Authors: Patrick Abbruzzi
“As you all know and are very much aware, we have been undergoing a lot of shit and heat from headquarters. Our original watchdogs came because a supervisor made a decision to take action. Right or wrong, it was his right to do so. Jamal Green was not the innocent victim here. Whether or not common sense was used in the decision making process is not my call. Green was out on sick report and in his own command fucking around. Sergeant Kellin didn’t tell him to violate the procedures, Green did it all by himself and he got caught. As a result, he was written up and got transferred.
“Now Green is probably making overtime up the fucking ass in Manhattan while we all fucking suffer here! Like it or not, Green was wrong and
Kellin was right. I told every damn one of you to drop the shit you were playing with Kellin, didn’t I? Of course, now some fucking scumbag had to go and steal his fucking paycheck, and whoever did it is a fucking, scumbag motherfucker! If you had any balls at all, you would admit it now!” Lt. A. bellowed.
Frowning at his men, he waited for a few minutes to see if anyone would admit to the theft and wasn’t surprised when he was answered with a deadly silence.
“What are you, a fucking chicken?” he roared. “Don’t you know that within twenty-four hours another check will be cut? You all know me. By now you should ALL know I would walk through fire for a fellow officer! I would not hesitate to back you up to the fucking Police Commissioner if you’re in the right. I would do that in a heartbeat for a good cop though, not for the lowlife scumbag who is hiding among you. How do you know that
Kellin’s wife or kids didn’t need that money right away? Maybe they needed it to buy medicine.”
He paused as his eyes scanned the faces staring back at him.
“Cops’ wives really don’t know what we do. They read the biased newspapers and see bleeding liberal hearts on TV describe what an officer does in such a biased slant that it almost always seems as though we are judged by Monday morning quarterbacks who don’t know a fucking thing about police work. We bust our balls every damn night, putting our lives on the line, and now we have some fucking scumbag cop, here on my late tour, hurting a fellow officer’s family.”
Lt. A’s face was flushed with anger.
“Damn you! If you’re so angry at Kellin then approach him like a man and duke it out, you fucking, yellow coward! I swear to fucking Christ that if I find out who did this, I’ll break your fucking face and then put the cuffs on you myself! You had better put in for a transfer now because in my eyes, you’re a dead motherfucker!” he yelled.
None of the men in the room had ever heard or seen their beloved boss yell so loud or become so irate. The troops all knew the Lieutenant loved his fellow officers as well as how very much he
despised dirty cops. Everyone at roll call was silent and had no doubt at all that the boss meant every word he spoke.
“If there is one among you who is decent, step forward and tell me if you know who it is. If you’re not comfortable doing that, then for God’s sake at least call Internal Affairs anonymously and report it. Whoever did this should visit the Wall of Honor at One Police Plaza and read about real cops who have given their all. Those were, and always will be, heroes and great men.”
Lt A’s voice was solemn as he slowly began to calm down.
**
No coffee run was made this night as Charlie and Lt. A. continued their tour of the streets. After telling his story, the Lieutenant didn’t waste any time in asking some questions.
“Do you think I was too hard on them, Charlie?”
Charlie didn’t know what to say. He tried to place himself in the boss’ shoes but it was difficult. He just didn’t have that awesome responsibility.
“I’m not a boss, Lou, so I can’t really say one way or another,” he finally answered, trying not to make that decision.
“You’re missing the whole point, Charlie. It’s not about being a boss. It’s about being a cop, a good cop. People shit all over cops all day long, from the
skels on the street to the bleeding liberal hearts, both in the media as well as those inside the ivory tower of police headquarters. Someone has to stick up for the good cops. Someone has to support the cop who does a dirty and distasteful job day in and day out and then gets shit on by his own kind. If someone stole your check and you had no doubt that your fellow officers knew who did it, wouldn’t you want them to help you out?” the lieutenant asked.
Charlie knew Lt. A. was right but he didn’t want to be a rat either. The blue wall of silence was entrenched deep, even in good cops. Nobody wanted to be a rat no matter what the cost. Charlie also knew that the boss was right about a cop’s family, even though he didn’t like that part.
“The fucking coward who stole
Kellin’s check has accomplished one thing and one thing only. He’s succeeded in bringing down the late tour just like Truman destroyed Japan. We are going to be decimated and the heat will last for God knows how long. Your buddy, whoever he is, hurt an NYPD supervisor. Do you think this is going to go away by some miracle?” asked the lieutenant as his eyes flashed with anger. “It probably will mean my transfer out of this precinct that I love and that I wanted to retire out of.”
“Why would you get transferred, Lou?
”
asked Charlie.
“They will hold me directly accountable for this one. It’s almost tantamount to a mutiny on the high seas. The theft of a supervisor’s check is a theft from me as well as them. If I can’t come up with the responsible scumbag, I’m gone. What’s worse is they will replace me with the hardest and meanest lieutenant they can find.”
Charlie didn’t want to lose his beloved Lieutenant. He had to figure out some way to get the men together and help the boss solve the problem; well, everyone except Donnelly. Although his desire to help was strong, Charlie really didn’t expect too much from his comrades. Once again he knew that the blue wall of silence was solid, especially on the late tour.
One might often wonder what the difference was between police officers or doctors who refused to testify against their comrades who made life threatening errors in operating rooms. How does a police officer who goes out on patrol night after night with his partner expect to turn in his partner to whom he owes his very life? It’s not easy; in fact, it is one of the hardest things imaginable for a cop. It’s not as if men who sit at desks all day long are expected to turn in tax cheats. Police officers depend on their partners eight hours a day, five days a week. Their very existence is based on trust that their partner will not let them down and stand toe to toe with them when they face the grim reaper in the form of a six foot giant who refuses to move when directed.
