PODCAST: Funny Cop Stories from the NYPD & Why Humor is Therapy for Law Enforcement with Vic Ferrari | TIR 058
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Funny Cop Stories from the NYPD & Why Humor is Therapy for Law Enforcement with Vic Ferrari | TIR 058
Vic Ferrari
Meet this Weeks Guest: Vic Ferrari
Vic Ferrari, author of NYPD: Through The Looking Glass: Stories From Inside America’s Largest Police Department, The NYPD’s Flying Circus: Cops, Crime & Chaos, Grand Theft Auto: The NYPD’s Auto Crime Division, and NYPD: Law & Disorder is a retired twenty-year member of the New York City Police Department who refuses to write in chronological order. With no formal training or Harvard degree, Vic’s managed to write four behind-the-scenes books about his former employer. With remarkable attention to detail combined with a sarcastic flair, Vic exposes the good, the bad, and the ugly of America’s largest police department.
Show Notes from This Episode
The On The Blue Line Podcast and Community has the mission of Empowering Cops in their personal lives and educating the public on the realities of law enforcement. This law enforcement podcast is focused on providing concepts, ideas, and actionable steps that can make a difference in your life. The morning roll call is a weekly monologue show with Wayne Mulder. The Interview Room podcast is an interview style format hosted by Wayne Mulder.
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CONNECT with Vic:
· WEBSITE: Click here for Vic’s Amazon Author Page. https://amzn.to/3zJaED7
· TWITTER: @VicFerrari50
· FACEBOOK: @VicFerrariNYPD
· INSTAGRAM: @VicFerrari50
BOOKS by Vic:
· NYPD: Through the Looking Glass: Stories From Inside Americas Largest Police Department.
· The NYPD’s Flying Circus: Cops, Crime & Chaos
· Grand Theft Auto: The NYPD’s Auto Crime Division
· Confessions of a Catholic High School Graduate
· Dickheads & Debauchery: and other ingenious ways to die
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On The Blue Line was founded and is operated by active-duty law enforcement to fulfill the mission of providing guidance, resources and community for law enforcement officers, first responders, and military personal in their off-duty lives.
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TRANSCRIPTION OF EPISODE. Please note this is a new service we are offering and there will be spelling, grammar and accuracy issues. This transcription is offered as a convenience to our listeners, but at this time it is not guaranteed to be accurate.
00:00:10:06 - 00:00:40:20
Wayne Mulder
Welcome, my friend, to the On the Blue Line podcast for law enforcement with Wayne Mulder. I'm your host Wayne Mulder, and this is the podcast where we help law enforcement overcome the mental health toll of the profession to become better leaders and protectors on and off the job. On today's 156th episode of the podcast, have you ever heard of an officer wanting to head home so badly that they make up a story about a dead body coming back to life, walking out into the hallway and then dying again?
00:00:41:24 - 00:01:01:03
Wayne Mulder
Yeah, me either. But you'll want to listen to today's podcast so you can hear that one. This is our weekly interview show. It's called The Interview Room. Our other show is called Morning Roll Call, which that one's a monologue show comes out on Mondays. And just know that both shows are released on YouTube and rumble and video, if that would be your preferred format.
00:01:01:03 - 00:01:29:22
Wayne Mulder
And you can find out more about all of it. And on the blue line. On the blue line dot com. So let me tell you about this week's guest. Vic Ferrari is the author of NYPD Through the Looking Glass Stories from Inside America's Largest Police Department. The NYPD is flying Circus Cops, Crime and Chaos, Grand Theft Auto, the NYPD is Auto crime division, an NYPD law and disorder.
00:01:30:09 - 00:01:55:17
Wayne Mulder
He's a retired 20 year member of the New York City Police Department who refuses to write in chronological order. With no formal training or a Harvard degree. Vic's managed to write four behind the scenes books about the NYPD with remarkable as he says, attention to detail combined with a sarcastic flair. Vic exposes the good, the bad and the ugly of America's largest police department.
00:01:56:18 - 00:02:19:17
Wayne Mulder
As you can tell, Vic has quite the sense of humor, and his sarcastic flair comes out throughout this conversation. And you're not going to want to miss his other crazy stories that we talk about, from practical jokes to a bathroom scuffle that I guarantee you will leave you laughing. So without taking any more time, here's this week's guest, Vic Ferrari.
