WEBVTT - Serial killers, September 11 and saving lives: John Ferriso Pt.1 0:00:01.960 --> 0:00:04.960 The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. 0:00:05.440 --> 0:00:07.840 Detective sy a side of life. The average person is 0:00:07.920 --> 0:00:11.160 never exposed her. I spent thirty four years as a cop. 0:00:11.640 --> 0:00:14.080 For twenty five of those years, I was catching killers. 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:16.280 That's what I did for a living. I was a 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:20.600 homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:23.200 I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated. 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:26.479 The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:28.840 from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw 0:00:28.880 --> 0:00:31.520 and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some 0:00:31.640 --> 0:00:34.680 of the content and language might be confronting. That's because 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:37.720 no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. 0:00:38.200 --> 0:00:40.440 Join me now as I take you into this world. 0:00:45.760 --> 0:00:50.240 Welcome to another episode of the Vicatch Killers NYPD. Those 0:00:50.320 --> 0:00:54.040 letters are embedded in my psyche. The New York Police Department, 0:00:54.080 --> 0:00:57.520 for some reason, represents everything there is about policing. I'm 0:00:57.520 --> 0:01:00.760 talking the good, the bad, and the ugly. If you've 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:03.360 spent twenty years as a cop in New York, you've 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:07.039 earnt your stripes in policing, that's for sure. Today's guest 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:11.440 retired NOPD Sergeant John Fariso has done just that, and 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:13.520 today we have the pleasure of having him on My 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:17.680 Catch Killers. As you'd expect from a veteran New York cop, 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:20.720 he has a thousand stories to tell. In two thousand 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:23.440 and one, he was on duty working at one police plaza, 0:01:23.840 --> 0:01:26.320 just a short distance from where the planes crashed into 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:29.280 the World Trade Center. He was shaken by the explosion 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:31.600 and had the horror of seeing people jump from the 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:34.640 building to their death. Today he's going to give us 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:37.040 a first hand account of the fear and the chaos 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:40.640 of what occurred. But that's just part of his story. 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:43.600 This is how he described his policing career. When you're 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:47.280 a New York City police officer, you become a social worker, chauffeur, 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:52.000 human relations consultant, and a tour guide. You're expected to 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:54.840 do all those things while stopping crime as it occurs, 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:57.440 preventing crime, and keeping the peace in a city that 0:01:57.520 --> 0:02:02.760 never takes a break. Today to hear his stories, John Fariso, 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:04.280 welcome to I Catch Killers. 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:05.720 Thank you great to be here. 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:08.760 Well, I've got to say you're the first New York 0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:10.799 cop we've had on I Catch Killer. Someone a bit 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:14.040 excited about that because policing in New York is poleacing 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:18.840 at the sharp end. And yeah, we've touched on New 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:22.240 York crime. I had Michael Francis as a guest, the 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:26.079 Mafia Kappa a guest on there, and I've also had 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:28.320 Joe Pistoni, the real Donnie Brasco on. 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:30.480 Great. Thank you for having me here. This is my 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:34.200 first podcast outside the US, so I appreciate you having 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:36.040 me on. I plan on doing more outside of the US, 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:37.200 but this is the first one. I'm doing. 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:40.000 Oh, very good, very good. Well. I think there is 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:42.880 a fascination about policing in New York. I don't know 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:46.120 what it is. Whether it's we sort of grow up 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:48.760 on hearing stories of New York and if something happens 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:51.880 in New York, the news news travels fast. I suppose 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:54.720 there's also from my point of view, I was even 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:58.040 when I was in the Cops, I was watching MYPD Blues, 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:01.760 grew up watching Serpi k the movie, and Donnie Brasco 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:04.919 American Gangster. It's all very New York related. 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:07.520 Definitely. I'm glad you mentioned Surproco. I mentioned that a lot. 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:12.359 That's probably one of the top two best corp movies 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:14.600 ever and definitely betrays New York City during the time. 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:19.320 Yeah, they were different, different times, and we'll talk on that. 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:21.840 We've had in New South Wales police. We've had the 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:24.960 corruption and everything that comes with policing, but it's just 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:28.000 part and parcel of the job. One thing that I 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:32.320 noticed reading up and preparing for the podcast here when 0:03:32.360 --> 0:03:34.639 we go to work in New South Wales cops we 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:37.280 go we've got a shift or we're going to work. 