NEWSLETTER

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You know what it’s like to be a cop? It’s boring. All you do is drive around all day and occasionally go listen to some shitty liar tell you a cockamamie story about what just happened. Then you get back into the car and drive some more. If you’re lucky the monotony is broken up by a meal. If you’re not it isn’t. Here’s what we learned riding around with New York cops for 13 hours.


FIRST SHIFT 7AM-2PM
Precinct 24 - Harlem

7:00 We arrive at the 23rd precinct in Spanish Harlem hoping to catch roll call, which is like, the biggest deal or something. But the mean boss lady with the crisp white shirt and tight ponytail won’t let us watch. She asks us if we’re there with the DA or the police force trainee something-or-other. We’re all, “Um, neither.” “So you’re here on your own accord?” she asks. We nod. She shakes her head and walks away. We don’t get to see roll call.

7:15 There is a cheerful dude wearing a backwards baseball cap, big silver cross chain, and low rider jeans who seems to be really interested in talking to us. “You’re gonna have a great time today,” he says. “Probably at this time of day you’ll be seeing a lot of domestics” (as in violence). How does he know, we ask? “I’m an undercover.” Ah, that explains the bling.

7:30 We smoke a cigarette on the precinct steps and are officially loitering. No one cares.

7:35 We finish smoking and go back inside. Some guy says, “Aren’t you guys supposed to be riding today? I think they forgot about you.” We panic, but the desk person assures us that our guys just went to get gas or something and they’re coming back for us.

7:50 Still waiting. The station is littered with dozens of missing persons fliers. We are certain that the goth-looking kids from upstate are runaway junkie crusties hanging out in Tompkins Square Park, while all the young Rican girls are now hooking at The Point. There is a flier that says, “MISSING: Dorothy Rogers, Age 88.” Um, what? Turns out sometimes grandmas need to run away too.

8:24 Finally we meet Poncho and Frankie, our cops for the day. Poncho is 24, Hispanic, and quite a sparkplug. Frankie is 32, Polish, and more of the strong, silent type. They’re super polite to us, and if we are inconveniencing them (which we’re sure we are), they don’t show it. Poncho opens the back door of the car for us and tells us to hop in. We had been told that we were required to wear bulletproof vests and we ask where they are. Frankie laughs and says, “Sorry, can’t find ‘em.” We shrug and climb into the back seat, which is so cramped we can’t even fit our legs in and we have to sit Indian style.

8:32 We’re off! “Hollywood Nights” is blasting on the radio. We’re feeling pretty psyched up for this early in the morning. We’re ready to stop crime and save lives! Let’s go!

8:45 We’re crawling at 10 miles an hour down empty streets. Our initial buzz is wearing off in a major way. Poncho looks back at us and smirks. “Boring, no? Actually, I prefer it this way. Nice and quiet,” he says. Unfortunately for us, today is the first day of Spring Break so it’s bound to be a slow day. On a regular school day, Frankie tells us, we’d be called to the local public high school maybe three or four times for “disorderlies.” “They can’t handle their own,” he says. “We go and break up fights everyday. It’s ridiculous.”

8:56 At a red light, a cab driver starts waving frantically at us. Frankie rolls down his window and the driver yells in some sort of excitable Spanish dialogue. Turns out the woman in his cab is pregnant and her water just broke! Let’s roll, boys!

9:02 We race through the streets with the siren on as the cab follows us. We go through red lights. Cars ahead of us pull over like the waves parting for Moses. We even get to go down a one-way street the wrong way. Hooray!

9:09 We arrive at Mount Sinai Hospital and they load the pregnant lady into a wheelchair. For a woman about to give birth, she is very nonchalant. She’s texting people on her cell as water spreads out all over her Miss Sixty jeans. We’re guessing this is not her first birthing experience. Poncho and Frankie wheel her through the hospital like perfect gentleman, waving to every nurse on the way and knowing all of them on a first name basis, like, “Hey Gladys, you taking care of those rickets?” Pretty cute, right? The nurses come and whisk our mom-to-be away and we leave, trying not to step in any amniotic fluid on our way out. Ew.

9:20 Back in the car, we wait as our boys fill out all kinds of paperwork and reports and stuff. While we’re sitting there, we hear the dispatcher lady on the radio pronounce the car Hyundai like “High-unda” and we all crack up for a good five.

9:30 We’re cruising again. “Funkytown” on the radio. The 23rd precinct—or “the two-three” in cop talk—is the smallest in the city, extending from 96th to 106th Streets and from the FDR Drive to Third Avenue. We circle and circle and circle. We ask the guys a million annoying questions. Do they enforce jaywalking? Only in heavy traffic areas like Times Square where it could cause an accident. What’s their favorite cop movie? “Lethal Weapon is OK.” Is there a daily ticket quota? This question irks them. “It’s not like that,” they assure us. Do you get to choose your partner? Yes, you try out different people and then you basically propose to the one you want to be partners with. That sounds just like getting married, we say. “Well, we sure fight like an old married couple,” says Poncho. “Oh, mi amor, mi amor,” Frankie jokes back, patting Poncho on the shoulder. Next we ask about hooking up with lady cops (they are both single) and if that happens often. They just shrug their shoulders and say, “I guess that sort of thing happens wherever you work.” Touché.

9:50 As we drive around, Poncho and Frankie make sure to wave and smile to a lot of the neighborhood locals. It’s very Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, and it’s very cute. “We like to know people by their first names around here,” explains Poncho. “It’s much nicer to say, ‘Is there a problem, Mario?’ then to say, ‘Is there a problem, sir?’”

