The police don’t have a good reputation anywhere in the world. The Brits call their bobbies ‘the filth’, the Thai police are known as ‘tam-luat’ or ‘make blood’, and Americans refer to the cops as ‘pigs, Man, or heat’. Expletives usually accompanied both the real and slang words for law enforcement officers. The police are trouble. They issue tickets, stopped speeding violators, bust drug suspects, search houses and possessions in violation of the constitution, plant evidence, take kick-backs, and even find time to fine me for drinking beer in public.
Guilty as charged I later admitted to the judge in court.
The pigs also stop crimes, save people, and deal with dead bodies on a regular basis, however Antoine Fuqua’s BROOKLYN’S FINEST dwells more on the negative aspects of cops and robbers in a hard Brooklyn neighborhood. All the guards working in the diamond exchange are pensioned cops. I get along with a couple. Jo-Jo is easy. He’s a Red Sox fan from the Bronx. He loves that I named my son Fenway. Bobby is from Brooklyn. The ex-corrections officer tells tales of his fights. The best one was in Junior’s. I had never known that they had a bar in the world-famous deli until Bobby told a story about fighting two punks. I used to brawl a little too in my younger years. The third guard is more problematic. Ray was a stereotypical NYPD cop. Racist, mean, and a GW Bush lover. When I mentioned BROOKLYN’S FINEST, his response was immediate.
“More propaganda from liberal Hollywood.” His philosophy has been polished by his source of information. “Probably the same old bullshit.”
“Not really. The movie covers an uncover cop going native, a 22-year officer a week away from retirement, and a stone-cold killer looking for money anyway he can get it.”
“See, more bullshit.” Ray wore his hair like the 50s singer, Jerry Vail. He walked like a small John Wayne. The other guards hated him. He used to be their boss. The building’s new owners took away that position. He was like the rest of them and Ray wasn’t happy about that.
“Are you saying that there aren’t mad dog cops?”
Sean Bell was shot in self-defense. 17 times. Outside a nightclub. 19 of 41 bullets hit Amadou Diallo in the Bronx. The courts exonerated the shooters. Civil cases are still pending against the police involved in these and many shootings. Ray thought that the cops were always right even when they were wrong.
“Nothing like they show in the movies.”
“I knew a cop like that. A mad dog killer.” I first saw Jimmy in 1980,
“Yeah.” Ray didn’t believed a word any civilian said about the cops. “You don’t know nothing.”
“I worked nightclubs. After-hours. We paid off the cops in the 9th and 20th precincts. Paid off the firemen too. The Mafia tried to get their cut, but we told them to get in line after the cops. They never came around after that.” These clubs existed in the 80s. The first was the Jefferson on East 14th Street. It was my friend’s loft. “We stayed open over six months. I made $500 a night at the door. It was too good to last and we were raided by Internal Affairs and Vice. I got arrested with 3 cops, the bagman for the FD, 2 TVs, and my ex-girlfriend. Vice broke the fireman’s leg with a baseball bat.”
“That shit happens.” Andy was right. Shit does happen to bad people. Good people too. “Breaking a dirty cop’s leg doesn’t make you a mad dog.”
“I wasn’t talking about him. We opened another nightclub a year later. The Continental. Money came from the Russian mob, my boss was on the wire for the FBI, and I was paying off the cops every night. Once more I made a lot of money and everyone wanted their share. One night this tall blonde guy comes up to the ropes alone. He flashed a badge. His eyes warned against any hesitation. His suit was Armani. Everything about him said ‘detective’. He didn’t need any back-up.
“Where’s Arthur?” The club’s impressio.
Security was a mountain of a Jamaican. Lawrence looked at with with surrender. This cop was bad. His face wore a mask of murder. Anything but the truth would cause pain. I pointed to the bar. “Arthur’s at the end of the bar.”
“My name’s Jack.” The big cop said walking out of the club. “I’ll be back.”
Arthur wasn’t pissed by my selling him out. Jack was the meanest drunk in the bar. His fame in the city came from his arresting Harlem’s biggest dope dealer. He was on probation for having shoot up the wrong apartment during a raid. A grandmother was killed in the one-sided exchange of gunfire.
“Jack?” Ray said that officer’s last name.
“One in the same.” His name comes up in Google.
“You’re right. He was one fucked up individual.”
“So you knew him?” I saw him take out a sniper on 10th Street. He walked through the cordon of police with his weapon at his side and entered the apartment building. The gunman was on the 5th floor. A minute later one shot was fired in that apartment. The newspapers never covered the story.
“Not friends.”
“I wouldn’t suspect Jack had many friends.” Someone once firebombed his basement apartment. That someone vanished from the Bronx a la an alien abduction. No trace. Jack left NYC for LA soon after that incident. A part-time gig offering technical advice to producers. “His bio on Google said Jack had stopped his service to the NY community, because of injuries.”
“No way, they threw him off the force. He was a menace.”
“I saw him 13 years ago in LA. At our nightclub in Beverly Hills. Arthur nearly shit a bowling ball upon seeing him. Jack lifted a finger to his lips. He was scared his Hollywood companions would freaked out about the real Jack. Arthur and I had a few drinks with him. We didn’t talk about the old times. the one and only time I saw him.”
“Good riddance.”
“So you admit that there are bad cops?”
“Jack was no cop. He was a criminal. They come in all colors.”
“So go see BROOKLYN’S FINEST.”
“Fuck you.” Our bond over Jack was done. Ray was back to being himself. He flipped the finger and went down to the vault. He wouldn’t come out of there until it was time to go home. He was a good ex-cop that way and so was Jack.