Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
You're listening to the Bike to New Event podcast hosted
by media personality and consultant Mike Cologe.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
When civilians need help, they call the police.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
When the police need help, they call the Emergency Service Unit.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
These emergency service workers are being credited with saving a woman's.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Life full combat run.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
And man.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
There are records of an explosive hope.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
For those of you who follow the show for a
long time, you know we roll that introduction now and
we have former bosses in the Emergency Service Unit. If
you were a sergeantlu tenor captain in the SU, we
always roll that one out, so it's always fun to
see it. And welcome to an episode that is being
recorded as we say this right now. This is February third,
twenty twenty five. You're gonna hear this later in the year,
(01:47):
as we have this conversation. Currently, I have yet to
start Fire Academy. I'm hoping to get the call pretty soon.
A producer, Victor and myself agreed that in the meantime
we wanted to record as many shows as we could
store them in the archives. And when the time is
right and I've graduated the Fire Academy and hopefully I
can look back on the show in a number of
months and say, man, I hadn't even started yet, and
(02:09):
look where I am now.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
We could start releasing.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
These shows in addition to new live ones that we'll do,
you know, to get this rhythm flowing again from Mike
the New Haven. But as it stands right now, snowed
last night, a bunch of snow on the ground here
and love the old New Haven and just still waiting
for that call. But you guys deserve the best shows.
We got a great guest today for what will be
a future volume fifty one of the event inside the
NYPD's Emergency Service Unit. So like we always do, going
(02:34):
to run a couple of ads and then we'll introduce
the guest. And that first ad, I should say, is
for the Billy Ryan Investigated Group. The Mike the New
Haven 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 Ryant, a twenty year veteran
(02:54):
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So if you need a PI to handle anything from fraud,
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Bill at three four seven four one seven sixteen ten.
Again three four seven four one seven sixteen ten, reach
them at his website or the email that you see here. Again,
(03:15):
if you need a PI, look no further than Bill
Ryan and the Ryan Investigative. For a proud supporter and
sponsor of the Mike de new Haven podcast and oh
what the heck my sister makes fun of it, but
for old time sake, will run MC Media Editing Services.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
I suppose need advice.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
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a premier consulting company. Well, if your siblings aren't making
fun of you, are they really siblings? So I guess
it's good that my sister mixed fun of me in
that regard. So as I was telling, you know, producer Vic,
this guy, this next guest, he just he didn't work anywhere.
What a boring career he had over two decades. I
mean where did he work. I mean he started out
in PSA five, nothing ever happens there, totally boring. And
then from there he got promoted to sergeant. In two
(04:32):
thousand and seven, he went to some unit called the
Emergency Service Unit, you know, only one of the more
renowned police units in the world. And he worked there
for a period of time and multiple capacities as we'll
talk about I'm kidding, of course, as both the sergeant
actually a sergeant lieutenant and later a captain also worked
in weapons of mass destruction. Slash has met something very prescient,
especially in this city like New York where unfortunately we've
(04:53):
had incidents of this nature and citywide operations as well
for tactical teams and other facets of emergence service in
the NYPD Special Operations Division. He finished up as a captain,
as we said, and he's busy now in retirement, as
many guys are when they transitioned to the private sector.
And that for this volume fifty one of the men
inside the NYPD's Emergency Service Unit as a man.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
I've met in person a couple of times.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Last time I saw him was down at City Field
for a Flying Aces event. Captain Dave Riley cat Riley, Welcome,
How are you good?
Speaker 2 (05:21):
How are you Mike good?
Speaker 4 (05:23):
Good to see you.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Thanks for making the time and I've been wanting to
get you on for a while. I was waiting until
you finished up. You put your papers in. You had
a great run, as we'll talk about, so now I
can get you for ILB at a pre recorded version,
but nevertheless one the audience in the future when they
hear this will most certainly enjoy.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
So tell me. You know, did you always first of all,
where did you grow up and did you always have
the inclination to want to go and even if you
didn't know who was law enforcement some type of civil service.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Ah, yes, that's actually pretty interesting. I started with kindergarten graduation.
I dressed up as a cop, and I wanted to
be a cop. You know, they wanted you to dress
up for what you wanted to be when you grew up.
You know, anybody in the police department, no relatives, no friends,
no neighbors. It was just kind of innate something that
I always, you know, from those earliest years I wanted
(06:09):
to do. I grew up in a story of Queens.
The post over said Long Island City, but we always
consider where we lived, the Storia and Lifelong City resident,
and we did, you know, spend a lot of those
years waiting to go into police department. It was kind
of nice to just know what I wanted to do
the whole time.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
No, absolutely so for you. I mean we'll get to
getting on in July of two thousand and one. But
for you, I know a lot of guys take the
test years prior. Sometimes they take it sixteen seventeen wait
to get the call in their twenty was that your case?
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Yes, the first test I took actually expired before I
was old enough to be a cop, and my mom
was like the classic city resident, you better take all
the tests, you know. I used to get woken up
on random Saturdays and dropped off at high schools around
the city, expected to take a test and find my
way home. I know. I took the YPD test at
(07:03):
least twice. Like state court officer, you know, fired apart
whatever it was it was, you know, if it was
in the chief, I was going. And my mom was
nice enough to sponsor the fees to be sure I
had gained full employment and was ready to move on. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
No, of course, and shout out to mom for that
because it paved the way for a great career.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
You know.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
July of two thousand and one, So were you sworn
in that month and graduated six months later? Had the
academy started six months prior to julybo.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Onely one was when we when we swore in, I
was beginning in a fiscal year and the new class
dropped in for us. It was out of Queen's College, Okay,
I swore in on a hot, hot morning in July.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
So, I mean, that's an interesting time in the city.
We'll get to a couple months later, of course, but
just julyable one, where the city is at that moment
in time, last few months of the Juliana years.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
The city is in a great place.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
This is not like guys that are coming on in
the eighties when it was rocking there was crime left
and right, or even the early nineties. Really any guy
that was coming on or Galt ninety four onward. Not
to say they weren't busy, they certainly were, but the
city was moving in the right direction. In July on one,
it's Caamelot. Things are great. We know what would unfortunately
come a couple months later. So nevertheless, tell me about
(08:18):
just that first month of learning the job and learning
to operate in a paramilitary environment.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Well, it was. It was very interesting to me because
again I had I had no idea. I didn't know
a single person on a job. I didn't know a
single recruit in the police academy. You know, I met
some people on the on the train, riding in every
day on the subway and realized they lived around me,
But you know, I didn't know them Before that, I
remember trying to learn the ranks. You know, it was
(08:46):
it was the whole thing was a new experience. I
was twenty two years old. It was a it was
a lot to take on. So and being twenty two,
you know, you're you're kind of immune to the seriousness
of what's going on. You're still kind of a young
guy and just along for the ride. So, you know,
(09:08):
I had a good time throughout the academy. You know,
met some great people, and I was, you know, for
those first couple of months, I was still really like
trying to get my feet under me. I just about knew,
you know, the address of the academy and what time
I was supposed to be there, and every day it
was just something new. You know. It's like they say, yeah,
try trying to drink out of a fire hose. You know.
I feel like some people might have had, you know,
(09:30):
siblings or friends or relatives on the job, had had
some inclination. I had zero. So it was good. It
was all it was all interesting to me. It wasn't
nothing was boring because it was all new.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Of course, And I think, well, I'm glad you said that,
because that's about to be by a world pretty soon.
So I'm going to remember that as I prepare to
go through my version of training down here in New Haven.
You know, your academy was a lot different in that
nobody could have seen what was what would happen on
September eleventh, two thousand and one. Now you're not a
sworn in, but you're not out on the street yet,
(10:02):
and here is the greatest emergency, and I don't say
that in a positive way, the greatest and I mean
worst emergency the New York City will ever face, happening
while you're still learning how to be an officer and
havn't quite gotten that first assignment. So just take me
through that day and that class is involvement in that day.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
In the aftermath, Okay, I remember our leaning into that.
It was kind of wild. Our police science instructor Angel
Silva had gone over mobilizations and there was this whole
extended policy on where to go depending on where you live,
if you live in a city, if you live outside
the city, if you're north of this expressway or south
(10:43):
of this expressway, you go to these staging locations. It
was this whole thing we had to know, and it
was you know, just for tests, and you know, there
was a question asked about the level four and it
was like nobody's ever called the level formalization and nobody
ever will so. And then I think it was about
you know, that was on a September one or so
we had that lesson, but you know, this was the
(11:04):
early days. I didn't even have a cell phone at
this point. It was a landline only. I believe we
had had the range. The night before, we had something
on a four to twelve that was not at the
Police Academy, and I believe we had a four to
twelve coming at the Police Academy next day, So be
at the academy for three pm. I can't even remember
(11:27):
what order the calls came in, but I got some
calls that woke me up at eight something in the
morning regarding something going on, and I went from my
bedroom to my living room and turned on a TV.
And I had assumed, you know, I'm a little bit
(11:47):
of a buff with city history and that kind of stuff,
and I knew about even large planes back in World
War two era, you know, accidentally striking the Empire State
Building on Yep on a dark day, you know, cloudy, foggy,
but this was nice a day as could be, you know.
I remember it was like primary day in a city
for the elections, clear as could be. And I turned
(12:10):
on a TV in my living room and under a minute,
maybe under thirty seconds, watched the second plane hit the
second tower, and I was like, you know, I said
some words I won't say on your podcast, but I
knew what was up, Like that doesn't happen twice by accident. Yeah,
same thing where, you know, a whole like two and
(12:31):
a half months on a job, like I got to
get my uniform and head in, you know, and head
into me was the police academy. I didn't know. I'd
completely forgotten that lesson that Officer Silva told us about mobilizations.
But I'm pretty sure that was the place I was
supposed to go to. I was living in Sunnyside, Queens
(12:51):
at the time, and I could see out my window
the trade Center and what was going on there. Both
towers were still up and on fire. At that point,
when I had gotten dressed and left, I ran into
one of my neighbors. As I was leaving a building,
I believe I knew it was a cop I didn't
(13:14):
know him too well. I believe he worked in PSA
four and he was like, come on, kid, And you know,
I lived a couple of blocks from the Long Island
Expressway there where, you know, just before the Midtown Tunnel,
and me and him left on foot, at which point
a pickup truck pulled up another neighbor who I didn't
(13:38):
know it all, and he was an FDNY firefighter and
he had the classic, you know, like Forward or Chevy,
single cab work truck looking truck with a bunch of
tools and stuff on the seat, and he threw all
this stuff in the back and the two of us
jumped in and he drove us. I remember the wrong
(14:01):
way down the Long Island Expressway because they had already
started closing roads and the inbound expressway was completely stopped.
We got waved through the Midtown Tunnel counterflow, which was,
you know, quite the experience for somebody who hadn't done
much in a way of emergency response before. And at
that time I was dating who my lovely wife, and
(14:26):
again pre cell phone era, she worked in that area
on the east side in Midtown, not far from the tunnel.
So when we popped out there without really knowing what
was going on. I jumped out and I remember that
was when the lines that the payphones were already starting.