00:02:19:17 - 00:02:20:24
Wayne Mulder
Well, Vic, welcome to the show.
00:02:21:11 - 00:02:24:03
Vic Ferrari
Hey, thank you so much for having you on the show. I appreciate it.
00:02:24:11 - 00:02:31:23
Wayne Mulder
I'm looking forward to this. I love the name you write under Vic Ferrari. I mean, this is going to be fun no matter what we talk about. I know that for sure.
00:02:33:18 - 00:02:35:17
Vic Ferrari
Yeah, I've been looking forward to it all week.
00:02:36:04 - 00:02:41:19
Wayne Mulder
Let me let me get let me start with my get to know your questions. These are the easy ones. Is it coffee or tea for you, Vic?
00:02:42:13 - 00:02:59:17
Vic Ferrari
Coffee. And I was a tea drinker my whole most of my NYPD career. The last couple of years I worked with a guy and he got me turned on to coffee. I was in my late thirties and he says, Listen, you're an adrenaline junkie, you know? He goes, We're hitting our forties. He goes, You start to get tired in the afternoon, try coffee.
00:02:59:17 - 00:03:03:00
Vic Ferrari
And I hated it. But now, as you can see, drinking coffee.
00:03:03:17 - 00:03:10:15
Wayne Mulder
That that is a good answer. Is it just black coffee or your cream and sugar guy, the stevia.
00:03:10:15 - 00:03:16:04
Vic Ferrari
And it's not because I'm environmentally conscious or anything. I'm just trying to keep my sugar level down.
00:03:16:04 - 00:03:17:23
Wayne Mulder
Yeah, I think we all end up there eventually.
00:03:18:06 - 00:03:18:21
Vic Ferrari
Daniel.
00:03:19:23 - 00:03:25:23
Wayne Mulder
Where's your favorite place to have that drink? Do you get a peaceful spot that you just like to have a sip of coffee in the mornings?
00:03:25:23 - 00:03:34:10
Vic Ferrari
Yeah, in the morning or in the after, I. I'm down to two cups a day. So usually on the couch and that's when I'll do my writing first thing in the morning or later in the afternoon.
00:03:34:21 - 00:03:41:24
Wayne Mulder
Okay. Yeah. And we'll definitely get more into your writing. I love what your what you've been doing, but do you have a best or worst travel story?
00:03:43:05 - 00:04:01:22
Vic Ferrari
Best or worst travel story? Worst would be when I was a kid, we didn't have any money. I mean, I grew up in the Bronx, my lower middle class family, my parents grouped and saved throughout the year to take us on vacation. And one year we drove across the United States in a 1975 Chevy Malibu with no air conditioning.
00:04:02:04 - 00:04:20:22
Vic Ferrari
From the Bronx to California down the coast to California and then back. And I mean, the only thing that saved my brother and I was a wind cooler that separated us from beat the shit out of each other in the backseat. But it was like you just pictured drove all across the United States in July or August with no air conditioning.
00:04:21:06 - 00:04:31:24
Wayne Mulder
Yeah, kids today have no idea. Yeah, I had several similar stories growing up with my parents and no air conditioning, and there were three of us kids, so we were sandwiched in that backseat.
00:04:32:14 - 00:04:53:09
Vic Ferrari
Right. And there was no handheld video game. So it was Mad Libs or a book. Yeah. Or you played poker with the license plate that drove by or no name. Different states. John I got an Alabama, you know what I mean? We're I mean, it was just it was just farmland after farmland driving through this great country of ours in the heat.
00:04:53:20 - 00:05:04:10
Wayne Mulder
But that's awesome. That is a great story. And it took me back with that one there. Vic, So you've been on a lot of podcasts, so let me ask you, what is something that rarely gets asked that the listeners should know about?
00:05:04:10 - 00:05:08:22
Vic Ferrari
You rarely gets.
00:05:08:22 - 00:05:17:06
Wayne Mulder
Asked. Yeah, because you get asked so many things and it's always around law enforcement, which we're going to get to here in a minute. But what's something we ought to know about you that doesn't get asked a lot.
00:05:17:06 - 00:05:35:16
Vic Ferrari
I guess, about my personal life, Because, I mean, it's two separate entities. I'm a writer, I'm a retired lawyer, retired from law enforcement. You know, basically, I lead a boring life, you know, And I like it that way. You know, it's like I was telling you off the air. I mean, I got into writing these books because it was fun.
