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Stories From the NYPD

Retired Intelligence Detective Gary Jenkins brings you the best in mob history with his unique perception of the mafia. In this episode, Gary interviews former NYPD officer Marique Bartoldus, who shares her 20-year journey in law enforcement. Marique’s book is Twenty and Out: A Compilation of Chaos experienced while serving 20 years in the New York City Police Department. Marique shares exciting life stories on the gritty streets with the NYPD in this well-written book. We discuss her experiences across various divisions, including patrol and SNU or Street Narcotics Unit, and the crazy work of an anit-crime cop in New York City. She explains and highlights the unpredictable realities of street police work. Marique shares gripping stories of high-stress encounters, the importance of quick thinking, and the camaraderie among officers. We also explore the impact of evolving crime trends, including fentanyl, and the personal toll of a career dedicated to community safety.

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Transcript

[0:00]Well, hey, welcome all you wiretappers out there. Good to be back here in the studio of Gangland Wire. I have a show today with a officer from the New York Police Department. We’re going to tell some New York Police Department stories. You guys know that I spent 25 years on the Kansas City Police Department. Well, Marique Bartolda spent 20 years on the New York City Police Department. She’s got some great stories. So welcome, Marique. Hey, how’s it going? Thanks so much for having me. Great. I’m really glad to have you on. I think I’m looking forward to our mutual friend, Vic Ferrari says that you have some good stories. And so we’re going to hear some good stories today. I’m sure of that. Now the book guys, the book guys is 20 and out. It’s a compilation of chaos experience while serving 20 years in New York city police department. Here’s a review. I must say that the author was descriptive enough to set the scene of each story. I love that she She explained everything, which made you feel like you were right there with her. I couldn’t put it down and love that each chapter was a job she went to or encountered. Great job, Marique. So that’s, you know, a great review. And you got like all five star reviews, I believe. And so, guys, you can get that on Amazon. I’ll have a link to it in my show notes. So, Marique, tell us a little bit about yourself, you know, your education. And where did you work with the PD before we get into some stories?

[1:22]So I grew up on Long Island in Malvern, which is right on the border of Queens and Nassau County. I went to New Paltz College. And while I was up there, I realized that I wanted to be a cop in New York City. So I left New Paltz, which is in upstate New York. I came back home and I went to school at John Jay College in Manhattan for criminal justice. I took a lot of law classes and I started going on the law track. I was really thinking maybe I wanted to be a lawyer. And I had taken the test for the New York City Police Department and they called me and I said, you know what? I don’t know about case law.

[1:58]Reading it is fun to, you know, get an A in class or, you know, whatever. But to do this like as a chore for the next 30 years might get a little boring. So I said, you know what? I’m kind of an adrenaline junkie and And I might as well just go work in the police department where I can be outside and not stuck in a room with four walls for the rest of my life. So I went into the academy July 1st of 2002. I graduated, I think, January 1st of 2003 or 2nd, somewhere around there. And then when I graduated the academy, I went into transit in the subways in District 20, which is like Queens North and somewhat into Queens South, a little bit of Brooklyn. Uh, and it wasn’t, it wasn’t my cup of tea. I had a lot of fun down there. A lot of good guys, um, was in the blackout of, uh, I think it was 2003 blackout where like the whole Northeast lost power and we had to go into the subways and rescue people off of the trains and stuff.

[2:55]There were some fun times down there, but it wasn’t the type of police work that I was really interested in. I was watching the RMPs, the police cars going flying by with lights and sirens and stuff, and I’m just sitting there watching turnstiles, and I’m like, that’s the kind of stuff I want to be involved in. So I put in transfer requests and ended up going to the 105th precinct, which is in Queens, right on the border of Queens and Nassau. Really big precinct, runs from like the Grand Central Parkway down to JFK Airport.

[3:27]And I went there, I went on patrol, which, you know, is the lowest part of the bar. I did 4 to 12, which was 3 in the afternoon to 1130 at night, which was my favorite tour to work. Work uh so work with a lot of fun guys on that tour you know busted chops got my chops busted uh and then i went to um i did a response order for a little while we basically only responded to in-progress jobs that kind of cover the gap in between tour changes uh then i went into a conditions unit which addresses quality of life issues like you know the guys who pee and the guys who drink with an open container because that was illegal at the time uh and then from From there, I went to SNHU, which is street narcotics enforcement, which is like dealing with low level street level drug rings. Then I went into anti-crime and then I did field intelligence at the precinct level for a few years. And then the NYPD started a new unit for animal cruelty to investigate animal cruelty. So I went there, which was a brand new unit, got that started, you know, did the training for it for, you know, the cops in the police department. Department, did a couple investigations. And then I realized that wasn’t for me.

[4:36]So I requested to go back. So I went back to the 105th precinct and I ended up going right back into the FIO spot, which was great because it was like my favorite spot. And the girl that had replaced me was getting promoted. So it worked out. And I stayed there for the rest of my career. And all in all, it was a blast. It was a blast. Had a really good time. So you’re using some, uh, some terminology. Some of these guys might not know RMP is radio motor patrol. That’s a police car with a radio in it, right? That’s a March police car. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. Yeah. Talking to a fellow cop. I forget. Yeah. Sorry. Right. Yeah. And the next one was, you just said it, it was, uh, RIO or something. IO. What was that? Oh, FIO field. FIO is field intelligence officer. Oh, okay. Field intelligence officer. So, you know, I looked at some of your stories and, you know, I tell you what, especially dealing with emotionally disturbed people is one of the more difficult things that any cops has to do. I’ve got my own stories. I mean, there’s nothing like having to wrestle a naked man in the middle of the night in the middle of an intersection and it’s hotter than hell. You know, there’s nothing like that. They’re super slippery.

[5:55]They’re slippery as hell. Yeah. I know you got some stories and especially many times they’ll have a knife. I remember looking at a window and there’s this crazed woman with a big butcher knife just raised up looking out at me. It’s like, oh man. And, you know, we just walked away because we didn’t have really, she wouldn’t answer the door and we just had a call that, you know, there was some problem inside, you know, we just walked away from that one. So I know you got some stories about that. Yeah. You know, the knives are always a lot of fun. They make this situation very interesting when you get involved with somebody who’s emotionally disturbed. We had a lot of that. It’s actually, I think, a bigger problem than most people realize. I think the interesting part of the of the EDP or emotionally disturbed person is that you never really know when the switch is going to happen and they’re going to go from being completely compliant to like completely nuts and violent. So what you refer to with the knife, one of the stories that’s in my book.