And actually, just to go back a bit, one thing
(14:46):
I remember before we hit the tunnel looking up and
it was one tower and that was actually stranger to
me than when they were both down seeing one up,
you know, real world, real life, just looking kind of
from wherever we were, Green Point Avenue and the Long
Island Express It was wild to me. It's very surreal.
(15:08):
But again, like you knew it was up. You know,
this was serious. And I checked in on my wife
at her job, my girlfriend at the time, you know,
wish each other the best. She was going to head
home on foot, which she ended up doing, having to
walk home from Manattan the Queens, and I made my
way on foot, you know, alternating walking and running depending
(15:30):
on the shape you know, on my cardio and got
to the police academy. They were staging us, you know,
I didn't even know what it was at the time,
but they were breaking us into the one and eight,
which is usually a sergeant in eight cops, but with
the young recruits, they were kind of giving it a
something along the lines of it was, you know, eight
recruits to academy instructor and then maybe two or three
(15:54):
of those to a supervisor and sending us out in
various locations, and I ended up getting posted to Bellevue
hospital Er to secure the entrance of the emergency room,
be sure there was nothing crazy secondary, keep the media out,
(16:15):
keep it any trespassing, and just manage that entrance. I
remember there was a police car there. I'm not sure
what that officer was doing. I'm sure he had a
very similar post, but he probably had the the entirety
of the perimeter, whereas I was just kind of in
that door of the emergency room. I remember the all
(16:37):
the medical staff was already out in the parking lot.
They had the all the gurney staged, all the I
V bags hung, They were ready for patients, and sadly
we didn't get a lot. We got a handful of
secondary injuries, cops and firefighters coming back from the trade
center that had injured themselves joining the response, and I
(16:58):
remember being go away by the condition of some of
the cars that were bringing them there. You know, they
were all very dusty, some of them had taken significant damage,
and you just kind of knew how bad it was
without really having eyes on it, because again this is
pre smartphone era, there was really no way of knowing.
(17:19):
Citywide radio had some trouble because of I believe the
antendant was on one of the buildings and so that
was not working or not working well. So we were
mostly going off of ten ten wins in that police
car with the volume turned as loud as it could go,
and that and word of mouth was where we're getting
most of our situal awareness for situational awareness from and
(17:42):
from the people coming back up from the site and
you know, just kind of saying it's bad. And that
was it for most of that night. The next couple
nights they switched us to a four pm to four
am shift, which was more like a you know, four
pm like seven am shift, and we did a lot
(18:02):
of securing the site down at the World Trade Center,
the various checkpoints down there, and probably did that for
about another week. Nine eleven was on a Tuesday, and
we were probably there like through the next Friday on
various perimeter posts. As the perimeter got bigger in the
(18:23):
first couple of days and then it started shrinking down
and then they kind of sent us back to the academy.
Just a totally wild day, you know, remember some of
the sites again, those those police cars and ambulances that
were banged up coming in. I remember I wish there
was video at the time of later in that night
(18:45):
watching an absolutely looked like North Korean parade of satitation
equipment coming down the FDR Drive, you know, just orange
excavators and back hos and trucks as far as you
could see. And I always it was just such a
strange image on a highway that had been closed, and
(19:05):
it was, you know, good to see those those workers
getting to work. So that was that was that day
for me. Again as a twenty two year old, I
remembered the ninety three attack. It was during the Nor'easter.
I was in high school at the time. I remember,
you know, from where I went to high school. You
could see it down the street in the air, you know,
(19:27):
the helicopters in the air, the smoke coming up and
all of that. So it wasn't beyond imagination, but the
level it got to it was kind of beyond imagination.
And then I remember getting down there. Whatever night that was,
you know, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, whatever, it was, and getting
up to the actual pile, which was pushed out pretty far,
(19:48):
you know, pushing towards the newer Stuyvesant High School and
seeing how compacted and impacted everything was. You know, I
couldn't couldn't stick my hand in it. And that's what
I was like, you know, this is a this is
a recovery mission, and kind of just thought of it
like that from that point forward. And they got us
back to the academy, they kicked us back out again
(20:09):
for the marathon, and then they kicked us back out
again for the World Economic Forum, and then eventually regraduated
and got out and the recovery efforts were still going
on and went on for a long time after that.
And you know, sadly, a lot of people I worked
with over the years succumbed to illnesses from that initial response,
(20:34):
and I think a lot from that extended recovery process.
So that was a crazy way to start.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
We're still losing people, and unfortunately too, you know, it's
still going on across the board FDNYE, MS NYPD, poor
authority police were losing a lot of people year by year.
One thing that's interesting in that not just that, and
thank you for sharing that story. Is I'll go out
on a limb and say, the July two thousand and
one class is perhaps the most interesting academy class in
(21:03):
NYPD history from the historical context that you start out normally,
then that happens. Then of course you mentioned the World
Economic Forum, and on top of that, the New York
City Marathon, all the heightened security you guys were part of.
In the aftermath, there's a new police commissioner coming in
when you graduate, and forget the mayor o and more
administration that's changing hands from Giuliani and Bloomberg. We're going
(21:25):
from Bernie character Ray Kelly. You're graduating in the midst
of all that. You haven't even hit the street yet,
so you're kind of even though you have to hit
the street and learn the street, you're kind of battle
tested in a sense through circumstances you could have never envisioned.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Yeah, that was that was pretty fun. Uh, that part
was kind of pretty funny because the attitude and that
academy was was wild, you know, like, uh, and we
also had field training and like some of us went
to like pretty busy commands, like my company got sent
for a month to the four roh and the fourth rate,
you know, and there, you know, they kind of just
chucked us out on the street with some loose supervision
(21:58):
and let us get to work. Was that was like
my first real, real test of actually doing police work.
But yeah, to try to you know, especially you know,
the younger people who have now been out repeatedly, some
have have made collars, some have done some interest in
stuff and then to try to you know, put them
in a classroom and uh and uh keep a lid
on them. Uh, I felt for those instructors. The only
(22:21):
other class we still had some uh, some senior people
around that have been in I forget what year it was,
but they were in like for a couple of minutes
and got sent to the riots, uh that were going
on back then. I think that was in the sixties
and that was something like two weeks or something and
they got sent out. But uh, yeah, it was uh,
(22:42):
that was I think more normal and more of a
police function. The the shift to terrorism was something new,
I think, and it was obviously defined a lot of
my career and the people from that two thousand and one.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Class absolutely, you know, so PSA five getting to at
least what we think is the most normal part of
your career amongst all the assignments you have. We're talking
about Captain Dave Riley here, what a way to start
Volume fifty one of the e men inside of the
NYPD's emergency Service units. So for those who don't know,
Police Service Area five, which is an extension of the
old New York City Housing Police UH two three, two five,
(23:16):
two eight are the precincts that it covers some of
the busier especially in the two five and two ways
and the two three as well. It's nothing to sneeze
at some of the busier stretches of Harlem in that
area of Manhattan. So that's that was your stomping grounds
for the first five years of your career.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
And what I like.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
About it, And I remember talking about this with Ray
Ruiz a while ago, another great e man who worked
for a long time in two Truck in the eighties
and nineties, that there's a mixture there. There's not just
one specific set of calls. The calls are varied, the
populations varied, the cultures are varied.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
It's really if you're gonna start, that's a hell of
a first assignment to have.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Yeah, it was. It was very interesting, and you know,
I lived in Queen's at the time. I didn't pick
it back then. They just gave you a sheet. It
was like three precincts from from each borough or something,
and one trans at, one housing. And I remember, I
just you know, I grew up in Queens. I knew
a lot of people that with different lifestyles and I
didn't want to be bumping into them professionally, so I
(24:16):
made sure I put a bridge between me and work.
So I picked the first three precincts into Manhattan over
to Tribborough, which was the two three to two five
and A two eight, and the first three into the Bronx,
which I think was like the four to row four
to one and like four four four three something. And
I picked for housing. I picked PSA four because I
knew where it was. It was downtown, and for trans
(24:37):
and I think I picked Diftrict twenty in Queens and
then on my sheet I got you know, nothing that
was on there was PSA five and my first question
was where is PSA five? So when I found the
address is funny, I think that that same address as
the Police Academy just you know, one hundred and twenty
something blocks north. But yes, it was, as mentioned, a
(24:58):
great place back then. It still covered the nineteenth precinct.
We had a building as low as seventieth Street, and
the and then the Isaac Holmes houses in the over
air gracing mansion. So it was very diverse, uh, you know,
from from the from the richest rich people in the
upper east Side to uh the central Harlem, Spanish Harlem.
(25:18):
A lot of work. It was, I thought, a very
fun command.
Speaker 4 (25:22):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
I think we did very well with you know, the
precincts there, with transit, with with fired apartment, with the
E M T s. There was a real sense of
camaraderie that came with that. Uh, that workload and and
those divisions, you know, Division five and Division seven were
it was hard to get on the radio even you know,
it was things were tailing down from the from the
(25:45):
busiest times in the city. But uh, remembering the radio
from then and comparing it to later in my career,
it was it was wild, busy, and and it was
a lot of fun.
Speaker 4 (25:55):
I know you ate well too, yes, yes, lots lots
of options.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Yeah, obs to choose from the areas like that, you know,
And I will say there was a lot of time
for you, a good four or five years, even without
the crazy circumstances of the academy, to learn the beat.
And there are as we've covered a million times, but
it's worth covering so many times more because each person's
career and experience is different. There are your bad people.
(26:20):
You made your fair share of arrest. I'm sure you
had a bit of a hand and some gang enforcement
too while you were there, and those people are always
going to be around. But the joys of being a
police officer that lest we forget about this, especially in
a city like New York, is you get to experience
the good people. You get to interact with them. Especially
for you that you're working foot post early on in
your career, you get to remember why and who you
(26:42):
do this job for. So tell me about developing that
positive attachment to those people in the community and just
what you most enjoyed about working there besides what you
just mentioned.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Camaraderie, oh absolutely. And you know housing wasn't foreign to me.
You know, I grew up about half a block from
the projects I went to school with with with a
bunch of people, uh you know, so there was no
need for like the humanization or whatever like people worry about.
Like it wasn't uh that that mysterious to me, But
(27:12):
you know, I never spent time there, and then now
I was spending time in the projects for real. Field
training was great. I mean I had such a blast.
It was they I think twelve of us were in
my class that went to p S A five. I
wonder how many I left at this point, maybe one
or two and they, uh, you know, the first day
we went out I think in groups of four and
(27:35):
they had like a cop with each of us and
then a sergeant that was watching over the top. And
I think we did about a week of that, and
then we're in groups of twos and then we did
about you know, you'd have you'd each have your own
each post was a house of project, and then you
do I want to say, we did maybe two or
three weeks uh with partners, and then it was, uh,
(27:58):
we just went for you pretty much became a community
policing unit and we just got as signed permanent posts.