You get the feeling that these guys have wanted to be cops since they were little kids, ever since Joe the Policeman appeared on the “What’s Going Down?” episode of That’s My Momma! “I used to work in a pharmacy,” Poncho says. “Now everyday when I get up for work I’m happy and excited. I love this job. Something different happens everyday.” Poncho has slicked-back hair and shades on. He’s got a lot of love to give and you can tell being a cop isn’t going to stop that.

9:54 Frankie and Poncho pull up to another cop car parked on the street and start flirting with the two lady cops inside. It’s smiles for miles. The lady cops drop their tough facades and turn into two regular girls from Queens who just got their nails done. “Hey, don’t break my mirra!” the pretty lady cop says when our car pulls up too close to theirs, and they both break out in giggles. “Have fun! Behave yourselves!” the girls shout as they ride off. “Always!” Frankie yells back.

10:00 Lunchtime. Poncho and Frankie get the early lunch shift so that means lunch at 10 AM. Frankie has brought his own lunch today while Poncho is just going to work out in the precinct’s gym. They ask us what we want for lunch, if they should take us to White Castle or something. It seems like every 20 minutes they’ve been asking us whether we’re hungry or thirsty or need anything. They look out for us. We ask them to take us to McDonalds; it’s still early enough for the breakfast menu.

11:00 After lunch we go back to the precinct to meet our boys, but Poncho is running late. We wait with silent Frankie who’s just standing around, bullshitting with some other cops. One of the guys he’s chilling with is a big guy named Officer Doody. We’re dying. We take pictures of the precinct cat, Oscar The Grouch. Patches of his fur are missing and he is incredibly dirty, but the cops seem fond of him.

11:09 We squoosh back into the backseat. “Dust in the Wind” is on the radio. Frankie cranks it. They tell us that there was a call about a female being harassed in Central Park but we missed it because of lunch. Fuck.

11:22 Poncho and Frankie give a guy a ticket because his brake light is out. “Having a broken taillight can be potentially dangerous,” Poncho says. “Sometimes people only look at one of the lights, or sometimes the sun hits it in a way and you can’t tell whether or not the car is stopping. This causes accidents.” Can’t really argue with that.

11:28 After filling out what seems like an eternity of paperwork, they immediately pull another dude over for another broken taillight. These guys are on fire! They say it’s because they just gave the other guy a ticket for the same thing, so it wouldn’t be fair if they didn’t give this guy a ticket too. But really it’s because Poncho didn’t eat anything during his lunch break. He’s cranky. He’s got low blood sugar and is now taking it out on society.

11:42 Ticket given for a double-parking violation. “Poncho,” we say, “It’s time for you to get a snack.” He pulls over to a fruit stand and grabs a pear and some tangerines. Now what kind of lunch is that?|

11:55 We drive into a park. It’s fun driving in the park. They tell us that they get a lot of problems in the park in the summer. “People drinking, smoking, shooting up—and in front of kids. It’s not cool,” Frankie says. And it’s true, doing those things in front of kids is not cool. The park is like these kids’ backyard. It’s the only grassy area anywhere up here. So go shoot up in your own backyards.

12:03 We notice that there is a huge swimming pool in the park. “God, pool duty is the worst,” Frankie says. “I had it one day last year. Never again!” We ask him why. “The kids always try to push me in the pool. They think it’s really funny. Ha ha, push the cop into the pool. Real funny.” We look at each other and laugh, because it is pretty funny.

12:55 We have been circling the neighborhood for what feels like forevs. It’s warm out and we keep trying not to nod out in the backseat, but it’s so cozy and peaceful (and totally fucking boring) we can’t help it. “Jeremy” comes on the radio and Frankie sings along. It’s like he’s singing us a lullaby and we fall fully asleep for a good ten minutes.

1:06 We’re awoken by the dispatcher lady’s voice on the radio saying that there is a hold-up at Rite Aid! Yessss! Our siren goes off, and we are in hot pursuit.

1:12 False alarm. We walk into Rite Aid and there’s just an old lady buying Peeps and Rolaids. We’re crushed.

1:20 Poncho has a treat for us. He says that since we’re in Spanish Harlem, we can’t leave without trying some authentic Spanish Harlem cuisine. They take us into a small little Rican hut and buy us these things that look like super-deep fried pierogies filled with cheese and meat. “The best in the city,” they say. They also buy us Diet Cokes since we’re girls. The Spanish pierogies are actually pretty good, but all we’ve eaten today are Egg McMuffins and we feel like crap. The warm, melted cheese makes us even sleepier and even the Diet Coke can’t keep us up.

1:36 We pass a methadone clinic on 103rd and Lex and spot a grizzled-looking fellow puking in a trashcan. “Look, a guy puking!” we point all excited, hoping they’ll wanna check it out. “Nah, that’s quite common,” Frankie says. Poop.

1:45 Poncho and Frankie tell us they have to go to court at 2 PM for a traffic violation. Our ride is over. “Well, ladies, it’s been a pleasure,” they say. On our way back to the precinct, we pass an old woman walking with a little kid holding a balloon. “Happy Easter!” the woman waves to us. “Happy Easter!” Poncho and Frankie wave back. Just another sunny afternoon in El Barrio. Thanks Frankie and Poncho!

AMY KELLNER & LESLEY ARFIN


CONTINUED:

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