Street Warrior Read online

  Begin Reading

  Table of Contents

  About the Authors

  Photos

  Copyright Page

  Thank you for buying this

  St. Martin’s Press ebook.

  To receive special offers, bonus content,

  and info on new releases and other great reads,

  sign up for our newsletters.

  Or visit us online at

  us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup

  For email updates on Ralph Friedman, click here.

  For email updates on Patrick Picciarelli, click here.

  The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

  This book is dedicated to all the men and women of the NYPD, past, present, and future, fighting for justice—be it in a court of law or at the end of a nightstick.

  FOREWORD

  As the former commander of the 41st Precinct (Fort Apache) in the South Bronx, I was well aware that the word “legend” wasn’t an overused term in the area. A legend, if it came to the Bronx, was most likely suited in a Yankee uniform. But that belief was to be challenged by a young man in a blue uniform by the name of Ralph Friedman.

  When you read this book, you must understand something critical. We weren’t playing on green grassy fields; we were playing on bloody, potholed streets. In 1971 the New York Police Department engaged in 314 shootouts. Ninety-three hoodlums were killed and 221 were wounded. We lost 15 police officers and had hundreds wounded. This is the environment in which Ralph Friedman found himself. He would be stabbed, bitten, assaulted, and shot at too many times to count. There wasn’t much of a change in the city until Rudy Giuliani became mayor.

  Legends grow incrementally as time goes by. After Ralph left Fort Apache, his reputation grew with each new Bronx assignment. I could tell you of his physical strength and agility, his incredible arrest records, his gut-wrenching involvement in fifteen unbelievable gun shootings, or the drama of his private life. But that’s best left for you to read.

  I’d rather tell you one story that convinced me that Ralph would become a legendary police officer. In March 1974, a man was exchanging gunfire with two uniformed officers. When Ralph arrived on the scene, he immediately jumped onto the hood and then the roof of a Cadillac. Ralph leaped onto the culprit and, after a furious battle, was able to subdue, disarm, and arrest him. And so for me began the legend of Ralph Friedman, aka Superman.

  Captain Tom Walker, NYPD (Ret.)

  Bronx, New York

  2017

  Prologue

  November 1, 1972—Confines of the 41st Pct., the Bronx

  My problem—if you can categorize it as a problem—was my affinity for the part of police work that involves locking up bad guys and the resulting satisfaction versus spending a lot of time in court as an outcome of making those arrests.

  I lived to work the street. And after two years in the New York City Police Department, I was living my dream being part of the 41st Precinct’s Anti-Crime Unit. The Four-One, located in the South Bronx, was known as Fort Apache and was just about what you would expect of the Wild West in its heyday. Being assigned to the Four-One was the best on-the-job training any cop could get, and I’d arrived there right out of the police academy. I’d learned more in two years than I could’ve learned in a lifetime in any other command, making enough quality arrests before I was twenty-three to get an Anti-Crime slot, and I relished every minute of it.

  The court thing, however, bugged me. I never looked forward to the hours—sometimes days—of boredom that was the norm for cops taking their arrests through the system. On one particular day, I’d been switched from my normal tour of 6 PM to 2 AM to a day tour so I could go to court on an old case, and I was relieved when it turned out to be a short visit. I returned to the command around noon and was told to team up with police officer Kal Unger, who had also returned from court, and we hit the street.

  Kenny Mahon was my regular partner, but since my squad was working the night tour, I was paired with Kal for the remainder of the 8 AM to 4 PM day shift. He was about my age, maybe a year older, with sandy hair and a dry sense of humor. We’d worked together in the past, but not very often. He was a great cop, but that was a given if you made it to Anti-Crime.

  Anti-Crime cops worked in plainclothes and used their own vehicles most of the time, along with confiscated cabs, milk trucks, Con Ed vans, and anything else with wheels we could get our hands on. I even used my motorcycle on occasion. We patrolled like the uniforms only didn’t normally pick up 911 calls for service. Our job was to arrest offenders, and we were good at what we did. We didn’t delude ourselves into thinking that the bad guys didn’t know who we were; how long does it take to “make” a cop who works in the same command every day and drives the same vehicles? To overcome the recognition factor, we often took to the roofs or struck quickly before the alert went out that 5-0 was around.

  Today, we were in Kal’s Volkswagen Beetle.

  “Got any place special you wanna go, Ralph? You hungry?” Kal said as he eased the bug into traffic. The engine whined like a lawn mower, and my first thought was that I hoped we didn’t get into a car chase.

  This was the standard question. The beginning of a tour was a cop’s time. Traditionally, it meant coffee or a quick bite to eat before you got down to the business of fighting crime. Not too many dining choices in the Four-One, however. A cop ate in local restaurants at his own risk—you never knew when a cop-hating short-order cook would include a surprise in your sandwich—and I’d made sure I had lunch in a clean place outside court that catered to the court crowd. Realistically, Kal’s question was rhetorical; we both wanted to get right to it and lock someone up.

  “Nah, just go,” I said.