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:39.840 You guys call it a tour, like each day is 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:44.240 a tour. What now that conjures up images of Yeah, 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:46.160 you do a tour of war, you do a tour? 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:48.760 Is that? Do you think that reflects what policing is 0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:49.800 New York is all about? 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:52.160 Well, I guess, being that there's thirty thousand New York 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:54.520 City Police officers, I guess that tour would make sense. 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:56.800 Yes, yeah, thirty thousand. 0:03:56.920 --> 0:03:58.720 I'm not sure the number now, but there's thirty thousand 0:03:58.720 --> 0:03:59.320 when I was there. 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:03.040 Yeah, yeah, that's incredible. Like we've got New South Wales 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:06.040 Police I think between fifteen and twenty thousand, and that's 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:10.080 a pretty big police forces across the globe. But New 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:13.080 York eclipse is that clearly I want to talk about 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:16.679 your career. I'm fascinated about your career and what happens, 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:20.720 but I also want to talk about the September eleventh 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:24.400 when the planes crashed in the twin towers. Can you 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:27.200 just describe to me that day? And I've read your 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:29.360 piece that you wrote on it, and I just found 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:31.599 it fascinating how you started the day off because it 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:33.680 was just a typical day. Do you want to just 0:04:33.720 --> 0:04:36.200 take the listener on that journey, just up until the 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:39.080 point where things changed dramatically forever. 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:42.159 Sure, it was a perfect day. The weather was perfect. 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:45.359 I woke up in the morning and z eating my 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:48.720 breakfast at home. I didn't have kids yet. I was married, 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:51.240 but didn't have kids' children yet, so my main concern 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:53.680 that day was to how to get fitted for a 0:04:53.720 --> 0:04:55.520 suit for a wedding. So that was the first thing 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:57.760 I thought about when I woke up that morning. I 0:04:57.800 --> 0:05:01.040 had no clue that within two hours everything I knew 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:03.440 would be turned upside down. And what I say and 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:06.160 whenever I talk about September eleventh is that I think 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:08.479 about it every single day. There has not a day 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:11.320 gone by in all these years I haven't thought about 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:12.839 it in one way or the other, not in a 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:15.800 bad way. It could be something simple, but I think 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:19.000 about it. Things trigger it. Construction crews, large crowds of 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:21.839 people in the city, low flying planes, a lot of 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:25.120 things that make me think about it. So after I breakfast, 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:28.000 I got on the bus went to work, and ironically, 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:30.880 my bus did past Twin Towers. I called the Twin 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:33.039 Towers because that when we grew up in New York City, 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:35.120 that's what we called it. We saw it from Queens 0:05:35.160 --> 0:05:37.719 in the distance. So to us, that was the Twin Towers, 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:40.480 and that was a very New York thing. And there 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:43.240 was a shadow from the towers that went down low 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:45.920 Manhattan and you would walk past the shadow, and that 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:51.119 shadow made it pretty far. And my office was, well, 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:53.360 in the US it's a half mile I'm not sure 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:57.360 on kilometers, maybe point six point eight kilometers, yea, I 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:00.360 found correct on that. And then so the shadow made there. 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:02.360 I walked to the building and you know, I went 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:04.000 inside it and I was still thinking about my suit, 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:06.200 and I was thinking about, you know, my day. And 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:09.279 I was at a temporary assignment at the time, and 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:12.360 I really if September eleventh didn't happen, this assignment would 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:14.360 probably never even made it to my book. But so 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:17.200 I had a temporary assignment, and you know, I went 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:19.479 to the office and you know, the cop humor began 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:22.800 because that was very common in police work. As cop Humi. 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:24.320 There was twenty of us that were ready to get 0:06:24.320 --> 0:06:26.960 promoted to sogeant. So we were all just always joking around, 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:31.360 talking about making sergeant. And I sat at the desk. 