And thankfully we went from having Tuesday Wednesday off to
having either Friday and Saturday or Sunday Monday off and
we were on our own with our own steady posts
in the same houses every day, and that I thought
(28:21):
was very interesting. The one I had was very isolated
for Manhattan for that preescing I was up in the
two five Priests in Lincoln Houses, which is runs from
pretty much the FDR over the Madison Avenue, actually the
fifth Avenue from one hundred and thirty second to one
hundred and thirty fifth Street, and that was my post.
Was pretty busy. It was right on the border at
(28:43):
the three to two and the two five. A lot
of times, how's it gets short handed, I'd be the
only cop on that division from my command on that post,
and it was great. You know, you are on your own.
You were if you were active, you were looking for activity.
You know, a lot of time on a roof, a
(29:03):
lot of time up on binoculars, uh, seeing what's going
on and then doing something about it. You know. It
was like it was like you're a police commissioner of
your post. There was nobody to tell you what to do.
So that I truly enjoyed. And you know, you meet
a lot of the people. It's funny now because I
remember I used to I used to dodge any chance
(29:23):
to getting my picture taken, but you know, i'd be uh,
you know, playing playing basketball in full uniform with the kids.
And uh, I used to, uh, I think I'm safe.
Now I'm fully retired and and and nobody was hurt.
But I'd give uh, I'd give kids rides around on
a Cushman three wheeler, you know, sometimes I have kids,
you know, six eight kids piles on top of that,
(29:45):
just doing laps around the walkways of housing there and
that was great. And you know, different interactions with somebody
old timers, some some good conversations, some good conversations with
people that were sometimes up to no good but uh,
you know, could could still see each other as people
and have those conversations. And one thing I tell people
(30:08):
about a lot is what I call the elevator of truth,
because you'd be working by yourself. You know, you'd be
riding those elevators up to the top and walking down,
you know, checking the roof, walking down the stairs, you know,
several times a day, and a lot of times people
kind of give you that fight club nod that they
were happy to see you, very low key, just a
little you know, the faintest thank you they could give you.
(30:31):
But every now and then it be you and one
other person on the elevator, and that's when you'd get
some genuine thank yous, and often not from the people
you'd expect it from. You know. Sometimes it'd be younger
guys and you know, my sister comes to here, my
mom comes to thanks for getting those guys at the lobby,
that kind of thing. And sometimes it'd be you know,
older people or or room with kids. And those for
(30:54):
me were like some of the most fulfilling moments of
working in housing and being on posts. And then it
was all the fun stuff, you know, dealing with whatever
criminal activity was going on, and chasing the radio and
watching people.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
That's real life.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
That's why it's important, you know, and I think from
my interactions with guys like you, it's important to remind
the younger officers coming up in the social media age,
you can't believe what these idiots are saying on social media.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
Social media is not real life.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
They may say that they don't want you around, nobody
needs you, nobody cares. They're just posing to try to
seem cool to their online friends, and people like that
in real life or are so often in disarray. Their
opinion is only as valuable as the next dump my
sister's dog takes.
Speaker 4 (31:37):
So that being.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Considered and said, you know, that's like I said, it's
real life. Most people they want you there, they want
to see you there, they're happy you're there, and when
there's not enough of you around, that's when they get
mad because they want more of you. That way to,
you know, make sure that the bad behavior is curtailed,
I'll ask it. You know you saw good leadership of
clothes in everyone's career rather be in the fire department
(31:58):
the police department. You have examples, examples of what to do,
examples of what not to do. I'm sure you had
examples and leaders that you know, or even just senior
officers like Okay, I don't want to do that, and
then the flip side of the coin, you had other examples.
It was like, man, I got to make sure I'm
like that person. When did that start to influence your
mind to study for sergeant or was that something that
you know you had in your mind really from the
(32:19):
beginning to start studying for sergeant.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
I had in my mind from the beginning because when
I started, we were getting paid thirty one three hundred
and five dollars a year as rookie cops, So there
was some financial motivation to get promoted. But you know,
I'd worked a bunch of jobs before that, through high
school and college, all kinds of different part time jobs.
(32:42):
And you know, you always remember the bosses who you
didn't want to work for, and that carried into a
police department. You know, I'll never mention any names or likenesses,
but you know you always put that in your head
and and remember what not to do. I'm not going
to do that. I'm not going to be like that
ever in charge. And you know, just like dealing with
(33:02):
your parents, you know, the because I said so like
that was never good enough for me. I always needed
a why. So you know, unless it was the most
extreme circumstances at a very trusted person, I'll do what
they tell me. But for the most part, if you've
got time, you know, give people the why. So any
of that, any like bully type behavior, absolutely not. Make
(33:24):
sure not to do that if you're ever in charge
or anything. And then I could think of a couple
of a great pauses when I did midnights for a
litle while before I got promoted, and I had like
the classic sergeant Larry, where we are or I hope
you're doing well. But he was like a big serge
from the memes you see now. He was that patrol
(33:45):
sergeant that handled everything and you know, got the job done,
made sure that we were doing police work out there,
but also that the cops had top cover. And he
was always willing to put himself into that into that
space to protect the cops. And you know, he'd fix
(34:05):
you up if you were in the wrong spot. And
he was always there to help out the community as well.
And you know, I've been through four ranks, and I'll
I'll never not say it. The sergeant is the most
important rank in probably any police department. It can it
can make a break and uh, you know, a good
sergeant can can lift up a command, and a bad sergeant,
(34:27):
even if they've got all good cops on him, can
wreck a squad or a whole command. And then I
had that there was another snooz sergeant to Luis wherever
you are. I know he's doing well. I see him
as post sometimes, but I never got on his team.
I got to sit in the in the prisoner van
sometimes when they were working, and you know, I went
to their calls for assistance. Sometimes I got to, you know,
(34:50):
come flying in there and help out the best I could.
But I always looked up to him, uh in that
he was his team was completely self sufficient. You know.
They they did their thing. They were always bringing in
a bunch of drugs. They often brought in guns, and
stayed off the radio for the most part unless it
got real bad. So you knew to go flying if
(35:11):
they were even just on the radio. And if they
were on the radio, they were talking calm no matter
how bad it was, and transported their own prisoners, vouched
their own property. That just it was that level of
like competence and professionalism was Oh. I looked up to
him and that team, and I tried to carry a
lot of that on and hopefully I did. Through you know,
(35:34):
my time in different supervisory rights, which you know when
you did the math before, it's most of my career.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Yeah, yeah, it's of the twenty two years you spent
with the New York City Police Department, sixteen of them
were as a supervisor in some capacity or another. And
what's interesting is it's bittersweet you enjoyed your previous command
in PSA five, you have to move on. As just
the case when one gets promoted in the New York
City Police Department. You went to the seventh in Manhattan.
It's a little bit or upscale, and you had anti crime.
(36:02):
Now they're talking about not that we need to get
into the weeds on it, they're talking about bringing it
back in some capacity. Now, as I've said before, in
this era in which you were involved in it, that
was real anti crime. That's no disrespect to the guys
and gals in some involvement who were involved in the
current version of the unit. Back then, that was real
plain close policing. And that's a whole different ballgame because
(36:25):
they're putting a lot of trust, meaning the upper brass
in that you can do your job without the conventional
police uniform, but also that you can blend in spot
these conditions and out smart guys who in a lot
of cases have made a career out of doing everything wrong.
Speaker 4 (36:39):
So tell me about anti crime.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
Learning from the guys that had spent a lot of
time in that unit and learning to operate the supervisor
where you know when to push them, you know when
to be gung ho, but you.
Speaker 4 (36:48):
Got to know when to pull them back. To for
their own safety.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Yes, you know, you always kind of see that ebb
and flow with the plain closed enforcement. And as a cop,
I was lucky. I got to do a decent amount
of play close enforcement. I was never a member of
the anti crime but we had a gang enforcement team.
And as always, you know you'll see it if you
follow the news. It the pendulum swings, and right now
it's swung to you know, nobody in playing clothes ever,
(37:13):
but back then it used to be all right. I
put the gang team in playing clothes, you know, put
the conditions theme and plank clothes and excuse me, because
it does increase your efficacy out there, but it does
increase your exposure and your risk as well. I thoroughly
enjoyed working anti crime. It was interesting coming in so young.
(37:34):
I forget about I was like twenty seven, twenty eight
something like that when when I took over the anti
crime team, and I, you know, I knew the work,
and you can fall into, uh, you know, just trying
to be uh super cop instead of being a sergeant.
And I was trying to avoid that as much as
(37:55):
I could, but also set the pace. I had some
great special operations lieutenants who are your boss when you're
when you're an anti crime sergeant. And they gave they
gave some really good guidance, and we did a lot
of work and a lot of it was just keeping
the pace up. And back then it was h you
(38:18):
had a lot of discretion. Uh. So you're you're looking
for those hardened people, You're looking for those shooters, You're
looking for those robbers. You know who your locals are,
who are in those games. You know who the cereal
burglars are, who the cereal robbers are, who shoots people
and gets shot at. But then there's some some transients
as well, and you know the behaviors. You know, you're
(38:42):
you're watching for suspicious stuff, but you know, sometimes you
bump into a weed thing or a drug thing or
some kind of counterfeit nonsense, and you might not raise
rise to the level of antichrime. But if you can
do some catch and release there, you can build some good,
good uh relationships, and you can you can sometimes get
(39:03):
some good info and later on it comes back to
you and you know that they taught us in a
police accademy from the get go that discretion is your
biggest tool. As a cop, and that goes right through
the antichrime stuff and uh, you know, pushing a little
forward to the emergency service unit. I always like seeing
when people come into the issue or coming from antichrime
(39:26):
because there's so much contact and the contacts so much
more delicate when you're doing anti crime because you're kind
of out on the edge, like you're not responding to
a nine one one call. It's not as clear cut.
So you need to be able to talk to people.
You need to be able to understand the law, and
you need to be able to deal with people, and
(39:49):
you know, push when you know you're right, and pull
back when you realize you it's not what you thought,
and do it respectfully and to make people feel good
if that you're out there and if you accidentally, you know,
bumped into something that wasn't what it seemed.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
So I'm glad you moved ahead to ES a little bit.
We're about forty minutes in and we had this is guy.
I said, you had such an interesting career. We haven't
even touched on emergency yet, so we'll get to that now.
Coming into emergency as a boss is so unique to
me as opposed to a police officer, and you've got
guys at over the time, and you know, in the
course in the unit. I think of Billy Kennedy for example,
(40:27):
previous guests in the show. They got the experiences both
they were a police officer in the unit and then
a boss.
Speaker 4 (40:32):
You came in as a sergeant.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
So you go through the sts as anybody else has to,
and you go to truck six and six truck of
course out of the sixth eight in Brooklyn Coney Island area.
Very fascinating truck, all ten of them are. But this
is another one that I feel like because of the
work that seven and eight get, we forget there's three
trucks in Brooklyn, A and B. Six is just as
busy as the other two. We love equally. But going
(40:56):
there learning your guys, how difficult, Well a difficult the
right is the right word.
Speaker 4 (41:02):
How unique was that?
