21. New Jersey 4
16 Feb 1991
(12:47 AM Disturbance Call) Hoboken - Officer Mike Plunkett became an officer for the same reason most people do - to change the world, be somebody’s knight in shining armor, rid the city of all crime. It's a good attitude to have when you first come on, you need that, but when you’re on the streets a few weeks the reality check is you won't be a knight on shining armor, you can't change the streets and the best you can do is make your world a little better. When you retire you'll have a pretty good career to look back on. If you can survive 25 years you've got it made. It’s usually around the time when the bars start closing and there are a lot of problems. They centralize themselves in the areas where the bars are in case of problems. He pulls up to a bunch of guys fighting on a sidewalk. Two groups separate as one man in a blue shirt fights and a cop grabs him. A citizen takes his cuffs and cuffs the guy. His friend wants to take him home. They say too late, he’s under arrest. They say some guys threw him around and tossed him out. Ten guys did it, but they didn’t get thrown out. Why is getting arrested, they came out and found him? He assaulted a cop. Mike says he listened to him, now he can go home. How can he, that guy is his ride. He doesn’t care. Det. Brian Murphy says they went to take him out and he got loud and abusive and didn’t want to listen and pushed him around, he didn’t get hurt, just winded. Mike talks to the suspect at the station. He says he had his drinks, no problems, was having a good time. Then somebody said something to him, he came back, said something again. Then bing bang boom he hit the guy, but he didn’t know he was a cop or he wouldn’t have touched him. He should’ve looked first. He’s sure Mike’s been in a position like that before. No. You won’t admit it. He then realized he was a cop. Maybe you had too much to drink. I did. He can live with that. After Mike asks how could he not know he was a cop, he was in full uniform. It wasn’t like he was wearing a Good Humor uniform. He was blind drunk. He’ll get a summons, be home in an hour, should spend a weekend in county jail, maybe he’ll think twice before whacking a cop again. Jersey City (Narcotics Unit Briefing) Sgt. Brian McDonough says they caught a girl with cocaine and she told them there was a house with two Spanish chicks selling cocaine out of there. They have a warrant and it’s the top apartment #129. Sgt. Edwin Gillen says she’s an old heavy woman, over 50, maybe 45. Brian explains how they will go up and batter the door, it’s the weekend, don’t get hurt for it. Det. Dennis DeSefano says they are Medellin and laughs. (11:45 PM Service of Warrant) He says when they see the last man go in, Mike, go down the block and cover the sides of the building in case something comes out the window. They go up, knock, say ‘Policia’, then ram the door. A woman can be heard. Inside there are babies crying, they grab the woman and make her sit, they find an older woman, a man and three babies they secure. Dennis grabs wads of cash that are in a purse. They also find a welfare bundle of cash. The government is good to them. She laughs. They search her and make the family speak to her in Spanish and tell her to turn over any drugs or weapons. They also find a room of stolen clothes, all still have tags on them, enough for a 100 people. It’s like doing inventory for JC Penney. One has a tag for $50. They rob stores and trade them for drugs. Six suitcases full of kids shoes, a $75 David Benjamin dress, his wife doesn’t wear those and $60 pants. The woman in yellow says she likes it, she uses it. Good country, eh? The kids all scream and now they are worried about the kids when they are taking them out for locking up the grandmother. He’s worried about the kids while they deal. They see that and hate the cops, he would too if he was a kid. Brian says the grandmother was hiding in the closet with a couple grams of coke, she was the one in charge. They have...
