Episode 340: Tales From The Boom Room: Sergeant Steve Mancini (Volume 38)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
You're listening to the Mike to Do Even podcast hosted
by media personality and consultant Mike Glow. This is the

(00:43):
New York Police Department's Bomb Squad, part human, fondest, part dog,
part robot.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
All one team lethal and indiscriminate.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
The disarmed one is to save countless lives.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
The bomb Squad has given the all.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
And the members of the oldest and biggest bomb squad
in the United States are unique.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Squad was able to safely remove.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
A device when you don't see them. The NYPD Bomb
Squad is always watching for that unsuspecting threat, and YPD
Bomb Squad racing in and hauling away another suspicious pocket
properly identified. You're listening to tales from the Boogle profiles
of the nypds are some explosion bombs. I'm coming to

(01:32):
you before my head explodes in a couple hours and
the New York Yankees aggravate me further than they already
have uh and do something stupid inevitably in Game three
of the World Series, because the New York Yankees, and
they're not your father's New York Yankees or your grandfather's
New York Yankees. Unfortunately, this is what my generation, the
Yankee fan has to live with now. They could very

(01:52):
well win Game three get themselves back at the series tonight,
but then again, it's the Yankees we're talking about, and
if those first two games in LA are any indication,
this is going to be a tough one. And that's
putting it mildly. But this is a happy show, so
we're not gonna depress you with that. We'll leave them
alone for the time being. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen
to the Mike the New Avin Podcast. This is episode

(02:13):
three hundred and forty eight, a little bit of a
milestone episode, of course, and it's volume thirty eight of
tales from the Boomerang profiles at the NYPD's Arts and
Explosion and bomp Spot. I want to welcome in everyone
tonight who is tuning in via YouTube, LinkedIn and Facebook.
I already see so many of you in the live chat.
Billy Ryan, who helped me start this series, of course,
it was out a couple weeks ago. Christian Williams, Joe Beliga,

(02:33):
and Don Gonzalez from Rochester, New York. Johnny Costello, Johnny,
I'll put your decorations up soon. I am working on
that did not forget about them, just waiting for the
right time. It's super busy with everything and my sister's
here and hope you feel better. You're a little bit
under the weather today. We spoke earlier, but hopefully you'll
be back up to one hundred percent soon. Jobs, but
good to see in the chat with Little Jacksie watching
and Cjay's lawn services tuning in from Florida as well.

(02:56):
If you have a checked out the previous episode, that
was a good one. Bob Boys Format YPD chief of Detectives,
who tonight's guest knows very well. He'll tell me about
that throughout our conversation. What a guy and what a
great guest. Really enjoyed that one. I knew it was
going to be a good one, and it sure was
so very much enjoyed. Finally getting them on. It took
me a while, but I got them. Paul Meyamberg, I
see you in the chat as well. So I'm just

(03:17):
going to run a couple of ads real quick. The
first one is not really an ad so much as
it is a flyer, and I'll toss that up here momentarily,
and if you don't know by now, good folks, Mad
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Of course, the very first book that I wrote. It's
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is available, as I said in the description, and it
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(04:02):
via Amazon. Any support is appreciated, and of course he's
in the chat like I said, but we will show
him some love as we always do. And one of
the supporters and sponsors of the Mike Mavement podcast is
the co creator and co executive producer of Tailsom the
Boom Room, himself retired NYPD Detective Bill Ryan. The Mic

(04:23):
the Miken Newhapen 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 the majority of
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A proud supporter and sponsored of the Mike the New
Haven Podcast rodd supporter and sponsor. Indeed always graveful for

(05:08):
Billy support and of course, like I said in the chat,
as he always is every week. All right, My next guest,
dedicated three decades to law enforcement, started his career in
nineteen ninety with the old New York City Transit Police
before it's nineteen ninety five merger with the NYPD. Now
he was hired during the Safe Streets Safer City initiative
crime was really, as we'll talk about, on the very
high end. This was the worst year for crime in

(05:29):
New York City when he came on the job, over
two thousand homicides twenty five hundred plus to be exact.
So he was busy early on, and he patrolled the
streets of the Bronx and Harlem and of course worked
in special operations on the transit side. The Vandal Squad, which,
if you're an old school Cops fan, was in an
episode of Cops back in nineteen ninety four. They did
a little bit on the Vandal Squad as well. Rochu
the ranks mate sergeant at the end of the nineties

(05:50):
and nineteen ninety nine and served in various leadership roles
in the four to eight in the Bronx led detective
squads out there and it culminated, and this is why
he's under the Tails from the Boom Room banner. He
was the XO at the end of his career of
the Arson and Explosion Squad, and that for this volume
thirty eight of Tails from the Boom Room Profiles of
the NYPD's arsen, Explosion and Bomb Squad is of course
Steve Mancin Steve welcome.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
How are you, Mike, welcome? Thank thank you so much
for having me tonight.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
No, thank you for being here. I definitely appreciate it.
And we connected, of course prior to my Chief Voice interview.
I know you know him very well, as we'll talk
about tonight. So it's good to be with you this evening.
So before we get into anything pertaining to your police career,
kind of a two part question, and where did you
grow up and be Were you exposed to civil service
in any form early on that dictated your path?

Speaker 2 (06:37):
So born in the Bronx, but raised in Yonkers, your
parents and one older brother who you'll actually like this,
retired out of truck three in the Bronx. And no,
I mean my paternal grandfather was a New York City
sanitation guy, you know, going back into probably the twenties

(06:57):
or thirties and worked into the sixties. But no police,
no fire, but just a great interest and obviously respect
for both professions. And you know, coming up through the
eighties and into high school, you know, on the edge about
going to college in furthering my education or possibly going

(07:18):
into the service. Looked hard at the Navy, and then
I actually just graduated high school and landed a phenomenal
job through a great friend, and I was there for
a couple of years before I decided to take a
test because my brother was already on the job and
the rest is history.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
I guess, tell your brother to come on the show
for the ES You've mini series. Yeah, a lot of
good friends of mine.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
It is not even on social media, all right.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
So he's off the radar. But a lot of old
school guys from the eighties and nineties I worked ES.
You probably remember a man in two thousands as well.
Shout out to him of course, and all the email
and women. So nineties interesting because by this point I
know in the back of the day, Transit had their
own academy, so did housing. At some point in the
eighties it all went under the banner the NYPD academy,
so they would put you guys in there, and then

(08:03):
of course they would separate and send you off to
different departments. You were either going city, which was NYPD
housing or Transit. So I don't know how much you
knew about the Transit police. Some knew because of taking
the subway lot, some didn't until they were in it.
But when they told you, you were going to transit.
Was the reaction no, or was it, Hey, I'm just
happy to be in New York City.

Speaker 2 (08:22):
Cop. So funny about that is because my brother got
on in transit in eighty seven, okay, and you know
his brother and logan on in eighty five. So I
kind of was, like, you know, exposed to all these
stories and what's going on. But as far as you know,
I think if I rode the subway maybe five times
in my lifetime up to that point, that was a lot.
So I kind of didn't mind. You know. It was
just kind of funny. We're all called out to the

(08:43):
Jamaica Revenue to where the NYPD lab is.

Speaker 4 (08:46):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
You know, I guess a couple of days before October
fifteenth is when I'm sworn in nineteen ninety and you
kind of just lined up and you had your Manila
little index card and you presented it. They looked up
your name, and when they flipped the pages to the
m's I think there was about eighteen of us in
alphabetical water, all going to Transit off of the page.

(09:08):
So it was it was pretty funny, and you know,
you get a little snicker from applicant Investigations behind the
desk and they send you down that like basically they
already sent you down to the subway to meet the
transit representative you had. I remember walking to a dark
tunnel in the building and going down like you know,
two flights of stairs into the basement and met this
detective from Transit Applicant Investigations who gave us like a

(09:31):
welcome package. And you know he was dressed like basically
right out of like a Barney Miller squad, you know,
big checkered shirt and probably a tie about this big
on mic. So that was my that was my welcoming
into the Transit Police department.

Speaker 1 (09:44):
I gotta say, you got there during really a crossoords
for the city, like I mentioned, and once positive ones,
not the negative I mentioned in the introduction, which was
this was the peak of crime. The crescendo, if you
go in nineteen ninety is the Brian Wall incident where
it led to the covering the news paper either the
Daily News or the Post. They've do something. So Dave
decided that, being the late mayor David Dinkins, all right,

(10:05):
let's do these Safe Streets Safe the City initiative, which
twenty eight more cops across all three departments, Housing, Transit
and the NYPD to hit the streets. And at the
same time, here's the positive correlation as well. You arrived
to the Transit Police same year that Bratton came in
as chief, and that was his springboard for the great
things he'd do later on as Boston Police Commissioner, NYPD

(10:25):
commissioner twice in the LAPD chief for a time as well,
you had him, You had Jack Maple early on twenty
seven percent crime drop in the two years they were there.
What was it like, especially starting out in District twelve
in the Bronx. Thanks Jack Costella for the super chat
working under Bratton and Maple during a time when they
were coming up with crime fighting techniques that really were

(10:45):
to that point unheard of in nineteen ninety.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
But we're working so, you know, starting out, he started
all these like great little you know, you know, great
programs within the Transit Police to basically energize a job
and to make guys be proud that they were in
the transit police. Where my class came out, and maybe
the April of ninety class right before me might have
been the first group, but he started a field Training

(11:08):
Officer program and they married you know, one or two
rookies up with an experienced officer who went to specific
you know, field training officer program, and you worked with
three individual field training officers in a period of I
guess ten or twelve weeks. And they also made you
actually fly out of your command and get to see

(11:30):
what special units wire like I got a I had
like a week in transit Canine. I had a week
out in transit communications in j Street. So they just
had to show you, like different parts of the job.
And obviously he was big into the uniforms and what
our uniforms look like. He kind of changed our shirts
away from what the PD shirts look like. You know,
he's definitely trying to build you know, a spirit, you know,

(11:52):
a morale in the sensitive way, in a good sensitive
way to build a job up, you know. He you know,
I remember when I first came out, we had these
broken down like suburbans, that's what we used to patrol in. Yeah,
you know, and I'm sure you've heard many of times
the milk crate stories or old night sticks holding up
the seats and all these things. And you know, within
by the summer of ninety one. Yeah, he's buying these

(12:12):
like Chevy caprices for us. I mean these things were
rocket ships. But don't kid yourself. I'll tell you what
the mamma was on patrol with us. You know, he
wouldn't think twice. I mean I personally was scratched by
him when I moved on to District three at like
two oh seven Street in Broadway, like at two thirty
in the morning. You know, he just popped off a training,
you know. And I had the pleasure of, actually I

(12:34):
did Bratton, you know, Chief Commissioner Bratton three times as
a Transit police chief and twice as a commissioner in
New York City Police Department.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
Yeah, and what an innovator and not just saying like
I said, Jack Maple two is not with us anymore
died way too young of a cancer in summer of
two thousand and one. Again, what they came up with
was through pins on a board, an early version of
what's now known as CompStat, which has become a worldwide
policing phenomenon. So that little pocket, I mean, for those
that really don't know the history Commissioner Bratt, and he'll

(13:02):
always point to Transit as his personal Springboard in New
York City because, as he told me some time ago
when he was on the program, he felt that he
could succeed there, he could ultimately succeed with the NYPD,
and he was proven right twice. Over ninety one to
ninety five. Is interesting for a variety of reasons. We'll
cover the assignment first and the merge later. Transit District
three in Harlem and Washington Heights, interesting part of Manhattan

(13:25):
to work, a heavy Hispanic population down there, what you're seeing,
and then this again, it's affecting the whole city for
the most part at this time. Is crime that's vary.
A lot of guns down there, primarily, though I think
at this time it's drugs in the early nineties, so
we know what's going on above ground. Was that the
same problem below ground where guys are naturally trying to
move product through the subway.

Speaker 2 (13:47):
You nailed it on the head. You nailed it on
the head, Mike, literally, especially, I mean District three and
listen a lot of places, Bronx Districts, Brooklyn District's, Eastern
New York and Flatfoys. I mean, what was happening upstairs
was happening downstairs? You know, I caught the tail end
of like wolf pack robberies and without a doubt lawlessness

(14:08):
on the trains and the stations. But you mentioned narcotic
Street now District three as a whole, Washington Heights and Harlem.
You know, I remember one station in particular, one sixteen
and eighth Avenue, and it was you literally had across
the street to get from one one platform to the
other to go southbound to northbound, and you would literally
be walking and crushing hundreds of crack vials on the

(14:32):
steps because it was probably one of the biggest sets
right upstairs at one sixteen and eighth Avenue. Same thing
if you had the Broadway line one three seven to
one five seven on Broadway, I mean talk about a
hotbed of you know, narcotics activity and violence. You know,
you you you were guaranteed you had that post. Somebody
was going to jail that night. But even our home

(14:53):
station one four five and Saint Nick because that that
station actually connected like the A and D lines, and
you would see a a lot of guys coming in
from the Bronx taking the D line over and they
were going up and it was literally they would either
go two blocks down the Bradhurst Avenue or two blocks up,
you know, towards Broadway, and they'd be scoring, you know,
bags and begs a crack. And you know, back to

(15:14):
the simplest thing of Bratton, guess what they were doing.
They were beating the fair and that simple little fair beat.
You were getting pistols, you were getting bags of crack,
you know, I mean, and I mean bags a crack.
And so, yeah, exactly what you said. I mean, that
was a real trying time in the city and I'm
glad I was able to take part in it. And also,

(15:35):
I'll tell you one thing about you know, being transit cop,
especially back then, for the most part, you worked by yourself,
you know. And I'm a young kid, I'm twenty one
years old plus at that point, and you got to
learn how to talk to people really quick. I mean,
you want to really survive out there. You know, listen,
I'm not a big guy, but guess what if you don't.
You know, if you're not able to communicate with people,

(15:55):
you know that that's that's your biggest tool. And yeah,
that's what it comes down to. You got to know
how to deal with people and talk to people, and
you know, figure out what you're doing and figure it
out quick because you're by yourself, because health could be
help could be far away. You could be on a
train run. One of the things in field training, you know,
like say if you were on a train run on
the A Line, if it was an express and you

(16:16):
left one hunt twenty fifth Street, well that next stop
is fifty ninth Street, which is about seven minutes away.
So if you're going to decide to start something, or
somebody's going to start something with you, you could be
by yourself for a long long time. So you know, listen,
you had you had to know your p's and q's
and know what you're doing out there. So you get
a real rude awakening. And I tell you what I
did steady midnights in District three there and loved every

(16:40):
minute of it. I tell you what a great group
of guys, guys that came on the job in the
mid eighties, showed us the way, showed us how to
do the job, and had a good time. I really did.
I mean couldn't wait to get to work. Just one
of one of those scenarios.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
And here's the other layer of it too. I mean,
your radios were not the best back then either, so
depending on where you were, I mean, those sick might
not go out right away.

