there tried to live up to that reputation. Tommy was no different. After a short time in the 41st, Tommy ran afoul of police brass and was transferred to a precinct in the North Bronx. He didn't last too long there before he again came to the attention of the police brass and was transferred once more, this time to the 44th Precinct. Tommy had come full circle.
Right around this time, after Richie Sabol was promoted to sergeant, I was back on a uniform post. One day I was summoned to the precinct commander's office and informed that Ryan had been assigned to the 44th Precinct. The commander knew Tommy and I were friends and asked me to work with him and to “look after him.” I partnered with Tommy over the next few months on a semisteady basis. Tommy was a guy with a big heart, but he also had an unorthodox way of policing, which irritated many of the veterans to no end. He was a handful. And that's putting it mildly.
The night of the incident on Nelson Avenue, Tommy Ryan took one of the three prisoners back into the building to ascertain which apartment he had come from. Ryan took the prisoner to a top-floor apartment and had the guy stand in front of the door. Ryan then knocked on the door.
Inside the apartment were a man and a woman. The man had just been “ripped off” by the three other males who had been arrested fleeing the apartment building. The man inside the apartment looked out through the peephole, saw one of the men who had just robbed him standing there at the door, got a gun, and fired at the door. Officer Ryan, who was standing to the side, heard the shot and told the other officers nearby that the person inside was shooting at him. The officers forced their way into the apartment and arrested the man inside. Everything was fine up to that point. What happened next is not quite clear, but it goes something like this.
When the officers got inside the apartment, the man who had been shooting was roughed up and injured, but apparently not too seriously. The prisoner and the occupant of the apartment were taken from the apartment to the street, where the other two guys were still in handcuffs. All four were then transported by police vehicles to the 44th Precinct station house, about ten blocks away.
It was alleged that, while being transported to the station house, the man who shot through the door was punched about the body. It was further alleged that, over the next few hours in the station house, the male was again beaten by police officers, specifically by Tommy Ryan. The man was eventually taken to a local hospital, where he lay on a stretcher for a long period of time before he was taken into the emergency room. But it was too late. The male died from internal injuries as the doctor was working on him.
As you can imagine, a huge investigation was undertaken by the Bronx District Attorney's Office. Ryan was indicted for murder, and three other officers were indicted for assault. Eventually, the charges were dropped, correctly, against the three other officers. Ryan, however, fled the jurisdiction for a few years (allegedly to Ireland), then surrendered, stood trial, and was sent to jail.
The damage this case did to the esprit de corps of the 44th Precinct is not to be underestimated. Police officers testifying against other police officers…not a pretty sight. Police community relations were severely damaged, and there were protests by community members against the officers assigned to the “House of Murder.”
In the immediate months after the initial incident, police officers were reluctant to discuss this case with other police officers. Nobody wanted to be involved. However, every once in a while, I would be assigned to partner with an officer who had been working that night and, though he may have gotten to the scene a little late, still had some insight into how this could have happened. The stories among the officers I spoke to were remarkably consistent in the details, and there was almost unanimous agreement on what went wrong, and who failed to do his job.
The sergeant who was working that fateful night was a joke. He fancied himself as “one of the boys” and always thought he was funny. In fact, some officers opined that, during the night of the arrest and beating, he found the whole thing somewhat amusing. The problem was that he failed to do his job. He was the one person who could have stopped the nonsense, but he didn't. While I never tried to make an excuse for Tommy Ryan's actions that night, he was not the only one at fault. The patrol sergeant failed—big time.
There are certain unwritten rules in the police world. While it is never excused, there is an understanding that sometimes, in the heat of battle or in a highly emotional situation, a police officer might loose his cool. However, it is up to other officers, especially those not directly involved in the situation, to intervene to stop any conduct that is counter to good policy and procedures. Sometimes it is a lot to ask of an officer to step in and break up these situations, but good cops do it all the time. When it comes to a sergeant, however, it is his job. He must stop the conduct forthwith. The sergeant working in the 44th the night in question failed miserably, and there is some anecdotal evidence that he, in fact, encouraged the misconduct. Yet he went unpunished, turning state's witness against his own officers.
What I learned from this event is something I continue to put into practice even today: It is the responsibility of the sergeant to get police officers to do their job, and while the officers are doing their job, the sergeant must also make sure to keep them out of trouble! Sometimes keeping the cops out of trouble might mean sergeants have to do unpopular things: confront the cops, including their informal leaders, and sometimes even impose discipline. In paramilitary organizations, discipline is the glue that holds everything together.
Layoffs: Cops Matter
In the spring of 1976, New York City was going through a profoundly difficult fiscal crisis. There were threats of layoffs for city workers, including police officers. To avert layoffs, the police union made an agreement with the city that all officers would work an additional five days over the following twelve months. The deal never made sense to me, since I did not understand how working an additional five days (the officers got to choose which days) over the next year would put money in the city's coffers. But I had a brother who faced a layoff and, being a good union man, I went with the program.
We began working the extra days almost immediately. In June of that year, the city did not get the assistance from the federal government that it had anticipated. One of the city tabloids ran a headline regarding President Gerald Ford's refusal to give money to the city—“Ford to City: Drop Dead.” On June 30, 1976, the last day of the fiscal year, the city laid off five thousand police officers, my brother, Ciaran, included. However, the police officers who remained were still held to the bargain of working those additional five days, even though five thousand officers had been laid off. It was surreal.
It became more surreal for me about a month later when I was working one of my additional five days. I was with my partner when I spotted a kid, about seventeen, in a car that looked suspicious. As soon as I made eye contact with the kid, he took off, so I chased him with the police car, using lights and siren. After a few blocks, the kid dumped the car and took off on foot. I was quite fast at the time and actually liked foot chases. I chased the kid for about two blocks and eventually caught him. No harm, no foul. Or so I thought. A few police officers who came to back me up in the chase cursed me out: “Timoney, you jerk! What the hell are you doing? They laid off your brother, Ciaran, and here you are, working for nothing but a broken promise. And to make matters worse, you're making collars! You're an asshole!” My only retort, which probably seemed lame at the time, was that we were still police officers and we had to enforce the law even when it didn't seem to be in our own personal best interest.
The real eye-opener with the layoffs was the police union's reaction, or lack of action. Five thousand officers were laid off in one day, and the effete union could do little but protest. The lessons of the 1971 strike were fresh in every officer's mind, including those heading the union, and we were not about to pay any more fines under the Taylor Law.
There was an even greater lesson for me personally as a result of these layoffs—that you could lay off five thousand
