Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
You're listening to the Mike the New Event podcast hosted
by media personality and consultant Mike Cologne. You know, we've
(00:42):
been lucky to hit the ground running since the return
of the program this month. Of course, we started out
with a few strong NYPD interviews, namely our previous episode
of the Mike the New Avent Podcast, which we welcome
you back to, that being with former Suffer County Police
Commissioner in NYPD Chief of Department Rockney Harrison. Of course,
we had Dave Riley, and on the media side we
had Roger Clemens, who of course helped Yankees two World
(01:05):
championships in nineteen ninety nine in two thousand, respectively, at
another strong interview today. It's being pre recorded, so I'm
recording this on a Monday in the early afternoon when
it is a very splendid summer day here in mid
July and the lovely new Haven, Connecticut where I reside,
and you will hear this Friday at six pm and
it's usual time slide, so this will be airing later
(01:26):
and we have a heck of a guest for you
today for the pre recorded this year the Mike New
Haven Podcast. Before we get to that. Just a brief
word from Billy Ryan and the Ryan Investigating 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 n YP Detective Bill Ryan, a
(01:49):
twenty year veteran of the Department who served the majority
of his career in the Detective Bureau, most notably in
the Arrive to handle anything from fraud, legal services, and
anything else that you might require, contact Bill at three
four seven four one seven sixteen ten. Again three four
seven four one seven sixteen ten. Reached him at his
website or the email that you see here. Again, if
(02:10):
you need a PI, look no further than Bill Ryan
and the Ryan Investigator, who a proud supporter and sponsor
of the mic. All right, my next guest, well, who
is He's retired NYPD Lieutenant commander, celebrated as quote unquote
the godfather of homicide and the author of what many
call the Bible of homicide investigations. With over forty years
in law enforcement, he led the Bronx Commiside to ask
(02:31):
for as consultant on thousands of cases and shape forensic
training globally. And that is mister Vernon Jebberth. Did I
say that correctly? I hope I did. I should ask
you that before geth pretty close. It's girth gebreath. There
we go, doc me five points for that. Vernon Gebirth
a retired lieutenant commander out of the New York City.
(02:53):
It is who we will welcome to the to do
a podcast. Lieutenant welcome, How are you?
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Thank you. It's nice to be here. I see some
very important guests you've had in the past with Jack Cambria,
and I saw Ralph Friedman. We're a good company.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Thank you very much. We've been lucky on this program,
I've often said, and very fortunately to be talking with
you today. Before we cover anything regarding the New York
City Police Department in for many years there, just tell
me first where you grew up.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
I grew up on the suburbs of the Bronx called
Mount Vernon, New York, Okay. And in my early life
I had a number of jobs. I was a life
I was a newspaper boy, and I loaded trucks. I
was working from at the time, I was twelve years
of age, I had a job. Okay, so important because
(03:44):
every job you do you develop a skill set. So
as I grew older, I got more involved in other things,
like being a lifeguard. That was a fantastic job. I
was an ambulance driver. It was a security guard out
wutable what I mean. You know, it's kind of interesting
(04:05):
retrospectively all these jobs I had. I was wearing a uniform.
I must have been destined to be a uniform, which
I think is very important. Calling prior to my entry
into the New York City Police Department, I was a
World's Fair Police officer and that was a great experience
because everybody in that outfit that was teaching, instructing, and
(04:27):
supervising were former NYPD officials, So I was getting an
introduction into the NYPD before oriented, and all the forms
were the same. Instead of UF for Uniform Force, it
was WF for World's Fair. So I came in with
a few skills that I picked up in the World's
Fair Police Department.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Well, let me just ask you real quick, because that
was something that was and it's a product of a
bygone era. Was held quite a bit annually, I believe,
primarily in Queens Over the years. So for those not
familiar with it, what was the World's Fair? What was
its significance and relevance to New York City?
Speaker 2 (05:00):
What the World's Fables in Queens, New York. It comprised
the number of companies and countries from across the world.
It was a great experience because you had a little
flavor of each different country and their pavilions. Now, early on,
I was like a regular police officer of the World's Fare.
(05:22):
And before and before long had I planned my career
around the NYPD, which is really funny. I left college
to join the NYPD. I left them my junior year.
I was when I own a college. And I'll never
forget the brother who was kind of like the guidance
counselor in my junior year. He wanted to know what
(05:44):
company I picked for my practicum. I said, brother, the NYPD.
He goes, what becoming a what you went to? I
own a college and become my cop. I said, slow down, brother,
you see that college got around your neck. That's your vocation.
My vocation is the NYP. And interesting, the only people
who knew I was going into the police department was
(06:06):
meet and my girlfriend. And now the brother. So it
looked like I was going to get appointed in December
of nineteen sixty four, so we planned everything around that.
We planned to get married in October. I was working
at the Welsfare Police Department. Had a good job. We
went on our honeymoon. We come back from the honeymoon
and they tell me you're laid off for the season.
(06:30):
I've had a job since I was twelve years of age.
What am I going to do? My wife says, calm down,
we'll figure something out. I'm working well. It was a
perfect time. It was around the Christmas season and UPS
was looking for drivers, so I volunteered. I went to Tuckaho,
New York. I was there every morning at a quarter
of the six because you had to shape up at six.
Nobody picked me. Day one, Day two, I'm getting depressed.
(06:53):
On the third day, they must have been short. So
some driver says, I've seen you hanging around. He says,
you can wear out on my truck. And that was
the beginning. By the time the season was over, I
had my own truck, my own route, and I would
deliver package until midnight, until every package was off that truck,
and then I'd come back to be back at six
o'clock the next morning. So it was But you know
the best part about that mic In January, they were
(07:16):
laying people off because it's over the season. They held
five people. I was one of the five, and when
they found out that I had three years of college,
they sent me to Madent School down at forty third
Streat in Manhattan. I'm not telling anybody I'm on the list. Anyway,
they come February, the World's Fair calls me up and
(07:37):
they tell me, come on back. We're gonna make you
a sergeant. A sergeant, I'm gonna be a sergeant. We're
gonna put you charge of the liquor license dispection. So
I'm saying, liquor license inspection. What the hell was that? Well,
they picked me because I was a dope kid and
I wouldn't get lost in the bars, all right. I
cruised through that pavillion and I found out one thing.
A lot of those pavilions had their own separate private
(07:59):
bar and entertainment area for guests. So it was pretty interesting.
And all of a sudden, April thirtieth, nineteen sixty five,
I get notified I'm going into the NYPD and thus
began my career.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
You know, I had no idea in knowing about the
World's Fair that they had their own police force, which
I think is pretty cool. It speaks to the significance
and large scale of the event.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Well it was. It was interesting because they had we
had the police powers in the World's Fit, so we
couldn't go around the city. They'll go out in the city,
try to play cop in the World's face and we
issue off firearms with the firearms training and everything else,
but only on the grounds because it was the Pinkerton Corporation.
It was the contract, okay, and the kind of ranted
(08:46):
with a show strict rules and procedures, but it was great,
a great introduction to police.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Worker, absolutely, I'll say, and I of course kickstarted what
would be one heck of a journey for you. As
we're chronicle, we're talking with retired NYPD Lieutenant Commander Vernon
Gabbrith why they were guarded for his work, specifically in
homicide investigations. Here at the Mike the Neuvia podcast again
a pre recorded edition of the show that you will
hear on Friday. So getting into nineteen sixty five, I
find that time period to be incredibly interesting for the
(09:12):
city because it's a period of transition. The fifties and
the sixties, for the most part, low crime, a peaceful
time in New York City. We're starting to see a
cultural shift, excuse me, nationwide crime is starting to take
back up again. And this began what really was a
multi decade odyssey for the NYPD of high crime and
(09:32):
a struggle to contain it. And it certainly kept you
guys in homicide very very busy and getting there. And
not too long after that, the TPF Tactical Patrol Force,
again the byproduct of the bygone era. Tell me about
the early days, and tell me about your time at TPF,
because I've had a few guys from he around the show.
The TPF was kind of the precursor, I feel in
some sensus the street crime.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Not really. The TPF was a unit that will never
see it again. It was designed for crowd control and
for inner city policing, my crime Marys. And it was
put together because, if you remember, in nineteen sixty four,
we had a very big riot in Harlem and we
were ill prepared for that. They formed this Tactical Control
(10:16):
Force actually in nineteen fifty nine. They picked six foot seven,
most of whom were Irish guys. Don't forget on five eight.
But I had three years of at three years of college,
and I aced my way through the police Academy, both
the physical and the academic. And more importantly, I had
(10:37):
a couple of chances to show off because I was
a lifeguard. When we had lifeguard training. Okay, one of
the things that we had to do when the academy
was to prepare a term paper. And every worming a
turn paper tern paper. Laughter. The term papers the other
for me. So I made the mistake of ansking the
lieutenant towards the end of the program, what do you
want in this term paper? Lieutenant? Right the first of
(10:59):
the class books and you stopid ass? You talk about
a turpet? I said, in the it's in the agenda.
We have to do it. I just asked what we needed.
So that was the same day we had to go
for water safety. So we went down to the pool
in the academy and there was a black instruct I
never saw a man swim like that before, right coast
(11:19):
the pool, back and forth. I said, wow, look at this.
So anyway, he said, we're going to do some training
work and water safety, and I need a volunteer. So
the three guys from my class and pick up. But
theyded me got the turn paper. I says, no problem,
my trade board. He comes up behind me, grasp me.
We go into the water, right, I go into my
lifeguard take on my neck, bring them down, turn them
(11:40):
around and get him up. He's tapping me. We'll come
to the top. Where did you learn that? I said,
I was a lifeguard. Sir, good, you're you're gonna be
my help from my instructor, my help, right, I says, good.
Let's start with the three guys that volunteered me. And
they made sure they got a mouthful of water. That'll
teach you exactly. Anyway, I was selected for the TPF
(12:00):
and I was so proud of that. My when I
came booking down with the TPF numerals on your car,
and that was that was a big thing because those
were the green berets of the police Department. And why
I say that is because as soon as we graduated
from the police Academy, we went for more training, riot
control of building, repelling UH sniper rifles. It was constant training.
(12:23):
And then when we weren't training. We were in a
different places fall and betristybus and making arrests, and I
had a hell of I was a rest crush sheet. Okay,
not the Mickey mouse stuff, but the serious stuff that
much kept the crime now anyway, because of the TPF.
Don't forget, I'm a kid from the suburbs right Mount.
(12:44):
I don't know anybody. And because of TPF, the only
legitimate unit they ever had in New York City Police Department.
I'm saying that out and clear, the only legitimate unit
because you got promoted on merit and work. It wasn't
who you knew, it was what you did. Within three years,
I was a White Shield detective. That's a big deal.
(13:06):
I was in the Bureau of the White Shield in
three years. I owe all to TPF.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
TPF, I guess if not street crimes, does he disagree
with that would be more fair to say it was
a precursor to what would eventually be the disorder control
You Well, it was.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
A TPF was a uniform detail. They had something that
the mugg will marry guys would dress up to get
mugged and we'd block them. But the fore runner of
street crime was actually the Taxi Truck Surveillance Unit TTSUN,
and I was selective for that, and as a detective
in TTSU, Will made some fantastic arrests and a few
(13:44):
more commendations. But more importantly, that kind of kind of
set the tone because TTSU was a temporary assignment. Okay,
you had to go back to your regular command afterwards.