[6:55]When I was on patrol, we had a call for a neighbor had called about her neighbor who was an EDP and had pulled a knife on her. So, you know, my partner and I get there and whenever you’re dealing with an emotionally disturbed person, you always have backup coming. There’s always another car coming. And in the NYPD, we never worked alone. We always had a partner with us in the car. So I knew there were at least two other cops coming. So we get there and the woman’s like, you know, this guy pulled a knife on me. He’s a little crazy. He went running back inside the house. He’s in there somewhere with a knife. So, okay. You know, all right, whatever. So I’m walking up the driveway and I’m looking into the windows to see if I can see him as I’m walking up, and to glued or taped to every single window pane were cloves of garlic.

[7:41]So I’m like, okay, so either, you know, this guy is a legit Italian and he just likes hanging garlic from all of his windows or, you know, he’s got some kind of Dracula complex and, you know, he’s got to protect himself from the outside world. So I said, okay, here we go. So the back door was open where he had run into. So, you know, you go to the door and you kind of stick your head in, you’re looking around and I don’t see anything. I don’t hear anything. So I yell out police and my PD and my partner and I walk in there and it leads to like a little kitchen area. So I look around. He’s not in the kitchen. So I was relieved about that because you never really want to deal with anybody in the kitchen because, you know, the implements of destruction that are in that room are numerous. And, you know, I don’t, you know, I don’t I don’t want to deal with a knife. And, you know, I got a gun, but I don’t really want to have to use it if I don’t really need to. So I was very happy to see that he wasn’t in the kitchen. So I moved through the living room and, you know, it is eerily quiet in this house. I don’t hear a TV. There’s no radio. There’s no sounds. I’m yelling NYPD, police, but I don’t really want to give away my position too, too much. So I get to the bottom of the stairs and I look up and at the top of the stairs, you can see like the hallway, which was very narrow with the railing.

[8:51]And I mean, the stairway was very narrow as it was. And I’m like, well, he’s got to be up of there. So I got to go carefully. So I take a couple of steps up and I’m looking, waiting. And, you know, I have my hand on my gun just in case, because I don’t know where this knife is. And I’m yelling NYPD and I hear nothing. So I keep going up a couple more steps. And all of a sudden he just pops out and there he is at the top of the stairs with the knife in his hand. So, you know, obviously I draw down on him and I’m like, all right, put the knife down, put it down, calm down. I’m not here to hurt you. You know, let’s just put the knife down. Let’s talk, you know just doing the whole the verbal judo of working on compliance instead of force so out of the corner of my eye i can see the other sector had arrived my backup and then my partner was there so i had like three other cops and they’re all big dudes you know so i’m not really too worried about it but i’m just looking at this guy and i’m like he’s got the high ground he’s got a knife this guy is just going to take a flying leap and stab me in my skull and that’s going to be lights up for me. This is not going to end well for me. I am at a tactical disadvantage. How am I going to handle this? So I’m just like, I’m drawing down on him and I’m just, you know, put the knife down. Don’t do it. Just put the knife down. I don’t want to hurt you.

[10:05]And he’s just not doing it. And he’s looking at me and you can see in his eyes, he’s a little off. He’s not all there. You can see he’s calculating his head. And I’m like, well, I’m not backing down, but going up is going to be a tricky move. So we’re kind of frozen in place for, it was probably a minute, but it felt like, you know, 10 or 11 years because it just, everything kind of slows down when you’re in those situations. It feels like forever. So all of a sudden he just, he goes running down the hall.

[10:32]So I take off up the stairs after him and I go running down the hallway and I see he doesn’t have the knife in his hand. So, you know, as I’m running down the hallway, I put my gun back away. I can hear my, the three guys that are my backup up the stairs. I can hear them stomping up the steps right behind me. So I go to grab him in the room and I, I go to put his, his arm behind his back and what an arm bar position. And I go to take him out. So I did this like leg sweep practice thing. I’m like, I got this leg sweep thing, you know, like me, my new karate moves. So I go to do the leg sweep and I hit the side of his ankle and he just stands there. He doesn’t move, doesn’t go down, like total failure of my maneuver. And I’m like, you got to be kidding me. And I was so mad. So meanwhile, my partners, I guess they didn’t know that the knife wasn’t in that hand. I don’t think they could have seen because my body kind of took up the whole hallway. way.

[11:24]So they see me try and like kick them down to the ground and I’m unsuccessful in my endeavors. So one of the guys, just his inertia just grabs the guy and just pummels them and they both go flying into the wall. And I’m just like sitting there like, man, I just, I was so excited to use my move and it should have worked and it just fell flat. And that was it. So we ended up, the knife was in the room. He had dropped it right next to him. So I didn’t notice it when I was running into the room. But so we got him cuffed up and, you know, he apologized for pulling the knife on me or whatever in a moment of clarity that he had for about two seconds. You know, so I call an ambulance for, you know, an EDP or whatever, and I have to escort him to the hospital because he was violent. So I get into the ambulance with him and he’s, you know, he’s giving the ambulance guy his information, like name and date of birth and all that stuff. And he’s like, yeah, so, you know, I’m the sun god Ra. Yeah.

[12:17]And I’m like, really? Okay. Tell me about that. What does being the sun god Ra entail? So, you know, he’s like talking about all this stuff or whatever. And I’m like, what’s up with the garlic? You know, like, I don’t understand that. And he’s just, so he just, I kind of like interrupted him at one point in his story and he did not appreciate the interruption. So I’m like, okay, you just, you just keep on rattling away. You’re handcuffed on the bed. You’re nice and safe. So, you know, I just sat back and kind of just listened to him for the ride. But at least in that scenario, for an emotionally disturbed person, you kind of like you kind of knew what you were getting yourself into because, you know, he was already violent and he knew it was going to be a problem. There was there was another time where we were actually my partner and I were completely fooled by this one chick. We had been called there by her family and they’re like, she’s crazy. She’s nuts. She needs to go to the hospital. And they’re showing me this key. Ask her what the key is for.

[13:08]So I’m talking to this girl and she’s like you and I. why she’s just normal every day, knows what year it is, knows the president talking about normal stuff. She’s on her phone. She’s like, you know, they’re just crazy. They don’t like me, blah, blah, blah. And I’m like, well, you know, she’s not exhibiting any signs of mental disturbance or, you know, something’s wrong with her. And I’m not really in the habit of like violating people’s fourth amendment rights and just, you know, putting them in a 72 hour mandatory lockup because the family isn’t for it. You know, like I can’t, you know, I don’t know what the situation is here. I don’t know what the problem is. She has an apartment. There’s a nice couch. It’s clean. There’s a coffee table, a TV. It looks relatively normal. I don’t see anything wrong with anything she’s saying. We can’t do anything. So the family was pissed at us. But, you know, I mean, what are you going to do? So we left.