00:05:35:16 - 00:05:47:00
Vic Ferrari
And then I wanted to make a little money with it, but I didn't necessarily want to be famous, you know what I mean? I guess I guess my personal life, a lot of times they don't ask any questions, which is just fine by me.
00:05:47:20 - 00:06:00:18
Wayne Mulder
Right? Yeah. No. Very, very interesting. So take us back a little bit to your origin story then, because you ended up in law enforcement. Can you walk us into that? What, brushing law enforcement the first place where you worked?
00:06:01:06 - 00:06:18:09
Vic Ferrari
Yeah, sure. So I grew up in the Bronx. I always wanted to be a New York City police officer and then detective. When I was a little boy, my mother used to take me to the movie theater. And around the corner from the movie theater was a police station. So I was five, six years old, running up to the police car and looking in the window and looking at the hats and the nightsticks.
00:06:18:17 - 00:06:40:14
Vic Ferrari
I used to watch the cops outside with their hands on their on the butt of their gun talking to each other and, you know, every little boy sees that gun and playing cops are robbed is not one of those things. By the age of ten, we used to go me and my friends used to go to the local post office and steal FBI wanted posters and we'd run around the neighborhood I'd ever want to post about like, you know, Billy Ray.
00:06:40:14 - 00:07:01:17
Vic Ferrari
Jack wanted for an armed robbery and Alabama. And I'm in the local deli sizing up some construction worker like this could be him. So I always knew what I wanted to do. You know, watching them grow up, watching The Rockford Files and the French Connection in the seven up and all the police shows. So by 20, I took the police exam.
00:07:01:17 - 00:07:12:03
Vic Ferrari
By 21, I was in the police academy. And, you know, at an early age, by 21 years old, I was a New York City police officer, you know, walking a beat in the South Bronx. Wow.
00:07:12:18 - 00:07:27:06
Wayne Mulder
You know, one question that you've mentioned on some of your stuff and I've seen it on some of the things that you've written, but what was it like working for the New York City Police Department? I'm asking that from the mindset, one of the one of the questions I get a lot like we talked off air. I'm down here in Florida.
00:07:27:06 - 00:07:36:16
Wayne Mulder
I work in a county area that experience someone in here versus someone in, say, Wyoming versus someone with the New York City Police Department. What's it really like?
00:07:37:14 - 00:07:52:01
Vic Ferrari
It's wild. I mean, I had a great career. I mean, and if I could go back to the future and do it all over again in that time period, I would do it all over again. Even not knowing what I know now. It was great. A 20 year career in the New York City Police Department is what you make of it.
00:07:52:11 - 00:08:12:09
Vic Ferrari
If you know, you know, granted, there's nepotism in the department. If your dad is above the rank of captain, Captain, if you want to work in aviation, you're going to go to aviation. If you want to work in mountain, you're going to go to mount it. Right. But if you keep your head down, do the work, get good evaluations, don't do something stupid.
00:08:12:09 - 00:08:29:10
Vic Ferrari
You can do it. It's like the American dream. You can really do whatever you want. The New York City Police Department, there's so many opportunities, but it's like having a front row seat to the greatest show on Earth. You know what I mean? It's like this. This. I mean, in any given day, there's all this while stuff going on.
00:08:29:10 - 00:08:47:13
Vic Ferrari
There's fire readers, there's clowns, there's guys walking around picking up shit after the horses and the elephants. I mean, it's just there's just so much going on. And I equate it also to a 20 year merry go round. You got your ups, your downs, but you got to know when to get off that merry go round. And I think that's in law enforcement in general.
00:08:47:16 - 00:09:14:22
Vic Ferrari
Oh, yeah, it's a young man's game. And no matter how good you are, everybody eventually outlives their usefulness. Yeah, you're a great detective or you're a great SWAT commander. Slowly but surely, the landscape is going to change. Society is going to change, supervisor is going to change. And you're not flavor of the month anymore. And you've got to know when to get off that merry go round or Seabiscuit is going to throw you on your head.
00:09:14:22 - 00:09:26:13
Wayne Mulder
I love your sense of humor. Let me let me ask you, look at positions. Have you held or did you hold when you were at the place? And two questions, actually, what years are we talking to? What years were you there? What decades?