But all of these things are skill, Mike, You're learning
something from each unit. I can't impress people how important
(14:05):
is because everything I learned later on in homicide could
go back to other assignments I had in the police delarm.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Absolutely, you know there's a direct correlation, as we'll discussed
throughout this interview. And I want to go back to
you being a white Shield detective at the time. So
just for clarification, you were promoted or were you working
in the detective squad on the road to getting your shield?
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Well, I was on the road to get a gold shield,
but yeah, but you're a white Shield first. But I
was officially in the detective vision in March fifth, nineteen
sixty eight. He know's how I remember that because that
was an important day. That was like three years later
now by June of sixty nine, I got my gold
shield and at that time I was in Bronx Narcotics
(14:49):
and I had a very active koreeran Bronx narcotics. So
a couple of shootings and a shotgun shot shootout. It's
really hairy stuff that in Bronx Narcotics. I got three
letters of commendation from the grand jury that was unheard
of recommended me to the Police's Commission for recognition, and
(15:11):
two of them were shootings and the other one was
a bribery. Now I didn't think much about it because
as far as I'm concerned, every time somebody get gets
locked up, they want to make a deal after they
We're just trying to get out of London. I don't
hold that against people, but when you're trying to perfort
the system, well you want to bribe a cop to
pervert the system, you need to get locked up. And
I had this major violator from all on the Bronx.
(15:33):
He tried to pay us or for one thousand dollars.
He actually had the nerve to tell us tell the
judge you didn't find anything on a search. More So,
apparently he had been through this process before, so I said,
I can't do anything. We have to go back to
the station house. I called up my captain, send it
down because we don't have that. We don't have tapes
and stuff like that back in those days. All right,
(15:53):
looking through the one main mirror as he pays based
the money, I said, you know, the rest of a bribery.
I didn't think much about it. Then later on when
the Map Commission came in, s I s I U
S I see you, all the other ones came in.
What happens is I get a subpoena to go to
the State Investigation Commission. I'm going, wow, this is serious.
I didn't do anything, So I called my partner, Did
(16:14):
you do anything? No, what's going on?
Speaker 1 (16:17):
You know what?
Speaker 2 (16:18):
You know what happened. We made the only arrest of
bribery in the entire Narcotics division in nineteen sixty nine.
How do you like that? And this is cerproco era,
Well goes around the same time and maybe a little
bit of prior to that. I don't remember CURP because
same same general time frame. Seventies.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Yep, that's again, go ahead, I'm sorry, yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
So listen' it I was you never know in the meantime,
I get I get dumped back into the into harm
because I had a complaint, right, and this captain was
trying to get a piece to me, and I just system,
you're not You're not going to get a piece of
me because anything wrong, right, you know, went before the
grand jury, had to testify before the grand jury. No
(17:05):
true bill, because we didn't do anything wrong. But before
I got back to my command, he transferred me to Hallow.
I was, okay, I can detect any place I've been
all over the city, followed the bronx. I don't care now.
In the same time, I get into taxi trucks availlance
unit and that was great. There was citywide in they
climbed the forearm and I was making a lot of arrests. Meanwhile,
(17:27):
I had taken the sergeant's test and I had a
very high mark on the sergeant's test. And we're following
and following. The Chief is a newspaper in New York
City that gives the civil service. Okay, it looks like
I'm going to get promoted in December, which is perfect, right,
And all of a sudden that night, the teletype comes
up with all the names people have packed me on
(17:50):
the back. Congratulations, Vernon, you made sergeant. My name's not
on the list. That captain purposely held me up because
I had an active case pending into them. Well that
hurt because we just had our third child. It could
certainly use the extra money. What am I going to do?
I put my tail between the legs. I go back
(18:10):
to the precinct and that's the same year to have
a police strike, but we don't strike whose who have detectives?
It's over in a radio car and from calls as
a patrolman because there's a strike as they can't win. Well,
it doesn't matter. When I did go to the trial room,
that captain who's still looking to get me, right, he's
there talking all this on. Right, who shows up with
(18:32):
the district attorney from the Bronx that had the case
to testify on my behalf that this is a bogus chalk.
When the trial commissioner heard what he did to me,
he chastised him in front of the whole group. What
you did to this man, he's a hero. You took
him and tried to kill right, he went out. That
was funny. I didn't get them voted to August that year,
(18:53):
but I came back. I came back as a sauna.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
There you go, worked out at least it.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Now, hey, let's and you know when you're right, you're right,
and just be true to yourself. Okay, don't let these
people influence you. No, you have to.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
And again, morals is a huge part of any aspect
of first responder work. It doesn't matter how many years
in the job you have. It doesn't matter how cynical
you may get depending on how many calls or cases
you're dealing with. At the core, there's still good morals. Otherwise,
why take the job. You're essentially out there doing God's
work to keep the streets of New York City safe
and really anywhere that you're a police officer or a firefighter,
(19:28):
it's God's work at the end of the day, to
keep those streets as safe as they can be. Now,
I like asking this to those who moved up in
rank at that time. I mean, it doesn't matter what
error of policing you're in. The common theme is this,
especially as a brand spank and new sergeant, learning to lead,
building the trust.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
You want the.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Guys to know, Hey, this guy's a worker, he's going
to be getting his hands dirty with us. He's going
to have our best interest at heart. And you got
different personalities to manage, you know, in different circumstances to
manage with each person. What was your personal recipe based
off supervisors you observed during your time up patrol later
on in the detective squad for getting the best out
of people and building that good report that you need
(20:05):
in order for a squad to be successful.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
You want it to be a good boss. You got
to be a good cop. I wanted to be the
kind of boss that I wanted to have when I
was a cap. Okay, like certain people I work with,
especially the captain and back in the Bronx narcotics, when
he told me, don't talk to that captain, he's out
to get you. That's the kind of person you want,
someone who's going to protect you and do the job
with you. I'm a you know, one of the highest
(20:29):
continents I ever got, no Gepp. It's a tough guy.
But he never told anybody to do it. He didn't
do himself, and that's important. So when I came, when
I first promote the sergeant, I went to a precinct.
Oh my god, I never worked in a precinct before
all this mickey mouse crap, and I'm I'm used to
being a crime fighter. I'm used to taking action. Well,
I didn't last there for three weeks that that inspector
(20:50):
couldn't wait to get rid of me. I drove him nuts.
You want to go back to TPF as Yes, sir,
I went back to TPF as a squad sergeant. Now
a pig. This is wonderful. I'm back where I belonged.
I got squads of people I know that, I know
the operation, and I got good people working with me,
and they're looking to get promoted too. So it's a
nice it's a nice operation. I was in back in
(21:13):
TPF as a sergeant for about a year when I
got picked up for a heavy duty investigation involving organized crime.
And this was one of the most complex, super secret
investigations I had ever been exposed to. Twenty six wire taps,
three bugs on the five crime families of New York.
(21:34):
You have never been exposed to anything like this. And
you know, you listen to these bugs, it's like listening
to the sopranos. They're bragging about jobs they did and
we'll we'll get me information but also during that case,
certain officials' names came up, police officials, politicians, but no
one got touched because no one was supposed to know
about this secret, super secret investigation. Sadly, I missed the
(21:59):
lieutenants test because I was so busy doing police work.
But I got promoted to detect the sergeant out of
operation on cover, and now I had lieutenant's money. But
you know, that's okay because I'm doing what I like
to do. Then I got involved with the heavy duty investigation.
It was nothing. So all of these things come into
play later on. They're using the wire taps, they're using informants,
(22:23):
getting secret information. These all come into play. So when
you finally get the homicide, you have a wealth of
skills that you can now bring to the homicide investigation.
The trouble was I couldn't get out of OCCB the narcotics.
They wouldn't let me go. So what happened, Well, what happens?
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Now?
Speaker 2 (22:43):
What happened? We had another heavy duty case that I
started on the mafia, and as a result, we were
It was called occupation Octopus because there was so many tentacles,
counterfeit money, tokens, robberies, or is this none stop? I
had this new lieutenant, a real jack from headquarters. Never
(23:04):
was in the street member Heartbreak Bridge with Clint Eastwood.
That movie heart Break Bridge. Do you remember that silly
major Malcolm Powers from Supply. That's what this guy was,
Malcolm Powers and Supply. Maybe well doesn't. I don't want
to bore you with details except.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
That please he please, you're not boring me. Go right ahead.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Everything he touched, he screwed up. He even lost money
out of buyer operation. But towards the end, we're locking
people up, and these three wise guys that we have,
we haven't for counted the money. He's stolen trucks, and
they's not talking to me. And mob talk. You can
understand the language. Many and two detectives start talking back
and mob talk. If a listen, three thousand dollars, take
(23:46):
that count of money off the table. Okay, but I
can't talk to lieutenants yet. Meanwhile, I go out notifying
internal affairs, get wired up. I come back and the
lieutenant talking to detectives. He goes, there will be no
bribery unless I participate. That's how he talks. If you
can't talk like that, they just cut you out. So
now we go into the room. He cuts the detectives
(24:09):
out so he can be there.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Right.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Everything's going fine until he says, what kind of the
ferry is deal? Are you talking about? Guys?
Speaker 4 (24:19):
Your eyes open up? I said, shut the hell up,
you're stupid beast. Well there does Well, no, that's what
I'm getting at. There's a lot behind the store. So
he disappears, We got stolen trucks and go went.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Where the hell did he go? He went back to
headquarters or write himself up. He heard something about our
bribery review board that he could get brownie points. I
never heard of such a thing. I could care less.
I'm doing police work. So I come back to the
command after hour's worth of work with my detective. He goes,
where were you, sergeant? I say, doing police work? Though
he passed it. You have to sign this report, I says,
(24:56):
what reporters now? A bribery review post. He's never heard
of it. I'll just sign it if I look. Where's
the detective's name? Were they present for lebroy No? You
cut them out? I said, no problem. What goes around
comes around. I get called down About a month or
(25:18):
two later in the middle of another major case, and
the inspector from Internal affairsis congratulations, saw Johnny integrity. I says, listen, inspector,
I've been doing this my entire life. That report you
got there is bogus. What that's bogus? I said, that's
not how it went down. He cut two detective. They
should be down here getting recognition, not me. I don't
(25:38):
need it. So he I tell them what happened. The
following day, Tennis got to go down. He goes back,
red in the face. What did you tell the inspectors
the truth? Told them truth. I said, don't screw with me,
because I'll call them up. That's how I got onto
narcotics into homicide.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
What a charred existence. But again it was charred because
you were actually doing the work. And those are the
type of bosses that need to be rewarded in any
police agency you go to, because unfortunately, some bosses are
not all. Majority of your bosses are good bosses, but
you have some that can be a mirale killers. It
sounded like this guy was one heck of a mirale killer.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Yeah, well, getting to homicide was my desire. Now the
problem is I've been in arcotics for five years. Am
I going to walk into this operation and start telling
people with twenty and thirty years how to do their
job when they already know how to do their job. No,
of course not. It's up to me to learn what
they do so I can properly supervise it. So at
(26:39):
this stage of my career, I know a lot of
people don't forget it was a cop. I was a detective,
was a detective sergeant. I've been all over the city.