Speaker 2 (17:01):
Yep, there was my first night on solo patrol and
District three was one six Saint in Broadway and it's
a split station between the A and the one line,
and the one line's about thirteen stories underground. So once again,
you know, I actually had a probably one of the
only time, luckily, thankfully, in my thirty year career, actually

(17:22):
got in a fight in the elevator on the ride up,
just trying to throw a guy out from the one line,
and I wind up taking about like eleven or twelve
stitches in my mouth from fighting this guy. And it
was just the adage you just you know, listen, you
had to be on it, man, you know, he had
to be on it with these people, and it was listen.
It's a learning experience and one I look back on

(17:42):
and I'm very grateful that I was able to partake in.

Speaker 1 (17:45):
So you know, it's uh, I'm laughing is in the
chat not at that story, it's it's it's a legit
thing that cops face back then, and I'm glad you
came out otherwise unscathed from that might despite the stitches.
But Joe Maleigue is in the chat and I haven't
asked this question. While it's a running joke at him
and I have where ANYPD or FD guest, you know
that I get on. He wants to know to day
I've ever deliver a baby? Did she ever deliver a baby?

Speaker 2 (18:08):
So I never delivered a baby, but I got to,
you know, within a couple of years of transit, you know,
when we got an influx of a few cars you
assigned to each district. I found myself, you know, in
an R and P. You know, probably like three out
of my four nights a week. We worked four day
work weeks, and I got to see a baby delivered
up close and personal. But it was it was. It
was up on the street probably like one O, two

(18:30):
and CPW, you know, right right on the young lady
couldn't even make the taxi cab that was waiting for
right right on her front steps. But I give more
credit to the guys in the two four than than
I did.

Speaker 1 (18:40):
So there you go. So thank you Joe first submitting
that question. We hadn't asked in a while. It's just
the timing was off on my end. So I'm glad
we could ask you tonight. A quick shout out to
Cam Miller watching via Facebook and Garrett Linger and former
guests of this program. I'm the veteran of the Ft
and I particularly Rescue three and Squat forty one, forty
one first and three before you retired in two thousand
and two. Great to see.

Speaker 2 (19:00):
Garrett to my neighbor in Florida. Garrett to my neighbor
in Florida.

Speaker 1 (19:03):
He's mentioning that he's like in joining tonight's podcast starring
my neighbor. So good to see Garrett. And hope everything's well.
I know there's a big storm recently, so hopefully all
things considered, you're doing well. So I mean, i'll ask
right before the merger. It's interesting because I feel like, well, listen,
Bratton's gone. He had left in ninety two and he
went back to Boston, and Maple hung around until he

(19:23):
became first Deputy Commissioner when Bratton came back in ninety four.
But the models there, the department's moving in the right direction,
there's pride restored in the agency, and there's just a
general good feeling. And you guys were on an episode
of cops in late ninety three early ninety four, which
shed further light on all the good work the agency
was doing. So when you see where things were starting
to go in a better direction crime wise, ninety three

(19:45):
ninety four and Transit had really found itself, what was
the feeling as an agency, because previously it was an
agency begging to merge with the NYPD. Now, like I said,
there's pride now and you see the results, crime fell
twenty seven percent. Those declines only continued in ninety three
ninety four.

Speaker 2 (20:01):
Me personally, I wasn't opposed to it. You know, probably
in around like ninety two to ninety three they start
opening the door through through laterals so where you don't
have to test again if you did if you did
take a try agency exam, which I did back in
I think eighty eight or so, I took my exam,
if you took that and you got Transit housing, they

(20:22):
gave the opportunity to roll over straight roll. So you've
seen a lot of senior guys from my job, guys
who got hired in the mid eighties and went to
Transit went to housing. These guys went to went over
to the p D side. Me personally, like I says,
I enjoyed every bit of my time in transit, you know,
learned my trade or felt I was learning my trade.
But I personally wasn't opposed to the merger because at

(20:45):
the time I couldn't take a sergeant's test yet in transit,
because they had one like in say in ninety one,
I didn't have enough signiority to take the test. But
that test got thrown out and then they had a
new test, and because I didn't file for the first one,
you know, it was just like a song in a day.
So and then I actually put in for EMRU probably
in the ninety ninety nineteen ninety four. An interview is

(21:06):
that they picked a group up and then literally, you know,
we went, you know, we went, uh in ninety five
comes and we merge.

Speaker 1 (21:14):
And that was April second. Now Transit have put up
a fight for that. There was a lot of injunctions.
It got testy, they got very testy.

Speaker 4 (21:20):
Know what.

Speaker 2 (21:21):
So I'm actually working the night of April second, nineteen
ninety five. I'm doing a midnight and I called it
up the night before. So uh, I mean old Manhattan
Central Booking, which was actually in the basement of one
PP before they moved it over to one hundred Center Street,
so you know, you'd lodge, you know, you're a prisoner there,
and then you have to walk across, you know, a
couple of blocks over to court, and especially working midnights,

(21:42):
you probably you know, it probably took anywhere from ten
to fifteen hours to drop a column. So uh, but
I was due back at you know for a midnight
the next night. And you know, they usually did well
by you. Either try to heep you inside the hyda
because you're up like for the whole day, or they
would throw you outside and then we'd call it the
home post, which was one hundred forty fifth Street, Saint
Nicholas Avenue. And all of a sudden the phone rings

(22:03):
at about two thirty in the morning and literally it's
District one, which is located at fifty ninth Street, and
they said, hey, you know, because the teletype just hit
you know, minutes prior to like Commissioner Bratton and his
whole entourage are riding the trains to every district on
the midnight to welcome everybody aboard to the NYP.

Speaker 1 (22:21):
Date.

Speaker 2 (22:23):
I never knew that, Yes, So now the old District three,
you know. I mean I left there in August in
ninety five. But the old District three was probably the
size of your left shoe, okay. I mean it was
literally in the middle of the mezzanine of the Saint
Nicholas Avenue station. We used to access it via one
hundred and forty six street down the steps, and literally

(22:43):
it was tiny, tiny, tiny tiny. I mean the CEO's
office there was, there was, There was no redeeming factors
about this place. And now here. It was Sunday night
until Monday, and we don't have cleaners there, we you know,
cleaners are off the weekends. So the place, you know,
the garbage is overflown. It's stunk of like fried chicken
and food whatever you could eat, you know, on a
midnight tour. And you know, there's the death sergeant and

(23:04):
like to myself and like two other ragtag cops, and
here comes the Commissioner himself, you know, with this, you know,
and just took a look around, shook his head and
they got on a northbound D train for the Bronx
as quick as they walked in. It was. It was
a little comical, I'd be honest.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
With you, so sounds like it sounds like. But what's
interesting to point out is that even with the merger,
I mean, the patch changed, the uniforms changed, but for
a lot of cops, at least initially, the assignment didn't
if you were underground. For some cops, they stayed underground
for a little while.

Speaker 2 (23:32):
So for you, sorry, no, noe, no of my apologies
they might be for interrupting. Yeah, you know, we became
the uh you know. We we would flip back and
forth every six months between the division and a bureau.
You know, I probably had like four sets of collar brass.
It was either TD or TB TD, you know, depending
on which chief they were putting in charge of it,
you know, whether they liked them or not, I guess it.
It was either a bureau or a division. So for

(23:53):
the first couple of years, the couldn't figure out what
to do with us, I want to say.

Speaker 1 (23:56):
Yeah, no, in ninety five to ninety seven, that's true,
they were trying to figure out how to use it.
They knew anticops are a valuable tool, but it was
you know, and again there was a commissioner change in
ninety six, which kind of complicated matters further. Because Safer
came in after Bratton had left, so Safer had an
idea of how to use trans and whatnot. So yeah,
I could see that, and I think it wasn't until
ninety nine when that was settled because originally it was

(24:16):
the Transportation Bureau, I believe after the maker.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
Yep, we went into and I tell you what during
my time in vandals where we fell into the trans
transportation Bureau, I found myself detached to highway units to
address graffiti, graffiti on the highways, and like we were
able to sign out like these unmoked highway cars and
we're like, this is great. This merged thing, man.

Speaker 1 (24:38):
Yeah, and had its benefits and it really advanced a
lot of careers. And that's what I wanted to touch
on real quick, because people think of vandalism. Now we're
not talking the art for us, right. Some of it
is legitimate art that they got permissioned to do, and
we see the talent of these people. Some of it's not.
Some of it's you know, vulgarity. Some of it, of
course is gang related, the graffiti that they're spray painting on.
Some of it's just stupidity that people feel like putting

(24:58):
on there as well. And it's like you talked about,
much like jumping the turnstile. It's these little things that
lead to decay of a city or a town and
unfortunately lead to the bigger things. So as far as
nipping that in the button, you spent a while there
in ninety five to ninety nine, tell me about the
mission involved with that and the importance of making sure
you at tackle those little things.

Speaker 2 (25:18):
So youah, a great question, because you are right. I
feel like the quality of life, I mean, that's definitely
a quality of life issue. Graffiti, you know, And you're right,
I mean we would have we would have quote unquote
artists I mean from Europe, you know, Amsterdam, Germany, I mean,
big famous graffiti guys. You know in that culture. What

(25:38):
better place is New York City? Right? And so we
were we were you know, we would get a lot
of intel if these guys were coming in. We would
do tremendous surveillance, long term surveillances of various places. We
had a couple of detectives assigned to the vandal unit,
and you know, we would get assigned to the detectives
and go out on patrol with them. They were actually

(26:00):
pretty front of Tom and Jerry, and then that's what
they're known in the graffiti world is Tom and Tom
Wiener and Jerry Darrow. Yeah, and I was actually working
with Tom the night Tony Sanchez is killed in the thirteenth. Really,
Tom and I were the second car on the scene
that night.

Speaker 1 (26:17):
I had no idea.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
Yeah, But as far as the vandals, yeah, I mean
I worked steady mid nights, nine thirty a nine to
six in the morning, continued the old the midnight work
for myself, and it was interesting. We covered basically Bronx
and Manhattan. There was two different groups. It was a
Brooklyn Queen's base located out Coney Island and a Bronx
Manhattan base. Officers in the Bronx. And it was interesting work.

(26:43):
And like I said, it was definitely like you said,
I mean, where it can be considered an off form.
But even especially at that time, you started seeing like guys,
you know, etching the subway glass and destroying it that way.
But also you're saying with the gang, the gang graffiti
as far as like putting hits out on people, you know,

(27:04):
you had to learn how to read that stuff and
know like who was writing it. So I'll tell you what.
It was a lot of intel work, a lot of
surveillance work. I mean, we were proactive to a certain point.
But you know, it was fun. It was fun. But
during that time career wise, and what drew me to
the job was wanting to be a detective, wanting to

(27:24):
do investigations. And I kind of went over to the office.
We had a promise where we're going to go into
the investigative track so I could chase my shield. And
unfortunately that changed and I wind up opening up the
patrol guide and I studied for sergeant you know, you know,
while I was just signed into Vandals.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
So and you would get that later on in early
nineteen ninety nine. Now, of course, by this point you've
got a sizeable amount of time on the job. It's
about nine years, so close to a decade. And I
feel like that's a good spot. I mean, listen, if
somebody makes sergeant younger or any kind of rank younger,
you don't be grunt just the necessarily, as long as
they're willing to learn and embrace the role and learn

(28:03):
from those that have more seniority in time, and they
can grow into a great leader great detective, great sergeant,
and so on and so forth. But in this case,
nine years, you had, like I said, a lot of
time on patrol, You'd been in busy spots. You did
you feel confident? I mean again again, it's still a
big transition, but did you feel slightly more at ease
taking that test and being promoted considering you almost had
a decade on the job.