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Rather because you're not going in there as a police
officer learning from them, you're not. You still have to
learn from them, but you're going into supervising too.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Yeah, that part was was interesting. It's funny asked about
that in the interviews. Coming in, you know you're gonna
be able to deal with you know, senior cops as
a as a new sergeant that hasn't been a unit,
and just a quick side note, you know, like like
we started with September eleventh, we were in STS. We
got sent out for Sandy, and we're writing the thick
of it that was that was a wild situation too,
(41:32):
but that at least I got to meet some people
that were out in the trucks before we got out there,
because we were working during that. But I got sent
to Truck six, and I think I had it good
because I went to the first squad there and it
was very senior and very competent. They could run without
a supervisor for probably ten years and be fine and
(41:52):
do the right thing and handle everything correctly. Like that
was a gift to me, I think, especially because other
than the people that came out with me in my STS,
I was younger, I think than all of the UH
detectives in the squad and they'd obviously been an issue
a lot longer than me. The UH you know at
(42:16):
Pete Whalen there and UH got rest their souls. Chris
Lindsay and Luis Fernandez, Brian Dally who I had worked
with in p S. A five like it was. It
was a top notch squad, and I feel like, uh,
you know, they kind of carried me for that at
that year I was, I was a sergeant in the issue.
It was I just uh I did I did what
(42:40):
they told me, uh technically and tactically, and uh I
sat back and uh and did my best for incident
management and that type of stuff, and uh, lieutenants was
to come out at that point kind of everybody knew
I was a short timer, but it was a great experience.
And uh, truck six is uh it was interesting. We
(43:00):
talk about it and you could look at the new
some of the more famous jobs, you know, Fourth Avenue,
Ocean Avenue, probably other ones I'm not thinking of. Truck
six is big jobs, so like you never know what
it's going to be the day for the next big one.
And that you know, the I got there right after
in April a bunch of guys had gotten I think
(43:22):
it was four officers had gotten shot at a job
out of Midnight's there and you know, dealt with a
purp and it was going into a trial and all
of that. So you know, it's you know, it could
be any night, and I just appreciated, how you know,
and all the other squads too. It was just a
really good place to work. I thoroughly enjoyed my time
in Truck six.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
Now you mentioned Chris Lindsay and Louis Fernandez. Both those
guys died of nine to eleven cancer. Sadly, Louis died
in twenty fourteen. Chris died in twenty seventeen. I believe
so your time.
Speaker 4 (43:53):
With them was short.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
But when you look back on those guys in specific,
what do you most remember about them, not just as cops,
for as people.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
Oh, just you know, great guys, great stories. Luis grew
up a couple of blocks from me. He was a
little bit older than me, but we we talked about
some some neighborhood stuff and uh, you know, we had
good times talking about that. Uh Chris. Uh. I always
marveled he was such a good driver in the Army.
(44:22):
He had driven I think it was like Amtrak's or something.
But he would whip that big truck like uh, and
we the uh, the newer truck had taken some damage
in sandy, so we were back on the old mac
in Truck six at that time, and he would drive
that thing. Like it was a motorcycle. It was something
to see and they had so much and both of
(44:43):
those guys, Uh, Louis had been a narcotics and he'd
done a ton of work, just such a seasoned cop
and and took that, you know, into how he talked
to people, uh, you know, people in distress, criminals, whoever.
It was like so much just kindness and empathy. Just
wonderful guy. Chris very similar. You know, he spent a
(45:05):
lot of time on patrol before he got the ESU,
and he was in a very busy time and he
was just so far ahead of what was going on.
It was like, you know, he was like looking into
the future and you know, he'd be taking out the
equipment and you wouldn't know why, and then the thing
would happen. He's like, oh okay. So it was just
they were on such a higher level and just just
(45:25):
wonderful people. Just you know, we were lucky to have him.
And it's you know, truly sad that they were gone.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Yeah, no, of course, you know, it's it's very much
our loss that they're not around. And I believe Lindsay
had just retired from what I remember hearing from a
couple of guys that worked with him when he got sick,
and he's one of several people, as you mentioned earlier,
that unfortunately have been afflicted by this.
Speaker 4 (45:49):
Louis's daughter.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
I have never interacted with her directly, but I had
the chance of being in the same room as her
a couple of times at RIMA events, most notably the
day of Remembering, So she's always there. She does a
great shop with their participation, So shout out to her
and really that family as a whole. Yeah, dynamite people,
And there had to been part of you, as you
(46:11):
mentioned the Lieutenant's list. On one hand, you're happy, but
on the other hand, it's like, God, dang it, I
haven't made do I have to leave?
Speaker 4 (46:17):
So was there a party that wanted to decline that promotion?
Speaker 2 (46:19):
Oh? Absolutely absolutely, you know. I thought about it, and
then it was like I got a lot of you know,
with me. I was lucky that it hit at that point,
you know, and I have like eleven or twelve years
on and it was like, all right, I got a
lot ahead of me. I can make it back, you know.
And it ended up happening faster than I thought because
they had very senior lieutenants at that time, but it
(46:40):
didn't seem like they were going anywhere. And then you know,
we did have a few retirements and it allowed me
to get back a year later.
Speaker 4 (46:47):
All right, so you got to But you did have
a year in the eight one, So I don't know.
Did Jack Cambria work there too?
Speaker 2 (46:52):
At one point?
Speaker 1 (46:53):
I think Jack Cambria might have been in between his
stops and emergency. He might have been an eight to
one guy. So in Brooklyn, did you what did you
like about that year? Even though it wasn't long, what
did you enjoy about it?
Speaker 2 (47:02):
Well, it was the shortest commute I've had, so that
was nice. Great command. Busy, kind of geographically small, a
lot of working people, you know, the Row houses, a
couple of housing projects, you know, a train running through there.
It was nice and busy at that time. Everybody was
active at that time. It was kind of like the
(47:24):
Talent of Impact era. Everybody was working. I did half
the year as a midnight platoon commander and then I
switched over to the Impact commander, which was a great time.
You know, I think I had I think it was
forty eight or forty nine rookies and four sergeants and
(47:45):
just getting after it, and that I thoroughly enjoyed, you know,
doing our best to give the best guidance to them,
teaching the right way to do stuff and teaching to
be active and make decisions and get out there. And
that might have been the last impact class for all
I know, but it was. It was one of the
last ones. And I hope they were all doing well.
I've seen some of them know they're doing well, but
(48:07):
that was time.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
That's good to see, you know, especially as a career,
because the job can take a lot of twist and
turns not all of them positive. So I'm glad you've
mentioned that a couple of times this podcasts. I'm like, good, good,
because it's such a hard career that if someone's able
to pivot both in the job and even after the
job and do well for themselves, that's off man. That's
that's something that you always want to see.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
If anybody's younger on a job unlessen Yeah, that was
kind of one of my like superpowers in that case
was I was always like, you could put me anywhere
and I'll have a good time. And knowing that and
not having that fear, I think allowed me more freedom
to kind of do what I felt was right or
what I wanted to do in different spots. You know,
(48:49):
you could send me wherever, the busiest command, the slowest command,
something admin, I'll do my best and I'll have a
good time.
Speaker 1 (48:55):
So yeah, that's attitude. That's you see so many people
that and we could all do better this way. Glass
half full. A lot of people say they're glass half
full and they're not. You strike me as someone that
you know, it's obvious you're a genuine glass half full
kind of guy.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
Yeah, I guess so, you know, the uh, if it
hasn't happened yet, I assume the best. So yeah, I guess.
So it's more like like the glass is going to
be full type of role attitude.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
That's the right attitude to have, and I commend you
for it now, you know, in talking with you, Keith Gallagher,
John Flyn, shout out to both those guys, by the way,
miss you guys and all the retired guys that have
been able to have on the show as well. Yeah,
very good guys. I've learned so much about ESU. I
have never heard of special projects and that's not me hating.
I just I don't know anything about it, so I'd
love to learn about it. You get back to emergency
(49:42):
in twenty fourteen, what exactly does this entail?
Speaker 2 (49:45):
Okay, so special projects is It's existed as long as
I know, going way back, I can think of several
lieutenants that were in that spot. But it is the
You're in charge of getting the equipment of UH, handling
the fleet for the whole unit. UH. In that post
nine to eleven rahere you were dealing with all the grants,
(50:08):
grant funding and the budget for the unit, including you know,
K nine and and and everything that went on in
the SU. So it's I'll say, as a supervisor, I
think it's one of the most important and also one
of the hardest jobs in the ISU. I did it.
It was not particularly fun. You gotta a look at
(50:31):
the civilian side of the department, which I didn't even understand.
You know, I was learning all these new ranks and
and and and going to meetings with with with units
that you know existed, uh, you know, regarding budget and
legal and all kinds of things. But it's it's important,
and you're kind of working directly through the con XO
of the unit. You're working a lot with the Special
(50:53):
Operations Bureau, you know at that point too, Like you
you're handling a lot of that UH that grants and
stuff that that funnel into s ob above the issue,
you know, including harbor aviation, all those hunits, And it
was it was very interesting. I got to be involved
in the redesign of the R E P s with
(51:17):
a with a great team. UH. I was involved in
getting the UH the updated weapons systems that are out
there now, getting the updated UH ballistic and rescue helmets,
and UH there's a sense of pride in that. Again,
like you know, that was tough work. It was admin work.
It was the first admin job I ever had. But
(51:38):
like when I see those those blue helmets on the
and the newer versions at jobs, I'm like, you know,
I bought those. You know that that was a and
you know, guys like you mentioned, like John Flynn, had
a ton of impact, And you had to figure out
who to talk to. UH of the people out there
doing the job of the tops and detectives and sergeants
on patrol, and then some of the people that had
(52:00):
been around a long time that kind of knew the
pitfalls that you might not see if you're out there
doing the job. So you had to both be zoomed
in to be sure you're getting the right stuff for
the officers on the road, and zoomed out that you
could see some of the problems coming from it. But
it's you know, every piece of kit. You see those
(52:21):
officers wearing everything, you see him driving anything they're holding.
At some point, that was an idea that somebody brought
to the Special Projects Lieutenant and that they decided it
was a good idea. They conferred with whoever they had,
they confer to, found money for it and made it happen,
and it steers the unit a lot. Good luck to
(52:46):
evers in that spot right now. I should probably give
them a call. I think the current guys retiring after
a great career, and it's vitally important. I used to
wear a patch. I carried an at that shad bag
a lot, you know, like a little messenger bag. I
wore a secret squirrel patch on that. That's what it was,
(53:09):
a lot of secret squirrel behaviors. Spent a lot of
time at headquarters, a lot of time at Fleet Service
Division DP. Like strange places, but very very interesting job.
Not my flavor of work. But I'm glad I did it,
and I'm proud of a lot of stuff that I
still see out there years later, and I'm hopeful that
(53:31):
the people in those spots are getting good stuff for
the unit.
Speaker 4 (53:36):
Now, it was an education.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
It was a education, and it helped you gain a
better understanding not just the emergency service unit, but of
the job as a whole based off how you described it.