  The first hour was typical. The portable radio never stopped spewing out calls; the Four-One was a busy place. Assaults, burglaries past and burglaries in progress, numerous disputes, the usual knifings, blatant drug deals, and other general mayhem—all this in an area of 2.5 square miles. A tour in Fort Apache was like ten tours anywhere else.

  The people in the Four-One were mostly Hispanic, with some African Americans and a smattering of white faces (older folks who’d lived in the neighborhood since birth, when the area was actually upper middle class). Now the area was steeped in poverty, drugs, and a crime rate so horrific that a week without at least three homicides was newsworthy.

  The afternoon sped along. Kal and I backed up uniformed units on radio calls, harassed a few street punks we knew weren’t really doing much (but certainly would commit at least one felony before the day was over), and asserted our authority, sometimes overreaching it. This was the South Bronx in the ’70s, when “PC” meant “police commissioner” and the term “political correctness” had not yet entered the lexicon widely. In the Four-One, if a police officer wasn’t feared and respected, he would get chewed up and spit out, which usually meant an assignment elsewhere in the city where local kids didn’t set their parents on fire for fun.

  It was a very cool and exceptionally sunny day, the glare bouncing off the windshield with laser-like annoyance. The neighborhood streets, while somewhat crowded, didn’t contain the teeming humanity that would’ve been present during the summer months. In the humidity festival that is New York during July and August, the South Bronx natives spill onto the streets in an effort to escape the stifling heat of the tenements and high-rise projects. Street gambling, drinking, and hanging out on building stoops were usually a precursor to violence. The h
igher the temperature, the hotter the tempers flared, and assaults and homicides were sure to follow. You knew autumn arrived in the South Bronx when the domino games moved indoors and the homicide rate began to dip to very high, down from extremely high.

  Soon after we’d lost count of how many times we’d driven every street in the command, and with our stomachs growling louder than the car’s motor, we contemplated a trip to a neighboring precinct, where we wouldn’t get poisoned grabbing something to eat. In the middle of our food fantasy—two of cops’ favorite topics are food and sex—the radio run that would change our lives came over the portable: “A signal 10-31, 992 Fox Street, top floor. Units to respond?”

  A 10-31 was the code designation for a burglary in progress, a job that obviously required immediate attention. We were a few blocks away from the location. I nodded to Kal and keyed the radio. “Four-One Anti-Crime in plainclothes will take that, Central.” Vocalizing that we were in civvies might save us from getting shot by a unit from another command that was passing through without knowing who we were; although two white men in military fatigue jackets and jeans (the unofficial uniform of Anti-Crime cops) waving guns should have been a strong hint that we were the good guys.

  “Anything further, Central?” I asked.

  The dispatcher came back: “Anonymous call of a male entering the location via the roof. Nothing further.”

  “Nothing further” left open myriad possibilities: Was the bad guy armed? (Most burglars aren’t because it raises the degree of the crime, and, as such, the jail sentence, but maybe this burglar hadn’t read the penal law.) A description of the bad guy would’ve been nice, but we didn’t have that either. Or was the job just bullshit, called in by some local asshole to see how many cops would respond for nothing? Bogus calls were an official sport in the South Bronx.

  The bottom line was that we had to be careful, and so out came the guns. I’d never worked in another precinct and thus didn’t know how cops elsewhere operated; in the Four-One, the very least you did was have your hand on your firearm for every call you responded to. The proverbial cat stuck in a tree would be no exception. You never knew what to expect, even from the most mundane of calls.

  Kal pulled up a few doors away from the Fox Street address off Westchester Avenue. Parking directly in front of a destination address is ill advised in case of a setup. Hard to believe, but there are people who don’t like cops and who think ambushing a few sounds like a fun time.

  We were the first unit to arrive. The area had a smattering of civilians on the street, some watching the passing parade from a window perch, most not giving us a second glance as we exited the car and ran for number 992. Constant police activity was so common in the South Bronx that the sight of two white men with guns drawn would not have been a rarity.

  We knew other cops were on the way, but we didn’t know how long it would take for them to arrive. A burglary-in-progress call usually dictated no sirens to avoid warning the bad guys. Flashing roof lights on radio cars and speed balls on the dashboards of unmarked vehicles were a good tactical alternative because they’re silent, and we wouldn’t hear them until they had already arrived. That said, we were working in the South Bronx, where lights and sirens on police vehicles are a suggestion, not a law, to yield right-of-way. Typical responses from drivers were streams of curses and invectives involving your mother. Drivers did what they wanted to do; only fire department vehicles got respect … sometimes.

  As we raced toward the entrance to the building, Kal and I kept glancing up at the rooftops. If this call was an ambush, death would most likely come from above. Even if it wasn’t a planned execution, many youths in the area liked to toss stuff off rooftops at responding cops, usually bricks, which often were “preloaded” on roofs in anticipation of the inevitable visit by cops. I’ve seen everything raining down from above. Including commodes. It was bad enough being brained by a brick, but to suffer the indignity of getting crushed by a toilet bowl was the ultimate embarrassment. If you survived, which was highly doubtful, you’d be called Shithead for the rest of your career.