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:33.640 I read the newspaper. It was something trivial in it. 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:36.320 And then we used to do data entry. This is 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:38.200 going back to two thousand and one. You know, we 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:40.720 just did data entry. It was a basic assignment. So 0:06:40.839 --> 0:06:42.680 I was ready to get promoted. So basically you did 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:45.080 this data entry until you got promoted to sergeant. I 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:47.359 was just a cop at the time. I didn't do investigation. Yet, 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:51.200 I didn't do anything. So you know, I sat at 0:06:51.400 --> 0:06:53.479 the table with all the other cops and like I said, 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:55.520 we were doing the cop huma. We were joking. Everybody 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:57.520 was laughing, and guys started to go to their desks 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:00.280 one by one to do their data entry. And I 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:02.760 was getting ready to go and my lieutenant approached me 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:05.760 and he said, John, he goes, uh, you need to 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:09.640 get these reports going. You need more reports done. So 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:12.160 I was the depression. I was doing all my reports. 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:14.520 I'm like, yeah, boss, lieutenant, I'll take care of it, 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:16.960 no problem, get those reports done for you. So I 0:07:16.960 --> 0:07:18.640 sat at my desk and I forgot about it. And 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:22.400 then I was doing my data entrying these reports. Kevin 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:24.800 but coming back to me, and I'm saying, you know, 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:27.560 what was he talking about? Why is he asking me 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:29.960 about these reports? I says, I know what I'm gonna do. 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:33.600 I'm gonna wait till I get a closer to lunch time. 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:35.680 I'm gonna walk into the tenant's office. I'm gonna ask 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:37.400 him directly, what are you talking about with these reports? 0:07:37.440 --> 0:07:39.000 What do you need done? I'm doing my job here. 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:42.000 I got a future here, future outside of this office. 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:43.960 So what are we going to do? And then I 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:47.200 was sitting at the desk and then I heard this 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:51.760 unbelievable sound. It was a boom, but it wasn't like 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:55.200 an explosion boom. I would describe it as someone took 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:57.240 something like a giant rock and throw it into a 0:07:57.280 --> 0:08:02.360 dumpster and it echoed an echo boom. And I thought 0:08:02.400 --> 0:08:04.680 a piece of construction equipment fell off the roof of 0:08:04.720 --> 0:08:08.120 the building. Because there was construction going on, so we 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:10.840 all turns. I turned to the left and I could 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:12.480 see the window. And I turned to the left and 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:16.120 one of the sergeants was looked at the window and 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:18.400 he said, I do know exact words, but it was like, 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:20.640 oh my gosh, I can't believe this. You got to 0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:22.880 see this, And he was pointing out the window, and 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:24.600 being in New York City police officer and living in 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:28.080 New York that is not calm and nobody gets, you know, 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:30.960 stunned by anything we see. That was like something we 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:34.080 all knew something was going on. Yeah, that's when everything 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:35.480 changed at that moment. 0:08:36.160 --> 0:08:39.360 Okay, well, let's we'll stop it there because I want 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:41.320 to lead up and find a little bit more about 0:08:41.400 --> 0:08:44.640 yourself before we talk more detail about that day. A 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:48.079 couple of things there. When I was reading your piece 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:50.640 about that day and you touched on it there the 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:54.360 cop humor, I felt like I was in the office. 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:57.080 I know exactly what that's about. You having a go 0:08:57.160 --> 0:09:00.720 at your fellow workers, as we say in this country, 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:02.680 taking the piss out of each other, a bit of laugh, 0:09:02.760 --> 0:09:05.920 bit of banter, getting about your stuff. There's usually some 0:09:06.000 --> 0:09:09.160 bosses says something that you know, you dig in you 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:12.440 think what's said about so I fully understand that that 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:15.839 environment going in there. But let's wind it back a 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:16.960 little bit. Where did you grow up? 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:19.199 You grew up in New York, Yes, Queens, New York, 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:21.960 outside of Manhattan and could see the skyline from where 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:23.840 I grew up in Blue Carlor neighborhood. 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:27.360 And what steered you towards policing? Was it something you 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:29.720 always wanted to do or is it something you fell into. 