So it was definitely something that even if it wasn't
your idea of where you want it to be, again,
you made it work. You learned a lot, became out
a more knowledgeable officer and especially supervised right that for
that experience. Now, let's go back a second because you
(53:59):
mentioned something interesting redesigning the R E P s now
is this compartments if you can get into it?
Speaker 4 (54:06):
Of course, what does this entail?
Speaker 1 (54:07):
How are the rmps different now or r EPs rather
different now to how they were back then?
Speaker 2 (54:12):
We could go deep into it, but big thanks to
John McClure, Bruce Bott, Jason Jackson that with more knowledge
about vehicles and equipment than if you gave me three
hundred years, I could ever gain or probably couldn't gain
half of it, but it was like redoing the compartments
to fit the load out that was current at the time.
(54:36):
It was switching from a crew cab to the extended cab,
taking the seats out, putting like a little bit of
equipment there instead, you know, being able to have weapons
staged more easy for the way that the current issue
(54:59):
was functioning verse you know before that and all kinds
of you know, lights systems. It was. It was very
very informative for me and we you know, got a
lot of feedback from patrol and it's different truck to truck,
you know, truck one and truck five and truck seven,
(55:19):
they're a little bit different. They got to tweak it
for how they do it. And we had to come
up with a system where we could you know, buy
fifty at a time of these very expensive vehicles and
at their work for the officers. And you know, I'm
sure if the comments are live on as people can
tell me what they think. But I think we did
a great job everything considered, and at that time. One
(55:40):
thing I'm proud of there too is we met We
used to get that over four future funds and you
can kind of read the politics at the time that
that was going away, and we were able to move
it into the regular PD budget so that we could
keep cars coming regularly instead of in bunches and then
aging in bunches and smooth that out so that that
I was proud of too, being able to keep more
(56:02):
cars on the road and have newer cars more regularly
for the for the officers on patrol emergency patrol to
be And it's important absolutely.
Speaker 1 (56:12):
I mean they are quite literally the boots on the
ground and in display, the RPS absorbed the most given
the fact that they're operating in a patrol. I mean
the big truck goes out too, but only on certain calls.
The RPS always out. And it's funny that you say
that because as you guys can see when this episode
is released in the future, and as you can see
Dave as well behind us as that old classic nineties
NYC Police, we'll see it after Emergency Service RP. And
(56:36):
now imagine telling the guys riding around those versions of
the RP back then, all the compartments and components just
have now it make their heads.
Speaker 2 (56:43):
Spin, And that was that was great to have John
McClure there because he was there for those and give it.
And sometimes you think you have a good idea and
he'll tell you, oh, yeah, they had that idea in
ninety four and this is why it doesn't work. And
there you go, huh, thank you. And I get into
big fights sometimes down you know, offuser management and budget
(57:03):
and this and that. Now you know, one of my
lines that I was more proud of when they were
kind of squeezing us for budget and all and talking
about all these different vehicles, you know whatever was tow
trucks or what I said. Nobody's ever screamed in the radio.
No cop has ever screamed into the radio for anything
other than an emergency service vehicle. So you know, like
(57:24):
there's no other police card that they're calling for, you know,
besides the ones at the prestinct. So let's be sure
those work. We have a lot of them, and they're
the best they can be.
Speaker 1 (57:34):
So you know, like that absolutely we're talking with Captain
Dave Riley. This is a pre record version of the
email inside the NYPD's Emergency Service Unit. You guys will
hear this ideally sometime in the summer after.
Speaker 4 (57:46):
I've completed fire Academy.
Speaker 1 (57:47):
Were lass we mentioned earlier storing up episodes for the
archive in the meantime, Weapons of Mass Destruction has Matt.
We'll get into the weeds on it in a little bit,
but twenty seventeen, thank goodness, we this particular terrorist was
awful at his job. And then we're talking about the
subway of course, where he tried to do a suicide bombing.
He wasn't very good at it so bad. As a
matter of fact, he didn't even kill himself. He just
(58:10):
really badly injured himself. So goodness, thank goodness, we could
laugh at this because only he hurt himself. Nobody else was.
But that was another reminder that even with all the
counter terrorism measures that we have, and not just to
work of the NYPD in that regard, but the Poort
Authority Police and the MTA police as well, we can
still have people like this. And you know, in this instance,
(58:31):
this person did not execute, was not a real terrorist
in that regard. But if it's someone who's competent enough,
like Ramsey Yusef was in nineteen ninety three, for example,
the damage can be massive. You and I were talking
a little bit on LinkedIn off air about that job.
We'll talk about it now. You'd been a supervisor for
a while, you'd been an ESU for a little bit.
Tell me about that day and the lessons learned from it. Thankfully,
(58:53):
wasn't the incident that terrorist was trying to make it.
Speaker 2 (58:57):
So that day I was out with to uh doing TORCH.
I can't remember what the acronym is now, but that's
the Transit counter terrorism operations UH where you're out there
with a counter assault team, a Transit K nine dog
and some transit officers and you know, we started earlier
(59:18):
in the day and we were actually grabbing uh you know,
we had enough space between stops to try to grab
a bagel because it's tough to get a meal there,
so you kind of get two snacks throughout the day.
We were doing that. I want to say, we're like
the Upper East Side somewhere. And I'm always a fan
of any of you police forsses out there are dual coms.
(59:39):
You should be listening to what you're what you're on,
and then one level up and over the transit radio.
UH pick up of an explosion came over from the
Transit Manhattan Task Force at the Times Square station. Also,
you know, came over as port authority because it's underneath
the bus terminal there, and we got moving. You know,
(01:00:03):
this is this is a real job. Can go on
YouTube listen to the transmissions. But we had that very
early and it was for real, confirmed job right from
the get go. So it's you you go out there,
you do a lot of this stuff, but it's not
often that you get the terrorist attack while you're on
a terrorism post. And so out we went. We got
(01:00:26):
there fast, great great job driving. I think it was
Dave driving. We jumped in. The port authority had done
a great job. They very heroically with the transit cops,
the port authority. I think there were some Empire Shield
National Guard troops there as well. They came up, they
(01:00:46):
got handcuffs on uh on, uh on the terrorists involved,
and and then we're made a perimeter and we came in.
Uh did a quick investigation. I spoke to him to
see if there was anybody else involved, There was anybody
else out there kind of I wasn't sure if he
was going to die on us or not, so I
wanted to get what I could. It was before we
(01:01:08):
had body cameras, so just you know, quick stuff like that,
and then he started taking a look at him, and
he still had the trigger intact on him. So at
this point we don't know if he's if he's live
with an explosive device or not. So we knew bomb
squad was coming. We thinned out as best we could
(01:01:30):
to be sure that the fewest possible people were there.
We got the bomb squad sergeant did a great job.
He came there and you know, his first one there
by himself, and walked right up you know the long
walk I believe is they used to call it when
the guys had the suit, but he didn't even have
the suit, and we we went up and started from
(01:01:50):
that trigger, removing clothing and traced it back and then
thankfully we got to the device which had already exploded.
It was not an additional so that that brought things down.
And from that point it was you know, packaging the
injured terrorists at this time, being sure he got enough
(01:02:11):
first aid to give him the hospital, being sure there
was nobody, no handler or anything waiting upstairs for him,
doing a sweep of that entire station, trying to communicate
as best we could with other issue special operations personnel,
transit and all. But at this point we didn't we
only had Transit radio downstairs, so that whole thing was tricky.
(01:02:34):
The rest of the issue teams got there and were
greatly helpful in addition with the Port Authority and Transit
was already there with us. And it was you know,
it was a live terrorism job. It was. It was
a real detonation in a subway station. It was why
the torch program exists. And I think we handled it
(01:02:54):
as well as could be and it's it's it's never
like you draw it up and uh all we got
it done and it was good to see by everybody.
I think MTA workers. There's not a person there who
did a bad job. It was very New Yorker's doing
the right thing and handling themselves well.
Speaker 4 (01:03:15):
And thank you for going into that as well.
Speaker 1 (01:03:16):
One person I do want to mention, because yesterday was
the anniversary of his death, who was involved in that
port a Thorny Police detective Jack Collins, was there that
day and responded. Unfortunately, Jack, three years ago yesterday committed suicide.
But that aspect of his service, along with the other
things that he did over the course of his twenty
years with the Poort Authority Police, is not forgotten. So
you mentioned that's insight. I saw a poster beyond the
(01:03:38):
badge shout out to them honoring him yesterday and they
mentioned he was there, so big shout out to Jack.
Speaker 4 (01:03:43):
're not forgotten buddy. That in mind, I.
Speaker 1 (01:03:45):
Guess it segues perfectly into weapons of mass destruction, which
a bomb is, and also has Matt. And when we
think of has Matt, that's dual pronged to me, because
it's not always terrorism the first thought process because of
things that have happened in real life, and also what
we see on the movies is a biological attack, which
is something I know that's kept many an Emergency service
(01:04:05):
supervisor Special Operations Division supervisor up at night, especially in
the post nine to eleven landscape. But even we had
it here in Connecticut in the town a refrigerate leak
can occur and that is a major has PASS situation
in them itself.
Speaker 4 (01:04:18):
So as far as.
Speaker 1 (01:04:18):
Game planning for that, again, it was only a year
of your career. What did that experience teach you? And
without getting into the classified aspects, how do you think
ESU does such a great job of planning for incidents
of that nature.
Speaker 2 (01:04:31):
Well, from what I had said, you know, there was
a terrible loss at you know, prior to nine eleven,
it was it was mostly a fire department function and
there wasn't you know, and it still isn't in most
places because there wasn't that tie in to criminality usually
(01:04:51):
and there wasn't that need for more and more ability.
And you know, has Matt won an FDNY and Squad
two eighty eight. I believe they were the worst hit
firehouse and its Yeah, and so they had to uh rebuild.
(01:05:12):
NYPD stepped in to uh to work with them and
to deal with more of the direct criminal hazmat front,
you know, anything chemical, you know, biological radiation, you know
the usual cbr any, nuclear, all that stuff, and you know,
work together. But there had to be a law enforcement
(01:05:34):
function as well. And then starting after nine eleven, they
built that, They built a w m D and the
hazmat program kind of fused back together by the time
I got there. Uh, it's it's important, it's it's it's
dangerous stuff. It can cause chaos, and it's good to
have the cops there. Shout out to that. Another podcast
(01:05:58):
go out here. But the guys from has one it
might be retired now. They had a has Mad podcast,
and at that point I used to listen to a
ton of it because it was you know there that
that's a niche that you could only do so much
reading and there's not yet, there's not much, not much
you can do when you're on the stair mill or
the or the or the treadmill, like like the podcast.
(01:06:18):
So I listened to THEIRS. I went to talk to
those guys a lot. And obviously our people did some
great training, uh you know in STS we've been sent
down to Georgia to do the HASMAD technician training. But
there's always more. There's always something going on, and lots
of work with with federal units and paying attention to
stuff going on, including with some of the domestic UH
(01:06:41):
civil support teams, military type stuff. It's it's a wild job.
