My Dumb Observations

The Manhattan bound train is empty as it lurches forward and begins its midnight journey out of Coney Island. Winter winds whip through the train as passengers slowly board at every elevated station. Most are headed to a night shift job or New York night out. My police radio is dead silent. With only one year on patrol I have yet to learn the best crime fighting efforts do not come from police executives or politicians, but from the tendencies of Mother Nature. My assignment to late night train patrol was precipitated that winter by a ‘lush worker.’ He was cutting open the pockets of sleeping passengers to remove personal items while they slept. The crime is not atypical for the hour or area, and the eyewitness description of the perpetrator was a black male 18 to 30 years old wearing a black jacket, black jeans, and armed with a box cutter. My platoon had been briefed numerous times about the robbery pattern, and with rookie ambition we certainly generated many stop and frisk reports...

Enough already with thinking the police WANT to stop and frisk minorities. Reading media accounts of those stopped, one would think the police were frenzied cowboys running amok. Some articles suggest the police are financially compensated for stopping young black men and secretly rewarded for violating the rights of others. Of course the NYPD is not without fault for creating adverse reactions in many communities, but the overall issue needs a common sense middle ground. As a lifelong Brooklyn resident and a police officer, maybe a different perspective is in order. I haven’t been a frenzied pig my whole life, but I have been stopped and frisked more than most. In fact, during my adolescence I’ve probably been “tossed” more than all the New York columnists combined, yet I never came away with any more negative feelings for the police than I have today. Growing up on the streets of Brooklyn, I was associated with a large, loud, and disorderly group. We did not have community recr...