00:09:26:19 - 00:09:45:21
Vic Ferrari
Yeah, I was active from 1987 to 2007, and I worked in a lot of units because, again, there's so many different opportunities there. So I moved around a lot. I worked in a South Bronx precinct. If you ever saw the movie Fort Apache, the Bronx with Paul Newman, that's supposed to be the four one which was called Fort Apache.
00:09:46:00 - 00:10:04:08
Vic Ferrari
The reality is by the time I went to the Fort to which was its sister precinct, where they actually filmed it, we used to call it Little House on the Prairie because it was all burned out. I worked in a DUI unit, which I absolutely hated, but I was a rookie and you do what you're told. I worked in plainclothes, probably 15 out of my 20 years.
00:10:04:08 - 00:10:29:14
Vic Ferrari
I worked in like an anti-crime unit where you were an unmarked car, robbery in progress, burglary in progress, pickpockets. You're responding to things like that. I worked in a manhattan North Narcotics division in the early nineties doing bi and bust operations. I wasn't a a deep undercover person. I was an investigator. But I did buy drugs a handful of times because they needed, you know, a white guy to go on a set.
00:10:30:00 - 00:10:45:06
Vic Ferrari
And my last ten years I was a detective in the NYPD. Total crime Division, so anything would chop shops, exporting stolen vehicles out of the country, changing vehicle identification numbers for resale, a lot of organized crime stuff. And I did that for my last ten years.
00:10:45:17 - 00:11:00:09
Wayne Mulder
Okay. Yeah. I would have to think that that has got to be crazy out of New York like you've got to be getting into. So like you said, organized crime, probably international type stuff. I mean, are there any specific cases or anything you can talk about or anything interesting that we would?
00:11:00:12 - 00:11:18:18
Vic Ferrari
Oh, plenty, yeah. So in the nineties when I went to the auto crime division in New York City, the five boroughs in New York City was averaging over 150,000 stolen vehicles a year. Okay. So it was like shooting fish in a barrel. I mean, even before I went to the auto crime division, I was always a car guy.
00:11:18:18 - 00:11:40:02
Vic Ferrari
Like if you knew what to look for and you had a computer in the car, you were going to get a stolen car, right? You know, Yeah. The NYPD in the auto crime division, it's more going to the root of the problem. Yes, we would pick off the garden variety pain in the ass car thief. You know, the kids, the juveniles, drug joyriding or a junkie that steals a car to get around and get high and run his errands or whatever.
00:11:40:08 - 00:12:06:03
Vic Ferrari
But we went more to the root of the problem as far as, like you said, exporting stolen cars out of the country. Mafia, One of the five family, you know, organized crime, body shop, salvage yards. I worked on a case where we had Chinese nationals that had settled in Brooklyn, and the guy was an ex Chinese ex. He was a Chinese military intelligence officer, and he hooked up with a Jamaican in the Bronx.
00:12:06:12 - 00:12:28:14
Vic Ferrari
And what they were doing was the Jamaican would put in orders for stolen cars because the Jamaican guy knew all these car thieves. So they were stealing between 25 to 30 Audi A6 is the money the cause we get stolen through the five boroughs in the outer counties. The cars would go parked somewhere. They would cool off for a couple of days to make sure they didn't have like LoJack or tracking devices.
00:12:29:13 - 00:12:49:22
Vic Ferrari
They would go into this warehouse out in Brooklyn. We had Chinese nationals working and what they would do is they would drive two stolen vehicles into a shipping container. They would let the air out of the tires. So the cars would sit low in the container. Then they would build a hoist at a frame above it where they could put two more to one or two more stolen vehicles above it.
00:12:50:02 - 00:13:11:16
Vic Ferrari
So they wanted to maximize with the container. From there, a legit truck trucking company would take that container out of the warehouse in Brooklyn, take it out to Newark, New Jersey, where it got put on trains, and then the shipping containers with the stolen vehicles would get railed across the United States to Long Beach, California, where they were put on cargo ships and then shipped to Shanghai.
00:13:12:07 - 00:13:31:02
Vic Ferrari
So, I mean, it was a big case. We did it. If you ever watch Fox News Judge Jeanine. Jeanine Pirro. Yeah, she was the devoted. So before she was on television, she was the district attorney of Westchester County. Westchester County was getting killed, rowdies the New York City was getting killed without her. So we pulled our resources and did a joint case with them.