[13:58]So a few hours later, we get a call for the same location for like loud music. The neighbor’s complaining that the apartment’s playing really loud music. So I’m I’m like, you know, I tell Central, the radio dispatcher, I’m like, okay, show me going back over there. You know, we had an EDP at that location earlier because our Central’s change every half hour, hour or so. So it wasn’t the same Central as it had been earlier that evening. So I go back over there and the door’s like ajar. So I walk in and there she is sitting on the couch and the music is just blaring and she lowers the music and my partner starts talking to her. And I’m thinking like maybe somebody’s in here and she’s kind of like hesitant to talk to us and is she being held against her will or somebody’s here that she doesn’t want or something so I’m like let me go look in the rest of the apartment just see if make sure nobody’s like you know hiding around a corner so I go into the kitchen no tables no toaster on the counter there’s just it’s nothing I go into the next room which I think would have been a dining room and there’s nothing there there’s no dining room table there’s no rug there’s no it looks like somebody Somebody had moved out and took all the furniture. And then I look at the window and where the window clasp is to lock the window, there was tinfoil.

[15:08]On all of the windows. And I’m like, okay, here we go. So, you know, I look around the next corner into the bedroom, no furniture. The only room that was furnished was the living room that we had happened to be in earlier in the day. So I said, okay, you know, tinfoil is a good sign of somebody who’s like a paranoid schizophrenic that they think people are listening and the tinfoil kind of blocks the signal from permeating their home. So I go into the room and I, you know, my partner doesn’t know this, right? Because she’s been talking to her the whole time. So to alert my partner without saying it outright, I said, you know, I mean, I’ll say I think in the book I use the name Jane. I don’t remember what her real name was. And, you know, I wouldn’t say it anyway. But I said, you know, Jane, what’s up with the with the tinfoil on your windows, dude? What’s going on with that? And she’s like, you know, so now my partner knows like something’s up. So she goes, well, there’s a mailman that sits in the back parking lot and he tries to listen to my conversation. So I put the foil on the windows to block him from listening. I said, okay, here we go. We got a little problem here. So I’m like, you know, your mom was talking to me earlier about a key or something. I’m like, what’s that key for? And she’s like, oh, it’s for the White House. She’s like, George Bush gave it to me. It’s for the White House. It opens the White House door. I’m like, okay. So I’m like, all right. So my partner keeps distracting her. So I kind of like turn away and I get on the radio and I’m like, you know, I need an ambulance to my location. I am an emotionally disturbed person here. Okay.

[16:32]EMS gets there, and I didn’t have any further coming. I told the other sectors, like, we’re good here. I figured my partner and I can handle her if she does try and resist, but she was relatively calm. She’s trying to do a fashion show. She’s putting on a jacket, and she’s walking back and forth and saying, look how gorgeous I am. I’m like, yeah, you look great, but those heels look like they hurt. Why don’t you just sit down and calm down a little bit and just take a rest off those six-inch heels you have that are going to be thrown into my eyeball in about two seconds.

[17:02]So EMS gets there and she goes into full blown, I’m not going with them. They’re not authorized. I don’t know who they are. You know, I have to go see the president and all this other stuff. So we tried to work with her. And as I’m sure you’re aware, it’s very hard sometimes to negotiate with emotionally stirred people. It’s you try and do your verbal judo. And I’m very big on let’s talk our way out of this instead of fighting our way out of this because it just makes everything so much easier. year. So he just wasn’t, she just wasn’t going. And I said, okay, now we have to handcuff her because she has to go to the hospital. She’s, she’s crazy. She needs meds to, you know, not to put it very nicely, but that’s just the fact of the matter. So we ended up wrestling with her a little bit. We get her into the handcuffs. So we’re in the ambulance and the EMS guy is asking her information on the way to the hospital. And she’s like, I’m not telling you anything. I’m not giving you any information. So the EMS guy looks at me and he’s like rolling his eyes. So I said, I lean over to her and I kind of like whisper and I’m like, listen, I work for the Secret Service. We are going to the White House, but we have to verify your identification. You’re being recorded right now. Give him your information. He is authorized to obtain it.

[18:12]She looks at me and she like opens her eyes and I’m like, yeah. So she turns to him and gives him the name, the address, the date of birth, you know, Social Security number, all kinds of irrelevant information to validate that, you know, she is the person who needs to go and speak to the president. I think it was Bush. I think President Bush was the president at the time. So I’m like, okay, at least she’s compliant. So now I’m thinking ahead to like the psych ward in the hospital, right? So it’s like the two double doors that are locked. You have to be buzzed in. Then you walk down like this long white hallway into like the little triage area where you sit with the nurse and they go over, you know, whatever the situation is and log them into the procedure to the hospital. So I’m like, you know, I don’t want any problems there because I’m thinking this chick needs help. And if they see that she is resisting in any form, they’re going to strap her down to the gurney. And I don’t, I, you know, I felt bad enough that she was in handcuffs. So I said, you know what, let me, let me prep her for this. So I lean over and I’m like, listen, this is where we’re going to go. We’re going to go into the hospital, but it’s actually a front for an underground tunnel that leads to the White House. And you’re going to go there and you’re going to be filmed. And if any of you, if, if you act out at all, it’s going to be recorded and you’re going to be denied access to talk to the president.

[19:23]She’s like, okay, okay. And she’s on board with this. So some people think about this and they’re like, yo, you are messed up for like going along with this chick’s mental disturbance and you’re just validating her mental instability. And for a point, yeah, okay, you have a point. But at the same time, if I don’t play into this, she’s going to get violent and it’s not going to end well for her. And it makes everybody’s lives easier. So we get to the hospital and I’m like, okay, here we go these are the doors remember you’re being monitored behave yourself be quiet just walk calmly so i had taken the handcuffs off of her before we got out of the ambulance so i’m like i think i think i have her now right because we had been talking and explaining and i was telling her about you know my secret service experience and all this other stuff i was just making up, so we get into the nurse’s office and meanwhile the ems guys looking at me like, these chicks are both crazy like i got two edps on this bus not just one which is you know like Like, whatever, man, it’s the mean to the end. So we get to the nurse’s station and we go in there and we sit down and the nurse is like, okay, you know, and I leaned over and I said, listen, this nurse is an assistant to the Secret Service. She has to vet you, give her your information. She’s authorized and whatever. So, you know, she gives her the information. The nurse is looking at me and that’s all she deals with is EDPs. So she’s like kind of keeping her mouth shut and she gets it and she’s going along with it. So they’re like, okay, you got to take your jacket off and everything. And she’s like, I don’t want my jacket because they give her the hospital gown.

[20:48]And I was like, no, you’re not allowed to wear long sleeves because we had an incident where somebody hit a knife up the sleeve and tried to stab the president. So we have to make sure that you don’t have long sleeves on. And she’s like, OK. So she takes the jacket off. And then they’re like, you know, we need your stockings because stockings can be used to like hang yourself. So they had to take have her take them off.

