Our police experience was stretched over two weeks after the first stab at a ride-along was cut-short by a chronic bullet-proof vest deficiency at Precinct 73. The two intrepid reporters showed up on a Friday evening to be greeted by a confused and unhelpful gaggle of police officers.
We walked unhindered through the entrance, into the antechamber, then into the main office. No ID’s were requested, just the gait of a well-heeled customer and a white face. Once inside there were many protestations about who we were, what we were doing, whether we were in fact students or undercover students, and other patchwork conspiracy theories that roused the otiose minds stranded in the room.
Then the wait was on. The minutes ticked by with glib ease, the clock turning through one hour, then two. Officer Russel Timoshenko took pity, or so we thought. He sat us down opposite his desk and gave a condescending face complemented by a nonchalant “What are we gonna do with you?” exhalation complete with a throw back of the arms. No verbal so far. “OK let me tell you something,” he said to get our drooping eyes to reconsider themselves. It worked.
We bolted up. And he launched into a scattergun tirade that explored such a variegated assortment of topics we couldn’t catch it all. “The NYPD, you see,” he said, “they put a $1 million into a software program.” He smiled. “Doesn’t even work. When the computers go down it takes 15 minutes to reboot.” Then it was on to the wages. “We take a guy on $40,000 a year, there’s an inconsistency with other jobs in the city there.”
His eyes really started to burn when the subject turned – through his own meandering consciousness under no duress from questions – to the people he was paid to look after. “Lack of early childhood development,” he said about Brownsvillians. “And then there’s all these foster parents who take money for looking after kids and then lock the doors on the kids, and then call the cops and report them missing.”
His mouth wasn’t exactly frothing but that was incongruous on a face decorated with eyes of such rabidity. The furious scribbling obviously massaged some mote of narcissism in his brain because he was off. “I found a body in a bag once,” he said. “Yeah, a chopped up body in a laundry bag.” This was a not a cautionary tale, but posed quite indiscreetly as some vexed session of machismo. Then proudly he elaborated the most stellar facts he had in his store. “We have more violence and more crime here than in any other neighbourhood in New York City.” The thrill was palpable.
The air he had been blowing into himself had caused him to lose sight of his desk. At some point he came back down. The gripes started. “The uniforms are very strict,” he said. “The pay sucks. The hygiene is terrible, we don’t even clear out dead rats.” There was a brief pause and he looked around. There was a low din coming from next door as officers bantered their way out of the doors of the precinct into the Brownsville night. “It’s all about nepotism here,” he said.
Eventually word got out that we were still sitting around. “No jackets, sorry,” came the reply from our supervisor – three hours too late. We said goodbye to our source who looked aggrieved at the departure of his audience. “Don’t use my name,” he said as he gave us his name.
The interregnum between the dry run on a busy Friday night – “It’s going to be crazy out there tonight,” an enthusiastic young officer told me – until a mellow Tuesday late afternoon, was about ten days.
The same scenario played out. The innocent stroll through the inners of the precinct into the heart; the laggardly attempt at sorting our ride-along out; and an officer keen to impart his quirky anecdotes.
Eventually after numerous detours we were in a car. Our heroic guides for the evening, Det. Cavanella, 33, and Det. Luizzi, 36, were in position and we were in the back of the cramped car with our pens and paper. Ready. At last.
The car was universally functional aside from a blinging selection of electronics that sat in between the two officers in the front seat. Green lights and flashing red beacons drew our gaze. It seemed germane to begin with a discussion of the elephant in the room: Have you ever been shot? I asked. “No, I haven’t,” said Cavanella. “If you get shot, you’re not in duty anymore. You get promoted.”
The two partners are regular car buddies and they work the 3.30 p.m. to 11.30 p.m shift. They have the same disdain for their constituents as the officer from ten days before. “More filthy people,” said Cavanella as we pass a housing project. This theme continued as he tried his hand at quack sociology, appropriating shibboleths from extreme conservatism. “These are low-income people who just don’t care,” he said. “They don’t respect us, they don’t respect themselves, they don’t respect nobody.”
Our first and only real call to duty of the whole two hours was a surreal case of alleged theft. We were dispatched to 1666 Broadway to deal with a cable box that had allegedly been stolen. A knock at the door was answered by a man with a strong Caribbean accent. “What happened?” asked Luizzi. The man’s patois was so indescipherable that the officers barged past him and attempted to prise something out a woman who was shouting hysterically deeper inside the flat.
Luizzi dealt with the woman, while Cavanella took the man down the block. The two of them shared one bedroom which was overloaded with tidbits and had a bunk-bed on which the two of them slept. In between the decibel-heavy shrieking of the women it eventually transpired that the woman had taken the mans cable card in retaliation for him allegedly taking her gold tooth. A typical Brownsville morality tale.
Luizzi was not happy with this waste of police time. “I’m going to leave now, but if you ring us again and I have to come back, I’m taking both of you to the precinct,” he told them. Contrite they slunk back inside and we were back in the car. “I couldn’t understand a word that guy said,” explained Luizzi as we started off again. “Yeah, me neither,” Cavenella chimed in. “I’m not going to play tit-tat with them,” continued Luizzi. “I actually think there should be a surcharge for calling 911 on a dud call. I know that woman was a crackhead,” he continued, “You could just tell.”
The ride-along mainly consisted of a detailed tourist tour police-style after this semi-incident. “Shootings over there,” says one. “Rape right there,” says the other. The list of iniquities blighting Brownsville is something they relished adumbrating. “There’s drugs – marijuana, crack heroin, you name it,” Luizzi said.
There were various complaints about Halloween which was the next evening. “No respect,” said Cavenella, aggrieved. “They throw eggs at us!” Then we were on to real business. The lights were flashing, the testosterone shot through the roof, the adrenalin channeled around our bodies, our eyes literally popped out of our skulls. And the tone of language took on a dark and spare modulation. A driver had been spotted with one of his back headlights out.
“You guys better stay here,” Luizzi said in a solemn and hushed voice. The doors opened. Their steps could be heard on the tarmac. There was an inaudible altercation and they got back in the car to check the man’s details on their database. “We want to check the veracity of his license and plates,” said Cavenella. Everything was in order. Then into the vacuum of protocol stepped the assailants left foot which protruded out of his car onto the road. He pulled himself out. “Step back in the car,” bellowed Luizzi. The assailant looked quizzical and carried on back and stared blankly at his back lights. “Step back in the now, sir!” Luizzi came again. Out they got and shepherded him back into the vehicle.
The fireworks were over and we drove off again. After about 30 supplementary minutes we closed down for the night and asked for them to drop us off at a subway station, which they duly did. We went into the deli on the way to the subway and they waited in their car dutifully for us to finish, making sure we made it home safe. There was the contradiction. To people they were trained to treat as humans they were perfectly civilized. To those they were trained to disdain and condemn they could summon no courage or independence from the pernicious psychological diktat imposed from their superiors. And to the people they called filthy they appeared nothing but filth.
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