00:13:32:02 - 00:13:53:14
Vic Ferrari
So New York City is so big, like we have between 35 and 40,000 cops at any given moment. Right. So we had Chinese cops that spoke Mandarin in Cantonese. We pulled them off patrol and had them monitoring the Chinese wiretaps. Then we had Spanish detectives monitoring our court things with Spanish. So they were speaking in Spanish, a lot of time monitoring their phone calls.
00:13:53:23 - 00:14:17:06
Vic Ferrari
And what we quickly realized is, in addition to this international, you know, stolen vehicle shipping ring, these guys were in the murder for hire business. So then we, the car thief, start talking about whacking this guy or you want to end up like this guy. Connecticut's like, Oh, this is good. So when we eventually took the case down, we pretty much solved 15 homicides and, you know, busted up this international court that frankly.
00:14:17:15 - 00:14:25:01
Wayne Mulder
That's awesome. Now, did you guys just keep it at the state and local level or did you guys bring the feds in on that since you've got Long Beach at all? No.
00:14:25:05 - 00:14:29:08
Vic Ferrari
You know, we didn't need them all. Well.
00:14:29:21 - 00:14:31:04
Wayne Mulder
They were very clear about that.
00:14:31:04 - 00:14:34:12
Vic Ferrari
They're we need them. Well, we need we needed customs.
00:14:34:23 - 00:14:35:04
Wayne Mulder
Okay.
00:14:35:08 - 00:15:07:22
Vic Ferrari
Obviously, because they're getting shipped. So the vehicles were being shipped and then customs wound up telling the FBI and then the FBI came sniffing around. But by the time what's funny is it probably would have been a federal law. I don't know if Pirro would have given that case over to the FBI. She was a tough cookie. But what wound up happening is the case got blown up because we were got I mean, we were in this case for about a year and we just kept getting more and more stuff and more and more dirt bags will walk it on the plane filled with more and more stuff.
00:15:08:11 - 00:15:31:12
Vic Ferrari
And what wound up happening was they got greedy. And the Chinese, I mean, the thieves, I mean, there was like five or six different steel teams and they couldn't keep up with the orders. I mean, as many cars as they were steel and they were shipments. So it wound up happening. Is the main thief used to work as a parking attendant in Upper East Side of Manhattan parking garage.
00:15:32:00 - 00:15:51:02
Vic Ferrari
So he goes to one of his friends who still works in the garage and says, listen, what I'd like you to do is I'm going to show up with ten guys, give us the keys to ten. Luxury cars will tie up. We'll put you in a trump of one of the cars. Wait a half hour, start banging on the trunk, say a bunch of guys would say mass robbed you and I'll give you three grand.
00:15:51:17 - 00:16:06:21
Vic Ferrari
So guys like right now we've got all this. We know this is going to happen because we've got all the phone calls. It just so I mean, we had a camera outside. We watch them go in, we watch the cars leave. We hear the 911 call. We hear that at 19, the Upper East Side with 19 Precinct response.
00:16:06:21 - 00:16:31:03
Vic Ferrari
Right. So what ends up happening is they bring all the cars. They got greedy. They didn't park cars on the street. They brought them all into this warehouse and what wound up happening is one of the cars had LoJack. So the following morning, one of the owners reports the car stolen. They activate the LoJack. What happens to Beacon now is pinging in the garage, well organized, like the auto crime division.
00:16:31:03 - 00:16:49:04
Vic Ferrari
We're part of organized crime. We don't tell the precinct cops what we're doing. Right. And, you know this. Working in law enforcement. If we told the local precinct. Yeah, see that warehouse over there? There's an international shipping case. The cops, they would be parked in front once there. Take it photos of, you know, cops that. Oh, yeah, they got to know.
00:16:49:09 - 00:17:08:07
Vic Ferrari
So we didn't tell them. The cops go rushing into this warehouse and they see Chinese guy walking around the like and they had a false wall. So they didn't see the cars at first. So they're like, why are they Chinese guys in this warehouse? You know? And the Chinese guys, they were smart. They were handing in these bogus manifest up like toys.