You know, there's three types of cops in this business,
the very very good cops, the mediocre cops, and the
screwed up cops. We don't tell the general population about
(27:01):
the screw ups, but you wonder how you find out
who you are? Bring everybody into rule. Okay, men, women,
pick yourself apartner. The asshole that's left over is the
screw up.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
It's kind of excuse me. It's kind of like the
lad the kid that never gets picked for volleyball and
you're putting together a team for basketball or five on five.
He's the one that doesn't get picked or gets picked last.
So I can yeah, it's the same concept mine, right.
It really is. The older you get, the more you
go across life, the more you realize how just how
(27:35):
true it is, and it never really stops, no matter
the profession. Before I continue into homicide, though, I did
want to go back to those mob investigations because unfortunately,
during this time period they've ran the city, corruption was rampant.
They were involved in everything. And we're not just talking
one family, like you said, This investigation set it on
all five of them. They're getting particularly into drug trafficking.
(27:56):
And the name I think of because he was so
prolific with it, was Carmi Galante. Carmon Anti right up
until the moment he got shot dead at Joe and
Mary's restaurant seventy nine on the anniversary of it just passed,
was one of the more prolific heroin traffickers in the world.
So dealing with these guys are very minimum. Monitoring these guys,
as you were, who in addition to their involvement in
(28:16):
drug trafficking, are involved in murder. Primarily you must have
been itching to bust them because you have them six
ways to Sunday, but it took forever to bring them down.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Well, you have to build the case and the case
has to be prosecutable. So just having the information is
not sufficient. You need to cooborate that with evidence and facts.
Most of all mob homicides are solved because they can't
keep them out shut when they're talking, because they're talking
about some of the cases that we have and go
(28:47):
back into the annals of the NYPD, A lot of
the homicides are solved after the fact when we picked
up up on moy Is, because they're always involved in
some aspect of crime. I notice has nothing to do
with it what we're talking about exactly. But one of
my more exciting exploits was a running shootout through the
(29:09):
streets of Little Italy with a mob on a diamond heist.
I was I was off duty because in those days,
when you went to court, if you were a detective,
you didn't get paid. So I'm down in Manhattan and
I'm stuck at Canal Street in Maulbury at the right light.
I look out the side window and I see two
guys grabbing somebody off the street and throwing them in
(29:29):
the car. So, considering where I am, I says, Jesus
looks like a hit. I can't let this go down,
so I start I started blowing the horn for the
traffic cop. He's too busy directing traffic. You don't want
to know nothing. All the dudes attracting myself. Next thing,
you know, I'm in pursuit. Now. I just so happened
(29:51):
to have a siren in my car. It's a burglar ar,
but it can be used as a siren. So I
activate the siren. And now with racing through the streets,
and I fire a shot in the air and I
point like I'm shooting at them right and they slowly
I come up one side. I showed my shield. Pull over.
Next thing, you're going to make a youth turn. Now
we're going the long way fifty miles an hour down
(30:12):
one down the one way street. And he got a
chasing a half go, and I'm going, Jesus Vernon, what
the hell are you doing? You already got passed by
per sageant. Now you're firing shots. You're in a chase.
You don't even know what the hell you're doing. It's
too late. The adrenaline kicked in. Gotta save the man.
I gotta save him. I end up pulling the car.
I jam him up on the Kenmare Street. They pull
(30:33):
up on the sidewalk. Guy jumps out of the car.
He got a gun and his belk. He's going for it.
I shoot him. He goes down. I've losed peripheral vision.
I can't see what's going on to the right hand side,
but on the left hand side, I see this big
guy running down the street as he's too big to
fight and shoot him. I go to shoot and a
woman with a baby carriage comes out. I goes, oh shit.
(30:56):
I end up the run and I do a running tackle. Mike,
I'm telling you, I was on superspeed. I do a tackle.
Next thing here. Don't move you others right, you know
where I was. I was behind police headquarters. I didn't
even realize the people who told me not to move
you efforts were cops. It's detective. He's under arrest. By
(31:20):
this time, we got cybers. Everybody's responding, oh man, you're
not going to get promoted. I go back to the
car and I see this guy cleaning the self. Opus says,
what happened to you? He said, my diamonds? Did you
get my diamonds? It's one hundred thousand dollars worth of diamonds.
This was a mafia sanctioned hit. So I saved the day.
(31:41):
So now we go to the Yeah, but I saved
the day. But now I'm in all kinds of trouble.
We go back to where because now they want to
see who I shot. He's not there. Later on we
find out he was picked up and brought him to
a social club, probably see a mob doctor. There's a
plate glass window where I shot him. There's no hole,
so if I no, I got them right. We go
to court and now the fun starts. The complaining is
(32:04):
getting calls at home from the mob. Drop the chargers.
Drop the charger. So I tell the district attorney. He says, listen,
he's being threatened. This guy's a member of the Gambino
Prime family. Says, no problem. As lawyer is a mob lawyer.
I'll talk to him. Basically tells the mob lawyers stop
this shit. There's no bill. So next day all newspaper's
on the hero. Right. You think I would get like
(32:28):
the Medal of valid for this. No, you have open chargers.
We'll give you a commendation. That's the metal ballot out
the window. I'm still being beat up. I don't think
much about it until about six months later. I get
a subpoena from the Rackets Bureau. I'm under investigation. They
(32:49):
think I threw the case, is then throw the case.
I've been to touch with the complaint. We never got notified.
They look, they go, oh, that judge is a mob judge.
The mob judge ordered a hearing without telling the district
Attorney's office and distance the charge because we didn't show up.
Now he's got to get reindicted. I go before the
Grand Jewelry again. And after this I get a nice
(33:12):
letter from Frank Hogan, what a good guy I am,
and all this stuff, I still didn't get no medal.
I got a commendation. I should have gotten the Medal
of Valor. Now let's fast forward, because we what you
talked about with the wife. It's now six years later.
I'm in Bronx Homicide. I get a call from a
friend of mine in the Intelligent Division. He's a Vernon.
(33:32):
Remember that car chase you were in back in nineteen
seventy one. I said, yeah, you know who you were chasing?
I said no, John Gotti. John Gotti was in that car.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Oh my god, who later became a teflon Dawn after
he assassinated Paul Castellano, of which the fortieth anniversary of
that murder, along with Tapi Pilati, of course, is coming
up in December. And who would have thought, I mean,
he was getting until, of course everything cave in on
him in nineteen ninety he was finally convicted. He was
no wonder they called them teflon how he should have
(34:04):
been under the jail then.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Well, I didn't know who it was because he was
a nobody at that time.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Right at that time seventy one, I don't even think
of the capo yet.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
But six years later everybody knew who he was.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
And after the Gasolano had everybody definitely knew who he was.
We're talking with Vernon Gebrathe or Mike the New Even
Podcasts and Man Full of Stories. We haven't even dived
into homicide yet, and we're a half hour into this
pre recorded edition of the program, which when you hear
this it would be airing on July twenty fifth, Friday.
Getting into homicide. I've talked about this before with different
(34:38):
homicide investigators, and again this transcends whatever era you're working
on homicide. Rather times are peaceful in the city, relatively speaking,
in around the times they're not in the homicide rate
is high. Every victim has a story, Every victim has
somebody who loves them. Doesn't matter if they were a
person of good standing in society or like these gangsters
who are living violent lives. At one point, they were
a baby in their mother's arms. So yet owe them
(35:00):
and you can speak for them because they can no
longer speak for themselves. When it came to even the
quote unquote public service homicides, where criminals are killing other criminals,
tell me about your because every person's different, Your personal
investigative steps and some of them more challenging but ultimately
rewarding cases that you and your squads were able to solve.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Well. I learned from the best. As I mentioned, I
wasn't going to come in and start telling people what
to do. It was that learning process that became the
nucleus of my textbook because I couldn't possibly replicate twenty
and thirty years worth of experience in a short amount
of time. So what I did is I took notes.
I had my own protocol, my own checklist, and when
(35:42):
I saw something good, I wrote it down. When we
solved the case right something, we shared it every day.
I was off. On my days off, I would go
to the library. They didn't have Google back in those days.
They had index cards. I would go through the index cards.
I read every thing on homicide there was. There wasn't
(36:02):
one book written by a cop, maybe one thirty years earlier,
but all the rest were written by academics. I said, now,
this is not what we need, but there's a wealth
of information if you pull it out. Then I'd go
back to the command and I'd look at the cases
and I'd find out what we used in what case
we could use in another. And I began to introduce forensics,
(36:24):
and I said, we need more than a confession, I
want evidence. And that was the beginning. So those notes
that I made for myself and my checklist became the
nucleus of practical homicide investigation. Now, the next thing that happened,
I had already gotten one master's degree when I was
in narcotics, and using that master's degree, I did a
(36:44):
study of the young black entrepreneurs that were dealing drugs,
called the Court of Kids. They didn't use drugs. They
became junior superflies. They were brought into the operation by
the older black major violators. Because they wouldn't go to
because they were youths. But they were smart youths. They
(37:05):
weren't going to use drugs. They saw they saw the
ability to entrepreneur this and I did a sociological study
and it was published. It's called the Court of Kids.
In My Godfather Books, chapter seventeen. It talks about how
they operated. But that same methodology that I used to
do that I am going to now bring in a homicide.
(37:26):
I'm going to research my own job. Now part of
that is doing study, doing work. I got made appointments
with all the ologists in the city, the somologists, forensic pathologists,
the anthropologists, the entomologists, psychologies, all theologists, and I asked
for their papers. Then I took their papers and read
what they wrote, and I wrote it back in copies,
(37:48):
and I brought it back to is this basically what
you do? Yeah, but you make it look too easy.
We're not trying to do it. I just want to
know how we can apply it. And that became something.
I even brought an entomologist to one of my crimes
to collect books. She's always picking outside foxes, and these
things became instrumental in my homicide work. Now. In the meantime,
(38:09):
I was writing articles for Law and Order Magazine. Because
I used to publish and Law and Order Magazine. People
were saying, get that guy, that detective sergeant, and you
have him write another article. These are good. The FBI
National Academy picked me up to go to their National Academy,
which is a training program. Why because they want to
tap me, tap into my head and find that what
(38:30):
I know. I took everything they had from an investigation's homicide.
Trust me, they knew nothing about homicide. They knew about
forensics and management. And every time they showed a case,
it was somebody else's case with their name on it.
And when I would ask them a question, you can't
answer that question because that's confidential information. No, you can't
answer because you don't know what you're talking about. I'm
(38:51):
from the Bronx. Anyway, they tried to hire me, The
FBI tried to hire me as a homicide instructor. Said no, no, no,
I'm an y pdcom and go back. In the meantime,
I had been putting together this manuscript and I told
my wife, I says, I think I'm going to be
able to publish a textbook now that I've seen what
they got out there. Because I had a master's degree,
(39:12):
I was allowed to make an application to teach college.