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:33.400 I always knew it at a very young age. I 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:36.040 remember in kindergarten talking about it and I remember writing 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:38.720 about it. And I had two incidents that happens when 0:09:38.760 --> 0:09:42.520 I was a kid that really propelled me to police work. 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:47.360 And one was actually the son of Sam investigation. 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:50.760 Because I remember that one. Yeah, yes, tell us a 0:09:50.800 --> 0:09:51.560 little bit about that. 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:55.079 Yeah he was, so you know, you're aware, a son 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:58.120 of Sandy Cereal killer, so very interesting person if anyone 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:01.600 doesn't know about him, he's very interesting serial killer. So 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:03.960 I was a little kid grown up in Queens and 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:07.000 a lot of people in my neighborhood were police officers. 0:10:07.080 --> 0:10:08.880 It was a lot of cops find in sanitation. It 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:10.480 was just you know, we were the people that worked 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:12.760 in Manhattan but lived in Queen's and it was very 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:15.280 common in the seventies. So it was the summer of 0:10:15.320 --> 0:10:17.800 seventy seven, and I remember that summer was a heat wave. 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:20.079 It was hot, so we were always outside. So I'd 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:22.040 sit on the stoop and you know, the adults would 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:24.480 come out and they'd say, all right, make sure everybody 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:27.520 goes inside. The son of Sam is around, or some 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:30.800 people called him the forty four caliber killer. So I 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:33.280 was only seven years old, and I'm like, I was 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:36.120 being told as a serial killer in my neighborhood. Not 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:38.600 only was he in the neighborhood, he murdered three people 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:39.839 walking distance from my house. 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:42.600 So you say, in the think of it. 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:44.439 Yeah, he he did it all over. A lot of 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:47.319 people don't know this, but he didn't, you know, hit 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:49.679 midtown Manhattan. He didn't hit the affluent areas. He went 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:52.839 to the out of burrows and almost like where he 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:54.480 grew up, because he grew up in the Bronx. And 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:57.480 you know, he shot two people in a car close 0:10:57.520 --> 0:11:00.560 to my house, I know the exact location, and he 0:11:00.640 --> 0:11:02.800 shot another woman walking. And these were the two in 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:05.440 the car and the woman walking with separate incidents and 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:08.120 close enough to where my parents were like, you know, 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:10.680 make sure you come in. You know, there's a something. 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:12.960 They didn't use the term serial killer. They you know, 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:15.280 in the seventies, adults talked to us like we were adults. 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:17.880 They were like the forty four caliber killers here. So 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:20.040 when the street lights go on and it gets dark, 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:21.360 get off the stoop and come inside. 0:11:21.440 --> 0:11:22.880 So I grew up with that. 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:25.080 And then the newspapers would come into the house in 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:27.520 the morning and there would be a front page headline 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:30.640 of what this guy did, which was graphic, you know, 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:34.640 descriptions of people shot and cause. So at a young age, 0:11:34.679 --> 0:11:37.199 I knew there was danger out there. And I remembered 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:40.000 when they caught him because I remembered my sister talking 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:42.439 about it. She was older than me and once again 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:44.800 talking about it, like, you know, I should understand this 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:46.600 at seven, and she said they caught there was a 0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:49.439 gun in the car a parking ticket. So I knew 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:52.040 people were afraid of this guy, and I was amazed 0:11:52.080 --> 0:11:55.880 that the cops did investigative work and they caught him. 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:59.440 And at a young age, I knew I saw a 0:11:59.440 --> 0:12:01.720 good versus At a young age, I just saw that 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:05.440 as the cops went out and they caught that bad guy, 0:12:05.480 --> 0:12:08.040 and it's real. It was on the news every day, 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:09.680 and it was in the newspapers and it was talked about. 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:11.960 And that really made me think about police work at 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:12.560 a young age. 