[21:08]So she’s like, no, I’m not taking my stockings off. And so I lean over to her and I say, listen, as the Secret Service was doing multiple investigations, we found out that there was a way to put metal filament into stockings that would act as recording devices. And we’re not we don’t want your conversation with the president to be recorded because it’s highly confidential. So now I hear my partner and the two EMS guys who have decided to hang around for the show laughing hysterically in the hallway. way. And I’m like, shut up. Like, I got this chick. Like, let’s just go. So, you know, they’re like, where is this chick? Where is she coming up with this stuff? But my EDP looked at me and she’s like, oh, I didn’t know that. I’m like, yeah, we just discovered that, too. It’s a pretty clever invention, but it’s a problem. And this is, you know, you’re having a highly classified meeting with President Bush. OK, OK. Takes off the stockings, give them to the nurse. So I’m like sitting there and I’m like, you know, the nurse is going to start admitting me because how am I even like, where is this coming up from in my head? I don’t even know. But I’m like, they’re going to admit me into the psych ward too, because they’re like, you must be crazy for like getting along with this intense psychosis here. So in any case, she went voluntarily and, you know, I guess she got the meds that she needed. But I think it was a few months later, I think I get a phone call from on the desk. So the desk phone only rings if it’s like a major person.

[22:30]So I answer to the phone and it’s like, you know, secret service agent, whatever. So I’m thinking in my head, it’s one of the guys pranking me, right? Like this is just some BS nonsense and I’m getting my chops busted. But the job was so far away. It was like months prior.

[22:45]And I’m like, that’s not really, you know, like the, the bull busting usually happens like immediately. It’s like a, the immediate gratification that you get from the child busting. So I’m like, I don’t know. I don’t think this, I think this might be legit. And the guy’s telling me he’s secret service agent. He’s got a, uh, a girl there and she was trying to get into the white house and she, you know, she’s saying my name and that I authorized the trip to the white house. And I’m like, oh my goodness. I’m like, I’m like, yeah. I said, does, does she have a key? And he’s like, yeah, she has one key on her. And I’m like, yeah, that’s my girl. That’s yeah. She’s just emotionally disturbed. She’s not trying to kill the president or anything. She’s not like a real threat. So I guess they psyched her down there. And then I think it was like a year later when I got to work, I was told somebody’s waiting for me. So I go over to where the civilians wait to talk to the cops. And there she is. And she thanked me. She’s on meds. And she understood that she was having visions or whatever was going on in her life and that she was on meds now. And she straightened herself out and she like wanted to thank me. And I was like, you know, you’re welcome. No problem. I’m glad that you got yourself healed. But that was a, that was an interesting time. And I think it was, you know, I think it kind of got out like, you know, Mons, which was the name that the guys called me at work. It was my maiden name.

[24:00]Mons is a little nuts. She gets along with the EDPs. So if you have an EDP job, send her over because the crazy recognizes the crazy and they, you know, they’ll, they’ll get along. And I’m like, yeah, man, whatever. whatever, you know, nobody got hurt. That’s the name of the game. So yeah.

[24:18]Speaking of crazy and crazy jobs, you talked about you were a street narcotics unit. I, I never really worked street narcotics, but that’s a crazy deal. Larry hit those streets and make those street buys and everything. But how was that? I enjoyed it. We had a team, it was five guys and the sergeant. So it was, you know, we were a very tight unit. We worked very close. And back then marijuana was legal. That was illegal in New York city. It’s legal now, but it was illegal. And I mean, for anybody who, I get a lot of people who are like, why are you locking people up for weed? It’s just a social thing, whatever. But from the experiences that I had, weed is always tied to some type of criminal act, whether it be gun possession, bigger, more, more powerful drugs that are, you know, felony drugs like heroin and crack and Coke. And it’s always tied to criminal activity. It’s not the innocent, you know, like hippie love and peace drug that people try and make it out to be. So the object of the game then was to get the drug dealers off of the streets to, you know, clean up the streets. We don’t want to see open deals and we don’t want to see open use. So I had a job one time, you know, and we would drive around in like unmarked van and an unmarked car.

[25:36]And we would, we would drive around and kind of just look and see what we found. And then sometimes we would target dealers and, you know, try and pick off the buyers and stuff. So one time it was like, you know, I worked six at night to two in the morning then. And so we’re driving around and we see this car. It was like a summer night. All the windows are down. And I mean, there was the cloud of smoke that was coming out of this car from the weed was like unbelievable. It was like, you know, it looked like somebody was barbecuing there. There was so much smoke.

[26:04]So and it’s clearly weed you could smell it as soon as you pull up so we we get there and, it’s like okay you know uh what what do we got going on guys how’s everything going you know just just verbally talking them down what’s up you guys are smoking weed no big deal you know like we’re just we’re just gonna you know it is it’s a desk appearance ticket we’re just gonna have to bring in you know cut you loose no big deal just we need you to step out of the car so So we always grab the driver first tactically because then at least the car can’t move. Right. Get the keys. Yeah. Like you got, you got to get the guy who can like run you over out of the car first. So, so we always remove the driver first. So we, we go to open the car door for him and he just grabs onto the door frame and he’s, it’s a tug of war for opening the door. So my partner’s in front of me and he’s trying to open the door and he’s a pretty strong dude. And I’m trying to like squeeze my hand in there so that, you know, I can just push the frame open and my boss is reaching over us trying to fight. And we’re in a tug of war for this stupid door. Cause he doesn’t want to open it. And I’m like, in my head, I’m thinking this is it’s weed. Like, it’s not like a felony. You’re not going to be going to jail. This is ridiculous. You’re going to go to the precinct and be released in a couple of hours. And that’s it. And he’s fighting. And the three of the girls in the car are just sitting there and they’re just like, you know, just smoking away as like, you know, cause it’s like, and in my head, it’s like, yeah, go ahead. I mean, you’re, we already got you for it. So whatever.

[27:27]So, um, so there’s like razors in the door handle. So he starts reaching for the razor. So my partner’s like, yo, he’s got bleeds. So now it’s like getting a little hairy. Cause I’m like, he’s going to start like slashing us. And that always gets messy with blood everywhere.

[27:40]

Stories of Emotionally Disturbed Persons

[27:41]So instead of doing that, when my partner yelled at, he got bleeds, he starts yelling.

[27:49]And sure enough, from across the street, out comes Mama in, you know, her pink fluffy slippers and her bathrobe and her hair curlers with the shower cap on. And she just runs across the street. Why are you beating up on my boy? Why are you beating on him? The police is violating.