It's a lot to take on. The people that work
in that field, with the NYPD and with the other
f D N, y D, e P. I'll probably forget
whoever else is out there, FBI, State Police. The people
doing the work are absolutes specialists. It is. It is
hard stuff and you need to know a lot to
(01:07:03):
be able to do it. And it was very interesting
to me. You know, I mostly was trying to learn
as much as I could and let the specialists do
their thing and kind of just steered a ship as
best I could. And of course, when I got that assignment,
I got out of special Project, I was happy to
be back on the road and I was looking for
(01:07:24):
to spend that first week kind of going around and
meeting all the different people. And of course I had
a powder job at one of the president's close relatives apartment,
first job out of the gate, on my first day
in the WMD team, So kind of learning met those
(01:07:45):
people and learned on a job.
Speaker 1 (01:07:47):
Yeah, and that's another layer to it too, when you
think about something like anthrax after nine to eleven, of
course October two thousand and one, that was going around,
and that's another component you have to worry about. And
there was, of course the gentleman that was sitting pipe
I shouldn't call them a gentleman, the individual rather who
was sending pipe bombs around. Yes, different you know, at
homes of people he did not agree with politically, And
(01:08:07):
we'll leave it at that. So there's a lot and
you have to stay and this is any assignment in
the police department, let alone the NYPD. You have to
stay five to ten steps ahead of these guys, I mean,
the bad guys. It's not just one step, it's at
least a good five to ten. And a lot of
that is the planning that you guys.
Speaker 2 (01:08:22):
Do, yes, and uh, you know some of those wrinkles too,
Like you know that there's the planning, and then there's intentional,
there's accidental, there's you know, I was around for Ebola
and you know, having to figure out how to how
to police if that got wild. Then you know, yeah,
you kind of never know what's coming. You got to
be open to a lot because there's a there's a
(01:08:44):
lot more possibilities than what's going to happen. But you
you know, we'd all be rich and wouldn't have to
work at all if we knew what was going to happen.
So you got to prep for everything.
Speaker 1 (01:08:53):
Now, I feel like coming up now twenty eighteen to
twenty twenty one, except for COVID, which we'll talk about
because that's for everyone in twenty eighteen, though at first
in nineteen pre COVID, that's probably if I had to
say the sweet spot of your career, because I mean, granted,
you had a lot of good posts before that. It's
one thing to be a boss in the su it's
another thing to be a citywide supervisor. And I remember
(01:09:14):
Tony Leasey and I talking about this a while ago
when he was on That's awesome because it's not just one.
Speaker 4 (01:09:19):
Truck that you're a part of.
Speaker 1 (01:09:20):
You get to see things on a citywide level in
terms of operations. If it's a big enough job, you
can go there in theory and help out. You know,
you got guys in the ground who know what they're doing,
and that's almost kind of like what I call the
Batman perspective. You're perched up, you know, way above the
city and you're able to really see and think cerebraly
of how things are going day to day and of
course when jobs hit the fan, how to respond to them.
(01:09:42):
And you're coming into this with close to two decades experience,
so that had to be a way of an assignment
to have.
Speaker 2 (01:09:47):
Yes, that was a really great time. You know, on
a personal level, I was probably someone the most fun
as a supervisor, and for me, I did I did
the overnights, you know, eleven night till till seven in
the morning, so absolute great crew. I remember I think
it's from the military. Every now and then you see
(01:10:09):
the little patch and it was like, no, nobody's coming,
It's up to us, you know, because there's that was it,
you know, the patrol call for us, and and and
we had we had to figure it out with you know,
I won't put numbers on here, but we had you know,
we as always it's it's it's less people just in
anywhere you go. And I'm sure at any emergency service
(01:10:31):
you know, police, fire, medical, whatever. On the overnights, there
there's less people and you're doing more. And as you know,
I was pretty much a citywide supervisor five nights a week, uh,
five borrows to cover and you know, going to all
the big ones, any anything that got sporty, anything that
was inter agency, anything that was newsworthy. It was. It
(01:10:54):
was quite a time and and mostly it was just
amazing to watch those uh you know, you got to
be to get to the midnights in the issue. You know,
you're pretty much looking at, you know, absolute minimum to
get any issue. I think it's five years as a
cop and you're looking at probably another three five before
you can get to midnights. So nobody's new there you know,
(01:11:14):
like you were more likely to run into somebody with
twenty or thirty years than you were with you know,
your ten or fifteen. And it was it was a
great time. I got to write down some of the
stuff eventually before I forget it, because it was just,
you know, night after night of of getting out there
(01:11:35):
and and going on wild jobs and fun jobs and
serious jobs and dangerous jobs, and then doing warrants at
the end of it in the morning. So it was,
it was. It was quite the time, right right.
Speaker 1 (01:11:49):
The apprehension team, it's another part of your career. You
can get into that now as well. You know, again,
the A team and they don't call it the A
team for nothing. You're going after the worst, the worst,
and they're not. These are not people that will go quietly.
These are violent people people. I love it, you know,
these are violent people who are willing to unfortunately fight
to the death in some cases to not go back
(01:12:09):
to prison. And the big thing an emergency is you
can never tell another cop no, even if it seems mundane,
even if it seems ridiculous, you don't tell that officer no.
So when these detective squads are telling you this is
who's on our docket.
Speaker 4 (01:12:22):
This is what the charges are.
Speaker 1 (01:12:24):
In some cases, some of the more heinous charges you
can think of, Can you go get them? You go
in and get them, and I'll never forget something.
Speaker 4 (01:12:29):
Stargant.
Speaker 1 (01:12:30):
John Lambkin said a while ago, who was a longtime
Boston ESU, retired in two thousand and two out of
one truck, where he mentioned that even with all the
gear he had on and a lot of tactical gear
at that, it was still nerve racking for him to
go in there. Understandably, you are human after all. But
tell me about again. We'll getting into the planning and
the weeds of operations. You know, these people are dangerous,
(01:12:51):
but you're just as dangerous because you have more of
an arsenal than they do. You want to get them
under control, and you want to do so without having
to use it. Tell me about the A Team and
what went into that.
Speaker 2 (01:13:00):
Oh yeah, so you know we did warrants with with
with the Emergency Patrol. We did warrants with the A Team.
You know. A Team was one of the units that
I was had command over as a lieutenant then as
a captain. It's it's tricky because there's you know, there's
the TV banging in the door, screaming and yelling, and
(01:13:20):
then there's the real world where it's hardened, purp hardened, purpse,
cop shooters, you know, multi murderers, armed to the teeth,
and sometimes they're cohabitating with you know, a nineteen year
old and her two toddler and a baby. You know, like,
there's so you it's not. It's not what a lot
(01:13:46):
of people imagine is it can be, and some of
those do get there, and it's ever evolving. The tactics,
the equipment. You have to be right at the edge
of You have to be willing to be flexibilit you
have to learn new things because the bad guys are too,
and you have to be able to handle whoever's behind
(01:14:08):
that door. And again it's mixed in with the police.
You know, this isn't you know, uh, Seal Team six,
Delta Force, you know, God bless all of them. They're
they're doing amazing work. But you know, we're in America,
We're dealing with US citizens, We're dealing with residents of
our city. There's a level of delicacy, uh that you
(01:14:31):
have to be able to maintain while also having the
ability to match the escalation and exceed it of you know,
some of the more dangerous people around. So it's very
high stress. I've been lucky enough to have a lot
of networking with with people from all over the country. Uh,
(01:14:54):
you know, California, the Southwest, Florida, places where they do
a ton of work. As far as I know, somebody
correct me, nobody is doing the volume like the A
team and NYP issue was doing. I don't know how
public the numbers are, but they're big and A teams
an outlier and things go well. You know, we we
(01:15:15):
pray that keeps going, and a lot of that comes
to training, professionalism, sorting for people that can handle that work,
make decisions under time constraints and dangerous situations and under pressure,
and the amazing job day after day after day. It
was great work. It was always fun to do. I
(01:15:38):
know most I was mostly in the back, but it
was still fun. And uh, you know, put putting together
the plans on some of the more complicated ones. We're
always entertaining and seeing what you know, that sergeant and
those detectives we're doing to stay ahead. It's it's right
at the cutting edge, and that comes from the level
of repetitions that they're doing, and lots of creativity, lots
(01:16:01):
of amazing problem solving and a lot of skill, a
lot of know how and a lot of you know,
being in shape counts too, So it was it was,
it was great, great stuff.
Speaker 4 (01:16:13):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 1 (01:16:13):
And the volume, I mean, it goes without saying. You're
in a city that has eight million people, and it's,
as I've said before on the program and I'll continue
to say, it's five cities merged into one. Each borough
could be a city in and of itself. So of course,
factoring that in, you're gonna have a lot of people
who are very very dangerous, to say the least, within
those five boroughs.
Speaker 4 (01:16:33):
And what I like, And I don't know if this
is still the case.
Speaker 1 (01:16:35):
I know there are those who are assigned there full time,
but I think ESU and again this is something I
don't know. If they still do the US to have rotation,
they would take people on occasion from the trucks, put
them in there for a little while, just so they
can get a sense of how it is before they
send them back to their trucks. I like that too,
because if assuming it's still going on, the e cop
gets a true flavor of everything. Yeah, you got your squad,
Yeah you got your truck you're assigned to, but you
(01:16:57):
get a sense of what else goes on in the
unit two.
Speaker 2 (01:16:59):
Yeah, and you turbo charge the reps. You know they
as the citywide supervisor, you're doing a lot of warrants,
but it's geographical. You know, you're going with with where
the warrant is and the people that work closest to there.
But you're kind of going to the mall and you
can forget that the cops on patrol are getting less
reps than you are in that and by taking that
(01:17:22):
rotation through the A team, they're kind of turbo charging that.
They're really honing their skills and and and and possibly
learning some new stuff and and in anything in life.
If you up the reps, you're going to get better
at it. And then they're returning to where they worked
or you know, sometimes staying on if they if they're
a spot opens up at the A team, And yeah,
(01:17:44):
I think it's a good setup. You know, you want
the best of the best doing that, think just work
every day, and you also want some mesh between you know,
they also best at the best that are out there
on patrol. You know that are have a much wider mission,
but are still expected to have that no fail performance
(01:18:06):
what accounts.
Speaker 4 (01:18:07):
And so oftentimes they do.
Speaker 1 (01:18:09):
I'll merge the last couple of signments together here, and
that is you make Captain a detail. End of twenty
one October of twenty one two. Beat these act you
went back to transit eventually make your way back to
emergency for the midnight shift. But we'll go to transit
district too a lot. And this kind of it breaks
my heart is too strong when it kind of annoys me.
I think that's the better terminology. When some people not
(01:18:30):
all thumb their nose up out transit. Transit cops you work.
As you know, transit cops are very busy. That is
an unenviable assignment, but they make it work, and we're
grateful for that because they're dealing with perhaps one of
the more unique beats a cop can have. I think
housing cops have a very unique beat. I think transit
cops have a very unique beat because their beat is
quite literally moving throughout the day and it does not
(01:18:50):
stop literally, So being there, even though it wasn't long
and it had been a long time since you had
experienced anything like that. Tell me about what you and
joyed and what you most admired about the cops you
had under.