I took college for two sevesters. I kept missing class
because in the Bronx we had too many homicides. In
the seventh Homicide, we had one hundred and twenty five
homicides a year within a six and a half square
mile area. That's murder mayhem.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
Yeah, that's murder capital. That's what that is.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Yeah, but that's how you learn. That's where you're going
to learn. And you said public service homicides, Well, yeah,
there's misdemeanors, murders when two drug killers kill each other,
but there's still a family behind them. Okay, that's what
you're looking for. And so you know, I designed another
protocol for drope related homicides. Now, when I got back
from the FBI academy, Now the FBI hired me to
(39:53):
hire me, but asking me to do training for them
the local police. That's when I get involved with the
Homicides school in New York City. I said, well, new
York City comes first. That's where I learned this stuff.
My first time at the New York City Police Homicide school.
Two weeks school, I got one hour. All right, I
(40:14):
walked in front of the group. I got two hundred
hardcore NYPD detectives looking to me like, who the hell
you to teach me? Well, you know, he's saying in
the Bible such thing as a local profit. Okay, you
got to go playself. I said, I'm not here to
teach anything. I'm here to show you what it got.
And by the time I finished, I had four hours.
(40:37):
And I taught that school for twenty nine years, even
after I retired, because I believe in given back, because
if it wasn't for the NYPD, I wouldn't be who
I am today.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
So and that's that's so true. The job is given.
Even guys that talk about how they missed the clowns
but not yet, not the circus necessarily, what they retire,
they talk glowingly about the things they've been able to
accomplish in the private sector because of the New York
City Police Department. It doesn't matter what side of the
first spark or coin you're on. The colleagues, if you
got great ones, if you're blessed to have great ones,
(41:08):
they're the ones that make the job. That's what makes
the job so much fun. It's the people you work
with get the best out of you, you get the
best out of them. Now, you know you were talking about,
of course, the homicides back then and learning from the
best and being able to go in there. FBI is
interesting because, like you said, their specialty, at least back then,
wasn't homicide. It's I think of the FBI in terms
of undercover work, long term investigations, and the terrorism. They're
(41:31):
very good at building their cases, but as far as
dealing with homicides, they always operate unless it's a high
profile figure, like a political figure for example, on the
basis that okay, let's just have this off to the
local police. And at a city like New York, the
NYPD's more than a death, has more than enough personnel
to be able to handle it. What what you talked
about walking into a room of two hundred hardened detectives
(41:52):
looking at you like, okay, what does he have? What
was it like trying to talk to federal agents.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Well, let me tell you something. If you can just
you can survive that group, You can survive anything. But
I proved myself as soon as they found out I
wasn't trying to talk down to them what I was
doing sharing now later on, don't forget. I'm learning as
I'm going along. I'm also teaching outside the city, and
I'm learning from outside the city as well how they
(42:18):
do things. And I'll never forget I went and down
to Delaware. He's a teaching the University of Delaware twice
the years. You know, the Delaware The DuPont Corporation is
a big corporation. All those officers had their own computers
in the car, right. We weren't even near computers. If
we had computers in New York City back in nineteen eighty,
they were used for management. There was no crime data
(42:40):
in there, all right. So I'm pignant and I'm seeing
different cases. So what I would do is I'd bring
the cases back and I showed them to the New
York detectives. Look what about this? What about this? And
I had those famous we work for God Science. I
have distributed ninety thousand these things across the world. It's
a nice, nice lef, you know, some nice message. You know,
(43:01):
I'm not making anybody go to church. Just remember who
you worked before, Okay. And it was amazing because people
would open up to me, and I always acknowledge other
people's work. If you looked at my textbook, Practical Homicide Investigation,
my Practical Homicide Investigation takes two hands to carry it.
(43:22):
That's how big it is. All right, this is the Bible.
The first fourteen pages are acknowledgance of people across the
world who helped contribute something to that book. And as
a result of those things, acknowledgements. It's so simple, acknowledge
of the people. Don't just acknowledge yourself. As a result,
I was invited into some of the biggest cases across
(43:44):
the country, some of the major serial murdercass you'd see
me on television, I'd be talking about it. Why because
I was involved behind the scenes. Never took credit for anything.
Credit belongs to them. But I had the cases, and
when it came time to revive, I had new material.
And one year I was revising and I'm saying, Wow,
(44:05):
this sexually homicide stuff is getting most of the wall.
What's going on. It's called the Internet, that's what's going on.
W being influenced by the Internet. I had to do
what I was going to do with I was going
to revise my book. I had a whole separate book
on sexual dated, homicide and death investigations, practical and clinical perspectives,
because I was able to bring the clinical into that
(44:28):
based on my second master's degree in clinical clinical psychology.
So I'm always learning and i'm always as a result.
There's some horrific cases that have taken place across the
country BTK, that was part of that, the New Mexico
slave torture, Maury Travis, Saint Louis, Richie Conninghan. I mean,
(44:49):
all these cases I had a piece.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
Of, So I'm thinking of the preppy murder as well
to that, clad played a role allegedly in that trial,
the which murder of the.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
Prep further together, that preppy murderers got a lot of
publicity because it was in Manhattan and Central Park. But
I'll say you, there's a lot more worse cases than that,
all right, and that and that's the problem. If you
take a case like let's take I'll give you an example,
Maury Travis, Black serial killer Saint Louis killed twenty two women,
(45:21):
most of them prostitutes who wouldn't be missed. Do you
know there was no publicity in that case at all?
Not shocking, Well, you know, and bok No, I was
shocked because those are those are those are those are?
Those are victims? All right, there's there's a pattern here.
Very clever, very clever perpetrator. But he was being influenced
with his own sexual desires. So he started recording things
(45:45):
on videotape. And then one day he decides, you know,
I've killed more people than the sona San why don't
I get publicity? So he downloads a map from Media
Media expedient, right, and he sends it to a reporter
from the Saint Louis Dispatch. Hey, if you night write
another with my story, I'll give you another body well
(46:05):
being go. His IPO shows up and that's how he
was identified. Now, the detective who had that case was
one of my students, which is thrilling when one of
my students is involved in So he shares everything with me,
all the information with Maury Travis, the video tapes, what
he was doing. Again, that's information that shit should be
(46:26):
shared among law enforcement. So these are the kind of
cases I would get involved.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
And had he never said that, we would never know
who this probably, I mean maybe it would have been
solved eventually with the advances we made technologically, but there's
a good shot we would never know who this guy was.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
Yeah, because what he was doing was dropping him in
different jurisdictions. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
And you again, and this is not Ted Bundy. This
is not soun of Sam. So it's not playing out
on a national stage. And I'm thinking too. I mean
even Aaron Key in the late nineties, that was another
I had the detective who worked that case on ay Ago.
He's a good friend mine, Scott Wagner, who uses your
line often of the you know in referring to the
homicide squad is that we work for God squad. Same thing.
Aaron Key did not get nearly the same amount of attention.
(47:10):
This was a guy who preyed on women in Harlem
in the early to mid nineties, sexually assaulted them, murdered them,
put them in shopping carts at the end of it. So,
you know, but again I think it's important to remember
it's not And again you've highlighted this thoroughly, and every
detective feels this way that it's worth their weight. It's
not about the publicity. It's just about doing the right thing.
Doesn't matter if it's on the listen, if you can
get more attention on it, then it puts the pressure
(47:32):
on the killer. Sure, but at the end of the day,
if you are worth your weight as an investigator, you're
gonna find your man and your woman that's responsible, responsible
for this, and that ultimately is the main objective.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
That was the message. That was my message. You know,
there's a thing that I talk about in The Impractical
Homicide and one of the things I share with everybody
would be the Oath of practical homicide Investigation. If I may,
I'll read it, sure, please do. Homicide investigations are profound.
As an officer entrusted with such a duty, it is
incumbent upon you to develop an understanding of dynamics and
(48:05):
principles of professional homicide investigation. Practical homicide investigation suggests that
things be done right the first time, and that knowledge
is powered knowledge which has been enhanced with experience, flexibility,
and common sense. Practitioners must be prepared to use tactics, procedures,
and forensic techniques in their pursuit of the truth, then
follow the course of events and the facts as they're
(48:27):
developed to their ultimate conclusion. Death investigation constitutes a heavy responsibility,
and as such, let no person deter you from the
truth and your own personal commitment to see that justice
is done not only for the deceased, but for the
surviving family as well. And remember we work for God,
and that is in all of my textbooks and everybody
(48:48):
in the homicide school that I taught, we to get
a copy of at to take and many many of
those hanging detective squads across the city.
Speaker 1 (48:57):
And it's so true, and it's never change again, no
matter what error we're it. And you know, I want
to center on your teaching exploits in the moment, and
this is something I wanted to ask as well. And
if you didn't work them, you didn't work them. But
if so, if you're comfortable, I want to dive into it.
The police killers. When police officers are shot and killed
in the lie of duty, it doesn't matter if you
knew the officer or not. It's personal. It's one of yours.
(49:20):
Did you ever have a hand in investigating the murders
of police officers in New York City?
Speaker 2 (49:24):
Absolutely, don't forget. I was there during the Black Liberation Army,
the Black Panthers. We had nine cops assassinated in nineteen
seventy one nobody remembers that. I remember them all. And
what's so disturbing is that the high command was trying
to deny anything was wrong. Okay, it wasn't politically advantageous
to admit that we had a group of insurrectionists killing cops. Okay,
(49:50):
and there's some bad stuff that was done. And I
don't want to name names or embarrassed police officials, but
they're responsible because they didn't allow us to take action.
At one point, we had to bring our own weapons
to work because what we had was those peace shooters.
It wasn't until Braughton became the police commissioner in transfer
first that he gave the officer's automatic weapons. I'll never
(50:13):
forget that kid in Brooklyn who had a six shooter
and he is trying to reload his goofy speedloader. The
guy comes up to an execute so with a semi.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
Automatic Scatkadell nineteen eighty six. Yes, his anniverse reaches past yeah,
and it took even then. Scott gets murdered in ninth
dy'ing a shootout. For those of you that don't know responding,
I forget it may have been man with the gun,
but a shootout ensues. Scott's behind the car and to
your point, Lieutenant, you know, he's reloading his weapon or
trying to. Some animal comes up behind him and shoots
(50:43):
some point blank in the head. That was nineteen eighty six.
The automatic weapons didn't come till nineteen ninety four when
Bratton became the police commissioner. Even with that tragedy, it
still took another decade almost for that change to happen.
So you know, listen, Unfortunately a lot of the policies
that exist in the New York City Police Department are
written in the let of fawn officers. That was one
such case, you know, And I'm not going to ask
(51:03):
you which one bothers you, because they all bother you.
Speaker 2 (51:06):
They're all they bothered. But you know what, you know
what bothers me is when when we're dealing with incompetence
and political excapediency. Okay, perfect example Larry Davis, the Larry
Davis case. Yeah, I gave up my command to get
him captured. He shot six cops. Those cops never should
(51:26):
have been shot. They why would they shot because they
didn't follow a protocol. I had a fugitive unit in
Bronx Narcotics we apprehended people a lot more dangerous than
Larry Davis without incident, without a shot being fired. But
my fat chief in the Bronx Rotundo would call them okay,
he wouldn't allow my fugitive unit to take it. We
(51:46):
don't need a leadists in the Bronx as well. I
think you're making a mistake, Chief, because every time you
locate him, you have to put together a scramble of
esu's and whover is available. That's not a smart move.