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:16.199 Okay. It's funny how those things just register in your 0:12:16.200 --> 0:12:18.880 mind and get locked in at that early age. But yeah, 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:22.680 I do remember that that crime. Okay, so you've decided 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:26.599 to join the police. My understanding new York Police, and 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:29.959 this is limited understanding, but just in my own experience, 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:33.199 I've spoken to people from New York and yeah, when 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:36.640 I've been traveling overseas and you mentioned you're a cop, 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:40.280 and there's two reactions you tend to get with people 0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:42.559 from New York. They if you like you for it, 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:45.040 or they look at you and just sort of and 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:47.880 the energy just get sucked out of the room. It 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:50.680 seems to be a polarizing career in the city of 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:52.680 New York. Am I am I misreading it? 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:55.080 No, not at all, You're correct. Do you either get 0:12:55.120 --> 0:12:57.040 people that want to hear everything, or they take a 0:12:57.040 --> 0:12:58.760 step back and they look at you and you know 0:12:58.800 --> 0:13:02.200 they're thinking about something and you just don't ask. It's 0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:04.520 interesting at a barbecue when that happens, because we were 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:06.720 warned about that in the police academy. The instructors would 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:08.840 come out and say, we'll watch. When people know what 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:11.280 you do, you're going to get either no one wants 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:12.280 to talk to you, or we want to tell you 0:13:12.320 --> 0:13:14.800 everything that went wrong and you're to blame. Yeah. 0:13:14.840 --> 0:13:19.439 Well, I picked that up in my travels that people 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:22.079 from New York definitely had a strong view one way 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:24.600 or the other about cops, either love them or hate them. 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:28.360 They didn't seem to be that in between. How old 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:29.600 were you when you joined the cops. 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:32.080 I was twenty three. I was in college, and like 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:33.600 I said, I knew I was going to do it. 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:35.199 A few of my friends I grew up with we 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:37.600 used to play stickball on the street and we should 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:39.560 just basically take a rub a ball with a stick, 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:42.240 you know, was a cross between a bat and a stick. 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:44.560 And we bought them and we just hit it and 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:45.960 that's what we played. And I think out of the 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:47.880 six of us, four of us became cops. So I 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:50.240 kind of knew it. And I was twenty three years old. 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:52.840 I had one more year in college, and I just said, 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:54.520 you know, I knew the PD was going to call me. 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:57.000 So I went into the NYPD in nineteen eighty three. 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:00.199 The training. Did you enjoy the training? Did you like 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:04.520 it's I talked from my experience in policing. I was 0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:07.320 working in the building trade and then went into policing. 0:14:07.360 --> 0:14:10.560 And I know the moment I hit the academy, it's 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:13.319 a glove that just fitted. I thought, I found what 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:15.160 I want to do it. It just felt right from 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:17.280 the moment I walked in the door. How did you 0:14:17.320 --> 0:14:17.640 find it? 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:20.680 Yes, I found it that way. Also, I liked the discipline. 0:14:20.760 --> 0:14:24.080 I like the quasi military structure. I didn't mind being 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:26.720 yelled at if you weren't standard street. You know, I 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:29.240 learned how to salute and stand street and standard attention, 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:31.880 and you know, they made a standard attention for sometimes 0:14:31.960 --> 0:14:33.880 thirty minutes, and you know, I think they were at 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:36.000 times just massive wordess. But the times we were just 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:37.880 being goofballs and they were like, Okay, now you're going 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:40.200 to stand attention to thirty minutes. And I understood the 0:14:40.200 --> 0:14:43.280 discipline of it, and I liked the academy. I had 0:14:43.320 --> 0:14:46.800 come from college, so the work in the books was okay, 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:48.880 and the physical I was ready for that too, So 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:50.440 I enjoyed the police academy. 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:54.240 Did you what was your family's attitude to join the police, 0:14:54.440 --> 0:14:57.480 Like policing is across the world, is a dangerous occupation 0:14:57.600 --> 0:15:00.280 in New York, I think it probably arises a little bit, 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:03.120 a little bit hard. Were they happy with you going 0:15:03.160 --> 0:15:03.880 down that path? 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:07.760 Well, my mom was not. She was wanted me to 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:10.080 do other things, and I kept telling her, Mom, this 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:11.600 is what I want to do. And I'm sure she 0:15:11.680 --> 0:15:13.440 knew because I was watching all these cop shows at 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:15.440 such a young age and talking about police work, So 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:18.440 I think she always knew anyway up against it. Yeah, 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:20.600 she just had to say what she needed to say. 