[28:04]You know, and going through the whole normal tirade of, you know, how we’re violating people’s, you know, civil rights and all sort of nonsense. And I’m like, toots, he’s smoking weed. Like, calm down, back off, whatever. So we ended up, you know, getting them out of the car and he was still wrestling around with us. So I sat there and I said, bro, if you had just gone along and just put your hands up and been handcuffed, you would have been released from the precinct and you would have had the girls with you and you would have continued on your night and, you know, bought more weed and smoke some more. I’m like, but instead you decide to fight with us. You go grabbing bleeds. You know, you fought with us after we were trying to cuff you. Now you’re going to go for like resisting, which is like, now you got to go to the booking. So you like screwed yourself and you’re calling for mommy big mistake dude girls are not they’re not coming back you know and it’s like what are you doing so it was fun you know like the the pickup callers were always interesting like that and uh we we set up a couple of times on we had a a spot where it was a very organized drug deal where they had like hats for the guys who were actually having the weed and the steerer would take the money and he was a block away and he would text the seller so that if you went to go buy, you’d go and give your money to this guy. He would text the dealer, okay, he’s good for a dime or he’s good for, you know, a half ounce or whatever.

[29:23]And then you would walk over to the dealer and he would just give you the weed. So, and you know, sometimes they kept the stash for themselves or sometimes they kept it stashed like, you know, in a car on top of the tire or, you know, in the phone booth because they used to have the paid phone booths or whatever. So So sometimes he had it near him, but it was smart because then, you know, you’re either going to lose the weed or the money, usually never both, you know, in their minds. So we, we set up and it was, it was a summertime and we needed somebody to go on the roof of the supermarket to kind of call out the shots and see what was going on. And I’m like, all right, I’ll go up there. I’m going to get nice tan. It’s going to be, you know, nice and peaceful up there, you know, not realizing the roof was going to be 120 degrees in the sun and I was going to be just baking up there. I kind of forgot about those details that are kind of important. But so, you know, I’m up there and I’m calling out the shots and, you know, you kind of like, okay, this guy’s going to buy, this is what he’s wearing and you wait for him to kind of walk way off the set before my guys go and grab him. Cause you want to give the dealer a heads up, but in order to prove that he’s dealing, we have to have the products that he sold to show that he’s actually dealing weed and not like oregano or something. So we did that a couple of times and we had a couple of buyers. And so I’m like, okay, we’re good to take down the dealer. So my boss gives the go ahead for the takedown. So I’m watching from the roof.

[30:43]And I see my guys pull up and they go, you know, up to the dealer and the dealer sees them. And I’m like, oh, I saw the twitch. He’s going to run. He’s going. And sure enough, boom, he takes off, runs across the street, hops a fence and I lose them because there’s trees and stuff. So I’m, you know, I’m calling out like he’s in the yards, you know, go block over. He might be running through the yard. A little while later, my, my guys on my team come out with him and he’s limping a little bit or whatever, but nothing crazy. So I go back to the precinct and my boss is like, yeah, your, your boy is a, cause it was my arrest.

[31:13]So he’s like, he’s, he’s refusing medical attention. And I’m like, okay, whatever. I go into the cells and it was a guy that I had known, you know, he’s a well-known drug dealer. I’m like, what’s up, bro? And I see him standing there and I see the bone pushing against the skin of his leg. And I’m like, yo, your, your leg is broken, dude. You gotta go to the hospital. And he’s like, no miss. I’m okay. Just send me right through the bookings. and I was like, wow, this guy is like, he doesn’t care. He’s just going to deal with a broken leg. Like how much pain this guy must’ve been in. I told him, dude, you’re not going to make it through EMS and central booking. Cause once you bring the perps to central booking, which is where they hold them until their arraigns, they have to see EMS. And if EMS says they’re sick or something’s wrong with them, they go to the hospital, but they don’t like doing that because they know it delays. It pushes them back in line. They don’t get back into the line for arraignment until they get back from the hospital. So he didn’t want to go to the hospital. I said, listen, bro, you got to go to the hospital. I’ll bang out your paperwork. I’ll get your fingerprinted or whatever, but you got to go. And…

[32:15]I gave him, I gave him a lot of credit for that. I, he, he didn’t lie and say the cops beat him up. He, he hopped the fence and landed on a motorcycle and broke his own leg.

[32:23]So instead of being like, yo, cops beat me up. Look, they broke my leg. I’m suing for a hundred million.

[32:29]He was like, I, I, I hopped the fence. I landed on a motorcycle. It happens. And, uh, you know, he took it and he was even taking the pain. So I saw him after that. He always walked with like a cane or a limb, but I appreciated and gave him respect because at least he wasn’t a total scumbag you know really it is what it is yeah working the streets like that uh those street dealers and and into that thing man i tell you what it there’s action action action constant you know chasing people and trying to duke on them trying to catch them dirty and they’re trying to keep you from catching them dirty it’s it just there’s some wild ass stories we were we were working crack dealers and there’s like one on every other third corner so my guys just got the van you remind me the guy’s got the van and and we’d like somebody sit back and watch or somebody actually one of the narcs would go by and make it by of a rock 25 rock and then he radio and then we’d radio the guys in the van and in order not alert everybody else the van would start driving by kind of slowly and there was somebody two guys inside the sliding door and they’d pull pull up next to this guy. And he’s like, you know, thinking he’s going to make another sale. They’d open that door, reach out and snatch him, pull him in, slam the door and take off again. So we kept that going for about two hours. They didn’t, they, their, their dealers just kept disappearing.

[33:55]That’s almost like kidnapping right there. They don’t know what’s going on. It’s like, hold on a second. I am not dealing crack, man. Those dealers are going missing dancing like crazy over there. So you talked about, uh, working intelligence at the street level. So I, and I know that a lot of, when I was a young policeman, we had nothing like this at all. You know, you were just each individual beat cop, if you will, that you were, I was responsible to find out who was who in my district. Some people did that and some people didn’t because you had to get out of your car and go meet people and talk to people in order to find out, you know, who was, who was doing the crime and who was just, you know, styling and profiling, hanging on the street corners. And so So what was that like for New York? You had like an organized setup to do that. Yeah, it was, it kind of, the program kind of grew on its own and was really highly successful. So when I first went into the unit, it was me and my boss. It was just the two of us. So we were responsible for basically any time a prisoner came into the precinct, we would debrief them. You know, the detective squad would have their job of like, you know, if they, you know, confessions or if they knew anything about other stuff. But we were always interested in who’s got guns, who’s selling drugs. And, you know, if they know anything about the shootings or homicides or anything like that.

[35:19]So we would work jointly with the squad a lot of the time, but it was mostly the goal was to to sign up informants. So if, you know, they were willing to work, which a lot of people actually are, which was very helpful because sometimes the only way you’re going to get into some of these groups is with an informant. And it’s just the fact of the matter. And it’s like, you know, I would tell people, like, I don’t live in your neighborhood, but I’m sitting here trying to make your neighborhood safer so that, you know, your grandma can walk to the grocery store and not be robbed. And, you know, like, I know you know stuff.