00:17:08:07 - 00:17:25:01
Vic Ferrari
It was supposed to be like a toy factory or something. The Chinese went out the back door. The cops discovered the stolen cars and now our phones are blowing up because, like, oh, shit, these guys are going to be out of the country in 24 hours. So it was like, Oh God. I mean, I grabbed me and my partner.
00:17:25:02 - 00:17:41:21
Vic Ferrari
We had two of the two of the Chinese nationals lived on a street in Brooklyn. All we had was surveillance for us. Like we didn't have the deed yet. We didn't know their name. We just knew they were coming and going out of the six storey building. That's all we knew. We didn't know the apartment, nothing. And I'll never forget we turned the corner.
00:17:41:21 - 00:17:57:19
Vic Ferrari
I see these two Chinese guys running out of the building with suitcases. I go, How about that? And we stopped and we start talking to them and I put my hand on the guy's chest and it felt like it was going to blow out. And then we brought over. We had Chinese cops to put the balance on them and they were like, That's him, That's it.
00:17:57:19 - 00:18:19:06
Vic Ferrari
And we got them in really quick. But yeah, it was a scramble because I think we rounded up probably close to 30 people in a couple of hours because everybody was going in different directions. So those phones were very important. Like one guy, I'm going to Florida, I'm jump on an Amtrak and the guys we grabbed had plane tickets in their pocket to to run and open tickets because it was pre 911.
00:18:19:20 - 00:18:29:04
Vic Ferrari
They had tickets to Toronto. So they were on their way to the airport. We just had these guys were the factory workers. We would have never gotten them had we not just jumped on him that minute. Yeah.
00:18:29:14 - 00:18:49:07
Wayne Mulder
Well that's something I'm sure the non law enforcement listeners I mean that that is one things with these long protracted investigations is you think it's moving at one pace all along. You know 412 and I saw this a lot in economic crimes and then all of a sudden something would happen. And in one case we had it ended up being a domestic fight.
00:18:49:07 - 00:18:56:07
Wayne Mulder
And that domestic fight led to everything we needed to take action. And just like you were just saying, you had to take action immediately before people disappeared on you.
00:18:56:07 - 00:19:17:22
Vic Ferrari
So yeah. And then I mean, and obviously, like there was a point in the case where I think it was the Jamaican guy was talking about whacking a guy. So now armed with this information. Right. You've got to warn this person. You know, the guy might be a dirtbag, but I mean, you know, you've got to go to this person, say, listen, we've got credible.
00:19:18:03 - 00:19:39:12
Vic Ferrari
But what it wound up being was and the Jamaican guy wasn't involved in any of the homicides. He was content getting his $5,000 a car. So he was getting paid $5,000 a car. And then he was farming out paying guys between 500 and a thousand, depending on how how good they were. And he was just blowing smoke. He was just talking about, you know, he got into a fight with a guy at a club where he's talking about killing him.
00:19:39:12 - 00:19:55:16
Vic Ferrari
And then we had to figure out who this guy was. Right. And tell him, you know, we didn't tell him. We heard on a wiretap that this is the guy. But we were like, listen, we have problems with anybody lately. He's like, Yeah, a couple of people might well, you might want to, you know, maybe take off for a while, you know, and tell his boss almost exactly.
00:19:56:07 - 00:19:58:04
Wayne Mulder
Consider your enemies at this point.
00:19:58:23 - 00:20:17:17
Vic Ferrari
You know, that's funny story I got what was funny so not about this but one time there was this kid out in Jersey. And how did I get this? Oh, I had an informant. He was a dirtbag, too. But there was this kid out in New Jersey that stole a whole bunch of stuff. He robbed a chop shop, essentially, is what he did.
00:20:18:03 - 00:20:34:22
Vic Ferrari
And the guy that owned the chop shop wanted him dead, you know, like, so our informant warned us about it. And he was he was cool in his heels, out in new in in a in a county jail in New Jersey. So I pull him out and he does you know, he's from New Jersey. Why is the NYPD want to talk to me and stuff?
00:20:34:22 - 00:20:52:11
Vic Ferrari
And, you know, I says, listen, this you know, you got problems like someone's looking to whack you. And it goes, why would anybody? It was like the last thing on his mind was, why would anybody like like he's a great guy. Anybody want to kill me? I'm like, Why are you here? Because all I saw a whole bunch.
