Jose Ramirez
New Chapter
ALMOST FIRST
On Jan 09, 1986 I entered the NYPD Police Academy and I thought that I was going to conquer the world. At the time, I was just 22 years old and weighed about 125 lbs. and had about 6 % body fat. I had just gotten out of the United States Marine Corp and was ready to kick ass and take names....or so I thought.
The Academy was a piece of cake. The physical part of the Academy was a joke. We ran around the gym and did pushups and sit ups-- I could not believe that there were people who were failing the physical part of the Academy.
The academics part was not that tough either, but it was a little more challenging. I graduated in June 1986 and I could not wait to hit the streets. But I was not going to the street just yet. Although I was in the NYPD Academy, I was assigned to the Transit Police Department and had to go through another 3 weeks of Transit Academy training. I was a little annoyed because most of the guys I had graduated with were already in NYPD and making arrest while I still had to go through another 3 weeks of training.
The Transit Academy was more intense and more physical than the NYPD Academy due to the fact that at the time most Transit Police worked alone and the police radios did not work in the subways. T
The stories that the instructors told us had me a little nervous. At the Academy, they taught us progression of force---in other words, if you had a guy who came and wanted to fight with you with his hands, you as a police officer could use your night stick or mace. If the guy had a stick you could use deadly physical force. We were always told that you shot to stop the aggression, not to kill. But to stop the aggression we were trained to hit the target in the center mass of the body---in other words in the heart. I don't know too many people who could survive a direct hit like that.
They also taught us that you have to earn respect in the street which seemed to make some sense. They put us in certain scenarios where the guy was in your face and they wanted to see what you could do. For the most part---if the guy is tough, you must be tougher. Basically you don't want to be pushed around.
The code of the police officer is that you don't want the public to know just how scared you really are. If a guy comes in your face and challenges you to a fight and you back down, the public will see you as a punk and ads weak and will not respect you. The next time anyone sees you in the street they will not give you that respect because they think that you are scared. So basically, you have to be brave although you are shitting in your pants.
I thought that part was absolutely right on target since I had some experience in this particular area myself. Growing up, and standing at only 5 '02” in high school, I had to fight everyone to get respect. I joined the United States Marine Corps to prove to everyone that I was tough.
The finally arrived when my class finally graduated from the Transit Police Academy and were assigned to District #3 which was located at 145 Street and St. Nicholas Avenue in Harlem. I got to the District early the next day and could not wait to go to work. I entered the District and saw a big desk which was taller than me. (The reason the desks in the precinct are so tall is because they want anyone who comes into the precinct to feel intimidated and to give the illusion that the person behind the desk is more superior).
From my experience, it does give you that illusion. From behind this massive desk, a Sergeant yelled, “May I help you?!” and I yelled back, “Officer Ramirez reporting for duty, Sir!” I heard a little laughter from behind the desk and the Sergeant told me to go find a locker and get dressed--which I did.
As soon as I came out of the locker area, some of the Police Officers were looking at me and laughing. I was not sure what they were laughing at but I imagined it had to with my size.
“Oh God! Here we go again---and this was only Day 1. I ignored their childish stupidity. I had to find out my assignment so I looked on the board and found my name. It was right next to another officer whom I would later find out that this guy had about 15 years of service. “Cool”, I thought “I am going to learn this job inside out from a true pro. He’s been doing this job for a really long time.
NYPD will usually put you with someone with more time so this way the veteran officers could train the rookie officers. It was a “so called” on the job training. A rookie had to be with an experienced officer for about three weeks before we were out on our own.
The problem was that most of the veteran officers were trained back in the late 60's and 70's. The job was much different back then. Some officers had even served time in Vietnam.
Well, when my assigned Training Officer arrived at work and he saw me, the first words out of his mouth were “Why don't you get on my shoulder and we could go out on patrol”. He had just met me, did not even know what I was capable of doing or how I could handle myself and immediately he was already making fun of my size.
Everyone in the locker room started to laugh. I felt like shit, but I did not let on that his comment had really pissed me off and bothered me. You could tell he did not want to be bothered with me.