Speaker 2 (28:24):
I was ready for it, you know, it's what I wanted.
I decided that, you know, that was the career path
I wanted to follow. And obviously you know when my
number was called, and you know, I make boss and
you know, but now it's it's it's my turn to
go to a precint. And although I have about nine
years on the job because I'm promoted, you know, I'm

(28:44):
in October higher, so it's more eight and a half
I have when I'm promoted. But now I'm going to
a precint for the first time in my career and
a half years on the job. And you're right, I
worked in busy spots during busy times, and you know,
did you know almost four years in playing clothes and listen,
all work wasn't limited to graffiti. My last collar in
the vandal squad, was a gun collar in the four

(29:05):
eight precint no less. So yeah, we were out there, listen.
We were out there putting our hands on people. We
had the luxury. We weren't really on the trains on
the midnights. We had unmocked vans on mock cars, so
you know, listen, we were doing a little you know,
I want to say, you know, Borough crime work or whatever.
The case is all dependent on what was on the
agenda for the night. But so here it is eight
and a half years. I'm promoted to sergeant and I'm

(29:25):
going to a priestinct for the first time, which is
going to be a complete change of what I know.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
Before we continue, because we mentioned Tom Wainer, so I
don't want to gloss over him. He's one of the
first guys for those of you that don't know, to
die of nine to eleven cancer. That's documented. I mean,
the event happened in two thousand and one. He died
May of three, so it was not long after that
he got sick and passed away. And like you said,
a legendary guy in transit. So when you look back
on him, another good guy that left this way too soon.

(29:51):
What are your memories of working with tom I didn't
want to gloss over. Uh.

Speaker 2 (29:54):
Listen, Actually I actually ran into Tommy first of my career.
He was a detective in District three, and I mean
he was a storied vandal cop back in the day,
like through the eighties. You know, got his shield A
lot of the guys in transit used to go what
was called City White Task Force, which was you know,
a real numbers unit, big numbers unit for fair evasion. Uh,

(30:14):
and moved on to either like Central Robbery and wind
up getting his shields. And I don't know Tommy's actual track,
but when I go over to vandals again, you know,
the initiative is on where they they included guys, you know,
to increase the number in the unit. And that's when
they assigned Tommy and Jerry Desarrow and uh. And they

(30:34):
were both Vandalse cops and they they just lived and breathed.
And like I says, these guys worked with you know,
homicide squads and you know catching squads. You know, because
they can interpret the stuff. They can interpret the the graffiti.
They they knew the intel, they knew who the players were,
and they were a big help. You know, listen, it
wasn't it wasn't graffiti like I said, These guys were

(30:55):
solving like big cases for you know, catching squads throughout
the city.

Speaker 1 (31:00):
Thank you for sharing some anecdotes about him. Again, way
too young, forty three years old when he died, but
a great legacy he left behind, that's for sure, so
he's not forgot When you mentioned him, like I got
to ask about him, I didn't want to keep moving
without mentioning him. So thank you for going into that. Now.
I've heard a lot about Bemock, you know, and I
know ray Kelly this precedes him. But ray Kelly talked
about later on we should make a sergeant school so
that they can learn how to be sergeant first before

(31:22):
we put him out on the street in any given command.
But that kind of existed with Bemock. But for those
not familiar with it, tell me about what it was,
what it entailed, and how you feel it helped you,
if at all, for what would come as a patrol supervisor.

Speaker 2 (31:34):
I thank you that so bemck is. When I got
promoted in ninety nine, it was about three and a
half weeks and I attended in three hundred gold Street,
which was the old Transit Police Academy, because after I
graduated from twentieth Street in ninety one, I had to
go to learn how to be a transit cop for
three weeks at the Transit Police Academy. So we're out

(31:55):
there and you're able. You're right, Listen, it's situational. It's
you know, administrative work. You're gonna be responsible for, uh,
scenario based work that you're going to be faced with with,
you know, supervising your officers. You know, back to the
patrol guide, what you're responsible for as a patrol supervisor.
You know. Then they have you know, IB come in
and speak to you, which you're you know, and various

(32:16):
chiefs on the job will come in. It prepared me.
I want to say, Listen, it opened my eyes up
because especially where I was now going to, you know,
become a precent level boss, and I've never actually, you know,
I never actually worked out of a precint So it
was fine, you know, listen, there's room for growth. I feel,
Mike and everything the department does, and I know it

(32:37):
was around for you know a while at that point,
I mean ninety nine. I know, people getting promoted back
in the early nineties, you know, be Mock existed, so
I don't know how long it is today. I mean
it's a while ago, but uh yeah, I mean I
mean scenario based. I remember them showing like videos of
some integrity issues that I'll tell you what I got

(32:57):
kind of a kind of threw me for a loop
a little bit, but uh listen, I guess anything's possible.
Put it that way, And yeah, it was interesting. It
was good stuff. But I was chomping at the bit.
I was ready to go go. I wanted to get there,
you know, and I wanted to get out there and
see what it was all about.

Speaker 1 (33:12):
And you did. And for almost the next decade, the
Bronx primarily was your home. Yeah, different assignments within that decade,
of course, but the Bronx where your base was from
ninety nine to to at least about oh seven oh eight.
As we'll discuss, So the first stop from March ninety
nine until August of two thousand was again patrol supervisor
in the four eight. So not a not a soft
landing spot at all. You're in a busy spot there.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
I actually, so they actually gave us and b Mock
to give me you a dream sheet, and I knew
I want to go to the Bronx because I was, yeah,
I had a young family, married, had a young family
at the time. And actually I take that back, only
only my oldest so my youngest is twenty four, so
I only had my oldest is twenty six. So it
were just for the community commuting, whatever the case is.

(33:53):
But even my time in Vandals, you know, I was
driving only back back down to downstairs in one hundred
and eighty eighth Street, So Mike Ties go go back
to like ninety five now in the Bronx, and just know,
you know, I think everything is it's very important, you know,
when you've got to commute distances. And later in my
career I found that out. It's draining, you know what
I mean, And it's exhausting. It just adds to the
stress of times. But so my dream sheet consisted of

(34:17):
the four eight, four six or the four four. So
regardless of where I landed, I was going to go
to work for a living. And you know, luckily, you know,
I got the four eight And I tell you a
what uh phenomenal bunch of cops, great bunch of cops,
I think, I mean, I watched your program with Angel masonet.

(34:37):
Angel was a midnight cop when I first got there,
and then we worked closer when I was the crime sergeant.
He was in the Tracy unit and a great, great
bunch of active cops. And the four rate as a whole,
you know, for people who aren't familiar with it, you know,
it goes up basically north to the Bronxious along Fordham
Road and Fordham University and goes all the way south

(34:58):
down to like you know, the cross Bronx Park Avenue,
which technically like the supervisor's parking lot of the four
rates in the four to two prison, so you know.
And what I enjoyed about the four rate I felt
it was kind of like right down the middle, so
at any given point we could be that a house
or there's plenty of days where you know, listen. It
was just it was okay, and which was good for

(35:21):
me as a new supervisor there because it just gave
me the opportunity to learn. But for the most part,
I paid attention to my people and I learned a
whole new job, you know what I mean. I was
very fortunate I got stuck on day tours. I didn't
want day tours. But that's just the luck of the drawer,
you know, I wanted to go to four to twelve's
and you know, run around, didn't get it. And for

(35:44):
the most part, the day tours was a little reserved,
more reserved. You see more family people working day tours,
whatever the case is. But I also I got to
identify a bunch of young cops who just came out
of field training and I was lucky enough to get
them into my patrol squad. And these guys they wanted
to work, you know something. They were great, you know,
great workers, hard workers. And yeah, after I think I

(36:07):
was on patrol for about a year year and a
half as a patrol supervisor, and I've given an opportunity
now to move into the priest and special ops and
I basically adopted these young guys out of patrol, and
you know, we moved forward in the four eight. But
great spot, great cops really really and truthfully, and plenty
of good places to eat too. In the four eight.
You don't get hungry in the four eight.

Speaker 1 (36:27):
You certainly don't. And there's lots of places in the
rocks that are way which is good. I mean, you
can never go wrong and the beauty of it is
any time of day too. You know, there's whatever your
palette wants, it doesn't matter at the time of day,
you can always satisfy it. Working in a command like
that out in the Bronx, so you know my special operations.
Of course, you're referring to anti crime, where like I
said before, anti crime on its face was like the epitome,

(36:48):
and street crime too was the epitome of what you
want plain closed policing to be. Whereas there is determination,
there is an element of gung honess, but it's not
uncontrolled because you know, patiences is part of it too,
as I was talking about with Chief Voice, where you're
not listening to the radio. The only way you're gonna
go on a radio call is if it's a ten thirteen.
You know, otherwise you're gonna stay back and you're gonna wait,

(37:10):
and you're gonna wait, gonna wait some more until you
see something. You know, even if it's a little bulge
in someone's pocket, which could be a gun, it could
be a knife, could be drugs, and then you're gonna
you know, pounce and make that collar. So work in that,
especially giving your background in transit that has to be
like home for you.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
Well, you know it was great, was so. I mean,
I've had a couple of different CEOs in the four
in my tenured there. But uh, in the past, like
when I was a patrol boss, the crime teams used
to flip flop ten to six during the day and
then a six to two, and you do a week
of ten to six's, then a week to six to twos,
and I forget who who the boss was, said, you know,
that's kind of silly. I'm gonna make two distinct teams.

(37:46):
So I took over the day team because I came
off the day tours, so you know, I did the
ten of more than six at nights and the cops
for the most part, I tracted like a couple of
you know, my young guys that that I adopted off
patrol and a couple of your season guys who are
four to two cops, and went through like this new unit,
and we put a great, great, great working team together.
And like you said, that is sit and wait work.

(38:08):
You don't chase the radio. And but that also started,
you know, uh, kind of the investigative track for me
and also for I want to say the guys who
are on my team. You know, I really feel hone
their skills. You know, come in my m O. Come
in every day and look at the forty nine board.
If there was a shooting, if it was non fatal

(38:28):
shoot the night before, if there was a stabbing, meet
with the CEO, meet with I'd go right upstairs, meet
with the squad commander upstairs. Hey, you guys looking for anybody?
Can we help you out? And I actually established a
great rapport. I mean, my guys would go out and
we we caught plenty of guys for the squad. But yeah,
you know, okay, listen, there's that non fatal shoot the
night before. Well, the bosses expects us to go out

(38:51):
there as his crime team, and we're gonna, uh, we're
gonna put a little activity out in that area. We're
gonna be knowing that we're out there, you know, and
whether it's a narco call, whether it you know, whether
you're just putting your hands on people and letting them
know that no good. Yeah, I mean we're not. We're
not gonna have this here. And it was a great
work interested, fun work, fun work. It was funny, it

(39:11):
was you know, you know, you know, I know you've
interviewed plenty of guys came on the job before me,
but it's pretty much the best way of describing playing
cops and robbers in anti crime.

Speaker 1 (39:22):
But out of doubt, yeah no, and it was. It
was a kind like I said in the interview Chief voice,
by the way, Christian flood Sensors regards.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
These watching Chris good people.

Speaker 1 (39:30):
Yeah, very good guy. I had him on the show
a little while ago for our h N team miniseries
Good to see You, my friend. You got to come
back on for a part two. We will talk about
I promise I didn't forget your Christians look good to
see as always. You know, it's it exists now in
a little bit of a different form anti crime. It's
now CRT and they're a little bit more identifiable because
they're wearing marked clothing. And nothing against those guys that
are doing the best that they can. But that was

(39:52):
what you guys were doing. That was real playing clothes.

Speaker 2 (39:55):
Yeah, it was. It was. Listen, I can't knock and anything,
you know, and not kids that are on the job today,
I give them so much credit, I really do, because
it's different. It's a different world. It's a different police department.
But yeah, you know anti crime in the very early
two thousands and and and you know, going back to
the mid nineties, like you know, I'm in playing clothes
in the vandal squad, you know, doing that that sort

(40:16):
of work as well. Uh, interesting time, you know. Well,
but listens what the department wants right now, that's the standard.
And and you work what you know. You know, like
are stories that I'm sharing with you and guys who
come on before me, that's what they are now. And
it's it's stories. There's stories that I'm glad I could share,
don't get me wrong, But that's that's just the work

(40:37):
they have to do now. The ce r T too,
you And I tell you what I have. My my
brother's nephew is in you know, I guess he's in
based out of the five to two and he's like
the you know, precent level you know, anti crime whatever
you want to call him, the Captain's team, whatever the
secret word is. And I say anything, this kid's pulling
pistols off the street left and right up in the
five to two right now. I give them a lot

(40:58):
of credit, you know, I'm a lot of credit to
kids who are on patrol right now.

Speaker 1 (41:02):
So oh and a shout out to them, of course,
because no matter what it's called, anti crime, CRT, street crime,
whenever the case is, you still have your eyes, you know,
you still gotta pay attention to what's out there. And
as long as you have those working you can pick
up on those things, you're able to make good callers.
I mean, look at what John Diller was doing, unfortunately
when he was killed in a lot of duty back
in March. He was taking guns off the street, you know.
And when he was killed by that savage out in Queens,

(41:23):
that's exactly what he was doing. He was taking guns
off the street. So no matter what era we're in,
that's still an important thing, and no matter what the
unit's called, we're certainly glad they're still out there doing
just that.

Speaker 2 (41:33):
Now.

Speaker 1 (41:33):
August of two thousand and three is an interesting point
in your career because it's a little bit of a transition.
You're still in the four eight, you're not in the
plain closed side anymore, so that's a little bit bittersweet,
but you are a the detective squad, which is kind
of what you wanted, you know, So now it's a
little bit different from street level crimes to longer term investigations.
You had done that to an extent when during your
time in Special Operations vandals in the mid to late nineties,

(41:55):
you're getting another crack at it here in mid two
thousand and three.