[35:54]Information helps. You don’t know what can help us. Let us know. And, you know, so I would sign these guys up and we would work with them and create cases and do, you know, controlled buys of narcotics or gun sites and gun buys and stuff and ends up with search warrants. That was the goal, get a search warrant and get the guns and get the drugs and lock up the guy and build a good enough case where they would, you know, get jail time for their crimes. So it was a lot of fun because it was like you were kind of hiding in plain sight. You know, we had like a rental car and we’d go out and like even sometimes the cops that I worked with wouldn’t even see us set up on stuff. You know, we’d like we’d be watching or like our informant would be going somewhere to go do a buy. And like always happens, there’s just like a 911 call at the same location for something totally different. And you’re sitting there like, not right now, not right now. And I’m like, oh, gosh, this is going to – we got to like pull him – all right, pull the informant back.

[36:53]We got to wait for the cops to go because I don’t want the cops to lock up my informant when they just did a drug buy or something, you know. It’s like – so those things always happen. But it was a lot of fun. It was just me and my boss. We would go out there. We would do what we had to do. And we got a lot of guns and a lot of drugs off the street. It was a really successful program. And we worked with other FIOs or field intelligence officers from.

[37:16]Surrounding precincts and throughout the entire city so it was a it was a very it was very successful now did you have a liaison with the uh narcotics people that as you maybe develop somebody and then you could kind of work on up the chain did you get into that much or, atf or whoever you know you really had somebody who’s dealing a lot of guns did you liaison with other units like that yeah um i mean working as a cop which i’m sure you know you kind of you know when you’re on patrol you work with these guys and everybody kind of graduates to other units eventually some people stay on patrol because you know patrol’s awesome it’s a lot of fun and it works for people with steady hours and stuff yeah um but a lot of the time these guys would go into other units so i ended up working and it’s good because you have a rapport with these people already in these other units so we worked with uh narcotics a lot with guys that i worked with on patrol they went to narcotics so we worked with them jointly on cases uh we worked with the ATF and like the organized crime division of the NYPD on a bunch of cases on, you know, people selling guns and stuff.

[38:24]It was, it was good because it was, you know, you collaborated with these other units and you learn new tricks of the trade. Sometimes you taught them new tricks of the trade. And I mean, even there was one time we had some information that there was like some methamphetamine coming in from overseas.

[38:42]So we contacted JFK and we’re like, listen, we got a tip. This is what’s up. So they’re like, all right, come on down. And, you know, we’ll set up on this guy and we’ll grab when he comes off the plane. So NYPD doesn’t really have technical jurisdiction in that area. We kind of have to rely on the port authority police to go do their thing and like Homeland Security guys. So we go down there and it’s nice because you’re kind of like, it’s not you in charge, right? You’re just sitting back, you gave them the information, you know, you’re kind of, you’re, you’re doing surveillance is basically your only job. Keep an eye on this guy and make sure you don’t lose them. And of course our luck is a national geographic was doing some TV show, like, you know, uh, caught abroad or, um, smuggle smuggling abroad or something like that. There was a TV show. So we get there and I’m like, you’ve got to be kidding me. Like, I don’t want this on TV, but I guess it had been a slow week for them. And like the, the National Geographic guys were like, this is great. We got to get this on film and put it on TV. And my boss and I are like, this is, you know, we try and avoid the TV cameras. Like, you know, we don’t want our guy to get killed here.

[39:45]So, uh, you know, that, that threw a definite wrench in the operation, but the, it was going to be put on TV, like so far down the road that it wouldn’t have mattered or whatever. So we ended up, you know, grabbing that guy and he had like, I don’t know, 4,500 pills on him or something. And, you know, that was, that was fun. So you do work with other units and I guess because we all have, especially back then, we all had the same goal. So it wasn’t like.

[40:12]It wasn’t like we were working to get the accolades we weren’t working to get the medals and the recognition and anything if anything we didn’t want the recognition i don’t want my name on you know the the chief of department’s desk for any reason good or bad i want to be unknown, um but so you didn’t you didn’t work for things to get the awards and the medals and you know the promotions or whatever you kind of just did it because it was the right thing to do and who knows how many lives this is going to save and stopping people from od’ing and stuff.

[40:42]Especially when Fentanyl came out, you know, it was like, we gotta, we gotta really step this up and get this stuff off the streets because it’s going to kill a lot of people. So it was, it was a blast. I mean, even sometimes not to, I’m like going on and on here, but it’s just bringing up memories of like one time we were, we were going to pick up an informant, my boss and I to go do a buy. So I’m driving and we have a rental car we use like rental cars so it has no light package it’s got no no police nothing it just looks like a normal rental car I’m in a fishbowl rental car yeah that’s what I come a slick car so we always called a slick car we’d buy for our unit and the other undercover units they just buy use rental cars and each to each two guys had a rental or had a car assigned to them so yeah yeah maybe have a radio and a handy talk that was it yeah Yeah, that’s all you had was your radio that you brought with you. Like the car had no equipment, you know, it wasn’t, that’s, but it worked because nobody, nobody saw you, even though the windows weren’t even tinted. They just, it looks like a regular car. So, you know, I’m driving down the street and I come to like a four way stop and I look to my left and I just see this car flying.

[41:51]And I’m like, he’s not going to stop at that stop sign. And I’m looking at him and the driver, you know, most people drive in a like, like this, this guy is like up looking around, you know, like I can almost see the whites of his eyes. His eyes are so big and he’s flying and he blows right through the stop sign. And I said to my boss, I go, cause you know, he was on the phone checking his emails and stuff. I said, yo bro, he something’s up. He just did something. I don’t know what it is, but he did something wrong. And as I’m saying that my radio comes over the, the sector comes over the radio and they’re They’re like, yeah, we have a GLA, a stolen car. And he starts, you know, going over with the information.

[42:32]So I come over and I’m like, you know, FIO to the sector direct. I go, you got the plate on that car? And now, you know, I turn and I’m following him, right? And he gives the plate and I’m right behind the car. I’m like, yep, that’s him. So I put it over, then I’m following this car. That’s now a fresh steal, right? They just stole the car. So this guy doesn’t make me, but there weren’t a lot of cars on the road. So I’m kind of trying to follow. He had slowed down now that he was like further away from the scene. So I’m trying to follow him at like a half a block away, not letting him know that I’m following him. But I know eventually he’s going to make me because there’s no other cars on the road at this time. I’m like, you got to be kidding me. So he makes a couple of turns and then I’m like, all right, he’s made me. I said to my boss, I go, he’s going to bail. So I’m driving as I’m putting over, you know, westbound on this, eastbound on this, northbound on this, waiting for like, where are my sectors so that they can pull this guy over? You know, it’s like they’re trying to catch up to where I am. So he turns a corner. He guns it, turns another corner. And I see the cars stopped on the side of the road, driver door open, perps in the wind. I just see the tail of him go running through somebody’s backyard. So I slam on the brakes.