  The building was typical for the area: prewar (which war was always the question—some tenements were over a hundred years old), narrow, sometimes with a short cement stairway leading to the door. Buildings varied in condition from serviceable to not fit for human habitation. This one was somewhere in-between. What most of these structures had in common was the overpowering odor of urine throughout the building. Why tenants would pee in their own hallway rather than wait to get into their apartments always mystified me. Maybe they were marking their territory.

  Kal was the first in through the door leading from the street. The smell hit us like we got bitch-slapped by a tree limb. After hundreds of times in these broken-down buildings, you’d figure I’d be used to it, but, as with the aroma of a ripe dead body, you never acclimate. Who the hell can live like this? Peeling paint, broken door locks, crud on the floors so deep you can shovel it off. Be it ever so crumbled there’s no place like home, I suppose.

  We raced up the stairs as quickly as our feet could carry us. Need I say that these buildings had no elevators? And even if they did, they probably wouldn’t work.

  “Why are these fucking jobs always on the top floor?” Kal asked as he took the stairs two at a time.

  As we hit the top-floor landing, we heard the first scream. Loud and shrill, it came from a female, and she sounded terrified. The hallway was dimly lit with no windows, common with these types of buildings, and the building housed five apartments per floor. The scream focused our attention toward the apartment at the far end of the narrow hallway. The door frame on the apartment was splintered, leaving the door pushed in and off one of its hinges.

  I was out of breath and my heart was pounding as Kal and I flanked the frame for a moment and listened for something—anything—that might give us an edge when we entered. Just then we heard another piercing howl, and we knew trying to formulate a tactical plan might not be in the best interest of the victim, who sounded as if she was getting tortured. Our presence was required inside—now.

  We busted through what remained of the door, side by side. What met us was total darkness, inky blackness. Blind as a bat, I couldn’t see a damn thing. Entering the building from bright daylight didn’t help, but at least the dimness of the hallway should’ve helped our eyes adjust. It didn’t. Later I’d find out that the apartment’s windows were covered in heavy blankets, sheets, and curtains that effectively blocked out all light.

  The dark was disorienting; we had left our flashlights in the car because we were working what was left of the day tour. We both yelled “Police!” several times just as another shriek blasted from somewhere in front of us.

  We took a few cautious steps forward, trying to identify exactly where the screams were coming from. I was hoping my eyes would get used to the darkness, but that didn’t happen.

  Something moved, a sound to our right. Kal said, “What the fuck?” and the shooting started.

  Muzzle blasts lit up the area. We’d passed through a short foyer adjacent to the living room and were now standing in a hallway that led to the rear of the apartment. There was a black male three feet in front of us, shirtless, gun extended, firing rapidly. Kal went down almost immediately, firing his revolver as he pitched forward. The noise of the gunfight in a confined space was ear-shattering, and I felt as if an ice pick was being shoved into my brain.

  I had my gun extended and was firing rounds at the guy who was shooting at us. The room was caught up in a strobe-like miasma of light, screams, and curses.

  The gunman tried to get by me, but I grabbed his shoulder and we struggled, grunting and swearing, although our voices sounded muffled given the affect the gunshots had on my hearing. Everything was happening very quickly, yet it felt like slow motion. I was fighting for my life, nearly deaf from the gunshots, and wondering if I’d been hit.

  The shooter was about my height, medium build. A river of adrenaline
was pumping through me, and I knew that if I didn’t put him down, I was gonna die. I heard the approaching cavalry—the job now a rapid response “shots fired,” allowing for flashing lights and sirens all the way—or thought I did. The troops were coming, and I hoped they’d arrive in time. As we fought, I pressed my gun against the gunman’s chest, hoping that I still had ammo, and fired.

  I heard the welcoming sound of a boom, no empty chamber click. The gunman went down like a dropped anchor. I found out later that he’d been hit a few times, but my last round got him square in the heart. The three of us had fired a total of eighteen rounds in what couldn’t have been more than a ten-second gun battle in a space the area of a medium-size closet.

  I was too pumped to feel fright or exhaustion. I dropped to the floor and grabbed Kal; he was unconscious. I didn’t see much blood—shit, I still didn’t see much of anything. His fatigue jacket had absorbed most of it from several gunshots.

  The apartment began filling with cops. The covers on the windows were being ripped down and everyone was talking, yelling. Sunlight streamed through the windows.

  I was practically sitting on the dead gunman who was shoulder to shoulder with Kal. Now I could see that there was actually blood everywhere.

  “My partner, he’s hit!” I hollered.

  Cops kneeled down. I heard exclamations of “Oh, shit!,” “He’s shot fucking bad!” More cops were pouring into the apartment.

  I tried to lift Kal and what seemed like a dozen hands joined the effort. Other cops pushed aside responding officers to make a path. We hoisted him in the air and raced down the stairs. There was no time to wait for an ambulance; seconds counted. Kal was going to be transported by radio car.

  Someone had the presence of mind to call the dispatcher to have additional units clear the streets that lead to Jacobi Medical Center, which was over a mile away. Jacobi was where you took injured cops; they had excellent trauma teams. Department cars would block traffic at intersections in a race to get Kal immediate care.