Speaker 2 (41:59):
Funny way how I got there because I always wanted it.
I always wanted it. Like I said, I had a
great rapport with the squad commander who had the four
eight Patty Campbell, and he went on to the Joint
Terrorist Task Force. But I never wanted to go. One
thing in the YPD. You're a boss, and if you
want to pursue an investigative career, you have to go
down for a career per at the interview and basically

(42:19):
IB has the first crack at you. Okay, So if
you apply for the Detective Bureau of Narcotics Intelligence anything
along those lines, you go down to a panel I
believe three captains interview you and you have to sign
the waiver that you know, internal affairs. If they want you,
they get you, and it's at least a two year
bit there and listen, nothing against them. It's a necessary evil.

(42:41):
I didn't want any part of it, so I wasn't interviewing.
And one morning we come into four eight and I'm
looking at the board and I go down to the office.
We had our own office, and the boss calls me.
The captain calls me. He goes, where are you guys.
I'm like, we're in the building.

Speaker 1 (42:55):
What's up?

Speaker 2 (42:56):
He goes, get out to like, you know, there's a
triple homicide, drug related triple homicide. You know, you know,
people like hog Tige, you're shot in the head, whatever
the case is. And uh so we go out there.
And at the time that the Bronx Chief of detectives
in the Bronx one Star was Joe Resnick, who was
a phenomenal investigator, tremendous. Listen, gofa bit something happened to

(43:17):
me or a family member. This is the guy you
would want coming in. But a tough man, an incredibly
tough man. So you know, I send my guys out
and a couple of guys, you know, to go work
the crowd. And we had a cee I local and
I had this one Copper Ray Morales. He's phenomenal. He
actually went on he was retired as a special ops

(43:39):
of tenant in the four rower Solid Solid kid, great kid,
and it comes to me. He gets inside information and
resident calls like a huddle in the street. And when
all my bosses over here, well, last I checked, you know,
I looked at my shield. I was a boss, I thought,
you know, but you know, I think I was in
a football jersey that day, and and you know, and

(44:01):
jeans or whatever. The case obviously addressed as an anti
crime boss. And we start talking. He starts talking to
you know, run down the case, and he eyeballs me,
and he just stops, and he goes up and he
goes down me, and then here comes the tirade. Mike.
He just starts leaning into me something awful, and then
he finishes, well, what in the world are you going

(44:22):
to add to this conversation that I'm having with my supervisors.
So I take out my pad and I give him,
you know, six different things, and he looks at one
of the lieutenants there and he goes, do you have
any of this? And the answer was no. So it's
pretty it was, you know. Listen, I took the piece
of paper out, I handed it to the lieutenant from
the four fourth squad and I walked away. Listen, I

(44:43):
did my job. My guys Diday job. It was all
great and late at evening the four rates set up
pretty pretty uh pretty odd. We're in the back of
the four rate is because upstairs is the patrol burrow,
so you have chiefs coming and going, the big bosses
all the time. And uh, I'm leaving. I'm going in
the tour and he's walking out. So I hold the

(45:05):
door for the guy and he walks past me and
he stops actually and he apologizes to me, which I
thought was huge. Listen, you know this guy's got a
terrible out of you as a tyrant. And I'm like, Paus,
all good, no worries, listen, and uh he goes. I said, listen,
I'd love to come work for you someday, and he goes,
I know, I know you are, don't worry about it.

(45:26):
Two weeks later, I'm home o my lawn and the
priest and CEO called me. He goes, uh, hey, do
you want to go upstairs. I'm like, we've been through
this many times. I'm not going for the interview. He goes, no,
You've been selected with like three other anti crime sergeants
in the Bronx to go upstairs. No board interview. So
that's how I made my way from a patrol into
the detective squad as a sergeant, you know. And that

(45:48):
was I believe about August of three, I go upstairs
to the four eight squad. So yeah, I always reflect
on that story because you know, you do your job,
your job the right way, and a lot of times
it goes unnoticed. That's okay too, and this time it
was noticed. And thanks to my guys, you know what
I mean. I was never the guy who took full credit.

(46:08):
You know what I mean. You're only as good as
your people. Right now, I had good people, so I
started my career which is now three and I do
seventeen years and the detective Bureau going forward.

Speaker 1 (46:20):
And I'm glad you mentioned that because like Chief Boys
and I talked about and it's not the first time
it has been mentioned on the show. Part of me
and that in the line of work that you did,
or like our friend the chat Garrett Lingren did recognize
your people when they do a good job when you can,
because it's the kind of work where they may go
out the door on a case or on a call
and they might not come back. So and that's not hyperbole,

(46:42):
that's not dramatic. Go down to FDN Y headquarters in
MetroTech in Brooklyn, go down to one police Plaza. There's
a lot of names on that wall of people that
did your study, reported to work for a tour one day,
went out to do the job, and did not come back.
So when you have a chance to tell them an
atta boy, and tell them how much you appreciate them,
do it because you never want that regret of saying, ah,
they did such a great job. I never got the

(47:03):
chance to tell them, and now they're gone, So I'm
glad he did that.

Speaker 2 (47:05):
You know, listen. And on top of that, even department recognition,
you know, you know, you know, my cops were expected
to write like their own stuff up for you know,
you know, an EPD or an MPD. I mean, I
mean that's ridiculous. You know, you know, I was the
patrol boss. I'm your frontline supervisor. I should be recognizing you,
you know, with department recognition for a great job, you know,
obviously beyond your annual evaluation where you know, and I

(47:28):
put a lot of time and thought, you know, I
never never, just you know, was the copy and paste
guy for the valuation. I always put weight into prepare
my evaluations for my people because I hoped, you know,
if they were going for an interview or whatever the
case is, and they would pull those evaluations, that people
would take the time to read, you know, read them
and and and always treat them the right way. Listen,
you know, you know, don't don't take h you know,

(47:49):
kindness from weakness. But uh listen, you know, family first,
and you take care of your people, you know. So
it listens a hard job and you need that type
of support. I'm a big believer in it.

Speaker 1 (48:00):
That's the way it's supposed to be. Very very much
well said. Now this is kind of cumulative in terms
of you spent a brief You had a cup of
coffee in the four to three, which is where truck
three is. You got from June to October six, you
had the four or five for a little while. Well,
go ahead, Sorry, no.

Speaker 2 (48:15):
There's always a story there, but go ahead, man, I
don't want to hold you up.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
No, no, home, don't listen. Listen, it's your story you're
telling easy fo.

Speaker 2 (48:21):
So it was the four eighth squad about two years there.
Now I find myself I'm supervising about thirty detectives, guys
who came on a job, you know, in this seventies
and eighties and just phenomenal investigators. And here I am
a point in career again. I'm starting page one fresh.
I don't know what detectives do. And uh, the one,

(48:42):
the one I will mention to give props to is, Yeah,
I'm supervising the detective who actually arrested, uh, Julio Gonzalez.
But happy Lands fire back in that you know, nineteen
eighty March of ninety or some March of ninety and
I'm actually have that case file. I'm reading the Happy
Lands your case of eighty seven people are killed in

(49:03):
a fire, you know, And I'm technically supervising this detective
who came on the job in nineteen sixty eight. I
wasn't even alive yet, you know, sixty eight, sixty eight,
sixty eight, and he got to the four eighth squad
in like eighty one, Mike, he was always a four
eight guy.

Speaker 1 (49:19):
My goodness, he's still with us.

Speaker 2 (49:21):
No, he passed away. He retires. I tell you what,
sixty eight I mean, he probably retires in like thirteen fourteen.
I mean, he goes right to the very end ages
out and I don't think Kevin did. A couple of
years after that unfortunately in passed.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
Yeah, there's a lot of guys like that. They put
so much into the job and then after they leave it,
after so many years of work and hard they're like,
now what they don't know what to do with themselves.

Speaker 2 (49:46):
Yeah, you don't have an option. So after a couple
of years in the four eight I go down to
the Bronx homicide squad and I run an apprehension team
and we were literally you know, our mission was to
catch killers, and uh, people are shot, you know, non
fatal shooters.

Speaker 4 (50:03):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
You know. The local squads would hold onto the investigation
for two or three weeks and if they couldn't find
the guy, they would turn it over to us. And uh,
I inherit, I inherit four or five guys. Who I
tell you what, They could find Bigfoot and have him
turn on the Ambonnable snowman. These guys are phenomenal, phenomenal detectives.

(50:27):
You do not want them looking for you, because they
are going to find you. And a different time. Listen,
it's it's two thousand and five six and you know
the purpose didn't know about how we could track cell
phones at the time. It wasn't you know, out in
the media yet. So listen that I had one one guy,
Jimmy mcksloy, who was phenomenal at that. You know. The

(50:49):
other guys could just think, you know, like I said,
they could find Bigfoot and here he goes and you're
just like, how do we do that? And we we
caught cases from you know, Puerto Ricano. We chased perps
from Puerto Rico up to Massachusetts. In that ten ten
or some months I had the unit and it was
actually funny. So Easter of two thousand and six were off.
We had Sundays and Mondays off and phone rings and

(51:12):
there's a two year old shot and killed in the
four to six. Families driving to church with the baby
in the car, they drive into a gunfight. I forget that.
The name of the street escapes me, and unfortunate, the
baby's shot and killed in the car. So it's all
hands on deck, you know. They bring my team in
for six and Bronx Homicide do great work. You know,

(51:32):
they're starting to put names together. And me and my
team were out in the seven to five, like all night,
like banging doors, like looking for these guys. And basically
we worked the whole week. I'm not kidding you. We
worked the whole week chase him down to in the Raleigh,
North Carolina area, and we wind up, you know, getting
getting a couple of guys. And unfortunately, the overtime bill
was kind of high, and you know, let's just say

(51:56):
certain chief of detectives. Although I was given him like
updates every eight hours, I guess he didn't want to
reward good work. And I was the boss who I
had one guy who was on the verge of retiring
and he left in July, and you know, I took
a hit. I took the hit. They sent me to
the Fourth Three. That was my punishment. I was at
a homicide squad and they actually disbanded the team. More so,

(52:17):
but you know something, we went out on a high note.
I mean, it doesn't get any more real than that.
And we're able to bring justice. Well I like to
say we're I tried to bring justice to that family
if nothing's going to bring that baby back. And I
went to the Fourth Three. You know, I guess they
thought they were punishing me. It was a little bit
of a better commute, haha, you know, and uh what
a great place. Phenomenal detectives, unbelievable detectives. And I'll tell

(52:42):
you what, unless you work in the fourth to three,
you don't realize how busy the place is. You know,
the Bronx is synonymous for the four to four to four,
six to four to seven, like all these great places too,
and that funny. Not to take anything away from any cop,
you know, any place in the city. But I didn't
know the work that's generated in the fourth three. And yeah,

(53:04):
I mean so, like I said, I summered in the
fourth three for six. But it was it was nice
having a brother next door in truck three. So on
my four to ones, I you know, got to have
dinner with the boys every so often, and it was
a good place to tell you what talented, talented, great
detectives there. And then in October, I guess my penance
was over and I got the call to be a

(53:25):
you know, commanding officer of the four to five detective squad.

Speaker 1 (53:28):
You should have told me you really hated it in
the fourth they would have kept you there. Now, this
commute is awful. Oh, these detectives, they stick wink wink,
you know. But you know, listen, the needle kept on
moving and then moving, and it continued to move into
positive trajectory, which is all that matters in the career
that was as long as yours. And of course, like
you said, you had before five And there's a nice

(53:49):
little anecdote here as well, May two thousand and seven
of promotion at the time to supervisor Detective squad. You
had been a sergeant for a pretty long time at
this point, but now you got the SDS attached to
it as well, so that had to feel pretty good.

Speaker 2 (54:00):
It did. It did, Listen. It was definitely what I
was chasing and what I was in the game for,
you know, looking back, you know, and you recap my
career obviously thirty years. Any advice I give anybody, you know,
I didn't want to say I found myself in a rut.
But I never took a lieutenant's test either, never even tried,
never even filed for one. I was just always happy

(54:21):
to doing what with the spots where I was in
at the time. A test came up and then I
looked at it like, hey, I make lieutenant's money, And
definitely that was that that's what I was interested in doing.
It was actually I could do Bob Boys story later
in my career, but we'll touch on that. But yeah,
I got the SCS money and something I was very
happy too because at the time when I got promoted

(54:43):
to sergeant, both of my boys, uh you know, one
was ten months old and one wasn't even born, So
they both got to come down and see me get promoted,
which was pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (54:53):
That's what it's all about.

Speaker 4 (54:55):
Now.

Speaker 1 (54:55):
I wanted to stay on the subject of homicide investigation
for a moment because in a situation like you mentioned earlier,
catching non fatals in terms of shootings, you can at
least talk to the person. Now if they wanted to
disseminate the information is up to them, but at least
you have someone you can talk to at the surface
level at least, and where it goes from there, and
like I said, is up to the subject. Homicide victims,
you don't you're their advocate, you're their voice because their

(55:17):
voice is unfortunately been silenced. So you know, it's a
heavy responsibility to take on. But as a lot of
detectives that have had the pleasure of interviewing on this
program have told me it's an honor and a weight
that they were proud to take on, you know, and
they were so invested in solving these cases. Didn't matter
if it was a quote unquote public service homicide or
that two year old, they were on it. So as

(55:37):
far as the science of a homicide investigation from your perspective,
no matter the victim and their walk of life and
way of life, tell me about you know, the process
for you the dudes and the don'ts and some of
the more rewarding outcomes and cases.