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:23.600 My uncle was a police officer, and when I was 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:25.320 a little kid, you know, we'd sit around at the 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:28.000 Italian dinners and you're a cop, let me see your gun, 0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:30.560 and my uncle say, sit out, kid. And you know, 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:33.120 my uncle never talked about it. He was that generation 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:35.360 they just didn't talk about it. And then my cousin 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:38.280 became a cop, so there was two members of the 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:42.200 service in my family. So I my father went. When 0:15:42.240 --> 0:15:44.640 the NYPD first called me, I said, Dad, I got 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:46.880 this letter. The NYPD wants me to come down for 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:49.880 an investigation. My dad's like, all right, let's get you 0:15:49.920 --> 0:15:52.760 a suit. You're going on some interviews. So my dad 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:53.800 was very pro for it. 0:15:53.840 --> 0:15:54.440 He was for it. 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:55.960 Yeah, yeah, he was all I guess he didn't want 0:15:55.960 --> 0:15:57.760 to support me, and he was happy with it. 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:01.840 So okay. So you get through the academy and you 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:03.680 get out of the police academy, you think you know 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:06.360 what you're doing, because there's a lot of skills you've 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:08.680 got to learn. You've got to learn your legislation, your 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:13.120 powers of arrests, you know, handling people, weapons training. There's 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:15.040 a whole lot that you come out with from the 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:17.600 academy and you think you're ready to hit the streets. 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:20.040 But if your experience is like my experience, when you 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:22.720 walk out on the streets, that's when you actually start 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:25.560 start learning. And I would imagine in New York it's 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:29.640 learning on steroids. What was your first times when you 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:32.680 went out walk the streets as a New York cop. 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:36.160 Well, you're correct, you know, the academy could teach you 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:38.200 everything in a book. They could show you movies, they 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:41.120 could have professionals up there talking and they could do 0:16:41.200 --> 0:16:44.720 scenarios and you could do handcuffing everything. But they tell 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:46.200 you you're going to learn everything on the street, and 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:50.280 you're going to learn fast, and I was surprised at 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:54.560 how fast it came. There's no real transition. They say 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:57.000 there's a training and this and that, but you know, 0:16:57.040 --> 0:16:59.320 you're working with other carps and other supervisors. You know, 0:16:59.360 --> 0:17:02.680 if the crap it's a fan, they're not going to go, okay, well, rookie, 0:17:02.840 --> 0:17:04.280 you stand there, We're going to take care of this. 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:06.480 A lot of times, you know, you're the you're the cop, 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:08.560 and even the people on the street, they don't want 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:10.480 to hear that you just got there. If they have 0:17:10.520 --> 0:17:12.119 a problem, they're going to get in your face and 0:17:12.160 --> 0:17:14.800 be like, officers, I just got robbed. You can't tell 0:17:14.840 --> 0:17:17.320 them I'm a rookie. I just got here. You can't 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:18.560 do that. You got to handle it. 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:21.440 Yeah, very very much. So like there is no you're 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:24.240 out there, you wear that uniform and you're you're now 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:26.760 the cop. You can't put put your hand up there. 0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:29.520 Where were you first stationed and what was the type 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:31.440 of work that you were doing first up? 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:35.600 Well, everybody goes to patrol right outside the It's not 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:37.520 like the movies. Movies got it all wrong. And it's 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:39.639 in the NYPD. I could speak for that. Everybody goes 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:41.440 right to patrol. You don't really get in a car. 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:42.879 It's there's so many of us. They put you on 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:44.919 foot posts, so they give you these crappy posts that 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:49.680 nobody else wants to take. Guarding the prisoners, bad accidents. 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:51.480 You got to wait. I mean you mentioned in your 0:17:51.520 --> 0:17:54.080 book the crime scene you're always standing outside the tape, 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:57.480 not really inside. Yeah, you never really get inside the tape, 0:17:57.480 --> 0:17:59.639 but you do. But you're standing outside the tape, and 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:01.120 you know, people are walking up to you and asking 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:02.440 you a questions. You're like, I don't know. I was 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:03.920 just put at the tape edge. Just don't go through. 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:07.520