Speaker 2 (01:19:04):
Well at that point it was in more than twenty years,
and it was something brand new to me. You know,
I'd worked they called them omegaposts back in the day
when I was a cop, when they were worried about
people blowing up subway tunnels. You just kind of sit
at the end there with the radio that didn't work
for twelve hours at a time, either either baking or freezing.
But learning about you know, trans and patrol and what
they're doing, what their specialized teams are doing, what their
(01:19:27):
patrol cops are doing, and treaded two very tight knit
command a lot of really good cops and bosses there.
The they know their community and there is a community
and you know that covers a lot of Manhattan. I
forget what the numbers were, but like I had, you know,
thirty four Street Corridor was like my specific kind of
(01:19:48):
special assignment there, and it's like the you know, the
busiest station in the hemisphere or something. And those cops
know the workers, they know the troublemakers, they know the
regulars and then there's like a couple other million people
passing through every day and at night it's very desolate.
The comms are getting better, but most of those transit
(01:20:10):
cops came up with no or bad comms, so kind
of similar to the house. And then you were you
were a little bit on your own, had to handle yourself,
knowing that help could like if you're on a moving train,
you know, nobody's coming to save you until that train
gets to where it's going, So you have to be
able to work under different circumstances, not be dependent on
(01:20:34):
the radio to get your help in twenty seconds. So
it's it's a whole different thing. And then you know,
getting into those tunnels getting away from the stations, that
there's a whole you know, got a decent glimpse of
it in emergency, but in transit it was even more
eye opening. There's a whole other city under there and
wild stuff going on. It's it's it's almost you say,
(01:20:57):
the lifelong city city resident. It was still eye opening
to see what goes on and to see cops handle
jobs very well, including some jobs you normally would be
considered emergency work, and those those transit cops that have
been there a while. They were, you know, dealing with
amputations from people that had hit by trains. They were
getting on the tracks if they had to, if it
(01:21:18):
was you know, life and death emergency and uh, you
know doing doing some h some complicated stuff and uh
and then knowing all the scams and the pickpockets and
and perverts and the rest, it was it's uh, yes,
they they they should get more credit and uh and
hopefully they have better comms now. I know it was
moving that way when I was there, and I think
that'll go a long way to uh making it more
(01:21:40):
effective and less dangerous down there, which we want for
them because that's it's a tough job working underground.
Speaker 1 (01:21:47):
Yeah, and even with the repeaters, it's still bad. It's
still bad. You have to be standing in a specific spot.
It's almost like the old days when Wi Fi was
first coming out. And it's I'm not trying to be
funny when I say this, that's what they have to
deal with. Yeah, really, that's what we call And I've
heard Gallagher uses the real police. That's where they prove
they are the real police because they're working essentially without
(01:22:09):
a radio, which is scary to think but such a
a connection down below and in a city and in
and of itself. Now getting back to the midnights and
the special operation side. You talked about midnights earlier. We
could expand on it here. This is where your final
stop was and being a captain in the su again,
I feel like it's the pinnacle your career. I mentioned
the sweet spot earlier. Here's another great assignment that you
(01:22:31):
had tell me about, just a when did you know
that you were going to put your papers in and
if you knew early on enjoying that last year, yes.
Speaker 2 (01:22:41):
So the captain thing kind of extended me a little bit,
you know, because there's no overtime, so you know, you're
not you're not pushing monetarily, you know, I was. I
was a little bit cooked to twenty because I pretty
much you know, you're by bio. I did most of
(01:23:02):
my career working nights either six to two, eight to
four or straight up overnights, and most of all in
busy places, you know, public facing, you know, over your term,
tip of the sphere kind of stuff. It takes a toll.
(01:23:22):
You know, you get tired, especially if you know you
got you got a family, and and and other commitments.
It wears on you and everybody out there. Get your
check ups, take care of your health. You know, seeing
so many people, uh you know lost before their time
for kind of mysterious reasons. And I think a lot
of that's the nights in the stress. So just you know,
(01:23:43):
do the best you can to take care of yourself,
watch your sleep, watch your food, all that stuff. But
the the midnight h so you know, you three as
it's known where you're really though the s o D
captain on the overnights and I was doing five of
those weeks, so uh, you know, other than Chief Mohammad
(01:24:04):
who was the overnight patrol chief, I think I was
doing the most duties in the in the city at
that time as a somewhat new captain, and uh it
was great. You're more hands off, which is you know,
you there's you have to know your role in that
and you have to fight it because every job, if
(01:24:25):
you're if you're the person that that that should be
in that spot, every job you want to be in
the mix. You want to have a tool in your hand.
You want to be saying do you want to be
doing do this, do that? Or you want to be
saying do this, do that. But you have to understand it.
You're now backed up, You're not you're not hands on,
you're not directing tasks, you know, and at the lowest
(01:24:49):
you're getting is tactics and and you're letting people work
and you're you're you're meshing with the other units and
you're running command and a little bit less exciting. Uh.
You got to wear a white shirt, which I hated
and uh, but also rewarding because you're you're helping those
(01:25:10):
jobs end well. You're you're doing your best to situationally
handle it so that people are in the best spot
to succeed, even though you're you're not one of the performers.
You know, it's kind of like being up in the
booth in the in the football stadium versus versus being
on a field. So that was but I enjoyed it.
(01:25:34):
You know, I've got uh, you know, my wife's put
up with so much. He's been so wonderful. Uh. You know,
my kids have you know, missed me for a lot
of stuff. And you know, I was and I was
around because I've worked those nights. But you know, a
little bit zombie fie for a few too. Many family functions. Uh,
A lot too many emergency room visits for my family
(01:25:54):
to be happy with. Uh. You know, a couple of
health scares along the way, some bunch of injuries along
the way, and it there's a point where it's like
I can't perform in a way I would expect me
to if I was on the outside looking at me
like I, and that I would internally like I even
(01:26:18):
though I'm never although you never know. I've had on
one of my last jobs, it got crazy, had a
guy jump roof to roof and me and a lieutenant
ended up, you know, because of the way it was.
Lieutenant and the canine officer and her can I partner
ended up making our own weird apprehension team because the
perpetrator was so athletic. And that kind of thing is
(01:26:39):
like where you have if whatever your spot is in
the police department, if you're in that scooter writing tickets
or whatever it is, if you're going to put on
that patch, then you know the PD on both or
the PD and the issue or whatever. If you're going
to put those on and step outside, you've got to
be ready to do it. You've got to be to
(01:27:00):
do what's expected of your ground level operators and uh,
you know, just agent wear and tear and uh and
rough jobs. I was. I was good on the radios,
I was good on command, but uh, I didn't feel
like I could uh physically uh operate at that issue level.
(01:27:20):
And I wasn't ready to uh to move to something
else from there. So that was kind of writing on
the wall. And uh, you know, time time to time
to nine to five, time to move on to something else.
Still still pretty young. I still got a lot of
gas in the tank, hoping to do some more you know,
fun stuff in the uh in life and uh, but
(01:27:41):
the uh was out of gas for the for their
going waiting on the big one. You know, capital T,
capital B, capital low. You know, we're always every night
like the next one is gonna be the big one.
And uh, you know there's a time, there's always there's
always gonna be another big one, and at some point
you've got to realize that that's for somebody else and
(01:28:01):
step off. Otherwise, God bless everybody who does it. Otherwise.
If you if you can stay in shape and stay
in a game until you hit that sixty third birthday,
God bless you, or sixty five for the fire department,
but that wasn't me, and I'm onto other things. And
you know, I think I had a good run, you know,
(01:28:22):
sad for all the people that didn't make it, and
but you know glad I did as much as I could.
And and that's like, that's a good feeling. There's no
there's nothing I missed I think in my career that
I wanted to do except make the issue as a cop,
but I was already on the Sergeist list.
Speaker 1 (01:28:43):
You have no regrets. You had a great twenty two
year run, you know. I mean, like I said, unusual
circumstances through no fault to your own, beyond your control
and anybody's control, really and how you started. But you
had assignment to assignment that was never boring and it
flies by as many saying the blink of a nine.
Speaker 4 (01:28:59):
Here you are. And that's the thing. I'm glad you
mentioned that you reached the finished line.
Speaker 1 (01:29:03):
Unfortunately, there's a lot of people through injuries, illnesses, getting
killed in line of duty, unfortunately too suicide that don't
get to the end. But you made the walk to
the pension section. And that's the most important thing.
Speaker 2 (01:29:15):
Yeah, and that's why I don't even try to name
names because I'll miss people. It's so many. It's tough, strategic.
Speaker 1 (01:29:21):
Yeah, man, but I'm grateful then, you know you got again,
as every guest that had that background, either PD or FD.
I'm grateful that you know, you guys got to the
finish line. You're able to enjoy the second act now,
and I'm sure you keep them busy in the private sector,
especially with all the knowledge you have from your police years.
Speaker 4 (01:29:35):
That's a nice thing.
Speaker 1 (01:29:36):
If you had a great, distinguished career in public safety,
there's always going to be opportunities, more times often than not,
in the private sector to lend your knowledge there. So
I'm sure you're doing just that. That brings us into
the rapid fire. Now, five hit and run questions from me.
Five hitt and run answers to me. I'm gonna switch
it up a little bit. First things first, here, what
would you say we kind of talked about it. What
would you say was the most challenging operation? Doesn't have
(01:29:57):
to be a big job, but a unique operation you
had you were just like, man, I really had to
put on my thinking cap here.
Speaker 2 (01:30:05):
Two of them. The first one was Sandy because I
was brand new So it was wild because we we
had the training, so we were freshly trained in in
a lot of the stuff. But you know, being sent operational,
you know, pitch black, breezy point in the middle of
a hurricane. Uh, that was a challenge, you know. So
(01:30:26):
that was that one was challenging. And then I think,
you know, there's so many I forget a lot. A
lot of it gets repetitive, you know, like and you
don't want to like act like it's no big deal,
but you know, like like like people shooting, you know,
shooting at cops, shooting cops, sitting their apartments on fire,
and it gets repetitive. And we got we get we're
(01:30:48):
good at it. We do a lot of training for
the terrorism stuff. But thank god, it's it's pretty rare.
But that that, that job in transit was was a
big challenge, you know, because it kind of put on
a spot as a litetule tenant, you know, dealing with
the police commissioner, chief of department, figuring out what we had,
how big it was, poort authority, MTA, you know, trooper
(01:31:12):
like that was a massive thing, and you know, I
was kind of right at the forefront of that, and
a lot of moving parts and worrying about the actual
safety and being sure that there were no more devices
and that what he had on him wasn't functional. That
was probably it for me. Complicated job.
Speaker 1 (01:31:32):
You're a better man than me, because if they would
asked me, hey, what's going on with this, it would
have been the twenty one jump Street response, my name
is Jeff, like I wouldn't at all. Yeah, trial by fire.
