any
shout outs to anyone or anything you want to give
to the NYPD Attendive Bureau.

Speaker 2 (01:33:51):
And then to my wife too. I've choose these. She
drives this thing and we met late. Unfortunately everything Fortunately
we got a memory interest and so I owe a
lot there. So because I'm basically lazy. I gotten off.
It's so much work. I'm getting older. But she's the driver.

(01:34:11):
She's the driver. And so as far as the Neocoma
side this goes ABC. They treat me really well, and
it's nice to be part of an organization that treats
you well. And I think that's who the NYPDA is now.
They're in rough times right now, and I hope they
come out and Seanie and I think they will.

Speaker 1 (01:34:28):
I think they will too, all right. As always, a
shout out to everyone that tuned in tonight. I appreciate
every one of you that watched the YouTube linked in
and of course uh Facebook as well. So coming up
next on the Mike the New Even podcast. By the way,
thanks for keeping me updated on the Game five between
the Mets and the Dodgers. Mets up eleven six, so
I'll watch the tail end of that as they try
to force a Game six back in LA, and I'll

(01:34:50):
also watch the Yankees aggravate me and take twenty five
more years off my life tonight with Game four and
the American League Championship Series and a little bit as
the pursuit of a subway series, our first in New
York City since two thousand rolls on so coming up
next to The Mike the New Even Podcast. We don't
have a show for Monday, we're working on that, working
on the show for next Friday as well, so I

(01:35:10):
don't know if we'll have one, but the week after
we have two shows booked. One will be with Steve
Mancini for another volume of Tales from the Boom Room
Profiles and the NYPD's Arsenal Explosion and Bomb Squad. Finished
up his career in arsen Explosion, so looking forward to
chatting with him. That'll be Monday, October twenty eighth. Friday
November one will be the Best of the Bravest Nationwide
with North Carolina Fire Chief Dan Jones. So looking forward

(01:35:34):
to those two shows October twenty eighth and November first, respectively.
Now excuse me for those of you listening on the
audio side for Tonight's outro song from their nineteen ninety
five album One Hot Minute, It's the Red Hot Chili
Pepper's coming your way with aeroplaning. In the meantime, behalf
of producer Victor and retired NYPD Chief of Detectives Bob
Boyce Aya Mike Cologne. We will see you next time.

(01:35:55):
Have a good weekend, Have a safe weekend, and let's
go Yankees. We'll take care of the good night.

Speaker 4 (01:36:08):
I like this Spike with pain and music is my
old bag.

Speaker 1 (01:36:13):
It's by road.

Speaker 4 (01:36:15):
Bay, Sour Sweet and sour China music is my old bag.
It's my road Bay.

Speaker 5 (01:36:25):
Flash as Mike with Mary, that mother rowes.

Speaker 4 (01:36:32):
Mike with me.

Speaker 5 (01:36:36):
Looking at my ron now, hello lord, I can find
alone alone.

Speaker 4 (01:36:46):
Someone better slapped me.

Speaker 5 (01:36:49):
Before after to rust, before a start to decompose.

Speaker 3 (01:36:56):
Looking in my red you mirror, looking in my reason mirror.
I can make it this, okay, I can make it
this my him capitol fish.

Speaker 2 (01:37:15):
I like that.

Speaker 4 (01:37:16):
Spike be pain and music is my ro Bay.

Speaker 3 (01:37:20):
It's hide road Babe, Sola Sweet and sower Chain and
music is myro bank.

Speaker 5 (01:37:29):
It's my road Babe, Sasha, Spike Man.

Speaker 4 (01:37:36):
That mother goes.

Speaker 3 (01:37:39):
Spice with sitting in my kitchin hey girl, I'm telling
him to dance again.

Speaker 4 (01:37:52):
My melancholic baby.

Speaker 5 (01:37:56):
The style of Massy Mustard push her fussy inside of me.

Speaker 4 (01:38:02):
I'm over common gamy. I'm a common gamy. It's easy
when you're started.

Speaker 2 (01:38:14):
To be.

Speaker 4 (01:38:16):
It seasy when you're sand.

Speaker 5 (01:38:21):
I like that with pain and music is my old play.
It's my road blame Sower sweet and sower chain and
music is my have.

Speaker 4 (01:38:34):
Old play is my rob blame flash us bike with pain.

Speaker 2 (01:38:49):
Juice.

Speaker 4 (01:38:50):
One nok make if no can make me throowed away.

Speaker 2 (01:38:54):
One note from the.

Speaker 4 (01:38:55):
Song your vocal know where I lame. Just one no
maignan choke one no, that's not the line.

Speaker 2 (01:39:03):
Just one no could cut my brope no cook bacon.

Speaker 4 (01:39:07):
It's not I like that. It's like guin thing and
music is myrod.

Speaker 3 (01:39:12):
Blake's my rod Bain, smmer sweet and smertain and music.

Speaker 2 (01:39:20):
Is my rol pae.

Speaker 4 (01:39:22):
It's my royal bank. That's like whin thing.

Speaker 2 (01:40:00):
The t

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