However, when this asshole veteran cop came up to me, I made an attempt to introduce myself to him, but he stopped me dead in my tracks and growled, “Listen kid, when I jump---you jump. If I break leather, you break leather.” BTW (By the way), the term “breaking leather” means pulling your gun from the holster.
It scared me a little because he made it seem as if we were going to war! The job was different in those days. You used to kick ass first, THEN ask questions.
Anyway, so now we are on patrol and my first stop was 116th Street and Lenox Avenue. We were standing near the token booth and I was walking around the platform. It was obvious that my partner did not want to be seen with me and he was still really annoyed that I had been assigned to him. So I decided
As I was pacing back and forth and trying my dam nest to ignore my “so called partner”, a guy strolls over and asks if he could get into the train for free. I didn’t know what to do. It did not seem like a big deal, but my “partner” comes barreling over and tells the guy, “NO!”.
The “would be train passenger”, says to my “partner”, “Fuck You!” That's when all HELL breaks loose and my partner punches the guy straight in the stomach, knocking him to the ground. He then picks him up and asks the guy, “What did you say?” The guy weakly manages to stutter, “N-n-n-nothing officer.”
I whipped out my handcuffs thinking we had an arrest. At the very least for Disorderly Conduct. At the Academy, we were always told that if you put your hand on someone, you MUST make an arrest.
My partner looked at me with disgust and muttered to me to put my cuffs away. He then kicked the guy right smack in the ass and sent him back out to the street. Being a rookie who followed the rules, I asked him if that was the right thing to do and I explained to him what I was taught in the Academy.. He then told me, “Everything you learned in the academy--- forget about it. It's different out here in the streets.”
I don't know why he did it, but months later I found out it was all a test. You see, cops do not trust other cops when they first get to the precinct. They want to know if you are a snitch or a punk.
Back when I was a rookie, cops weren’t scared of a Civilian Complaint because back then the belief was that if you did not have one, you were considered not an active police officer and afraid of the street. The more civilian complainants you had, the more active cop you are (it was like the more complaints you had, the more notches on your belt). During this time period, the other police officers would say that the amount of complainants you had was an indicator of how active a cop you were.
Veteran cops were not afraid of civilian complainants because all cops knew that if one cop ratted out another cop (or snitched) on them, the reporting officers career would be over! That is----unless you were planted by Internal Affairs to a certain precinct for the sole purpose of working for IAD as a “snitch”.
My “Training Officer” then advised me that if I was going to hit someone and not arrest him, to make sure that I hit them on a part of the body where it wouldn't leave any marks. As I thought back to my first incident, it then made sense why he hit the guy the stomach.
He saw that I was a little annoyed, so he pulled out this big key ring from his belt. It must have had about a hundred keys. He proceeded to go to a door near the token booth. He opened the door.
The room was dark and dirty and smelled awful. There was a locker near the wall. He took the locker and placed it on its side, took off his gun belt and lay down on the locker. Then he had the NERVE to tell me, “Wake me up if they call us on the radio”.
In absolute amazement and disgust, I sat in a corner with my radio near my ear so I wouldn't disturb him. I was praying to God that we would get a call, but no call came through.
We were in that room for the rest of the tour. When we emerged from the foul smelling, dirty room, he looked like he had just woken up. The light was bothering his eyes from being in the dark for such a long time---sleeping on the job. It was obvious to the people in the train station. I know that these people knew what we were doing. It was so blatantly obvious. I could not look at anyone in the eyes. My partner did not care. He had just gotten a good night’s sleep and gotten paid for it. I could not wait to finish work and finally go home.
From the age of 9 year old, I dreamed of being a cop. I used to watch all cop shows on T.V. and start acting like them. But, that was television and this was real life and it was not all the way in which I had envisioned being a cop would be like. Disappointed with the day’s events, I wondered, “What the hell did I get myself into?” A few minutes later, I just brushed it off and figured, “This cop is an asshole and tomorrow is another day”. Tomorrow will definitely be another day, a better day”. I was very optimistic.