[43:40]I leave my car like sort of in the middle of the street next to the perp’s car. There’s nobody else in the car. So my boss goes running into the backyard. But I’m like, I’m not hopping all those fences. And I can hear because it was wintertime.

[43:56]

Navigating the Streets: Drug Enforcement

[43:53]I can hear him breaking branches as he’s going through the yard. So I’m like, I’m going to just head him off. So I go running in front of the houses as I’m hearing him hopping fences. I’m breaking the branches. And I’m putting over the addresses that the house that he’s behind or whatever. And he just he keeps going. I mean, these guys, you know, they’re gazelles. When they’re going, they are gone. They have the speed of cheetahs. I never caught anybody in my life. Never caught anybody in my life.

[44:21]Unless they break a bone. Yeah. It’s like, you’re just not going to catch them. You know, and of course I’m not prepared for like a foot pursuit. You know, I was going out on a bike. I’m lucky I had a vest on because usually I wouldn’t even, you know, I’d have it in the back of the car. But I just, for some reason, I think because it was cold, I just put an extra layer on. But so luckily I had that. But I was like, you know, I’m in like boots. I’m not in like running sneakers. You know, I’m like, this is just, I’m not set up for this.

[44:45]So I’m running down the block. I get to the end of the block and I hear him hop the last fence and I don’t hear anything now, but I hear the rest of the guys, the sirens and stuff are going to where my car I had left at a block previous. So I go over the radio. I set up a perimeter so that we have the whole block surrounded. Okay. And I kind of just turn the radio very low and I like kind of crouch down because I’m like, I know he’s in this yard. Right. So he hops the fence and I come out from the bushes and I just draw down on him. And I’m like, do not effing move. Stay right there. Get on the ground right now. And he just looks at me and I’m looking at him and I’m like, get on the ground, get on the ground. And he’s like, no. And he turns around and he hops the fence. And I’m like, son of a gun, man. You gotta be kidding me. I had him. I should have just tackled him. But, you know, I mean, I don’t know. Whatever. Hindsight 2020. I’m thinking he might have a weapon. You know, I’m by myself over here. Nobody knows where I’m at. And I’m a girl. I’m not as strong as he is. It’s just not, you know, you can do whatever moves you want, but it’s not hard to be overpowered. So I’m like, so he goes hopping back. So I put over the radio like he’s coming back to you guys because now I can hear, you know, my guys coming this way from the branches breaking. And then my boss comes over and he’s like, we got him. You know, I got him. I got him in the backyard. yard, you know, whatever. And I’m like, no, man, I sent him back to you. I had him like.

[46:08]So I was all aggravated about that. But then I get back to my car and my door that I had left open when I got into this foot pursuit was pushed the wrong way. So now it was like parallel to the front of the car, the motor, like it just totally got pushed. And I’m like, who hit my door? So one of the other cops comes over to me and he’s like, yo, bro, I’m sorry I hit your door. And I’m like, Like, this road is literally four car lengths wide. You had like an entire lane to go around my car, but you had to hit my door. I’m like, this is a rental car. It’s not like a peasy vehicle. Like, now we’re going to have to pay to fix it. Now I have to go to accident retraining, which is two days off the street. I’m like, you got to be kidding me right now. So yeah, I go to accident retraining and I’m like, yeah, I’m here because somebody else hit my car because I left my door open in hot pursuit. But this is my situation. No fun. But, and then I didn’t even take the collar because one of the other guys was like, you know, do you mind if I take this? And back then we weren’t, you know, I didn’t need to make arrests then. And I had so many already. I’m like, yeah, dude, you know, knock yourself out. You can have it. So I didn’t even, I didn’t even get the collar. I said, which is an arrest. It was like a lose all the way around. Yeah. Well, one thing about working intelligence, like you said, you just want to stay in the background, pull some string, get some shit done and move on to The next thing it keeps the report right now.

[47:32]Yeah, I don’t want to have to be responsible. I mean, not to, I feel like I’m rambling on with stories here, but every time you talk, it reminds me like I, we had a job because I did warrants, right? So I would do my own self-initiated search warrants, but then if patrol needed a search warrant for something, I would also assist them with it, especially because we had a lot of new guys and I would like to help them out. You know, like when I was a rookie, all the old timers helped me out. So I felt it was my responsibility to do the same with the new guys. So my boss and I are driving around doing recon for a bunch of cases that we had. And we hear like, you know, barricaded EDP with a gun in a house, right? Like hostage crisis, whatever. So I’m thinking to myself, well, they’re going to get him out. If he’s got a gun, they’re going to need a warrant. So let’s just go over there because they’re going to need us anyway. Anyway, so we take a ride over there. By the time we get there, the cops have the street totally taped off on both sides. You know, there’s crowds at either corner.

[48:26]The ESU tack truck, the big black one, you know, like the heavy duty like army tank one is in the middle of the street. You know, I can see the guys tacking up and I’m like, this is great. I don’t have to do a thing. I’m just going to hang back here behind the police lines and just kind of like watch because, you know, my job was going to be after all of the excitement kind of ended. So I’m sitting over there and my boss goes and sees a cop that he knows from another unit. So he goes over and talks to him. So I go over to like a bunch of civilians that are on the corner and I’m like, hey, guys, what’s going on? And, you know, I’m in plain clothes. We worked in, you know, jeans and a T-shirt was our uniform of the day. So they can see I’m a cop, though, because, you know, I have my vest on and my shield is, you know, on my on my belt and stuff. So I’m like, all right, what’s going on? And they’re like, well, you know, uh, our dad is, uh, is in the house and, uh, it’s, it’s, uh, you know, he’s, he’s got a gun and all this other stuff. And I’m like, your dad, I’m like, all right. I’m like, is anybody on the phone with your dad right now? Like, is your dad talking to anybody? And they’re like, no. And I’m like, oh, okay.

[49:28]Somebody, somebody missed a step here. I don’t know what happened, but I got here late. But so I said, can you do me a favor and call up your old man and let’s get him on the horn here. They call him up and he answers. And I’m like, hello, sir. You know, this is Detective Bartoldus from the NYPD. I hear you’re having a bad day. What’s going on in there? So now I’m like kind of involved, right? So as he’s talking to me, I said to the family, where is his house? Where’s your house? So they point. And I assume they point to this house across the street. So I said, OK. So I go underneath the police tape and I start walking. And my boss is like, Mons, where are you going? And I’m like, I got the guy on the phone. I’m going to go over there. And he just like rolls his eyes and starts laughing at me because he’s like, you can’t even, this is something you don’t even need to get involved in. And you’re still somehow involved. So I go walking down the block and, you know, I’m talking to him or whatever. And I’m like, well, you know, I go, I hate talking to you on the phone. Like, I like to talk to people face to face. Do you want to like come out here and just come and talk to me and, you know, whatever, like, I want to try and help you out here. This seems like a problem we can solve together. And he’s like, you know, all right, you know, I’ll try and come out. So now I’m, I’m halfway way down the block and I’m standing in front of where the ESU, you know, army tank truck is and I’m facing what I think is his house.