That's what people get hurt. And on November nineteenth, nineteen
eighty six, six cops were shot. They almost died. Ironically,
(52:07):
the hospital was across the street, Bronx Lebanon. Cook Mike,
that's the kind of hospital if your partner brings you here,
if you get out, you kill your partner.
Speaker 1 (52:15):
It hurts. I've hurt, all right. So yeah, what.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
Happened is they put together this very stupid, convoluted apprehension
that was politically correct, okay. And detectors are allied in
the street. No detectors on the street by orders of
the police commission. That's interesting because that's the same police
commission that released seventeen xts at the Hall of Mosque. Okay,
I got a good memory of a murder cop. My
chief comes in. I come in from home because I
(52:43):
was I was off duty. I'm here to babysit. You
get it. This is good. Five point thirty. He took
his fan home at five thirty five hours in the
street with twelve hand picked detectors. We missed Larry Davis
by an hour. A Webster revenue. The next day Alpha
Bravo tours twelve hours on tour and they had this
goofy apprehension where detectives cannot go in the street they
(53:04):
should detect I said, well, what does that mean of
burn informants? Okay? Every time he was located was supposed
to notify command and Control and then they send the
convoy out with the su tears force community representatives. It
has to be led by a super chief. At the
time we had. You know, we're the only department arrogant
enough to have the rank of superchief. Five superchiefs. The
(53:28):
chief chief had to be called pattern. The next guy
was Costa, next guy was Halson, next guy was Nips,
next guy was Bradley, And they had army helmets with
stars and the trucks could not move unless there was
a super chief. I'm watching nikol On for three weeks
with burning informants left and right. It was horrible. At
one point, the FBI calls up. We have an informant
(53:50):
that says Array Davis is hiding in Harlem. That is great.
The FBI figured black people live in Harlem. It turned
out to be a bogus sting. The informant takes five
thousand dollars tax of your tax dollars. He says, if
I take my hat off, he's on the seventeenth floor,
see walks and takes his hat off, goes at the
back door. With the five thousand dollars. They hit the
apartment sketters of her grandma. Meanwhile, we have information in
(54:12):
the Bronx he's at a certain location, but we can't
go because the trucks are tied up in Parlow. At
one point, somebody from the news media that respected me
and I respected him, vernon, what the hell is going
on in the Bronx. I said, well, we should be
striking like lightning instead of me move like a large
blue elephant. Somebody downtown figured I said that we Vernion,
(54:34):
you better watch it.
Speaker 1 (54:36):
And that you know, listen, that case is personal for
me because one of the cops that was shot was
Rick Martinez from Truck three Emergencies.
Speaker 2 (54:43):
The Burgery Service Unit. Yeah. Rick, and one of my
top detectives were shot through the neck. Yeah, Tommy mccannal, Okay,
so listen to this. On December fifth, nineteen eighty six,
I get a call from one of my detectives. We
have Larry on the wire. He's at his sister's house
on Webster read I do not notify Command and control.
You have notified me. At that point, Mike, I was insupportinate.
(55:07):
The deputy inspector who's detailed to watch me said warning
them out of here. In other words, if you're going
to commit suicide, I don't want to watch. I ordered
thirty eight black and hispanic undercovered offices into that building
to seal it. If they want to go out, they
can't go out. They want to come home, they can't
come home. When you have that building sealed, we'll bring
the white faces in. I put the trucks on notice
(55:29):
five blocks away. I go to the location on portable radio,
talking to my people. Meanwhile, the radio's going crazy, trying
to find out where I am. Suddenly I tell them, okay,
move the trucks forthwith we have them. It took fifteen
minutes for those trucks to go five blocks. Why because
it was Custer's turn to lead the parade that day
and he's stuck in traffic in Manhattan. When the trucks
(55:51):
pull up to the building with air brakes, everybody looks
out the window, including Larry Davis. He can't get out,
he can only go up. The chief comes running out
with his beetle bailey helmet. Why who's authority have you
done this? I said, by the authority invested in common sense.
By the way, chief, you look like a fricking what that?
(56:11):
He turns around to see if anybody heard me say it.
I run in the building another way to go. Didn't
take them long to get me. They bring me downstairs
to the basement Housing Police office. Now the three chiefs
are screaming at me, the chief Chief, the second chief,
and my chief. There was a Housing lieutenant watching this
go down. He told me later on said, Vernon was
the funniest thing I ever saw. The chiefs are screaming
(56:34):
and yelling you, and you're just going you finished are
you finished? And the one chief chief was a very
sardonic personality, very sardonic. He would call his chiefs and
inspectors captain to scare them because that was their last
civil service rank. So he says to me, Vernon, are
you a lieutenant commander or lieutenant? The difference is captain's money.
(56:56):
I said, oh, whatever the hell you want, Chief, My
people have him in the building. They're not your people.
They're white people. They're your people having in the building.
Let's go back and forth. The other guy, why, why
did you do this? Gabeth, I said, I want to
get caught. This time. We looked like a laughing stock
across the country. And my guy, you were in support
and at Gibbeth, I said, no, I improvise, adapted, and overcame.
(57:19):
The flogging stopped when they heard him on the Why
he's telling his family, Tell tell the cops that I
got away. Tell him someplace else. Now we know he's
in the building someplace. Finally got him. You know, the
guy that we couldn't catch for three weeks, he's holding hostages.
On the fourteenth, he sends somebody out to Yeah, he
sends somebody out to get Chinese food. This is the
(57:40):
guy we couldn't catch. Surrenderous. You know, it was really disgusting.
Mike as he walks out with the police commissioner and
the chief chief and my detective Andy Lugo, God rest
his soul. He's no longer with us. First grade detective
walking him through a foalanx of police officers and the
crowd yelling Larry, Larry, he's a village hero. He was
(58:01):
a fulk. He's killing people.
Speaker 1 (58:04):
Yeah, that's what he was wanted for. To give the
audience context. Most of you in the audience know the
some of you don't, Larry Davis was killing drug dealers.
He was a really, really violent guy, and that's what
he was wanted for. That's where they've been arrested for
that night when he shot the six cops, including my
friend Rick, and when he was arrested that you know
he pieces pants, I believe, and it's also personal for me.
(58:24):
So because of the pipe on the bomb squad comes
out Don s. Dowie, who is of nineteen ninety three
World Trade Center Bobby Fame. He found the D number
attached to Van that the bombers utilized and broke that case.
He's telling the guys. Larry's coming out crying, same hardened
thug that shot six cops and was responsible for the
murder of several several other drug dealers that he had
(58:45):
dealt with. He's telling him be a man, Be a man,
you know. So the guy couldn't even be a man
when he was arrested. He was later stabbed at the prison. Ironically,
didn't die on the street, died in prison. Was stabbed
several times by an inmate, which goes to show, as
my mother always told me when I was little, there's
all someone bigger, there's always someone tougher, there's always someone batter.
Larry Davis found that out, and he ain't missed.
Speaker 2 (59:06):
In his case. He had we had six homicides on him,
a quadruple in the Bronx two in Manhattan. Right. He
was not found guilty because Counstler and Lynn Stewart, the
two radical attorneys, made it look like the cops were
on to take the grand jury. The jury, see me.
The jury didn't find him guilty of homicide. They found
him guilty of gun possession and apparently when he was
(59:27):
in custody in the Department of the Corrections, Okay, he
was a pain in these for them too. He ends
up getting killed in prison. So you live by the sword,
you die by the ship. And when someone called me
up and asked me about it, I says, looks like
the Department of Corrections did what the criminal justice system
(59:47):
couldn't do. He's not going to kill anybody anymore. But anyway,
that was that. That's that's the day I committed command. Decide,
you know, I how to leave after that. You don't
get the You don't get to stay as commander Bronx
Homicide doing what I did now.
Speaker 1 (01:00:03):
But it's even listen, you went out with the respect
of your men and women working under you, and that's
all that matters. And there's a lot of bosses, unfortunately
they've had to pay that price necessarily in the department.
The bigger the agency, the more politics in play. You
saw it during that investigation. I've talked about that with
Don Sadawi. He had talked about that where Rick when
he was on and a few other friends of mine
who were in an emergency at the time, and it
(01:00:24):
was a disaster. And you know, the Bronx has always
had the reputation unfortunately with police killings or incidents like
this were thankfully braculous that no officers were killed. Where
the prosecution, at least back then, I don't know how
it is now, leaves a lot to be desired. Another case,
Vinnie Judais in nineteen ninety six, wasn't shot, had his
leg cut on a domestic dispute, bled they wanted a
(01:00:44):
murder charge and ended up getting reduced to manslaugh. So
you know, it's always hit and miss with things like that. Now,
diving into the teaching aspect of your career, you know,
it's one thing to teach your cops locally. To want
to take a country wide or worldwide is a bit
of a different story. It takes ambition because it is
a lot of work. What made you want to go nationwide?
(01:01:06):
And ultimately, what were the things that you learned early
on about other countries, about other investigators that, even with
the similarities in terms of methods, you found most interesting
in terms of I guess, lack of a better way
to word, the differences in customs with each police agency
you went spooke with.
Speaker 2 (01:01:22):
Well, I learned. You know, when you're teaching, if you're
a smart teacher, you're also asking questions and you're getting feedback,
and I will be learning as I'm teaching, a lot
of people wanted to share with what they had to
tell them how they did something or one of the things.
I gotta be honest. Every time I showed a case,
(01:01:42):
I put the name of the agency up and the
main detectives involved, so people could see that Vernon Gebith
wasn't doing this. Somebody else was doing this. That came
back one hundredfold to me because I have a passion
for this. I have a passion for the profession. I
believe that we work for God. I believe we're on
a mission. And thank God for my belief in God.
(01:02:03):
In the way I feel, I have seen the unseeable.
I have seen the worst of mankind against mankind, and
I kind of cloak myself in the armor of God, okay,
knowing that I'm exposing myself to evil. If you get
too close to evil, evil gets into you. Okay, And
(01:02:26):
that has been able to say. I go to church
every Sunday and every religious holiday. I believe in that.
I pray okay, because you've got to protect yourself into
stuff because you're looking at it and when you're analyzing it,
you're absorbing it now. I try to clinicize a lot
of this stuff. It's nice to be able to say, well,
from a clinical perspective, we'll we're still seeing it okay.
(01:02:49):
And that's what's kept me going all this time. And
I've been blessed with the associations I've made across the
country and the cases I've had, And that's what my
contribution is. My textbooks will be here long after I leave.
And the only reason I did the Godfather book, the
Godfather Homicide. This is a legacy book. This is for
(01:03:11):
my grandkids. Hey, this is what Grandpa did. How did
I get to be who I got to be? You
got to pay you dues and a lot of people
don't want to put the extra time in. When I
first started out, Michael, I wanted to be the best
homicide detective in the world. There's no such thing, you
know why. It's a teamwork effort. Everybody brings a different
(01:03:34):
aspect into the case. I look back over the years
with the different people I work with. I have one
guy in box Homicide South Bromp. I don't know how
I got on the test on the police department. This
guy was illiterate, but you want to know something was
worth his weight in gold in the street. You put
him in the street and he was like a truth machine.
(01:03:58):
So I hooked him up with a writer. We need
somebody who could take put down what you did. Okay,
you can't say that it was really it was unbelievable.
But it's just matching the personalities to the job that's
so important.
Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
Of course, And again you understood that as a commander
to boot. You know, we're talking with Vernie Gebirth, a
retired to tech commander out of the NYPD, who of
course wrote the Bible on homicide and with regard as
the godfather of homicide investigations owing to his many years
investigating them in New York City. Now, as far as
technological advancements, we saw this in the nineties, eighties and nineties.
(01:04:34):
DNA's being used. Now we got facial recognition patterns starting
to come into play, which is really helping things. It's
helping not just in New York City but across the
nation later on across the world. When that came into
play from someone of your era, you got your gold
shield in nineteen sixty nine. You've been investigating homicides, you know,
at that point multiple decades. How much did that age
your work and how you know how tricky was this
(01:04:55):
someone that had a set method. By that point of
incorporating that into your teaching.
Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
Very important because it requires you to learn. Don't forget.
I had the first DNA case in New York State,
all right, the third one in the country. I was
always looking for new information at a microbiologist, doctor Robert Scherl,
who kept telling me Vernon, there's something really good coming,
something really good to help us call DNA. What does
(01:05:23):
it mean? He goes, do not ask, Do not ask.
During my time in homicide, all we had was the
ABO system, the blood blood types. ABO gave you one
in three in the population. In the early nineteen eighties,
zerologists developed PGM subtypes, which were protein markers, gave you
one intent in the population. The one in ten is
(01:05:46):
better than one in three. Belong comes DNA one in
eighty million. That's not comparing somebody in a tricycle to
somebody in a rocket ship. So I'm looking at this
stuff and I'll never forget. It was February fifth, nineteen
eighty seven. I go to this law murder Vilmo Ponse
twenty years of age, her daughter Natasha two years of age,
(01:06:08):
nine months pregnant. The savage that came in there destroyed her.
It was the sex crime. He want the rape, but
he stabbed through the feet, through the womb, three into
the featus. To me, that's a triple homicide. But that
even in the DA's office didn't see it that way.
I'm with the scene and I'm looking and I'm reconstructing.
I'm saying, hey, this guy cut himself. That's what happens
(01:06:28):
in these frenzies because they get so crazy and the
knife gets wet and the knife ends up cutting them.
I says, this guy cut himself. This is what we're
going to do. So what happens is we isolate the
blood drop us the blood. My detectives the next day
go back. We had an eyewitness who saw somebody who
matched the description. Now, interestingly, and a lot of people
(01:06:50):
don't notice, the primary suspect in our case was the
common law husband. Why he had a history of drug use,
a history of domestic violence. There was no forced entry.
It's looking towards him, okay. And when the family finds
out they say he did it. He calls the police
when he comes home and finds the body. Right, but
(01:07:13):
his story is so convoluted we think he's full of
crop all right. He said his brains are scrambled from
the drugs he used. We end up clearing him. See.
Part of the investigative process is excluding suspects as well
as including suspects. He didn't do it, Who did? We
come up with a suspect, Joseph Castro. The next day,
(01:07:36):
he had his hair shaved right, different outfitty governor of
the bloody clothes, but he got a fresh cut on
his hand. Bring him in for investigations, right. He comes
in voluntarily, and while he's be an interview, detectives see
blood on his left wrist and the watch is filled
with But the pig never took a bath. He's wearing
(01:07:57):
the blood of Dulma, Ponce and Natasha on his watch.
We need to have your watch, Well, I need to
my watch or we have a draw full of watches.
Take your pick? Is he pick? He says, bring that
watch to Life Coach Corporation. We're gonna do DNA analysis.
The LAMB can't do this, the FBI can't do this.
We're going We're going private. I'll authorize the billing goes
(01:08:20):
up to Life Coach Corporation comes back. It matches all right,
Now the fund begins. This is the first DNA case.
The two defense attorneys from the Bronx Shack and Neufeld,
they've been using DNA to get people off, but they
don't want it as a tool. You know why the
defense doesn't want it because it takes the gamemanship out
of the trial. Looked that. You know who the governor
(01:08:43):
was at the time, Mario Como, Mario Coomo is no
friend of the police. Mario Como's defense oriented. He puts
these two clowns in charge of a commission to see
whether or not the State of New York should use
DNA technology. Well, science prevailed and Joseph was found guilty.
But here's the scary part. We had another similar homicide
(01:09:05):
in another building he was assigned to clean one year earlier.
Guess what it matched him to DNA. We had a
serial kill. Didn't even know it. So now you asked,
what HOWAII incorporate. I've become a microbiologist because I got
to learn the science because now I left the police
department and part of what I'm doing is teaching the
(01:09:25):
firm hired me to be a consultant, an investigative consultant
to talk about DNA across the world. Now I'm learning
about different cases. I'm opening cases for this firm to
build their database. You see where we're going with this.
So you said, I'm learning and I'm taking it forward.
I got involved in so many cases Michael with his
(01:09:46):
DNA that I opened up acrosse the United States, including BTK.
Sounds familiar, Yes, the bound torture kill. A lot of
people don't notice. I was teaching in Wichitaur at nine
teen eighty eight when all of a sudden, who emerges
from the past, but BTK. He got excited. He got
(01:10:11):
excited about this rape murder of a woman and her daughter,
so he wrote a letter to the police. Back he
didn't do it, but the fact that he wrote a
letter means he's around someplace. In nineteen seventy four, the
Teraro homicide. The whole family's wiped out, the mother, the father,
the little brother, little Josephine eleven years of age. He
(01:10:33):
hangs up from the basement sewer pipe and masturbates on.
They had a lot of evidence. Can you help us out?
I just give me that evidence from the Utaro homicide.
I bring it back to life coach. In nineteen eighty eight,
we had a DNA print on the unknown BT Kaylor.
We could mind biologically and mole likeuly link him to
(01:10:55):
the Ataro homicides. Nobody knew about it. In two thousand
and four, when you re emerged, I get back involved
with them, all right, because I had tortal lit homicide people.
Speaker 1 (01:11:09):
Very interesting, full circle and I had no idea full
circle disturbing, but not not because of anything you did.
Obviously because of these animals, but you know, ultimately very
rewarding in terms of the utilization rather to be able
to capture them in the first place. And it's like, oh,
and I remember that story because I heard a podcast
(01:11:29):
episode not there recently with that very homicide being described,
and it's just, oh, you know, it's it's savagery in
its purest form. And I'll talk about the mental aspects
you kind of touched on earlier, but I'll expand on
it momentarily. But we had he was out West primarily,
but New York had its own version of the Zodiac
Killer for a while. It was running around.
Speaker 2 (01:11:48):
Tom had the New York version wasn't as intelligent, I
get tell you. I remember I was on TV with
that I was on TV with that case, and no
comparison to the Real Zone and the Zodiac to this
day is a history. I've spoken to a writer who
actually believes he knows who the Zodiac Killer is and
(01:12:09):
he's put together a pretty impressive, circumstantial package on who
the actual Zodiac Killer is. Very interesting, loaded with politics,
and loaded with all kinds of possible lawsuits, so he
can't go public with it, but it makes a lot
of sense. And you know, this is a for me
(01:12:30):
serial killers, that they are a unique breed. They're all psychopaths,
of course, and they don't have any feeling for their victims.
Wellso the victims only a prop in their sexual fantasy,
and when they're finished with the fantasy, they discard the
prop just like it was a piece of garbage. That's
their mentality. You know. The long hour of Serial Killer
says you had Rodney Harrison, didn't you?
Speaker 1 (01:12:52):
Yes, just that was my last episode, okay in twenty.
Speaker 2 (01:12:55):
Ten, December tenth, twenty ten, I was in Fox News
when that case broke and I called him a serial killer,
and this inspector Neubauer from Suffolk County had a coronary.
We do just know what he's talking about, said, yes,
I do, because only a select number of serial killers
maintain a burial ground. And I named them right on,
right in the air. Okay, four of them, right off
(01:13:16):
the top of my head. You expand that scene, you're
going to find more bodies. What happened? They expanded the scene,
They found more bodies, bodies. I'm not saying I could
have solved it, but I took a raresh of crap
when I identified him as a serial killer, and I
said he's local. Right, Everything I said turned out to
be true, and Rodney Harrison reopened that case and they
(01:13:37):
got they got they made progress. But early on people
were calling me at my house because they got my
number off my website. They were calling me. I said,
you can't call me. I'm not the police anymore. You
got to call the police. We don't trust the police. Well,
see why do you trust me? No, we've seen you
on television. We know who you are, right, I said, Well,
I'll give me the information. I would send the information out.
(01:13:58):
It was like he was hornrible. I mean, and I'm
not criticizing all of the SOFI homicide cops, because I
taught some of those people they're great cops. They were
being they were being neutralized by their high command, okay,
and by a district attorney who shouldn't be there, and
they were being shortstopped because at one time, at one
(01:14:19):
point I actually was communicating with something kind of tried
to get information and I got this secretary right, and
she goes, who are you? I said, I'm just a
you know, a retired homicide detective. But I have information
I want to give you. The detectives. Well, they're very busy.
I said, well, can you have them call me? No,
you tell me what you have, right, I said, what
is your name? She goes, secretary, nasty, nasty person. That
(01:14:44):
was the problem that was there was they would be
in shortstop.
Speaker 1 (01:14:47):
So yeah, there was a lot wrong back then, as
you said, with the high command. That's a different story
for a different day. Investigations that led to mister Burke's
downfall in particular. Uh, but you know, I kind of
go back. There's this by Jane's addiction. One of my
favorite bands, Ted just admitted about Ted Bundy to your
point about props, opening line of the song that Perry
ferrell sings. The cameras got them, images, cameras got them all.
(01:15:09):
Nothing shocking to these individuals, nothing shocking. It's just another day.
And that's a scary part. And rex Huerman, to your point,
I mean, listen, I will word this carefully because he
hasn't gone through trial yet. I don't believe he's alleged
at this point. But if it turns out to be
true through trial that he did these things, rex Huerman
was a guy who was living a normal life as
(01:15:30):
an architect in New York City, seemingly regular guy with
the family out on Long Island. This is what he
was doing at night. And you have victims going back
all the way again allegedly at his hand to nineteen
ninety three. So this was a quite literally a thirty
year stretch that finally culminated in an arrest for a
variety of different reasons. I was gonna ask you, by
(01:15:51):
the way, because it's almost like it never left, since
you're still so heavily involved in teaching, when exactly did
you retire from the NYPD.
Speaker 2 (01:15:58):
I retired and retire right if right at the Larry
Davis was nineteen eighties, nineteen eighty seven. When I committed
Commander Side, I was no longer Persona. I was Persona
and Granda. But before I left, I got the first
DNA case done. Okay. I investigated a police office on homicide,
and because I'm a homicide cop, I don't get mad.
(01:16:20):
I get even that bill for DNA didn't come in
till left. I retired five thousand dollars. I say, goodbye,
you got it. The other thing was that that that
chief was a was anant, arrogant son of it. He
would always saddle me with report. Oh, you were an author,
you wrote a textbook, you can do this report for me.
(01:16:42):
So I would do the report and my name. I'd
bring it to him. He'd look it and go, hmm, okay,
check your name off and have the secondary and put
my name on it. I said, okay, mom. One of
the things I picked up at the FBI Academy was
something called the systematic buzzword game. All right, three columns
(01:17:06):
like a Chinese restaurant, and what you do is you
pick a word from each column. It's called workmanship, systematized
digital projection, synchronized monitored flexibility. Doesn't mean these the three words.