The blue wall is as complex as it is controversial.
Ten
The effects of the looming threat of transfer for Lt. A. became obvious when he started to reminisce about his appointment to the force.
“You know, Charlie, I came on the job in 1965 and graduated from the Police Academy in July. I can remember it as if it were yesterday. It was a swelteri
ng day with weather reports calling for record breaking temperatures and high humidity. Not surprisingly, Macy’s department stores were reporting their highest ever sales on air conditioners and fans.
“I was a just rookie back then. It was so hot that the pavement on the streets made you feel like you were in an oven and the black tar oozing off the street stuck to our brand new Knapp shoes. Five hundred of us were ready to graduate from the academy and take our positions as probationary patrolmen. That was the polite name for us – Probationary Patrolmen – but everyone in the department called us Rookies. That’s all we heard for the next twelve months.
“Our graduating class was so big that we had to use the 59
th
Street Armory as the site in order to accommodate friends and families for our graduation. Each one of us had on our brand new, never worn before uniforms. Our hats were navy blue with black felt that formed a band above a shiny black visor. Our shirts were also navy blue, not at all like the sky blue shirts we wear today, and they had brass buttons, held on by a metal clasp that were actually removable. This meant you had to take them off before you either washed the shirt or brought it in for dry cleaning.
“Graduation was an official department ceremony which meant we had to wear the summer blouse. The term blouse was a misnomer because it really wasn’t a blouse; it was more like a blue sports coat with brass buttons. It’s similar to what we wear today but much heavier. The department allowed it to be worn at any event it deemed fitting regardless of what season it was. I actually had to wear it one Christmas Eve when the temperature was hovering around eight degrees. Some things change and some do not.”
Lieutenant A chuckled as he continued.
“We still had to wear our white gloves back then with the summer blouse, just like we do now. They were normally held in place by little clasps and buttons at the wrist, but the ones I wore the day I graduated were totally different from those we wear today. Although they had them back then, we didn’t need the snaps that particular day because the high humidity made the gloves stick to our hands like cotton candy.
“I was 21 years old and I remember it like it was yesterday. We were all idealists about to make New York City a safer place to live. We were husbands, fathers, sons and some of us were Veterans, all of us looking for a secure job.
“Freddie Bock was our company Sergeant. He wasn’t really a Sergeant, though. He was really just another cadet like the rest of us. Since he was the oldest and had been in the service, he was given that dubious distinction. The company Sergeant was the point of contact between the administration office and our individual company of recruits.
“On graduation day, Freddie had been given our field assignments before the actual ceremony but he was told not to tell anyone anything until after the event. We all badgered him but he held his ground and didn’t say a word. After the ceremony our entire class surrounded him; photos with family and loved ones took a back seat to Freddie. Hell, we all wanted to know where we were going to be assigned!
“The roster was in alphabetical order and, of course, I was first,” Lt. A. said with a smile.
“Audenino, the one,
”
Freddie said.
“If he were to say that today, naturally he would have said the 1
st
, not the one,” said Lt. A. “As you should already know, cops address precinct designations in a certain jargon. For example, the twenty fifth precinct is the two-five. The one hundred and twenty third precinct is the one-two-three.”
It began to make sense to Charlie. He remembered being told that Lt. A. had been born Giovanni
Audenino. Giovanni is Italian for John, and the Lieutenant had been named after his mother’s father.
Lt. A.’s grandfather had been born in a little town in Italy called Turin, located somewhere in the northern Alps. He came to America in the early 1900's and settled on the lower east side. He was a baker by trade but the Irish influence in New York at the time prohibited him from following his profession. As a result, he found himself in construction and worked on the building of many projects that were underway in New York City at the time.
Eventually, the Lieutenant’s grandmother and grandfather moved to Staten Island in Sunnyside. Clove Road was the main thoroughfare dividing the wasp end of Sunnyside from the section where his grandparents settled.
“That area was called nanny goat town because most of its inhabitants were Italian who had goats, chickens and other types of animals,” Lt. A. explained. “The White Anglo Saxons on the other side looked down upon the ‘Guineas,’ whom they considered inferior. The Anglos strove to buy big houses with huge pieces of property.
“My grandfather, whom I affectionately called
Nonno, had a green thumb and grew anything and everything from tomato plants to fruit trees. He used to take me on walks through the woods where we would search for mushrooms after a rain. Thankfully, he taught me how to distinguish poisonous ones from edible ones.
“Those same woods are now where the Staten Island Expressway stands.”
When Lt. A. graduated he was assigned to the 1
st
precinct in lower Manhattan, which was located on Old Slip. Today the building is used as the New York Police Department Museum. Before it was re-configured to be a showplace for police archives it was used in the filming for the motion picture
Serpic
o
starring Al Pacino.
Lt. A. and his entire class of recruits were assigned to subway platforms on the newly created 4
th
platoon. Their shift was from 8:00 P.M. to 4:00 A.M. and was boring and monotonous to say the least.
“After I finished my stint in the confines of the subways in downtown Manhattan I was given the opportunity to be a foot patrolman in the 1
st
precinct,” Lt. A. continued, “and it wasn’t long before I learned why the 1
st
was called the ‘flying first.’ As one of three brand new rookies, I was lucky if I worked once a week in my own command. I always worked my first tour in the 1
st
before I ‘flew
’
to other commands for the rest of the week. The various commands of the city had ongoing details and there was always some group or organization demonstrating or protesting something which required a police presence.