[50:41]And I hear my boss yelling, Mons, Mons. And I look at my boss and I’m like, I got it. We’re good. You know, I’m giving a thumbs up. I got it. And then I hear my name being called at the other end of the block. And I see my anti-crime guys at the end of the block. They’re like, Mons, Mons. And I’m like, yo, I’m good. I’m like, I got it. What’s up? You know, I’m like oblivious. I’m still talking to this guy on the phone.

[51:01]And then I hear somebody behind me yelling, Mons, Mons, look out. And I turn around and it’s my buddy who was now in ESU at the door of the barricaded EDP with the gun, which I had my back to the entire time. So here I am walking into this really serious scene, talking to the guy. And I had my back to the target location where like, I was a perfect target at this guy. I want to take a shot at me. And everybody’s yelling at me to tell me like, take cover. And I’m just like, yo, I’m good. I got this. We’re good. And they’re like, are you nuts? And I’m like, yes, I am. You know this about me already, but it’s okay. So, you know, the ESU captain like pops his head up from behind the truck and he’s He’s like, detective, come over here. You’re not safe where you’re standing. And I’m like, yeah, I see that now. Sorry about that. So I ended up talking to the guy. I said, listen, come on out. Let’s, you know, let’s talk this out or whatever. So I got him to come out and, you know, we got him in. And he was just, you know, he was an older gentleman. And I guess him and his wife just didn’t have a good day. And, you know, he just, he was at the end of his rope. So we were able to get out of that situation, you know, without any problems. But boy, did I take some serious shot busting on that one. I can’t even imagine what that would be. You’re supposed to be the intel guy. You’re the intel guy. You don’t know what house you’re supposed to be watching. I don’t know, man. Oh, yeah. Well, as they say, all’s well that ends well. Yeah.

[52:26]But that’s why being a cop is awesome. You never know what’s going to happen. You never know what the day is going to bring.

[52:32]

Understanding Anti-Crime Operations

[52:32]One last question. You mentioned anti-crime. And I’ve seen that term used in books and heard that term, but I never really knew exactly what that meant. What is an anti-crime squad at the NYPD?

[52:46]Um, it’s the goal is to prevent crime before it happens. So you go out in unmarked cars and plain clothes and you just kind of drive around and watch people and try and get the jump on people, grab the guns, stop the robberies from happening. Or if it’s already happened, you know, go find the part and, uh, and grab them. Okay. These are the guys that maybe go out, act as decoys, maybe like act like you’re drunk and falling down. You got a billfolder laying beside you. And then you got a little surveillance team watching for somebody to come up and try to take your money. Yeah. I mean, we, you have to get special permission to do that. We, I mean, I did, we did prostitution operations. So I would dress up as like a prostitute and do that kind of a thing. But in anti-crime, we didn’t really, we didn’t really have decoys set up. We didn’t kind of like put the bait out there and wait for somebody to jump on the bait. We kind of just waited to see, I mean, we, we kind of knew, you know, you have your gang members that you know, and you have your, you know, robbery recidivist and your burglar recidivist and stuff. And I I worked nights almost my entire career. So you kind of knew the crews and who was out there and who was going to cause the trouble and stuff. And also you knew like, okay, these guys are always out there. So if something goes down, you know, they’re going to see it. So if something goes down in their area, it’s like, listen, guys, we’re going to, you know, be out on your corner interrupting your social hour every day unless you help us out with who did this. So it was a little bit of that stuff, but it was more like just trying to stop the crime before it happened. Okay.

[54:15]I guess I had one other question. Now you stirred me with something and all of a sudden I can’t remember what it was. Oh, the reverse sting, what we call reverse sting for the street prostitution. We used to do a lot of those. Now I had a tax squad and we would be periodically, we would have to take our turn in the rotation. They’d get women from all over the police department to, to be the prostitutes on the street. And then we’d run the bus and make the arrest and have the chase car and all that kind of stuff. And there were some wild nights on that doing that. I don’t know. Some gals like doing it and some hated it. So which one were you? Did you like it or did you hate it? Yeah, I think I think it went both ways for me. So it was fun. It was a fun. It was fun time because it’s like just the craziness that happens. But part of me was like, this is like entrapment, man. You put a girl out there scantily clad. This isn’t really fair. You know, they’re like, I don’t know. I feel bad about doing this. You know, like it’s a win win for both people. The guy gets happy and the girl gets paid. You know, like I guess I didn’t realize at the time, like the the you know, the trafficking that occurs with it. But there’s so many other ancillary violence that goes along with it. And in my small mind, it was like, you know, you’re just, I feel bad for these guys. But, you know, it was a lot of fun. I mean, there were a couple of hairy moments that we had.

[55:36]I wrote about in my book or whatever where I’m like, oh, this is not going to end well for me yet again. Here I find myself in this ridiculous scenario. But it was a lot of fun. You know, you go out there for a few hours and, you know, sometimes you prevent some crime, which is good. Yeah. Then y’all get together and have beers afterwards and go on home. Oh yeah. Yeah. The beers were always afterwards. You know, it was like, it was, it was, they called it four to 12, but it was really a four to four cause you went to work from four or three to 1130, but you didn’t get home until four in the morning. Cause you went out drinking afterwards. So it was a four to four. Yeah.

[56:14]All right. Marique Bartonis. Thanks a lot. This has been great. Great. Those are great stories. And guys, there’s a lot more great stories like this in this book. It’s a page turner, I’m told. So really, thank you for coming on the show, Marique. Thank you so much for having me. I had a great time. All right, guys, you know, I like to ride motorcycles. So watch out for motorcycles when you’re out there on the streets. And if you have a problem with PTSD, if you’ve ever been in service, be sure and go to the VA website and get that hotline number. And hand in hand with The PS PTSD goes drug and alcohol addiction. And our friend Anthony Ruggiano, former Gambino soldier is now a drug and alcohol counselor down in Florida. And he has a hotline on his website. So, Hey, if you’ve got a problem, go get hold of Anthony Ruggiano. Then tell me about it. What that was like. That would be interesting. And other than that, you know, like, and subscribe. And I’ve got a couple of movies out there on Amazon. You can rent for a dollar 99. I’ve got a book out there. and Marique’s got a book out there. There will be links in the show notes down below and like and subscribe. Give me a review if you think about it. So thanks a lot, guys. And one last time, thank you so much, Marique, for coming on the show. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

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