Speaker 2 (55:49):
You hit it on the head as far as what
the detectives put forth. You know, when the bell rang,
you know, I mean literally you could be in the
squad room and it's ten o'clock at night and you're
doing nothing in the whole night, and obviously you know
they should be, you know, typing their cases, and same
thing with me doing my admin work, and you know,
you get the radio. You hear the radio going on,
and you figure it's in okay, let's you don't get

(56:10):
the squad out here, and you get in the call okay, listen,
guys going out of the picture, or you know, rush
the bus. All you know, all the terminology and boy,
they would turn it on. The ties will go up,
the jackets will go on, and I guess from the
detective standpoint, that is why they were detectives and investigators.
You know, I was lucky, man. I got to like

(56:32):
almost step back and just watch the shows as the boss,
you know, and kind of listen my job. I like
to like kind of run interference for them and let
them work. You know what I mean. You get the captain,
show up, this guy show up, whatever cases, and I
would have my answers. Listen, I would have the information
I would I would I would be involved in the case.
I would get, you know, all the details of the

(56:53):
case and when I can, especially after doing it for
a while, I would include myself in the case. But
you know, uh, one adage I learned early in my career.
You know, bosses don't go in the box, you know.
I mean that's a detective's job, you know, I mean,
let the detectives do their work. But from that standpoint,

(57:14):
you know, like the bodies drop, I mean the effort
and the time, you know, I mean, guys would be
there a week, two weeks, not even blankety eye, you know,
they wouldn't be you know, I mean I always I
was always lucky enough my time in the Bronx. If
a body dropped, I don't care. If we went you
know through the night to four or five in the
morning before we went back to the squad room, and

(57:35):
I always ran home, like right up the hutch so
I could get like a wink asleep in my own
bed and a shower in a fresh suit. It was
an absolute luxury. And right back at it. You know, detectives.
I knew detectives, you know, from when I was back
in the four to eight. They lived, you know, you
know up in Orange County, what are the cases and
they would come down with four days worth of clothes
for the just in case, you know, and willing to

(57:57):
do it and willing to put that time in because
like you says, you are that advocate for that person,
you know, and regardless of what it was, you know,
and just just phenomenal, phenomenal work, Mike, really and truthfully
interesting work. And just when the add you say, oh
I think I've seen it all, something always tops it,

(58:18):
you know, something always tops it. So it was it
was a real interesting time in my career when I
gladly reflect back on and you know outside of the
two year old. I remember my first homicide as a
squad commander in the four five. It was actually an
eighteen year old Columbia University student walking home talking to

(58:41):
his girlfriend and he had one of the newest like
motorola raisor phones or whatever the cases. And there was
four guys in a car who just they were scoping
him out, like along stream one avenue the whole time,
and they go rolling for his phone and he's actually
on the phone with his girlfriend and he shot in
the back right and his lung and you know, for

(59:03):
for a phone, which listen is you've heard it ten
times over, you know. And but you know his mother
had to find them because his girlfriend calls the mother
and the mother like runs like the four houses out
and you know, finds us son dead in the street,
you know, over a cell phone. And you know, that
one sticks with me because my squad and the guys
from the homicide squad we actually uh you know, phone

(59:25):
records and tragulation and actually full five patrol. I'd be
a miss if I don't give him credit because they
actually stopped two guys fleeing the scene who gave bogus information,
but at least they two fiftied them and the guys
in homicide were able to put all that together, and
we wind up hitting a couple of doors in Story
Avenue projects, just straight down the road from the four
to three, and you know, we gather everybody up and

(59:48):
we know we got the right guys, and we went
out them hard. We went at them. They were guests
of the four five for about thirty hours, and unfortunately
they walked out the next day because Spronx District Attorney
wouldn't give us authority or permission to call it them
for the homicide. You know, the old pointed fingers at
each other and at a lot of moving parts to it.

(01:00:11):
And it's unfortunate. And I tell you a what, within
a year, I think two were dead and two of
them were caught in like a city wide robbery pattern.
These were bad guys, and we knew we had we
had the right guys, and like you said, you know,
but the advocate for that victim, you know, that was
our job and not that we failed, We just weren't supported.

(01:00:31):
And that when that that's that's two thousand and six,
that's November of two thousand and six and here it is,
I mean a long time ago, and it still weighs
on my head that we couldn't we couldn't just shut
the door on that and you know, close that up
the right way.

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
Yeah, you know that's true. I mean, at least it
caught the scales of justice caught up with them to
a degree, you know, because that triflef if you're living
that street life, it's gonna catch up with you. Oh
you know, you're gonna and you're gonna. You're not gonna
come out of that. It's unscathed. Very few people do.
Two of them aren't even here anymore, you know, one
too bad an the other ones. At least they got nabbed.
Even though they didn't get nabbed on the murder charge,
they did end up behind bars in some capacity, hopefully

(01:01:07):
long terms. So at least they're not completely scot free,
which would have been even worse the or that that
didn't happen.

Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
So yeah, yeah, so yeah, but uh yeah, you know,
I tell you, unless you you see it firsthand, you know,
how the detectives go about their business and catching these
cases and doing that work, it's just amazing. It's it's
it's amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:01:29):
Work, absolutely, as Christian Flood says, and it's the model
of the DEA, meaning not the drug enforcement Agency. For
those of you in the chat, they don't know the
detectives and Dowmin Association, which is the detective union for
the NYPD, the greatest detectives in the world. And they're
not lying. That's a hyper belie either. You know, we've
seen it time and time again. And no not to
the other agencies that do great work across the country, LAPD, Chicago,
any big city you could think of. You know, the

(01:01:51):
NYPD has proven they are the gold standard for detectives
that gets proven year after year and day after dang
go matter the era. So Boyce, I know in twenty
ten is when Chief Boys went to the Bronx and
I feel like this is probably the time your career
is intersect because then he had Manhattan for a little
bit and then he was cheap detectives. Was it November
of twenty.

Speaker 2 (01:02:09):
Ten started, so August of twenty ten, you know, we
were kind of you know, we're in a Ruddler's ship
for the most part in Bronx Detectives with leadership and
at the time Phil Pulaski is the chief of detectives,
and he was he was trying to change the world
in the detective Bureau, and I kind of pushed back,

(01:02:32):
you know, I was at a point in my career. Yeah,
somehow earned a nickname Captain Cavalier. I'm sure how I
earned that, But you know, he was trying to make
everything robotic, where you know, everything was the same move.
He came out with these checklists and you know, everything
in a case folder, and you know, no two investigations

(01:02:54):
are the same. And I'll come out and say, listen,
not everything he wanted to do for mistigations was terrible.
But the way he went about his business, I mean
he was crushing people left and right, crushing his executives,
crushing He decided he had to make an example of
squad commander in every borough. And so there was a

(01:03:15):
CompStat in the spring or early summer of ten and
I'm actually on vacation and the four five was up,
and the four five wasn't a huge constatable command, but
they were actually shooting for the priest and commander. They
didn't they didn't really like him. Nice man, but he
was in way over his head and so I'm I'm,

(01:03:35):
I'm I don't go to the podium. I'm I'm literally
away on a golfing trip. And uh but my my,
my brand sergeant who's now actually she's a deputy chief,
still an active deputy chief on the job. She tried
her best, but like I said, they were pushing hard
for the Priest and commander and we were just kind
of like cannon fodder at that time. And Chief Pulaski

(01:03:56):
thought my squad wasn't, you know, working whatever the case is.
So he's sent all of his you know, investigative units
and all these people into my squad consistently. And so
I found myself in like an hour in forty five
minute like G fifteen, which is basically, you know, the
job's way of interrogating you. And you know, I wasn't
following like all of his little minute details to to

(01:04:19):
you know, to the tea. And hence now Chief Voice
comes into the Bronx August of twenty ten and to
my fortieth birthday, and I'm now on vacation my family.
We're way for two weeks, so I'm checking in. I mean,
we're down in Florida or whatever we're doing, and I
speak to, you know, my grandsargeant, Julie Morrel, and she goes, hey,

(01:04:40):
this new boss brought us in all the supervisors. He
had his first meeting and he walked into the room
and she goes, Steve, I tell you this guy he
could be the police commissioner. The way he carries himself.
He is legit and like, Julie, stop, you know he
ties his shoes just like you and I. Whatever the
case is, I'm surely because I remember I remember boys
when he had the four precinct. He was a duty

(01:05:01):
captain and I was a patrol sergeant. So I was like, okay,
whatever the case is. So I come back to work
after two weeks two weeks vacation and in the Bronx,
you especially on the weekends because the bosses whack up
the weekends days off. So I was covering the west
side of the Bronx and probably within like twenty minutes

(01:05:21):
of my tour, about five o'clock, there's a double homicide
in Saint James Park in the five to two, So
I had I had the coverage. You know, you fly
over there and it was gang related trinitarios where the
cases and our chief voice just came out of the
gang division. See why gang division at that point. So
I listened. I knew the guys because I was already
in Bronx Detectives for seven years at the time. So

(01:05:43):
I'm getting all the facts for myself because I'm going
to be tesked with doing the reports for downtown in
order to find the chief of detectives. And they're like, hey,
the new chief wants to hear from you. He wants
an update. Okay, I call him. So I give him,
you know, ABC and D on the double homicide, and
he hits me with Ian on the gang side. And
the one thing, I tell you what learned from Chief Resnick.

(01:06:05):
You know, if you don't have the information, just say hey,
I'm going to get back to you. And it's an
acceptable answer, which it was. And so I called the
chief voice back and I gave him what he wanted
and i' give him a further update the night and
he goes, who is this again, I says Steve Vancini.
I have the four or five squad, but I'm just
covering the five two for the night. And he's like,
I have to talk to you. He goes, I said
that I fully expected it so, like I says, I

(01:06:28):
was on the bad boy list from downtown. And I
went into the to meet the Man the next day
and we wound up sitting down. I sat in his
office for about two and a half hours and we
talked man the Man, and we talked about the detective
Bureau where we were. Nobody told him listen, not that
I had a great amount of time, but I had.

(01:06:49):
You know, I had seven years vested in Bronx Detectives
at the time. I was a squad commanded for almost
four years. I had the money. I feel I did
my time. And like I said, well, did I feel
everything Chief last he did was great? Now? I didn't.
I'll say it to you out loud right now. And
like I said, it had a lot to do where
you know, we weren't robots, and that's how I felt

(01:07:11):
he kind of was treating us. So apparently boiled Chief
boys really liked what I had to say to him,
and he told me go back and run your squad.
He goes paper has a history of getting lost sometimes
in the police department. Because I knew I was supposed
to lose my command and all these things PLASKI wanted
to do to me. I remember getting a phone call
RDO Friday Saturday. It's probably about a month later, and

(01:07:32):
he goes, Listen, paper was too far along. He goes,
I got a movie here, but I'm moving you to
my team. We're going to start a team. He goes,
because I'm an outside of again in the Bronx. I'm
new back into the game with the Bureau. But listen,
he had phenomenal experience as a sergeant lieutenant, you know,
running Brooklyn squads, you know, back in the day, and

(01:07:53):
I and I joined his team. I had my twentieth anniversary.
I just you know, completed my twenty years and I've
never worked inside before, and I wind up going inside
and working for what will be now the future chief
of Detectives. And I work with him in the Bronx
from ten to about thirteen, and I'm basically his borough administrator.

(01:08:14):
I'm pushing a lot of paper, dealing with all the squads,
but I'm just getting to pick this man's brain daily
and work for him. And you know, yeah, I literally,
you know, look back on it, going, Man, I wish
i'd met this guy ten years ago, because I know
i'd probably be an executive myself. I mean, he's just
got that drive and he puts that drive upon you,
and you know, just a really great guy. And so

(01:08:36):
I remember the way afternoon it's a I guess the
spring of thirteen. And he walks in my office and
we're up on the fourth floor of Bronx Detectives is
located in ten eighty six Simpson Street, which is the
old Ford Apache Mike from back in the day. And
it is just a beautiful If you ever get a
chance to visit there, or if you want to go
visit there, let me know and we'll take a ride down.

Speaker 1 (01:08:58):
You don't have to ask me twice.