You learned quickly, and I'm glad we touched on that
job earlier. One thing we didn't touch on during the
course of the interview we could mentioned now your time
in the FBI National Academy. How do you feel second
question of rabbid fire at attending that session change your
(01:31:54):
approach to leadership.
Speaker 2 (01:31:56):
It was great for me. It was a get hit
kind of like halftime. Was I getting the speech for
a football coach, you know, and making adjustments and going
back out, you know. I went in twenty twelve. Shout
out the session two four nine. If anybody's watching. There
were so many diverse leaders in there, all kinds of
different jobs, all kinds of different agencies. The network is
(01:32:18):
still going strong and there's other people from there, but
on the leadership front. A lot of that was was
doing it and just like an anecdote I think is
like we had one great class and I can't remember
what title it was, but you know it was a
lot of management stuff, police management, and one day the
instructor couldn't be there and he just told, you know,
(01:32:41):
some of the senior leaders and in the class to
run the presentations and we ran two hours of presentations
with no instructor there, questions, answers, and just that that
learning to lean on other people, knowing that you don't
know it all and there's other people that know more,
(01:33:02):
and accepting that and embracing it. I think that's the
biggest leadership thing. You know, figure out vet people know
you can trust them, but then trust them and ask
for advice. That's probably the biggest lesson.
Speaker 1 (01:33:14):
From there, you answered the third question, Thank you for
that the rapid fire. Earlier in our discussion between Standard
Patrol and ESU, someone switched the question a little bit.
If you could go back to a certain segment of
your career and just pick I mean, I mentioned what
I thought your sweet spot was earlier, but if you
could pick a certain air of your career, you can
go back to whatever are you picking if you can
(01:33:35):
go back to work tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (01:33:37):
Oh that slides with age though too.
Speaker 4 (01:33:40):
So Era.
Speaker 2 (01:33:47):
Absolutely had a great time running around doing anti crime
for like six years. You can't do that forever. That
was a great time. A couple of those moments. And
uh and as a you know, housing officer, but you know,
like it wasn't as exciting, but it was. It was
pretty rewarding. There's just somebody impact being able to work
(01:34:09):
with and teach young cops. And yeah, that that city
wide supervisor spot, especially if it's like you were in
a busy week or month. Uh, I could do that forever.
If I had a time machine, it was it was great,
you know. And and and uh, you know, being able
to run five burrows at night, and and and get
to all the big ones and and you know, as
(01:34:30):
they said, buff the radio. You know, I always had
three different channels running in the car and uh, you
know there you're you're just looking for that. Uh. This
something to be said for that dopamin hit that comes
from either the exciting words or excited voices coming over
the radio at night.
Speaker 4 (01:34:46):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (01:34:47):
Fourth question, And I'm gonna switch up a little bit
here as well. When you're hungry and you're on the road,
or you got to order something to the command. You
can't wait to get home and get dinner at home.
You gotta have something right there right now. What is
Captain Dave Riley would and wear some of his favorite
spots to eat at New York.
Speaker 2 (01:35:03):
Well, a lot of time I spent limited by the
by the midnight, so that there was a lot of
bodega eating. But then there's the classic you know, uh,
every now and then you hit Wo Hop in Chinatown.
You know, we had the occasional midnight supervisors meeting there
in my time in the issue. You know, you get
uh you four, five and six together and and talk
(01:35:25):
strategy over a hot and sour soup and then whatever
else they think A big fan of pork puns down
there as well, Uh diner stuff in the city. Again
that the overnights. I wish New York would get back
to the city that never sleeps because uh, over the
years I did watch the food options at night, dwindle
(01:35:45):
a bunch.
Speaker 4 (01:35:46):
Cod COVID didn't help either, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:35:49):
It was. I'm trying to think of any of the
other like I mean, uh, back when I was in
the seventh. Uh, Sammy's Sammy's Romanian. We used to hit
every now and then and that was uh, that was
that was amazing to bring back to the command, you know.
Uh and have have a nice meal. And then I
remember with my anti crime team, we used to go
(01:36:10):
get h on Fridays during lentch we'd go get half
price sushi in the Lower East Side. I can't even
think of the replaced out of it's still there, but uh,
lots of good eating. But uh, if I was to
suggest right now, you got to get something to bring
it back. Uh. I'm a I'm a big fan of
of hitting that. Uh Chinese it's uh, it's it's uh.
(01:36:32):
I call you know the Chinese penicillin. Are that that
hot and sound make it feel good if you if
you're a little under the weather, and some spicy stuff
keep you up at night. You know. I started hitting
that as a as a cop. When I was doing
it was a prisoner of transports to Manhattan Central book
and uh and just have it. I never broke. I
can't do it all the time, but you know, maybe
a little once a month, always nice.
Speaker 1 (01:36:53):
Of course, I love me some vegetable fried rice with
some with some chicken wings. That always hits the spot
for me, So relate to that. And of course the
last question of the rapid fire. You spent the majority
of your career as a supervisor. Let's say you can
get a brand spanking new sergeant, not just an e
SU but a sergeant that's just been promoted.
Speaker 4 (01:37:10):
Period.
Speaker 1 (01:37:11):
Advice you'd give the new sergeant based off your experiences
as both as well sergeant, lieutenant and captain across your career.
Speaker 2 (01:37:18):
Oh wow, that's great. That that's something that I've thought about,
you know, and try to put something together. I'm still
out there yet a little bit of writer's block. But
number one, which is sergeant told me, which is simple advice.
And it's like one of those things you've you know,
it doesn't sound much but then you figure out later
is you set the tone. You set the tone if
you want them out there or be out there. But
(01:37:39):
then that's the second part of it is it means
do your job, don't try to be super cop. And
if you're a over the rank of sergeant, don't try
to be super sergeant. Know what your spot is and
it might be less fun and you might have to
back up. But that's your job. So if it's if
(01:38:00):
it's running incident command, you got to step back and
run incident command, and you got to do it the
best you can because somebody has to do it. And
just not getting sucked in not having that uh, not
having a telescope view, having that wide view, you know,
back to the football reference, being up and that press
box and looking down at the whole field and being
(01:38:22):
able to help out the players. You can't help them
out if you're if you're wandering around or or or
mixing up with the other team. Yeah, it's it's to
step back when you can and to be ready to
step up if you have to, you know, And that's
that's when you step up. So keep keep your skills up,
keep your fitness up. You should be willing, you should
(01:38:45):
be able to do the job of anybody you're supervising,
but they should be doing a job. And you should
be setting a tone, keeping up on training, holding standards.
There's a podcaster h jowing a blind kind of name
right now, but he said, uh, whatever you accept in
your presence is your standard. So that's what it is.
(01:39:07):
Don't don't if you accept something that that's below whatever
you say your standard is then that your standard whatever,
whatever you accepting, your presence is your standard. Set the
tone and be able to do the job of the
people you're supervising, and keep keep your moral straight, no,
know your compass, know the law. And uh, stay positive,
(01:39:30):
you know, be relentlessly positive.
Speaker 1 (01:39:33):
Love it good advice, very well said. Uh, normally i'd
say before we say goodbye to the audience, but of
course is a pre recorded I'm.
Speaker 2 (01:39:40):
Just happy Stephan Accus isn't on here to pick on
me in the chat.
Speaker 1 (01:39:44):
We'll give it time when this comes out later this summer.
It's just delayed.
Speaker 2 (01:39:48):
It's gonna at least I don't have to I don't
have the I don't have to be aware of it
while it's happened. I can laugh and read along with
maybe maybe I'll be future me is going to be
firing back at them on the on the on the
chat when it's on, I'll be the first person who
gets to defend himself.
Speaker 1 (01:40:05):
Live exactly, which is a mic the New Haven first.
I guess there's a benefit even though we'll miss our
live shows for the period of time that will be
in the academy. Of course, that's the benefit. That it
is a positive and pre record show, but it not eyveone.
I will still ask you any shout outs to anyone
or anything you want to get.
Speaker 2 (01:40:21):
Too many I can think of probably I don't want
to leave anybody out, but just thank you everybody I
work with. Thank you to my family. Thank you to
everybody who who supports the cops out there doing the
right thing. It's a there's a reason we need the police.
We need the real police, and that's okay, and we
(01:40:41):
should support them and give them top cover and tighten
them up when they're wrong. But it's a necessary thing
and needs to be protected so that they can protect us.
Thank you to all my instructors and all the good
bosses and cops and everybody else along the way. We're
all just you know, we're all just gears in this machine,
(01:41:03):
and you know we can we can steer this ship
a little bit and then hopefully it makes a big
difference in the end. And thanks to anybody along the
way you hope to steer me well.
Speaker 4 (01:41:15):
Set, Thank you very much. Stick around. We'll talk off here.
Speaker 1 (01:41:18):
Of course, those of you that are listening to this,
you'll hear this sometime in the summertime. Ideally, we still
don't know when exactly Academy's going to start, but I'll
put it up like I usually do on YouTube, on LinkedIn,
and on Facebook for the stream, so this will be
by the time it comes out. Episode three hundred and
fifty two, Volume fifty one of the e Men inside
the NYPD's Emergency Service Unit now coming up next on
(01:41:39):
The Mike the New Aven Podcast, another pre recorded episode
that I've been working towards for a long time. I'm
very excited about it, and hopefully by the time you
hear this, you will have heard that too. He was
a seven time sty Young Award winner, pitch twenty three
seasons in Major League Baseball for the Red Sox, Blue Jays, Yankees,
and Astros. Of course I remember most of the Yankee
The Rocket Roger Clemens is coming on the Mike the
New Aven Podcast, so that's gonna be a fun one,
(01:42:00):
and me and producer Victor are very much looking forward
to hearing about his career, especially some of the rivalries
and moments he was the first hand witnessing part of
in the meantime on behalf of Captain Dave Riley and
producer Victor I am Mike Cologne. This has been volume
fifty one of the event inside the NYPD's Emergency Service Unit.
And as the EVN like to say, abe any time, baby,
take care and have a great rest of your days.
Speaker 2 (01:42:37):
I'm trying him.
Speaker 5 (01:42:40):
The Sime cancer star serv last him.
Speaker 3 (01:43:02):
Worthy, save pcake to not the food salt you gotta
see it off for fear long long time. Oh but
them tripping four one hundred and.
Speaker 6 (01:43:23):
Five the line.
Speaker 5 (01:43:26):
Rising time said Sam shut cancer long, we.
Speaker 6 (01:43:40):
Don save a see you flow it you worthy saved
take to not Foo salt.
Speaker 3 (01:43:53):
You d comes from itself. So on these stars star
word sound shum on your molly, you're figuring out a
(01:44:43):
long long time. The star Soko so Lo seen just
cancer on the way.
Speaker 7 (01:45:25):
I say, what is I see you wonder if follow
with speed you what's your saying? I came to not
the fruit sau say, I say.
Speaker 2 (01:45:47):
I'm not alone.
Speaker 5 (01:45:51):
Let your say Bernumer food song he
Speaker 3 (01:46:00):
Absent absent so t