Monday, August 1, 1983,
4 pm-to-1 am tour of duty
It was a brisk day for August, hovering in the midseventies. The normally scorching month began with a series of thunderstorms that cooled it right down. By late afternoon it was just overcast, the storm clouds drifting off toward Long Island.
Timmy and I had some arrests to follow up: meeting with complainants, conducting a few interviews. We didn’t expect a busy tour. Mondays are like that. People are partied out from the weekend, and the junkies wouldn’t be on the street to make their buys until close to midnight. But in the Bronx anything can happen and usually does.
My anticipated promotion to first grade was looming, only I didn’t know exactly when it would come. To my glass-half-full way of thinking “by the first of the year” could be as early as tomorrow.
I was happy, both because of the looming promotion and because I enjoyed the job. It was nights like these, when things were what passed for quiet in the Bronx, that I had time to reflect on a career that still had a way to go before I would hit retirement age. I was fourteen years in and could retire with a pension after twenty. That would make me forty-one years old, but I knew I’d stay on the job until I was dragged away kicking and screaming at the mandatory retirement age of sixty-two and a half.
I was by now the most decorated detective in the NYPD’s history, an accomplishment I was proud of. With over two thousand arrests and another four thousand assists, I was more active than any detective in the city. But I was most proud of the cops I’d worked with over the years. No one could ask for better and more lasting friendships than I had.
I’d been quiet for a while, and Timmy asked if everything was okay.
“Yeah, man, things are great. Just thinking about the job.”
“Hard to believe they actually pay us for doing this, right?” Timmy said. We both laughed.
9:15 PM
A cop calling a 10-13—officer needs assistance—spewed from the radio in a rush. The officer sounded like he was in serious trouble and needed help desperately.
Timmy activated the siren, and I stuck a magnetic revolving red flashing light on the roof. Other units from the division responded in a flurry of acknowledgments over the radio. We were off to the scene in a cloud of burnt rubber.
Timmy was driving. Normally I’d be behind the wheel for the entire tour because I liked to drive and Timmy couldn’t care less, but I’d just gotten back from a motorcycle trip to Virginia Beach and my body was still vibrating from being wrapped around a Harley engine for several days.
We were hitting speeds up to 75 miles per hour on Bedford Park, heading west and going so fast I had to secure the red light to the roof with my hand.
Our siren was running at a steady ear-shattering whine. The last thing I remembered was our unit approaching the intersection where Bedford Park meets Jerome Avenue. A Five-Two precinct sector car that was heading south on Jerome to the same call for assistance with siren blaring T-boned us on my side of the car as they shot through the intersection. A rookie male officer was behind the wheel with a female officer as the recorder. Our sirens had drowned each other out, and neither unit was aware of the other.
I remember nothing of the impact, its immediate aftermath, or my subsequent removal to North Central Bronx Hospital. Cops who responded to the accident scene would later tell me I was trapped in our car for over two hours. The Fire Department responded and needed the Jaws of Life to get me free of the mangled auto. I was told that cops had crawled into the car to talk to me, keep me awake, and offer support as others fought to disentangle me. I had already gone into shock and would recall none of it.
I would spend my first week in the hospital unconscious from drugs to reduce the pain. On my first night there, my mother and brother were told that I might not make it through the night. As days passed and it appeared as if I was going to survive, doctors upgraded my condition to I’d probably never walk again.
Almost immediately I began to get death threats. It seemed like every punk I’d ever arrested wanted me dead. I was totally defenseless, flat on my back in traction, and these brave souls chose that time to threaten me … over the phone, no less. I was placed in a double room, one for me and the other for a contingent of fourteen police officers who guarded me around the clock in shifts.
When I finally started to come to I was told the extent of my injuries: twenty-three broken bones, including my pelvis, which was broken in four places, and a shattered hip. On the plus side, I didn’t need surgery. The doctors said my superb physical condition and thick muscles cushioned the vital organs and prevented the broken bones from moving and causing further injury. It would take me years to recover and every day of it was trying, but in the beginning it was torturous. The pain was excruciating and unrelenting. Because I was on by back with my leg elevated in traction for seven weeks, I developed bed sores. My veins began to collapse from getting numerous IVs and injections. I was living my worst nightmare.
I was informed that Timmy had a broken right shoulder, as well as neck and back injuries, two broken fingers on his left hand, and glass in his eyes, with stitches required to repair an eyelid. Police Officer Al Bunis, the driver of the radio car that struck ours, had a large, deep cut to a knee and an almost severed ear. His partner, Officer Cheryl Williams, suffered a broken arm, neck, and back injuries and the loss of her front teeth. When she arrived at the hospital, she had her teeth clutched in her hand, and they were successfully replanted.
All three officers were treated and released within twelve hours. Timmy Kennedy remained on the job and was eventually promoted to detective by the time he retired, a promotion long overdue. Cheryl Williams also remained on the job and climbed the rank ladder to lieutenant. She’s now retired. Officer Bunis retired after a successful police career. I would never work as a police officer again.
* * *
My mother and brother came to see me every day of my hospital stay, all nine weeks of it. The NYPD was very kind throughout. They provided my mother with round-the-clock transportation to and from the hospital; anytime she wanted to visit me, all she had to do was call the local precinct and they’d have a car to her in minutes.