Speaker 2 (01:09:00):
Now, I'm in a beautiful police facility, you know. So
he walks into my office and he's kind of like, hey,
do you want to go to Manhattan? And I'm looking
at it. I look at my watch and I'm like,
you know, here's the Captain Cavalier in me. I'm like, no, boss,
I'm gonna be going home soon. I'll get one of
the detectives to drive you down there. And he's like, no,
you're moron. I just was given Manhattan Detectives. He goes

(01:09:24):
the big guy is flipping the chief of Manhattan detectives
of me, and here I am like, now it's twenty
three years basically a Bronx boy. The whole Mainland theory
in my head, Mike Manhattan. Oh scary, you know, scary
you know the city. Yeah, And so the next day
he's actually the duty chief. Once a month, he was
a duty chief and they do that with the bosses

(01:09:45):
where they got to take a uniform tour either on
the midnights of the four to twelve's and they're basically
the chief of the city. And he goes, well, I
got the duty tomorrow, so you're driving me anyway. And
I'm like okay. So he came in about three and
he goes, we all to take a ride down there.
So we go down there, and now Detective Borough of
Manhattan's located in the thirteenth Precinct right next to Truck
one on twenty first Street, and we go down there

(01:10:08):
and I talk about like it I feel like an
egg out of water where you know, whatever, the fish
out of water. I'm just standing in the hallway like
a stranger. I'm in uniform, and I'm a uniform sergeant. Whatever.
The case is assigned to the detective Bureau Driving Uniform
chief and he goes in has a little meeting. You know,
I meet the XO who I wind up working for.
He was actually the CEO of SID in my arsenal

(01:10:29):
explosion days. And there's a nice people who are the cases.
So we get back in the car and he's just like,
you're gonna love it down here with me. So I
think he made my decision, and that's how I wound
up going to Manhattan. Detectives were for the most part,
so for me, it was an interesting ten months that
we were down there. More good work, but different work

(01:10:52):
because you don't got the violence that I was used
to in the Bronx, you know, and obviously anything south
of fifty ninth Street is a huge deal and you
get to learn that really quickly. Oh yeah, yeah. I mean, like,
for instance, like the Manhtt and South homicide squad. You know,
my office was like right down the hall from them,
and yeah, I'd see them, Hey, what are you guys

(01:11:12):
up to And they're like, oh, yeah, we're going out
on a grand loss to the I'm like excuse me.
I'm like, you guys are a homicide squad and they're like, yeah, boss,
this is just what we do down here. You know,
like I said, different different work, but same thing. Great
great people, good detectives, just you know, and not to
not to say they're any you know, any less than

(01:11:34):
the guys in the Bronx of Brooklyn. It's just different work.
But I tell you what, South Homicide has had a
great some great detectives and and I get it. I understood,
you know that that what the Bronx wouldn't look twice
at was a big deal in Manhattan and it got
the attention it deserved. And at the time when Boyce
had Manhattan, he had the whole island. Now it's two different.
The detective boroughs were split into on the commission of Bratton,

(01:11:56):
so he had all I think twenty PRIs. So we
literally went from you know, three four percint down to
the first precinct you know he was responsible for. So
it was an interesting time, but not my cup of tea.
You know, I was taking a railroad into work, uh
you know, railroad subway. I'm walking, I'm like, what is this?
What's going on here? You know I missed the Bronx.

(01:12:16):
You're right, You're absolutely right that I actually go to
the bos, right, after the new year of fourteen, and
I'm like, you got to send me home. I said,
this isn't this isn't me, this isn't working for me.
And we were just on the cusp of Super Bowl
super Bowls being held out in met Life Stadium and
Time Square results set up for super Bowl Boulevard, so
we had a big imprint. The detective you know, Burrow

(01:12:37):
down there for investing investigator. We always like put out
investigative details for any big event, so there already be
detectives on, you know, on the ground in case something happened.
And he says, let's get through the super Bowl and
come back and talk to me, which was fine. Listen,
I'm in had to already inswort him every day, you know,
not that I never saw the guy and everything was

(01:12:57):
in motion already. And I mean, I mean watching his
interview last week when he says how he got the
call from John Miller for him to interview, I think
his seat is still spinning. He left so fast that
night to go interview, and good for him. Listen, without
a doubt, they picked the right guy for that job
and never got a chance to go back to the Bronx,
except when I was visiting with the Chief of Detectives,

(01:13:20):
so you know, he was awarded the big job in
March or fourteen, and I went down as on paper,
it's kind of funny. I was like, I'm your watt
and on paper I was his confidential aid. So I
like to consider myself his consiguliary and especially you know,
wartime consiguliary, because I tell you what we would task
now with turning the job and making the detective Bureau

(01:13:43):
and giving it back to the men and women to
do that job. Like I says, you know, and the
last time, I promise you, I'm gonna mention his name,
you know, Chief Pulaski, I says. I didn't always agree
with what he did and how he kind of handcuffed
the guys and guys and girls, and it was, hey,
you guys have a job to do. You have a
serious job to do. Let's go do it. You know,

(01:14:06):
you couldn't get into the office. You couldn't walk into
the Chief of the Detective's office as a member of the
detective Bureau. You had to present you right dcard. I mean,
it was ridiculous. We're on the thirteenth floor of one
police plaza. You know, there's multiple levels of security before
a detective or a sergeant or lieutenant you know, could
come into the Chief of the Detective office. And you know,
I remember changing that with our secretary. I'm like, no, no, no,
we're welcoming. We love detectives now, we love our people.

(01:14:30):
Bring them in, bring them in, you know, and treat
them well, and we're going to give them whatever support
they needed to do their job the right way, you know.
And a very real interesting time for me four years
in that office until the boss actually aged out, you know,
unfortunately at a sixty third birthday. A lot of exposure

(01:14:50):
with both the Commissioner Bratton now and Commissioner O'Neil. Got
to see, you know, the Detective Bureau absorb and I'll
use the word absorb occb in twenty sixteen on the
commission of Bratton and talking about opening my eyes to
a whole another world that I was never involved in,

(01:15:11):
and that was Acas being narcotics. And I mean, absolute
hats off to anybody who did that work in their career,
just you know, gritty, amazing, just your hard edged work.
And got to see it all. Man, it was a
great place to see and as like it says, the
four years, I got to see how the job actually

(01:15:31):
worked from the inside out and how we could do
the right thing. And listen, it wasn't always fun and games.
You know. There was times, you know, you know, I
had to play like say, you know, judge and jury,
and one of my jobs was Okay, this doesn't get
to the boss, or this has to get to the
boss and you know, one of those theories. But it
was a good time and I got to see how

(01:15:53):
the job actually worked at that level. But I was
also happy, you know, I say, like he retired. I
think it was about April April seventeenth or eighteenth of
twenty fourteen, twenty eighteen, excuse me, like he was he
left at three thirty and I left it like three forty.
Because listen, that's just how it wasn't you know. I
was tied to him, and I welcome the going. I

(01:16:15):
welcome going back out in the working world.

Speaker 1 (01:16:18):
And that leads us to the final two years, which is,
like I said, while you're under the tails from the
boom room banner, which is ours and explosion. And it
wasn't until I talked to Billy Ryan that I got
the understanding of A the workload that A and E
takes on, and also be how small they are. Now
for those of you that are a little bit newer
to the program, maybe you're watching for the first time tonight,
long term viewers, you know you guys already to know

(01:16:40):
this A and E is is not the bomb Squad.
They're separate from the bomb Squad. They do cross paths
with each other because the bomb squad doesn't have time
to go out and investigate these instance, A and E can.
A and He's a citywide unit much like the bomb
squad is, but A and HE is significantly smaller, whereas
the bomb squad has. Probably they won't tell you the
exact number between thirty and forty cops A and HE
has like at their peak, I think Billy Ryan, who

(01:17:01):
retired out of the Union in two thousand and four,
were saying like twelve, sometimes even smaller. So you're doing
work for all five boroughs with less than twenty guys
in gals. But you make it work. You make it work.
So tell me about A and E those last years,
because I know when the JTTF came to be Annie's mission.
In terms of cases they take on versus cases they don't.

Speaker 2 (01:17:22):
Change with so you know, so there it is April
of eighteen. And one of the things that and I
know Chief Boys mentioned when he was on with you
last week or two weeks ago, was under Bratton, he
makes all these test forces to you know, to you know,
get successful for all partners on the federal side, and

(01:17:43):
a lot of it is listen, were were their key
to the city. You know, we're bringing them into the city.
And they started a New York City arson Explosion Test Force.
And it was comprised of portions of A and E,
not the whole thing. So so any like you said,
was lieutenant sergeants and eleven to twelve guys. We had
eleven and twelve detectives. And so when I first went

(01:18:07):
over there, I went, I went on on the under
the umbrella of we were all task force offices with
the ATF. So there was an ATF element and fire
marshals and that's what comprised of the you know, the
Arsenal Explosion Task Force. But the actuals the actual arstin
Explosion Squad turns out of p S A four down

(01:18:27):
at H Street and Avenue C and the the other
side of it is, uh, you know, actually when I
was there, we turned out of thirty two old slip
down in the first precinct. That's where, you know, basically
I've split my time between the two depending on what
was going on. But the Arsenal explosion world, I definitely feel,
and you you just hit on it where I feel

(01:18:51):
the job they underutilize the Arsenal explosion Squad. They really,
truthfully do. There was a point in time where, you know,
commit Sian Miller actually took the bomb Squad out of
the Detective Bureau. You know, they were assigned in Forensics Division,
which kind of surprised me when I first got the
Chief Detective's office, I definitely thought that they would be
assigned to special investigations as well, But they were assigned

(01:19:13):
within the Forensics Investigation division and they made the move
and they brought them over to counter terrorism side, the
bomb squad. Yeah, which makes perfect sense to me. And
like I says, and yeah, I watched the episode, you
know poorly Perna Cone and I mean talent, smart, smart guys,
Mark Mark Tory, I mean, brilliant just that is their world.

(01:19:35):
I mean, that is their world. And I tell you
what you know, I met a couple of you know,
FBI s, s ABTS and stuff like that. But listen,
I'm NYPD thirty is nobody does it better than us?
And yeah, I tell you what if I think, if
I think I was going to give the job maybe
a little more time, it's definitely something I might have
been interested in.

Speaker 4 (01:19:54):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:19:54):
But yeah, I had the interest in in you know,
the fireside. You know, I was a volunteer fireman for
a number of years. And you get the arsin investigations
and not to sound selfish, but the training, the training
you want to go an arsenal explosion, whether you're a
boss or detective. So you receive training down in Redstone Arsenal.
It's an army base in Huntsville, Alabama from the via

(01:20:17):
ATF and that's where actually you know, has has this
hazardous device school is held for the bomb squad and
we go for post blast investigation training a total of
three weeks there. We do homemade explosive classes down there.

Speaker 1 (01:20:33):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:20:33):
You know, I personally went for arson classes down there,
multiple I mean minimally. As from the arson side, you
got to be in New York State arsen investigator. The
majority of my office and investigators went through the National
Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, you know, Maryland, and they got
the National SERTs. So the training that's involved, and it

(01:20:57):
is really really it's specially you know, it's special stuff
and it's it's it's high, it's it's so much different
than than your actual number detective squad or your homicide
squad because this is a specialty. It is an absolute specialty,
and it's it's real interesting work, obviously, you know, really
interesting work. I remember listening to the past episode with

(01:21:19):
the Macaulay Culkin fire and the things you got to
go out to and which you look for, and you know,
you know, multiple like I tell you what, you know,
the two instances the Austin explosion Squad were key in.
One is July of twenty sixteen is explosion in Central Park,
YEP where young gentleman he's about eighteen years old, eighteen

(01:21:42):
twenty years old college students in with a couple of
his friends and his zip lining off a rock at
a six to zero and five and unfortunately he lands
on a bag that explodes. And July third, twenty sixteen,
I mean hot as can be. The day before July fourth,
and I'm assigned the chief of D's and I would

(01:22:04):
always go out any major incident. I would go out
and make kind of make the determination if the boss
was going to go on it or not. You know,
since it's not MOS related, per se, anything with a
cop obviously we're already moving the boss out there. But
I got to see a lot, a lot, a lot
of huge scenes, you know, and I pretty much make
the determination, Hey, he's got to come over over the cases.
Remember going out to the park that day and obviously

(01:22:26):
the day before July fourth, everybody's trying to keep it
kind of hushut. It's fireworks, fireworks, fireworks, and unfortunately this
young man lost from his knee down. I mean, it
was catastrophic injury. So you knew there was more to it,
you know, extensive crying, scene set up, and actually the
explosion is caught caused by what they determined in the

(01:22:46):
lab because they get traces of the dirt. They take
samples of the dirt when you know, when they're processing
the scene of TATP, which is triacidtone try peroxide, which
is you know, a highly highly explosive. Seeing the multiple
terrorists devices, you know, throughout the world, and here it is,
this bag, which was a bakery bag from Union City,

(01:23:09):
New Jersey, is parked alongside this rock lord of with.

Speaker 1 (01:23:13):
Tat B.

Speaker 2 (01:23:15):
And I'll tell you what unfortunately, I mean, tremendous work
Mike was put into this case over the past eight years,
and unfortunately it still remains open. I mean, there's a
forty thousand dollars reward between crime stoppers and the ATF
still to this day. And it's really unfortunate because a
really phenomenal detective has the case right now, the senior

(01:23:37):
man in Arsenal explosion. He actually just turned his thirty
fourth year on the job and he's still stolen. But
when I tell you, leeds were exhausted from Maine down
to New York, out to Illinois. These guys, you know,
just kick kick, kicked that case in the butt. But
unfortunately you're dealing with a paper bag Central Park. You

(01:23:59):
have no idea when the bag was placed there. You know,
who could have brought it? You know, I mean it's
a man made explosive, no less, which is really scary.
You know, is it a science project gone bad and
somebody just planted it there?

Speaker 4 (01:24:13):
Was it?