It was designed by a bureaucrat back in nineteen seventy
(01:17:26):
a sixty three year old public health service. He was
so upset with a bureau speak that he made up
his own thing. So it was the annual corruption report,
supposed to be prepared by the chief nobody else. Because
he's the borough commander. He gives me the borough commanded
report to do for him. So I do it, right,
(01:17:48):
I says, who want to fix some I'm leaving next month.
He doesn't know that. So I got this thing with
the words, and I use three or forties things throughout
the report. Okay, oh, take your name off, put my
name on. Goes downtown. Well apparently somebody downtown had the
same lists from the FBI academy. All right, he got
(01:18:08):
his in a ring. He came back, What kind of
bit did you put in my report? Gavin? No, no, no,
it's trying to make you look good.
Speaker 4 (01:18:18):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (01:18:19):
That's what you do to maintain your equilibrium. You know,
you think of things to do to just like make
you laugh, all right, because that is funny.
Speaker 1 (01:18:27):
No, I mean listen, if you don't laugh, you'll cry.
And that that was the aspect I want to touch.
Speaker 2 (01:18:31):
On with you.
Speaker 1 (01:18:31):
I mean, let's talk about it. A lot of cops
across the board, even if they never work as a
detective and homicide firemen two, you see it. They see
a lot of things. Unfortunately, some of them aren't able
to deal with it as well. They turn other things
like the bottle. That doesn't help when you're seeing a
lot of guys and gals commit suicide, you know, and
it's it's it's terrible.
Speaker 2 (01:18:50):
It's a big problem. Is it's problem.
Speaker 1 (01:18:52):
I mean, we're not that far moved from ten cops
in New York City in twenty nineteen commit suicide. We
had a suicide I believe that a couple days.
Speaker 2 (01:19:00):
Ago over there, a couple of days ago. Yeah, I
swear that.
Speaker 1 (01:19:02):
Yeah, And it's it's very sad to see. So when
I mean, you talked about it earlier, expanding out it
here to the guys in the gals that may be
struggling with what they're seeing, you know, what advice would
you give them on how to deal with it the
right way and how to get that help they need.
Speaker 2 (01:19:18):
Well. Peer counseling seems to be the best thing for
people that are in law enforcement because they don't really
trust outside clinicians. So if you have someone who is
in service, who has gone for higher education psychology, okay,
master's degree, maybe even a PhD, they can relate much
better to the uniform force and the police officers than
(01:19:40):
people from the outside. They because they we see things differently, okay,
just like we have police humor. It is it isn't
numerous the people outside the police to us, it's it's funny. Okay.
Having someone like that as a pure as a peer
counselor to talk to them is so important. Also your
(01:20:01):
family life. You know what a lot of happens with
a lot of cops. They I can't tell my wife
this because I don't want to. I told my wife everything.
Why because she was my she had my six she's
my childhood sweetheart. We've been married sixty years. We grew together.
I went back to school, She went back to school.
(01:20:21):
She became a clinical social worker. I became whatever I am.
But we have this communication and we talk. It's so
important because you've got to talk it out. You can't
keep it bottled up. And you think you're doing you
think you're doing somebody else a favor by not talking
to him, you're really not you're really doing it disfavor
to him, all right, And that's it's a personal perspective. Now,
(01:20:43):
I work with a guy from the New York State
Police who was a counselor and he was a clinical
social worker and also a detective commander. All Right, we
team talk together. He was excellent as he talked to
these offices in the class. Excellent because he hit on
all these different things that you wouldn't think about so important.
(01:21:06):
And I would my reputation at cops would tell me
stuff they wouldn't tell their own family. We'll say, well, listen,
I'm happy you shared that with me, But don't you
think you need to do this? This? And this would
not being critical? All right, And I'll tell you I
helped a lot of people, and I love hearing the
success stories when they come back. That's that's the main thing.
(01:21:26):
That's what you want. You want to hear good to
You want to hear there's a good outcome, not a
bad outcome.
Speaker 1 (01:21:32):
Yeah. I mean, and I know a lot of people
talk about breaking the stigma with mental health. It's important
because I get it. I mean, listen to police especially
you know they're they're designed in a certain way. Or
they trained in a certain way to protect those around them.
And sometimes I've heard guys talk about how that's the
reason they don't want to open up and share things.
They want to protect those they love about by not
(01:21:52):
sharing the gory details of the job. But if you
bought it all up too long, and I had experiences
like that in my life. I'm not on the job,
but you know, bottling things up spiral spiral, and you know,
if you're not able to get yourself out of that spiral,
that's how we lose these guys. My first question after
I hear about these suicides is why.
Speaker 2 (01:22:10):
You know why?
Speaker 1 (01:22:11):
But you know there's a lot of reasons.
Speaker 2 (01:22:13):
Ultimately, I can tell you this from from personal experience.
These people do not forecast that they're going to commit suicide. No,
it's a private thing where they construct in their own
mind how this is going to be better for them,
their family and everybody else because they had this suicide ideation. Now,
(01:22:33):
suicide ideations are dangerous because if you dwell on and
they begin to make sense, all right, and that's what
you can't get in everybody's head. And I feel bad
for the surviving family members because what did I do wrong.
How come I didn't recognize it? Why didn't I know?
Because they don't forecast. That's the problem. Yeah, I know,
(01:22:55):
I know.
Speaker 1 (01:22:56):
We've lost too many good people unfortunately to that.
Speaker 2 (01:23:00):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:23:01):
On a more positive note, I will say, as you
and you've been retired of course since the mid eighties,
but as you saw the crime rate, particularly the homicide
rate drop, and a lot of it due to the
work of New York City Police detectives. And then I
have another question for you too. Before the rabid fire
it got as low as two hundred and eighty nine
and twenty eighteen, it went back up again and unfortunately recently,
(01:23:21):
but it got as low as two hundred and eighty
nine from two thousand plus nineteen ninety.
Speaker 2 (01:23:25):
That's got to warm your heart.
Speaker 1 (01:23:26):
For lack of a bit of wind word, and I
know that sounds sappy, but think about where the city was,
and especially you investigating a lot of these killings, to
where it got to thanks to the advances of what
NYPD detectives were doing and the work that was finally
being recognized in the shackles that were being taken off
to allow him to do it.
Speaker 2 (01:23:43):
No backactly, we're dealing with crock cocaine. Crack cocaine overnight
turned people the killers and drug addicts that were never,
never intended to be killers of drug addicts. It was
very it was a very potent drug. And with the
advent to krack coke, homicides went off the charts. Okay,
we're up to four hundred and fifty homicides in the
(01:24:05):
Bronx in nineteen eighty eight, eighty.
Speaker 1 (01:24:08):
Eight Aile West it was the okay coraal back then.
Speaker 2 (01:24:11):
Yeah, so I'll tell you though, in all honesty, my
perspective of what's wrong is we are not addressing the
wall quality of life things. That's the problem. If you
don't nip this crap in the bud, it's going to block.
It's like having a toothache and not going to the dentist.
(01:24:32):
Now you have an abscess too. This stuff has to stop,
and this woke district attorney stuff and woke governors stuff
does not work. You're not doing these people a favor
by not putting them in jail. In fact, you're doing
the community at disservice by putting those people back out,
because you're putting the community at risk with someone who
should be in an a controlled environment that they can't
(01:24:54):
hurt other people. Somehow that became a racial thing which
was not racial, and I saw that with racializing homicides.
You can't racialize homicide. It doesn't matter what color you are,
what creed, it's a murder, Okay. In the Bible they
talked about Cain and Abel. This is not new, but
the things that are not being done is almost criminal.
(01:25:16):
It's almost criminal that a guy like Alvin Brye could
be a district attorney when he is hiding the numbers
and not prosecuting people. The cops can only do so much.
The cops are not the answer. It's got to be
both the community, the police, and the system. The system
has to work, and the system's not working. You can't
have somebody with five, six, seven, eight felonies walking around
(01:25:37):
the street and wonder people are getting hurt, but I'm
not in charge.
Speaker 1 (01:25:42):
Cop got killed last year because of that same reason.
The guy that killed him was a guy, as you said,
with a bunch of briars and got pulled over on
a traffic stop Jonathan Diller and ended up shooting killing
the since posthumously promoted Detective Diller on other thing I'll
ask him before we get to the rabbit fire. It's
been a great conversation with you, much as Brown has
been covered. You were retired by this point, but nevertheless
(01:26:03):
I wanted to pick your brain on it. The largest
crime scene that New York City ever had and never
will have, World Trade Center in two thousand and one.
I mean.
Speaker 2 (01:26:13):
It was a recovery mission.
Speaker 1 (01:26:14):
Yes, at one point during as the towers burned, it
was a rescue mission too, but after the collapses it
was until the last piece was removed in May of
two thousand and two, the world's largest crime scene. As
a homicide investigator, where you have so many victims, some
of which were never even found. Sadly, where do you
even start with something like that.
Speaker 2 (01:26:39):
I'll tell you right now, it's not a one person job. Okay,
this is a multiple agency, multiple person operation. Now, my son,
who followed my footsteps, became a homicide detective. He was
collecting body parts at the landfill, fresh kills, fresh killed,
and sadly, he ended up getting colon cancer. All right,
(01:27:01):
that if he wasn't thinking like a cop. Because his
wife had to go for some sort of medical procedure,
he says, yeah, you better sign me up. I was
down at nine to eleven. Well, guess what, they caught
that cancer just before it breached the coal and wool
took out two and a half feet of colon. Right,
he's cancer free today. But I almost lost him, almost
(01:27:21):
lost him. I said, I'm working for God, you know,
thank God he had this this process done. We have
lost a lot of people since nine to eleven from
the same attack.
Speaker 1 (01:27:30):
It remains to be seen, that's for sure, we don't know.
But yeah, I was I'm sorry here, but I'm glad
he's healthy. Now I'm glad he's cancer free because I mean,
think about it. I mean, even the FD and y
the ft and I lost three hundred and forty three
members firefighters on nine to eleven in the collapse of hours.
I never thought that number would be surpassed. But the
amount of firemen who have since died for that agency
(01:27:50):
alone of nine to eleven late cancer has surpassed the
three forty three that died on that day, which you
know what.
Speaker 2 (01:27:57):
Three hundred and forty three died because that building was
considered un indestructible. When I was a cop in the
fourteen precinct, when I was a sergeant in the fourteen
Precinct and we had bomb runs at the World Trade Center.
We always reported to the lobby of Building one because
it was considered indestructible, and that's where the high command
was when that building came down. Yeah, all right, that's
(01:28:18):
what's so scary. Yeah, everybody knows where they were on
nine to eleven. Ask anybody from New York where were
you on nine to eleven? They know exactly where they were.
I was in Dallas teaching a homicide school when my
coordinator ran in and said a plane hit the World
Trade Center. I stopped the class, a moment of silence
for these poor souls, thinking it was an accident. Fifteen
(01:28:41):
minutes later, second plane hit. We're under attack. I'm going,
oh my god, where's my kids, where's my trooper son,
where's my detective son? Where's everybody? And you couldn't call
New York City, You couldn't call that the phone lines.