There was a steady stream of visitors, mostly cops, at all hours, and they never came empty-handed. There was more food in my room than the buffet line at a Howard Johnson’s. The cops there with me would smuggle in everything from Chinese food to lobster. When the doctors and nurses took breaks, they came to my room to eat because the spread far surpassed what they had in their lounges.
I recall coming out of my drugged stupor after a week and seeing seven women encircling my bed. At first I thought I was hallucinating, but on closer inspection I realized that I’d been dating these women concurrently over the last year and they all picked the same time to visit me. What are the odds? I feigned passing out until they left, thinking I’d have a lot of explaining to do and might wind up with even more broken bones.
I was dating my current girlfriend, Grace, at the time. I figured she must have a good sense of humor because she didn’t give me any grief over the incident. She may have been the most recent woman in my life, but she was a keeper. Extremely kind and generous—and a knockout—she was at my bedside every day, and as I started walking again she helped me get around. Grace is a unique person, completely selfless and devoted. After thirty-five years, we’re still together and have a beautiful home.
* * *
The healing process was hitting a few snags. In addition to my bed sores, I had contracted phlebitis from the IVs. Following that was a bad bout with pneumonia and a staph infection that could’ve killed me. I was on an antibiotic drip six times a day for forty minutes a pop. A doctor from the Centers for Disease Control was assigned to me. Years of treating my body like a temple was paying off. Anyone else would be dead.
All the poking and prodding with needles began to collapse my veins. I was about to have surgery to correct the problem when a doctor vetoed the operation at the last minute and instead prescribed warm compresses and massages to rejuvenate the veins. It worked. That success was short-lived, however, when an IV catheter (a device that keeps a vein open) fell out of my arm and a nurse shot me up straight with meds from a syringe, which wasn’t supposed to be done. My body was on fire for two days until the effects wore off.
About seven weeks into my hospital stay, it was deemed that I should begin to get around on crutches and use a wheelchair. Easier said than done. Two months earlier I was lifting literally tons of weights on any given visit to the gym; now walking twenty paces down a hallway wore me out.
I was determined to do my best to get back into fighting shape. To that end, the cops who were guarding me went way above and beyond their security responsibilities. These guys would hold me up in the beginning as I tried to navigate my way around the hospital hallways on crutches. They stayed past their tours working with me, cajoling me, giving me confidence, and encouraging me to take one more step. I also had to learn how to navigate between a wheelchair and crutches.
I began to realize that my policing days were over. Initially I went through a phase of denial; I was going to get better, go back to the gym and build myself back to my fighting weight. I’d get my promotion to first grade and get back on the street. Everything was going to be fine.
But it wouldn’t be. By an ironic twist of fate, a car accident accomplished what literally hundreds of New York’s most violent criminals tried to achieve: putting me out of commission.
Denial morphed into anger, then, finally, acceptance. I’d never again be the physical specimen I was before the accident, and there was no denying that. I realized that at age thirty-four, discounting the damage I’d endured, there were bad guys out there half my age that were quicker and more ruthless than the thugs I’d been dealing with for fourteen years. In any other profession, thirty-four is prime, but being a cop in the Bronx ages you quickly. The NYPD would undoubtedly put me out of the job on a line-of-duty disability. I resigned myself to the fact that I was going to be a retired detective and there was nothing I could do about it. It would take a while before that happened, and I was going to concentrate on getting better. I would deal with being a civilian when the time came.
* * *
ESU supplied an ambulance for me the day I was released from the hospital and took me home. The Detectives Endowment Association (DEA) provided a maid/chauffeur during the week for three months, and Grace moved in and cared for me around the clock.
I was still pretty much a mess. I was very weak, tired easily, and could barely get around in a wheelchair, let alone on crutches. It would be eight more months before I was totally ambulatory. For now, it was baby steps.
While I was in the hospital, my brother took care of my ten-year-old female German shepherd, Timba, who liked exercising as much as I did. I had to come to grips with the realization that I could no longer care for her. It broke my heart, but I had to find a suitable home for a full-grown dog. My brother knew two young women who lived together and were dog lovers who were happy to take Timba. After all I’d seen and been through, one of the toughest things I ever had to do was give that dog away. I cried and grieved as if a friend had died.
I was chomping at the bit to get back to the gym and did so while I was still confined to a wheelchair. My DEA-supplied maid took me. Initially, I could work only my upper body. My first workout didn’t last long; I totally exhausted myself within five minutes. Gym sessions grew incrementally longer after that, but progress was snail-like. By the time I could depend entirely on crutches, I was squeezing out fifteen- to twenty-minute workouts.
November 1983
It was time to think about the reality of retirement. The NYPD provided me with an accountant to advise me on the various options for maximizing my benefits. In addition to health and pension considerations, I was advised to wait until the first of the year (January 1, 1984) to get interviewed by the medical board and submit my retirement papers. That way, it was explained to me, I could take full advantage of additional benefits that would not have been afforded me had I chosen to retire sooner.
The interview with the medical board went quickly. They scrutinized my hospital records and asked me questions regarding my mobility. They reserved a decision, but by the time I got home my phone was ringing. It was someone from the board advising me that I’d been granted a full job-connected disability pension.
It was over. It was my time to decompress, to take it easy and enjoy what life had to offer. What had just become clear was that I would now be a former member of the NYPD.