Speaker 2 (01:24:14):
Let me tell you know, obviously we have many theories
about how and why it got there, but it's it's unfortunate,
like you say, where you know, some cases you just
stay with you and I mean without a doubt. I mean,
and it's unfortunate because, like it says, the unit and
the detective, you know, he takes a little bit of
a beaten every anniversary because there's a lot of negative

(01:24:37):
press on the case. And to just still to this
day go google it, you know, for this past July.
But a really interesting case just to say, and I
mean the case folded, the case. You know, the detectives prepared,
prepared d D fives for their investigative reports, and there's
easily got to be like three hundred and fifty d D
five's in this case. And I left four years ago

(01:24:58):
and there was that many. So it it's not forgotten.
I mean, it's looked at, but it's only so much
you could do with it, I guess, you know. Uh,
And and it's unfortunate, but a really interesting, interesting, you
know incident, just to say, you know, your people don't realize,
you know, the Arstin explosion squad and the bomb squad,
you know, things happen daily in the city that you
obviously don't want put on you know, don't make the news,

(01:25:20):
whoever the case is, and between hoax devices and but uh,
you know, the emergency guys going on suspicious devices routinely,
you know, every day for them, and they make the determination, Hey,
you might want to get the bomb squad out here.
And and that's where I feel, you know, in my
two and a half years in Arsenal explosion, where they're
un utilized. I mean, they should be rolling with the

(01:25:40):
bomb squad. I mean, these are your investigators, you know,
and I gave them all their the prompts before and
nothing to take away from the bomb squad, but the
text they are, they are a text They they know
their stuff hands down, and I said, they're the best
at what they do. But I feel that that strongly
about the investigators and Arsenal explosion too, you know, the

(01:26:01):
Chelsea bombing in twenty sixteen, in September twenty sixteen, you know,
Arsenal explosion ran with that from and then the thirteen
squad did phenomenal work as well. You know, I'm being
at the scene, you know, you know, coming in from
home the Saturday night and the destruction. You see these
construction I know you got some of the story, but

(01:26:21):
the construction dumpters that are out there are mangled and
thrown hundreds of feet from this device, you know. And
my personal opinion and like talking to various people there,
the secondary device that was planted on twenty ninth Street,
that's actually discovered by two State troopers on patrol. You know,

(01:26:41):
definitely there was. It was planted just opposite a hotel,
you know, the name escapes me. But it had a
glass facade and downstairs on the sidewalk was an outdoor
restaurant and that was planted there specifically because the energy
of that device, if that explode did would have would

(01:27:01):
have uh you know, broke those windows and shredded the
people eating dinner on a Saturday night in Manhattan to shreds,
absolute shreds. So obviously, you know the bad guy. I
think I met Ramani, I met RAHAMI you know, he
definitely know what he was doing, man, and he hit us.
He hit us hard. You know. He hit the Marine
Corps marathon in Seaside Heights, you know, two days prior

(01:27:23):
and so Arson explosion, they ran with that with the
bomb squad that whole night and all crime scene and
then the FEDS board in the crime scene and it
was actually the first I believe or not. That was
the first night I think commission O'Neil has sworn in
the day before. The transfer of the torch went from
Bratton to O'Neill like the day before, and this was
O'Neill's like first day as the police missioner, his first

(01:27:47):
whole day of the police commissioner, and he has bombing,
you know, in his city.

Speaker 1 (01:27:51):
Yeah, it was. It was pretty intense for him because
it was that and Karinavitronto's murder, which I talked about
with Chief Voye, which happened right around the same time.
So that was not an easy transition for him. But
eventually things were able to even out. And I'm glad
you mentioned that because originally, I mean, I've mentioned before,
if you're gonna move I mean them, encounter terrorism makes sense,

(01:28:11):
But if you're gonna move the bomb squad anywhere else,
you might as well put them in SOD because I
think what they're doing is pretty darn special. It doesn't
get more special ops than diffusing bombs. But like you said,
I'm glad you mentioned the role of A and E
because they should be as you said, they should be
going out on these cases. And the process starts really
from patrol. Patrol see something suspicious, they call emergency service.

(01:28:33):
Emergency service calls the bomb squad. The bomb squad analyzes it.
If it's real, okay, diffuse it. If it's not, okay, oooh,
thank goodness, But again it's not. The bomb squad isn't
capable of doing this. If they had the time to
do investigations, they would, But when you have to cover
a whole city of eight million people for twenty four
hours a day across multiple tours, you just don't have
the time. So that's where A and E comes in.

(01:28:54):
And I get it in a post nine to eleven world,
the JTTF is in it a lot, as they should be,
not knocking that, but you don't want to forget about
the originals either.

Speaker 2 (01:29:02):
In A and E.

Speaker 1 (01:29:02):
They're one of the longest serving units in policing, not
just the NYPD.

Speaker 2 (01:29:06):
Well, and I almost feel like we you know the
history of A and E, which goes back to the
very late sixties when you're having the bombings in the
city with the you know, the weather underground and FALN
and you know where A and E. You know, depending
on who you speak to, you know, going back in
the day, like we were almost the first prototype of
a JTTF A and E squad in New York City.

(01:29:27):
You know, they were like handpicked old school detectives out
of like the Major K squad. That was your first
rendition of A and E because they realized they didn't
have anybody with the expertise to really start looking at
these groups and locking them up. And like I said,
I think it was like in seventy two or something
like that was the first MoU between the FBI and

(01:29:49):
the MYPD, and it was Arsome explosion and the FBI.
But going back like in the Chelsea bombing, I mean
thirteen squad and A and E worked that all night long,
you know, And obviously I'm there in a different front
at the time, you know, you know, my umbrothers, you know,
you're tied to the chief of the time. But seeing
it and really getting to look at it and seeing

(01:30:11):
what they're doing, and I mean walking and you're right
along twenty third street car or I mean the littlest
piece of it. That's what you do with a postplast
investigation is you try and find what you can do
to try and put that device back together or find
something some sort of a serial number or something that's
going to identify that device where now you know, maybe
it's a piece of PVC. It was a it was

(01:30:33):
a pipe, okay, and the serial number of that PVC
you can go back to home depot with it, run
the skew, see who bought it. I mean, there's so
many avenues you could do, but it's scary. It's scary
where these these these things are out there, and they're
out there a lot more frequently than what you know
the public knows. But listen, I think once again, like

(01:30:54):
I said, the MYPD you know, the the best at
what they do. But me personally, if I was anybody
of any power, yeah, that bomb squad in A and
E will be working hand in hand in a response
type of mode. Like you'll get the guys on the
road immediately and guess what if it's nothing, turn them around,
send them home.

Speaker 1 (01:31:12):
Is that simple, simple as that.

Speaker 2 (01:31:14):
You know, I got a five and close the case.
You took a case of response case and that's it.
You do what you're there for because like I said,
the training they undergo, you got to be attracted to it,
you know. And outside of the explosive side, now you're
dealing in the fireworld with arson investigations, which your complex
as can be. This task Force. When I was in

(01:31:35):
the in the task Force at the end of my career,
so my counterpart in the fire Marshals, he's now the
Chief fire Marshal, and my counterpart in the ATF is
now the Sack of New York. So I kid, I'm like, well,
maybe if I stayed around, i'd be a police commissioner
right now.

Speaker 1 (01:31:51):
See what's the old song, two out of three eight bad?

Speaker 2 (01:31:53):
That's right, that's right. And I do like meat Loaft,
so it's good. But a talented bunch and everybody the
fire Marshals that were on the Task Force were part
of their special investigation unit. I'd be miss if I
did not recognize them because they were phenomenal investigators, phenomenal
investigators really and truthfully, and it was always a learning experience,

(01:32:15):
an absolute learning experience. Yeah, you know, listen, I have
my certifications. I was a you know, a New York
State Arts and investigator. But until you get in there
and you know, even the base marshals, you know, the
fire marshals. Yeah, a Bronx Uh well, the Bronx Bronx
Manhattan Queen's base. They turned out of Fort Totten. And
then the other group is out in Hooper Street in
an old firehouse and they do Brooklyn Queens and Satton

(01:32:35):
Island and those are the guys who respond to basically
every job and then they dig out the scenes. We
we we were coming to uh you know, any any
any death, anything commercial, anything religious, you know, those those
are the type of responses that would generate a response
from the task force, and we kind of it was
kind of odd because we would kind of then like

(01:32:57):
cherry pick or hand pick, like these guys be working
all night at the scene and then we would get
the call and we would come in and we wind
up like almost you know, taking the job away from them.
Which listen, it was recognized it was what it was.
But just to you know, complex investigations that you you
got to actually take your time to investigate because your

(01:33:17):
caseload was smaller than your working detective squads out there
and a lot of you know a lot of forensics.
You had to wait on arsenal explosion squad. We were
the only only one. How I'm trying to reflect back,
you get to excuse me at tomorrow. I'm actually retired.
It's four years already, so so, uh, you know, we

(01:33:39):
we only requested crime scene, which was great crime scene.
You know, if I was arstin explosion supervisor, I could
get crime scene out there to any one of my
jobs and they would have to come. Never had an
evidence collection, not to knock them, but just what we
did was just complex and we need that that that
little extra and uh, my guys, and you know, I
can't say girl and I have had any female investigators.

(01:34:02):
They knew, you know, particularly what they wanted and what
they would need to collected when whether it was a
piece of a wall, a piece of a floor. Obviously,
how the burn pattern went. I mean, because you're dealing
with some fires. You know, we had multiple, multiple fires
with multiple debts, and then you know, then you took
take it forward to twenty twenty, you know, the summer

(01:34:22):
of protests where we're now dealing with you know, uh,
destructive devices with molotov cocktailshere, everybody's trying to you know,
blow stuff up and you know, mainly well and I'll
touch on I could definitely touch on that case because
we were actively involved in that, uh, and it was
kind of poetic justice in one sense. I mean, thankfully

(01:34:44):
the device you know, didn't light like it should have,
and otherwise you'd probably have, you know, eight dead cops
in a van. It was in confines of the eight
eight in four Green, Brooklyn. And you know, my guys
worked the case, you know, kick kick the stuffings out
of it, Mike. And we're able to identify two individuals

(01:35:06):
who were responsible for making the device and lighting it,
and they were both lawyers, brown educated lawyers. And it's
just like it's just poetic justice in one sense, you
know what I mean, where you know we did I
remember I remember getting their text message records, you know,
and stuff like that where they're like burn it all down,
We're gonna burn one pp and you're just like wow,

(01:35:27):
I mean, it's just like angry, angry people. But that
that that was a great culmination because and with our
federal angle, because like I said, we were all deputized
with the at F and uh, you know, possession of
a destructive device that that's five years of FED time
automatically without anybody getting hurt. So it was a great
tool in our pocket.

Speaker 1 (01:35:47):
To have that that that uh.

Speaker 2 (01:35:49):
The task force you know, as a whole and everybody
working together. It was a fun time. It was a
good time, and it was different. Ya. This is a
you know, I go from you know, your patrol to
graffiti stuff and you know, anti crime, and now you're
dealing with explosives and you're dealing.

Speaker 1 (01:36:03):
With arson and it's quite the jump.

Speaker 2 (01:36:05):
It's quite the jump, man. But you know something, there's
something new again. And here I am. I'm a student
of the job again, you know, with I go there
with twenty eight years on a job, you know, and
I'm a student again. And that's great. It's great listen
to gotta keep yourself fresh. You got to got to
keep the mind going, man.

Speaker 1 (01:36:21):
All right, you got to keep evolving. And that's well.
That plays into what I wanted to ask you before
we get to the rapid fire, which is like, there's
no way to say it, like twenty twenty it's a
terrible year, awful year for a lot of reasons. Pandemic,
it just wasn't a pleasant time. Were you thinking about
leaving anyway, or was it that year that made you say,
you know what, I forget this.

Speaker 2 (01:36:42):
So it's you know, a probably a year earlier, my
wife and I decide to build in Florida, but just
to kind of like have something for the future down
the road. And you know, we're at down on the
west coast in the Bradington, Sarasota area, in a place
called Lakewood Ranch, so that was being built. I had
a son in the Marine Corps, and I had another
son who was a firefighter in Newcastle County, Delaware, and

(01:37:07):
I was approaching my thirty years and you know, the
house was built. We get through COVID. It's the summer
of twenty and doing this sort of work with the
protests and not that I was not that it jaded me. Listen,
I still went to work. I was still that guy.
I was okay with it, had you know, great people
working for me, interested in the work, and I was

(01:37:28):
just kind of like you know, the you know, the
wife was like, listen, she goes, I love it here,
she goes, I'm going to spend a lot of time here.
So I was like in New York kind of by myself,
and you know, I just just looked at it, sat
with it, and I had a cousin. He got on
the job a year ahead of me. He got out
on eighty nine, and he got promoted the sergeant year
ahead of me in ninety eight. And he was a

(01:37:50):
sergeant Midtown South priestst for this whole time, from ninety
eight right to when he retires in twenty twenty. And
he ran the South. He was the guy up in
the office. He ran that South. He ran the South
for a multiple seat. And he was just a guy.
And we kind of kidded each other at one point where,
you know, when I was, you know, Chief Voices, young guy,
he goes, you running a bureau and I'm running that
in South. Well, it was kind of funny, you know,
two kids. We used to sit on the on a

(01:38:11):
stoop on Hughes Avenue in the Bronx, his grandmother's house
and read the lyrics to Billy Joel's Glass Houses. Here
we are, you know, you know, and running like big shops,
you know, for the NYPD. And he calls out of
the blue and he goes, hey, I just want to
let you know I dropped my papers. I'm like floored
by it. I'm like what, And he goes, yeah, remember
when we talked two weeks ago and you literally said,

(01:38:32):
you know, we did our time. It's time to like
turn it over to somebody else. I says, I do,
and he goes, Yep, you convinced me. I dropped my
papers today. So that's all my wife had to hear.
I didn't have a leg to stand on at that point,
so I had an opportunity. I said, listen, well that
was probably about August. I said, let me get to
my thirtieth anniversary. And that meant something to me, which
was October fifteenth of twenty twenty. You know, went back

(01:38:57):
and called it a career. And I tell you what
but humbling, a humbling, humbling end. I mean, I'm honored
where I'm walked out by my peers at a thirty
two old slip. It was a tremendous day and my
family got to share in that. It's the day I'll
never forget. Let's I have the videos of it. You know,

(01:39:19):
Bagpiper is the only reason why I didn't have a
helicopter for me is of course it was raining the
old police car. But it was a testament, I guess
of my career because I had my first partners in
District three came back for me, one being assistant Chief
Carlos Valdez, who you might know as the CEO of Yeah,
Carlos and I were partners back in District three.

