family that he has spoken to you, that the fix is in, but it will require another hundred dollars to pay Timoney.” I replied, shocked, “You gotta be fucking kidding me.” That was life in the criminal court of the South Bronx, and I am sure it existed in the other four county courtrooms in the city as well.
The Knapp Commission did make a series of recommendations that were solid, including more formal education of police officers. The commission also decried the poor wages police officers received and recommended increases, which all officers overwhelmingly endorsed. The pay issue was brought home to us one day at roll call. The Seventh Division inspector stopped in to speak to us before we hit the street. He talked about the Knapp Commission's findings and recommendations and then got to the issue of the pay raise and said, almost matter-of-factly, “Listen, you guys, we're gonna be giving you better pay, so there's no need to steal.”
The Knapp Commission hearings affected me directly when the Bronx district attorney, Burton Roberts, held a press conference. Roberts was a larger-than-life figure with a boundless ego; he did not suffer fools lightly. As the police department was being bashed day after day in the press, Roberts decided to hold a press conference to show that in the Bronx, at least, there were good cops who did not succumb to theft and bribery. He decided to call the press conference with Bronx police officers who had made bribery arrests the prior year. Two dozen police officers were assembled in a conference room, and I was one of them. The plan was for all of the officers to form a semicircle around the D.A. while he made his announcement and pontificated on how there were many brave and honest police officers in the Bronx. Before the conference, I figured out the best position to be in to get my mug on television, since I did not have a speaking part (our role was that of blue potted plants, a role I would play on numerous occasions throughout my career). I maneuvered for a position next to and slightly behind the D.A. while the officers took their positions. When I gathered all of my friends that night to watch the press conference on TV, there was a great shot of the D.A. with my left hand slightly to the right of his face. As the camera zoomed out to get a panoramic view of all those assembled, it panned to the left and showed all of the fine officers to my right, missing Patrolman Timoney, who stood to the right of the D.A. That was my first appearance on television. As the years passed, I would manage to get other parts of my body in the picture and even every once in a while have a speaking part.
Plainclothes in Anti-Crime
The Anti-Units were regular patrol officers who were assigned to wear plainclothes within the precinct. Their main job was to deal with crime, specifically violent crime and burglaries. There was a quid pro quo deal between the anticrime officers and the police department. We got to work in plainclothes and use our private cars, and the police department had to supply only the gas. At the time, I was driving a 1966 blue Volkswagen Beetle with a sunroof and a rotted floor in back. You could actually see the ground under the car as it was moving. On more than one occasion I had to put prisoners in the back with the admonition to keep their feet raised so that they didn't fall through the floor.
My two partners in the Anti-Crime Unit were Joe Rooney and Richie Sabol. Sabol was the senior man on the team and was considered by most to be one of the top and toughest cops in the 44th. He was a veteran of fifteen years, having spent seven of those as a cop in Yonkers before joining the NYPD. Sabol had entered the Marine Corps at age seventeen and served a two-year stint during the Korean War. He had an easy-to-understand policing philosophy: “Our job is to protect the most vulnerable: the very young and the very old.” Joe Rooney was a blond-haired, blue-eyed cop with less time than I had on the job. While I had spent my first two years as a police trainee, Joe served those years in Vietnam. He was a very good street cop with a bit of a temper. Fortunately, Sabol controlled the worst tendencies of both Rooney and me.
In 1973, my brother, Ciaran, entered the NYPD, and after six months he was assigned to the 44th Precinct. Ciaran's class was the first in the history of the NYPD to have a significant number of females who trained next to their male counterparts in preparation for all aspects of policing. Prior to this, women in the NYPD had been assigned to specialized units such as the Juvenile Aid Division or had performed matron duties like handling female prisoners. Now, women were to become full and equal partners with their male counterparts.
When Ciaran was assigned to the 44th, I was a little surprised; I had thought that there was an unwritten rule that brothers were not assigned to serve in the same precinct. There was the so-called Sullivan rule, based on the World War II military tragedy of the five Sullivan brothers who were assigned to the same ship and who were all killed when the ship sank. I should not have been surprised, though, because in the 44th at that time there were two other sets of brothers and a father and son who were both assigned to the 44th Precinct.
The rationale for the Sullivan rule became apparent to me shortly after Ciaran started work at the 44th. I was assigned to the Anti-Crime Unit with my partner Richie Sabol and we were on the lookout for robbers and other miscreants. I knew the patrol post where Ciaran and his partner were working. The radio had been quiet when all of a sudden Ciaran's partner got on the police radio hysterically screaming, “Officer needs assistance!” Since I didn't hear Ciaran's voice, I assumed the worst. I drove my Volkswagen like a maniac through the streets of the South Bronx, mounting sidewalks to get through traffic. I eventually arrived at the location: 1430 Grand Concourse. This address consisted of six seven-story buildings surrounding a huge courtyard. It was referred to derisively by the cops in the 44th as “jungle habitat.” About a year earlier I had responded to this location only to have a burning mattress, heaved from the roof, barely miss my partner and me. “Airmail garbage! Incoming!”
When I entered the building where Ciaran and his partner needed the assistance, I found him on the second floor, as cool and calm as could be, with his prisoner handcuffed. When I asked him, “What the hell happened?” he just head nodded toward his partner, saying, “He panicked.”
A few hours later, discussing the whole incident with my partner Richie, we concluded that the Sullivan rule, if it didn't exist, should be implemented and enforced. I had risked not only my life and Richie's life but also the lives of those pedestrians whom I almost ran over in my highly emotional state. In any police response to an officer needing assistance, the heartbeat will always increase, as will the tension and the desire to get to the location as quickly as possible. When it's your brother, the heart rate goes off the charts. The blood rushing to the head clouds your thinking, and the results can be disastrous.
Tommy Ryan
The most profound lesson I learned in my eight years in the 44th Precinct, and, in fact, probably in my entire career, related to an incident that took place while I was on vacation in Ireland in July 1975. Upon returning from vacation, I received a phone call from my plainclothes partner Richie Sabol, who was now a sergeant in Brooklyn. “Did you see the papers?” he asked. “Your friend Ryan's in trouble.” While I obviously was not working the night of the Ryan incident, I learned enough about what took place from my fellow officers.
On the evening in question, two police officers were dispatched to an apartment building on Nelson Avenue in the Highbridge neighborhood regarding “men with guns.” Upon arrival at the scene, the two officers confronted three men exiting the building; when they frisked them, they discovered the men were armed with illegal handguns. It was a very good arrest. Other units responded to “back up” the initial two officers, but when they arrived, the three bad guys were already in custody. Some of the responding officers were curious to see what apartment these three men had come from. The three arrestees were obviously reluctant to talk. Enter Officer Thomas Ryan.
Tommy Ryan was a friend of mine with whom I played football in the Bronx. Tommy, like me, was a police trainee; he was assigned to the 44th Precinct when I came through the door in 1969. When Tommy turned twenty-one and became a full-fledged police officer, he was assigned to the 41st Precinct (known as “Fort Apache”) in the South Bronx. The 41st Precinct had a reputation as a “wild” precinct,
