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Ah, my reporting days. No, you're not going to see another recollection of
the good old times working on the Daily Bugle and scooping the world on the,
ah, endowments of Jane Russell or Jayne Mansfield, after which we all
adjourned to Bleeck's for liar's poker and a round or two of Martinis.
The principle with my reporting was the same as the above type -- get the
story and get it right -- but I did mine in a uniform and not for an editor
but for some gold-braided character in Headquarters waiting to take one's
work product apart and send it back for wholesale revision.
That was how we pictured things anyway, but truthfully it wasn't a real
picture. We actually rarely heard from downtown about our breaking stories,
indicating that the police administration was satisfied with our work or thought
it was beyond help or just didn't care and for all we knew, shredded
everything we sent. This was short-sighted, I thought, because with opportunities
lacking for personal contact, reports from the front offered the best chance of
getting to know something about the people sending them.
If I were on the receiving, instead of the sending end, I would have used
reports as a tool for appraising the work of the authors and a training aid as
well. This might not have worked too well with detectives, who customarily
sent skimpy reports for the purpose of blindsiding the defense lawyers who
might get ahold of them. I saw things differently and sent elaborately detailed
work in, with the same idea. Different strokes for different folks.
So, if I had been doing the judging, a lot of stuff submitted would never
have been accepted and would have been sent back to make a new start in life.
A lot of this kind of thing came from lower ranks that lacked experience in
coping with the six commandments of correspondence as laid down by the high
command. They were of course When? Where? Who? What? How? and Why? The last
was the most often omitted. Not usually by captains, though, who by the time
they attained the rank, had accumulated enough experience to get things right.
You could still be second-guessed as I will try to show here. One Wednesday
afternoon in Queens two cops got lucky and spotted two teenagers running
from a burglary they had just committed in a nearby house. They were
transported to the Bayside station house and proceeded to lay out things for the
detectives interrogating them. They admitted to about a hundred burglaries by
themselves and other youths with all the proceeds being fenced by a local man,
Frank DeMarco and his son Frank Jr. In his occupation Frank Sr. usually
carried a couple of guns for protection.
The detectives and uniformed men split up their work by agreement, with two
cops heading off to the DeMarco address to watch for any signs of Frank taking
off with his loot as a result of the arrests. Two perpetrators had escaped
the arrests and could be warning him to escape. A team of cops went looking
for them. A team of detectives and uniformed men left for the Queens
District Attorney's office to get a search warrant for DeMarco's house which when
issued could be executed by the men watching it.
All this was short-circuited by DeMarco and son suddenly emerging from the
house and speeding off in a late-model Ford. The surveillance team gave chase
in an unmarked police car and got abreast of them. They stopped in the road
and the sergeant in pursuit , watching out for DeMarco's reported guns,
stopped behind them and got out to order them out of their car. This gave the
suspects the opportunity to accelerate onto the road again and put distance
between them and the pursuit. But the sergeant and driver were broadcasting
directions over the car radio and local radio cars were joining in the chase.
A cavalcade of cars followed the DeMarcos through the local streets and on
and off two highways until finally they attempted a U-turn over a road divider,
crippling their car but causing the leading police car to to stop short
behind them, after which there was a pileup of three other cars behind them. The
total casualties were three police cars towed away for repair and the
DeMarco car towed to the stationhouse for examination of the loot carried in it.
The number of injured cops totaled six, mostly suffering from whiplash and
similar injuries. The DeMarcos emerged unharmed. But at least they were
arrested.
The questions rained down from headquarters. Who questioned the original
arrestees? An unusual question. Who cares? We said they went to the
detective office and were informed of their Miranda rights. That's always been
considered enough information.
Then -- How did uniform, detectives and plainclothesmen all get
involved in this together instead of remaining in their own watertight compartments?
(Several such questions.) Hey, it was a combined operation. Everybody had
a piece of it. Is something wrong with cooperating with each other?
Did anyone get a search warrant for the Batkay apartment? (Twice) This is
one of the original escapees who was later found in a garage with a couple of
stolen rifles. We never searched the apartment -- no need. Gotcha.
Why the chase? Was there a serious crime involved or just stolen goods?
Please, stolen goods from a hundred burglaries is serious. So were the
allegations that the DeMarcos had guns. All the people who've gotten their stolen
property back think we did right.
Finally -- Didn't the high-speed chase for a possibly insufficient reason
violate department guidelines by unnecessarily endangering innocent
pedestrians and motorists?
Aren't you inferring (implying?) that since none were hurt, only cops due to
bad brake linings on a police car, that the chase conformed to standards?
Are you claiming the end justifies the means?
Well, no, that's not the cliche we would use. We think the proper one is "
The proof of the pudding is in the eating," i.e., the fact that no citizens
were hurt proves we were not fighting through heavy traffic or plowing through
crowds or even groups of pedestrians, just as we claimed. So there.
The foregoing is not the actual language we used in rebutting the inquiries
we got from on high, but it's in the spirit. We heard no more from them.
Ever. |
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