Speaker 1 (01:39:38):
I had no idea he was an original transit guy.

Speaker 2 (01:39:40):
Yeah. Maybe he doesn't want to share that. He was
a big man, so I don't know. So yeah, So
Carlos came back and another another friend who I was
friends since some five years old, and we got on
the job in transit together and I had dinner with
him Saturday night.

Speaker 1 (01:39:52):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:39:53):
He came back and just chiefs and people and my
my my homicide team from two thousand and five who
could find Bigfoot? They show up and it was really
really I mean humbling, humbling with it. You know. They
piped me out of the job and it was great, man,
it was great. You look back and uh, just just
a wonderful time, you know, just just doing it, you know,

(01:40:14):
and getting to meet so many great people.

Speaker 4 (01:40:17):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:40:18):
And I hope I left my mark with them, I
really do, you know. I I think, you know, I
took care of a lot of a lot of people,
which I'm happy to do. Don't get me wrong, I
don't want to pat on the back for that. But
you know we said earlier in the podcast, Mike, you know,
good work shouldn't go unrecognized. And that's a big thing
I want to say. If you're a boss, if you're
a leader, you got to recognize your people. Man, you

(01:40:39):
got to treat them the right way and you know,
look out for him. And I want to say, and
I hope that's probably one of the one things i'd
like to you know, leave behind is And I hope
I had that effect on some people.

Speaker 1 (01:40:52):
Chief blue Cash also know the big emits as high
sailor to your brother.

Speaker 2 (01:40:55):
For me, I will, I absolutely will so, Chief blue Cash. Yeah,
I mean, I mean, but likely just to go back,
you know, the arson explosion side of it. Yeah, I
just wish the job would recognize them because it's a shame.
I mean, I talked to the guys still on the
regular and probably no different. Listen, they're a special unit
in the detective Bureau that they're they're in uniform multiple
times a week. There's times now they close the office down, Mike,

(01:41:18):
because they they're putting these guys out on all out
in like you know, Brownsville or wherever in the Bronx,
and I'm like, you know, they're like a major case.
You literally, you know, think about it that areson with
five people dead, or you know, that explosive incident. That's
who investigates it. And these guys are in uniform, these
these these you know places, just because I just don't understand,

(01:41:40):
you know, Listen, the job is changed in the four
years that I'm out, and it is what it is.
But you know, you got to have a little bit
of a safety net too, you know. I guess we're
lucky that that they're not investigating these cases more often.
But I definitely feel like the job, you know, underutilizes
them as a whole because, you know, like emergency services,
six months of STS school, you know, bomb squad, you know,

(01:42:04):
six to eight weeks of has his device school. You know.
But it's a little known fact the schooling and the
training that might arson explosion goes through. You know, we
all went out to Hazmac Tech Tech training out at
Foy Bennett Field, your arson explosion, your haz mat Tech's
you know what. I'm floating in Jamaica Bay in a
Class A you know, entry suit, you know, and that's

(01:42:25):
the trained part of the training that that we push
upon the guys in Arsenal Explosion, And like I said,
it's a shame because I know the good work that
could be done by them, and just how to listen
to job, you know, kind of looks at them right
now and what they're doing with them. But who am I?
What do I know? I'm just a retired guy these days.

Speaker 1 (01:42:45):
No, I agree. I agree. That's one of the keys
to this mini series is the shadow light, not just
in the Bomb Squad. The Bomb Squad's work is a
real world renowned but also any as well, So it's
both Arson Explosion and the Bomb Squad, and Billy Ryan
is in the chat is a big part of that.
In the unit of course, from nineteen ninety three until two.
That and four brings us to the Rabid Fire. Time's
flown by. It's been a great conversation. I really enjoyed it.

(01:43:05):
Some of these questions you've kind of already touched on,
so depending on you know, the way the rapid fire
goes will probably just skip over them. But the first
one I think I can ask you, which is a
lot of tough cases, like that two year old and
like the kid that was killed over the cell phone.
But a lot of uplifted cases too. What would you
say in your time and the detective your almost twenty years,
was the most uplifting case you worked on, or at
least one that had a really uplifting result.

Speaker 2 (01:43:25):
Wow, I have it was a sergeant in the four
eight squad and twelve year old girl actually delivers a
baby in her bedroom and unbeknownst to her parents, hard
working Dominican and folks didn't know she was pregnant. Calls

(01:43:47):
the boyfriend, and the boyfriend basically disposes of the baby,
pushing him through a window. Grade which you said uplifting,
And I'm the complete opposite right now. But once again,
the work that went into it with my squad, with
the medical Examiner's office, with the parents, okay, And that's
what I'm touching on as a parent at that time,

(01:44:09):
you know, and listen the girl. You listen, the girl
was definitely afraid. She didn't know what to do, what,
you know, what she could do, what her options were.
That sticks with me. And at the in the end,
although you had a new one who didn't see the
light of day. Unfortunately, in the end it worked out
great with the district attorney's office with the parents. We're

(01:44:31):
getting this girl to help that she deserved and needed.
So you know that sticks with me. Yeah, I'll go
with that one. I'll leave it. I'll leave it at that.

Speaker 1 (01:44:41):
So I at least I had an uplift thing result
the second one. I can ask you the second one,
the third one. I know for a fact you've touched
on soool closs over that one second of the question
of rapid fire. How did you approach to crime change
when you move from anti crime into the role of
a detective supervisor.

Speaker 2 (01:44:56):
So there you go where you know, you know, go
go go anti crime, right, you know, let's go get
the bad guy, Let's go put our hands on people,
Let's sit back, let's watch, let's do this. And now
you go up to the squad and to like talk about,
you know, my first week or two upstairs and the
fourth squad, like you hear the r and ps like
leaving the you know, the parking lot lights and sirens,
and you know, I felt like, you know, like a

(01:45:17):
little kid, I'm glued to the window, like what's going on?
What's going on? Because you learn really quickly the detective
squad is reactive. You were not proactive. You know, when
they want us out there, they're going to call for us.
And when they call for us, we're gonna go out
there and we're gonna do the job. And it took
me out not a while, but you learn, You learn
exactly what goes on every piece of paper generated by

(01:45:38):
that patrol cop, every radio run, every sixty one that generated.
Guess where it goes to the detective squad. Okay, and
these detectives they you know, I give them. I tell
you what, Like I said, seventeen years of my career
in the detective Bureau and the detective squad. I mean,
detectives work, they work for a living. They really do that.
That's why I really took exception. Go back to to

(01:45:59):
Pulaski where where he tried to make the work robotic
and you just can't. You just can't.

Speaker 1 (01:46:04):
And they can't replace human feel ever, no matter what profession,
you cannot replace the human touch. So you need it. Yeah, no,
thank you for that. I guess I can ask you
if there I want the heck, can you share a
moment from your time as confidential aid that left the
lasting impression on you?

Speaker 2 (01:46:20):
Just to the fact that I wish I got to
work with Chief Boyce earlier in my career because I probably,
like I said, without a doubt, I mean, I mean,
he the accolades were there, his part what I did
for the guy. But like I said, it was just
it was uplifting. You mentioned uplifting. It was uplifting bringing
the detective Bureau back to where it should be in

(01:46:41):
the job, you know, on that pedestal and what they
did for a living, and I was very happy to be.

Speaker 1 (01:46:46):
A part of that. It makes sense, of course in
the end. He was a great guy to work for.
A fourth question, the rapid fire, I'm gona tweak it a
little bit because this one you've definitely already answered. If
you can, if time machines existed and you could go
back to any portion or any time i'mlining your career
of those thirty years, what's the sweet spot You're going
back to.

Speaker 2 (01:47:07):
Anti grind Boston four?

Speaker 4 (01:47:08):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:47:09):
Okay, Yeah, good spot. I could run there too, so
don't blame me for that answer at all. And the
fifth one, which assignment in your career? Do you feel
most defined your time in the NYPD?

Speaker 2 (01:47:21):
Wow? Great question. I like to say, when I was
a squad commander of the four five and although not
the busiest shop, but a very political shop. And I
like the fact that you know, I got I was everything.
As a squad commander. You are you know, you're You're
the commanding officer, You're the integrity control, You're everything. And

(01:47:42):
you know, I like to say, you know, you're the
Indian Chief, You're the priest. You know you're you're the
squad boss, and those are your people and it's your
job to support them and run their investigations. And like
you said, that's where I really feel, you know, Steve
Mancy was noticed. I got the money as a squat CEO,
and I ran with it. It was a good time
in my career. It was a fun time in my career.

(01:48:03):
And I thank the people at the four or five
squad for supporting me.

Speaker 1 (01:48:06):
So thank you. This was a heck of an episode.
I'm so glad I got you on. So glad we
were able to link up, of course through LinkedIn ironically enough,
So before I say goodbye to the audience and I
go off to watch the New York Yankees disappoint me again,
come on the.

Speaker 2 (01:48:20):
World, same positive, Mike, Come on.

Speaker 1 (01:48:22):
We need our captain to start hitting, that's for sure,
and hopefully Clark Schmidt can give us a good start
tonight and the bats can wake up. Before we say
good bye to the audience and stick around, we'll talk
off there. Any shout outs to anyone or anything you
want to give.

Speaker 2 (01:48:35):
My family listen to. You know, I think, like I said,
for thirty years I got to do. You know, I
had the opportunity to work for the City of New York.
And one thing my you know, my wife never stood
in my way. She's like to support of my career. Hey,
I think I got to go or at that phone call,
not going to be home tonight, you know, see tomorrow
and my boys, you know, growing up and listen, Yeah,

(01:48:58):
I wasn't home a lot, but I always try to
be home and make these things. But I have responsibilities
and they recognize that, and I like to say that's
why I'm retired now and we get to spend as
much time as possible together and do a lot of
great stuff. So definitely, my family.

Speaker 1 (01:49:14):
A great shout out, and of course the shout out
as always to everyone who tuned in the night, rather
you were watching through YouTube, LinkedIn or Facebook. I appreciate
all of you, and for those of you that are
gonna be listening on the audio side, thinker on appreciation
to you guys as well. And as always, the producer
Vic in the background doing a great job as he
always does, coming up next to the Mike Donumative podcast.
I have a scheduling conflict this Friday, so I'm not
gonna be doing a show this Friday as we usually do.

(01:49:35):
We back next Monday. He was a chief in Carolina,
wrote a book on fire tactics. That's going to be
Dan Jones who will be on for the Best of
the Bravest Nationwide edition. We're going to try to book
more shows as we go. It's kind of for those
of you in the audience. We're playing it by ear
because it's those of you know in twenty twenty five, in
the early stages, I'm off the fire Academy to go

(01:49:58):
through the training and become a firefighter. So I want
to make sure that we don't book too far in
advance because we'll take a hiatus during that three month
period we're in the academy. But we'll keep you guys
posted as we book guest and hopefully give you more
great shows in the meantime before we take that break,
So bear with us. We're trying to bring you as
much content as we can and we appreciate you guys
in the audience as always. For those of you listening

(01:50:18):
on the audio side from their legendary Nights ninety four album,
tonight's outro song comes off the album Troublegum, of which
turns thirty this year, and that is Therapy with Screamager.
In the meantime, Behal, retired NYPD Sergeant Steve Mancini, producer Victor,
and all of you who tuned to tonight. I am
Mike Colone. This has been volume thirty eight of Tails
from the Boom Room, profiles of the NYPDS, Arsen Exposure

(01:50:40):
and Bob Squad. We will see you next time. Have
a great night. Let's go Yankees, And that's all we got.

(01:51:22):
With a face like won't break in your heart, I'm.

Speaker 2 (01:51:28):
Thinking like that, I won't make any friends.

Speaker 4 (01:51:33):
Strew that. Forget about that. I don't want to think
about anything like that. Screw that. Forget about that. I
don't want to know about anything like that. I've got
nothing to hang around that.

Speaker 3 (01:51:47):
Get you moved up on you. I've got nothing hang
around that strewed up on you.

Speaker 1 (01:52:00):
Your beauty makes me feel alone.

Speaker 3 (01:52:06):
I look inside but no one.

Speaker 4 (01:52:11):
Screw that. Forget about that. I don't wanna think about
NFL like that. Screw that, forget about that. I don't
wanna know about NFN like that. I've got nothing lit.

Speaker 3 (01:52:25):
When I hang around and gets throwed up on you,
I've got nothing.

Speaker 4 (01:52:29):
To tell you.

Speaker 3 (01:52:30):
But I hang around that gets throwed up on you.

Speaker 4 (01:52:45):
I've got nothing to do when I get around that
to get root up on you. I've got nothing to
tell when I go around and.

Speaker 3 (01:52:54):
Gets you up on you, I've got nothing to you.
When I got around there and gets you the on you,
I've got t were to get to you. But get
through that you. Let's get through your bone, you

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Episode 340: Tales From The Boom Room: Sergeant Steve Mancini (Volume 38)

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