Speaker 1 (01:28:55):
The antenna was on top of the North Tower. So
I was going to ask you, I mean, listen. He
retired in the eighties, but twenty three New York City
cops side that day that didn't happen to know any
of them from prior dealings or not really.
Speaker 2 (01:29:07):
No, Well, I knew a couple of my reputation, but
it didn't know them personally, all.
Speaker 1 (01:29:12):
Right, those being if you don't mind naming them, those
cops being, if you don't mind naming them.
Speaker 2 (01:29:21):
No, but people who people who civilians who died came
from my neighborhood work in the World Trade Center right.
In fact, quite a few people in Rockland County, all right,
because that's where I lived in Rockland County lost loved ones. Man.
Speaker 1 (01:29:39):
Well, I'm glad you went into that with me again.
Like I said, it's just it was such a The
evidence collection that went down there, though under the circumstances,
was just incredible ultimately, and it was precarious work. It
was not easy work. It was gut wrenching work. But
they did a great job. And with your experience, I
wanted to definitely pick your brain on it. The other
thing I just wanted to briefly dive into as well
(01:30:01):
with you is when you look back at just your NYPD.
So it's quite the adventure. It's quite the era for
the city time machines existed. I like asking this and
you can go back to any particular moment in time
in your career, any chapter of your career. Where's Vernion
Gabeth going back to tomorrow? If he can go back
in time, you.
Speaker 2 (01:30:19):
Mean before I became a haf as that expert. I love,
I love, I loved the TPF. I thought that I
thought that was the shoppest unit going. They were really,
they were really great. You talk about synchronized all people
on the same page. No, no, Mickey Mouse characters, no, no,
no problem children, because they'd be they'd be taken out,
all right, they'd be ostracized. But if I had a
(01:30:40):
time machine, if I had a time machine, I'd go
back and use the forensics that we have today that
we didn't have back when I was there. Okay, the
ability to solve crimes, A lot of unsolved homicides because
we didn't have the tools. So murder cops fantasy to
jump into a time machine and bring back the stuff
from two thousand and twenty five, and look what we
(01:31:01):
can do now.
Speaker 1 (01:31:03):
Not bad, not bad. This has been quite the conversation.
The hour and a half is flown by, so we'll
go into the rapid fire. Now, five hit run questions
for me? Five hit run answers from you, I could
say pass if you want. They're not necessarily hard questions.
I joke they are, but they're not. First thing is
a favorite New York City bar or restaurant after a
long day on the beat.
Speaker 2 (01:31:23):
Now my wife's cooking. My wife's cook don't I don't
go to many restaurants because my wife's the best cook
in the world. But if you want a good steak,
Ruth christ right there. I never saw anything like it.
You tell them, look on a steak you make and
it comes out. I put it on the group. It
doesn't look anything like that.
Speaker 1 (01:31:42):
Listen, I concur with that. I still live at home.
I got you know, I got mom's cooking, so there
ain't no cooking like home cooking. That's a great answer,
and shout out to missus Gebrith. We kind of talked
about it too, but rather be a case you had
or just the case you heard about besides the ones
we talked about, what's another really memorable homicide case that
you taught in your seminars.
Speaker 2 (01:32:02):
I have so many homicide cases in my file and
in my head that each of them could be distinguishable
for any number of factors. Forensics, the family, the victim,
the interaction, the bizarreness, right, or the publicity. So there
isn't one case, there's a multiple multiple cases. But if
(01:32:26):
I had to think of the most bizarre case that
I had, it was the guy who fed his face
to the dogs. All right. It came in on a
call from the North Central BRONX we need detectives at
the hospital, and it came in from the crime scene.
I responded to the hospital first to take a look
at this mess, and went to the crime scene and going,
this is not an assault, But I don't know what happened.
(01:32:48):
They had corralled three dogs, a shepherd, yeah, a shepherd
in two puppies. Well, as I'm reconstructing what happened in
the scene, I see a smash mirror and I see
a recliner. Guys under the influence of PCP. What he
does under the influence of PCP. He begins to peel
his face from his skull, digs's eyeball out. And what's
(01:33:10):
he doing with the face? He's feeding the dogs? How
do I know that there's no face in the scene.
I have to say face, right. I ordered those dogs
that be brought down to ASPCA and pump their stomachs,
come back with a bag full of face. I go
to the hospital. This guy's got gauzel Walden's right as
(01:33:31):
I got to get a statement, who's going to be
a witness? I cleared everybody away. What happened to you?
H yea ya ya ya ya ya ya yea yeah,
like a mechanical mouth. I never saw anything like this
in my life. In fact, I thought I lost this.
So now I'm losing it. I'm talking to a cadaver
and the cadava is talking back. What made this case
(01:33:53):
unique is that Thomas Harris took that out of my
textbook and created Mason Berger Hannibal. Remember the movie That's
my case. So that's the most bizarre thing I can
think of.
Speaker 1 (01:34:09):
I've I've heard a lot of stories of the show
that might take the cake.
Speaker 2 (01:34:12):
Oh my well, I followed it through. I watched the
facial reconstruction with you a pectoral flapp and they patted
it to the face and they caught and they redo it.
So I put the whole thing together forensically.
Speaker 1 (01:34:23):
Oh my god, it showed up with back at the hospital.
Here's your face. There you go, buddy, you lost it.
Uh funniest. Their third question rapid fire funniest Their most
surprising moment during a field investigation doesn't have to be
homicide from any part of your career.
Speaker 2 (01:34:40):
Well, I remember Halloween, Halloween evening, getting a report. This
man came. He was a Frenchman, he couldn't speak English,
but he was reporting that the body of his fiance
sister was found in his apartment. Oh, so we go
to he said he locked it. So we go back
to the apartment and it's really wild. It got one
(01:35:01):
of those lava lamps burning, and it's very dim, and
this gal is laid back, twenty five years of age,
and her face is clown white except for the blood coming.
Looked like something out of a movie. I'm saying to myself,
I'm tiptooning through and trying to not not disturb anything.
I says. If this woman drums up and says happy Halloween,
(01:35:22):
I'm gonna smack this shit. That's what It turned out
to be a homicide. But it wasn't a homicide. It
looked like a homicide, but it was a suicide. It
was very bizarre. And then the most funny thing that's funny,
the most significant was I had another case down in
(01:35:42):
Louisiana where this offender had been stalking this young woman
and he kills her knife so multiple times, and he's
fleeing the scene. It's Good Friday. He sees a roadblock
which he thinks is for him. It was for the
way of the cross procession for good Friday. He runs
up to the police. I'm a witness to a homicide.
(01:36:06):
He got caught. God got them full of blood.
Speaker 1 (01:36:11):
Yeah againness, you can't make it up. Only in New
York City. Fourth, we kind of talked about this too,
but you can expand on it. Most uplifting moment in
mentoring detectives, either in New York City or around the world.
Speaker 2 (01:36:23):
When they call me up and say, Vernon, thank you
for telling us what to do. We solved this case
because of you. I said, No, you solved the case
because of you. I just gave you to tools. And
I have had multiple conversations like that across the country.
It is very fulfilling if you like me and you
have a passion for.
Speaker 1 (01:36:42):
This, of course, and that passion is evident. The last question,
the rabbit fire doesn't have to be homicide. You know,
in New York City, it's different from place to place,
but we use the NYPD as an example. Detective is
the only rank that you don't test for, at least
for now. It's a rank that you earn at the
of course of the discretion of the higher ups, mainly
the police commissioner, and you earn it basically I'm married.
(01:37:02):
Every other rank after that you do test for up
until you get to I believe, captain or inspector. So
for those that are aspiring to wear the gold shield,
at least in New York City, as you did for
many years, what advice would you give them?
Speaker 2 (01:37:14):
True to yourself, don't be influenced by the mob. Okay,
remember the most important case that you have is the
case with your name on it. If it goes good,
don't worry somebody else will steal it. If it goes bad,
you own it.
Speaker 1 (01:37:30):
Remember that important advice, Important advice across the board. Lieutenant,
this has been a lot of fun. Stick around. We'll
talk off air before I say goodbye to the audience.
Anything you'd like to shout out or promote, well, I don't.
Speaker 2 (01:37:43):
Want to promote anything, except we can. If you want
to see some misdiversity police stories. The godfather of homicide.
It's on Amazon and it's it is very fulfilling, But
I don't want to promote anything. What I would like
to say is God bless people in law enforcement because
we need all the help we can get. Yes, And
to the people in the City of New York and
the NYPD, stay strong, Yes, stay strong.
Speaker 1 (01:38:07):
Indeed, thank you very much. This has been great for
those of you that are tuning in. Of course you're
gonna hear this on a Friday. As I mentioned before,
this is being recorded on Monday, July twenty first coming
up next on the Mike to New Haven podcast. We
haven't done an the FD and Y shows since my comeback,
but we will a couple of them on deck. The
first thing is going to be he was an EMS
chief in the New York City Fire Department for several years,
(01:38:28):
had an extensive career between New York City Health and
Hospitals EMS and later on the New York City Fire
Department upon the merger of the agency's in nineteen ninety six.
For another volume of the Best, the Bravest, it'll be
Chief Jerry Gombo. And then right after that, someone who
had extensive career primarily in the FD and wise Fire
Marshal's office. He was a police officer first with the NYPD,
moved over to FT and enjoyed a career doing several
(01:38:51):
different investigations of his own as part of that great unit.
That's Don Mormino will join me again for another volume
of the Best of the Bravest. So a couple of
Best of the Bravest show's coming up July twenty eighth,
August first exclusively. Please be there six pm Eastern Standard time.
Don't miss it. In the meantime on behalf of the
tenant commander for a gebirth eye, a Mike Cologne and
(01:39:12):
we will see you next time. To care everyone and
stay safe.
Speaker 5 (01:39:39):
A single fabia, uh, little mister Meader A little truth?
When does this condecty love me? We mean for your tiday?
I have won my thank say.
Speaker 3 (01:40:02):
To the game may give me bad. Everybody gets a
second change sircumstance to say I'm sorry.
Speaker 5 (01:40:22):
I like to tell you wait and take my chance
and tell you I'm song it to.
Speaker 3 (01:40:37):
A little stumble a little farm in consequent show nothing
at all.
Speaker 5 (01:40:47):
Now that was someone I heard him say.
Speaker 3 (01:40:53):
That the best lay plans sometime told stay and don't
be suppri.
Speaker 5 (01:41:06):
By vue no wee body.
Speaker 3 (01:41:10):
Everybody get to second change sircumstance to say I'm sid,
I like to tell you read and take my chest
and tell you averybody get to second change sircumstancen to
(01:41:38):
see I'm sick, to tell you I'll take my chest
and tell.
Speaker 5 (01:41:49):
You, take unch and tell you.
Speaker 3 (01:42:19):
Everybody gets to a second change second step to say
I'm sign not to tell you a band when I
take my CHANCEE tell.
Speaker 5 (01:42:36):
You by sty and let me find it.
Speaker 3 (01:42:41):
Get to her second change sircum station to see I sign.
Speaker 5 (01:42:51):
Not to tell you band. I'll take my chance tell
you
Speaker 3 (01:42:58):
So everybody won't un said, everybody needs say mithing monidences