00:20:52:11 - 00:21:00:08
Vic Ferrari
He goes, Oh, I said, Yeah, I says, So I says, Maybe you might not want to make bail. You might want to hang here for a while. Yeah, yeah.
00:21:00:16 - 00:21:01:04
Wayne Mulder
If you're going to.
00:21:01:06 - 00:21:06:21
Vic Ferrari
Happen from time to time, we get a tip that, you know, a lot of times he was just guys running them out. But you still got to tip the guy. Oh.
00:21:07:07 - 00:21:22:08
Wayne Mulder
Well, exactly. Yeah. I mean, you don't know the credibility of the threat, but. And these people run in circles where they're upsetting the wrong people, that's for sure. Let me ask you, you're known for your sense of humor. And obviously, we're going to get to your books in a minute, too, that have good use of sarcasm in them.
00:21:22:14 - 00:21:32:09
Wayne Mulder
But you mentioned practical jokes. Any great stories or anything you can talk about when it comes to do cops play practical jokes on anything specifically from your time in law enforcement?
00:21:32:24 - 00:21:52:17
Vic Ferrari
Yeah, sure. In my book, NYPD through the Looking Glass, is that there's a whole chapter on practical jokes because I wanted to break the myth. The cops are these stoic robotic. Yes, ma'am. No, man, You know, you know this when someone approaches you in the street, you know, it's not to bring you cookies or they've got a problem and you don't know if they're the bad guy.
00:21:52:17 - 00:22:15:03
Vic Ferrari
A lot of times people come to law enforcement like, you know, like they're in the right and it turns out they're the asshole, you know what I mean? So cops are very measured until they get to know you a little bit. And but behind the scenes, an NYPD locker room. Yeah. I mean, when I was a detective, you're working in an office with 20 trained observers.
00:22:15:03 - 00:22:32:24
Vic Ferrari
They didn't notice anything. Right? Your haircut or anything. So close to the end of my tour, I changed my slacks. I had a date. I go to get a cup of coffee, and one of the guys soaks my chair with ice water. I sit down, I get the wet ash. Everybody's laughing, having a great time. All right, you got me.
00:22:33:03 - 00:22:52:17
Vic Ferrari
I go upstairs, I get changed. I go back downstairs. And across the street from our office was a pet store. I went into the pet store. I bought a bag of 100 crickets. I went into the parking lot. I use the Slim Jim. I popped open the door to his personal car. I opened it up the bag. All those crickets start to and I dumped all the crickets in the backseat of his car.
00:22:52:17 - 00:23:06:02
Vic Ferrari
And I shut the door. He wound up having to sell the car because he bombed. It would roach spray a couple of times, but you don't get them all and then they would start reading again, right? So I mean, it was a shit box car. I was like an old 98 or something, but he wound up getting rid of it.
00:23:06:19 - 00:23:24:21
Vic Ferrari
Oh yeah. The stuff when I was in on patrol during the especially like during the summertime, you'd wait till a sec to call, went into the station, ask for their meal out. We would open up their car, pull the vents out, and then pour cornstarch down the ac vents and then put the vents back in and put the A.C. on high.
00:23:25:02 - 00:23:43:13
Vic Ferrari
So when they got in the car and they started up, they looked like they worked in a bakery, right? Yeah, we always that was a short there was a guy there was a guy one time. He wasn't too well-liked. And Rogaine had just come out and he made the mistake of leaving his locker open. Someone saw that bottle of Rogan.
00:23:43:13 - 00:23:56:04
Vic Ferrari
I didn't do this, by the way. They took the Rogaine bottle, the empty the contents out in another container, and they put wood stain in his Rogaine bottle. And then he shellacked the top of his head. I mean, they had to restrain him like he lost his fucking mind.
00:23:56:04 - 00:24:18:07
Wayne Mulder
I'm sure he did it. Those are great. Yeah. And that's the thing. And I, I have seen some practical jokes and so forth, but I always love hearing these stories, especially from cities like New York. It's it is just a different experience When I hear these stories from you guys that served up there in the Northeast. So you have to 27.
00:24:18:07 - 00:24:21:01
Wayne Mulder
So that means you were were you in the city on 911?
00:24:21:11 - 00:24:22:00
Vic Ferrari
Oh, yeah.
00:24:22:24 - 00:24:38:07
Wayne Mulder
Can you tell us a little bit about that experience? I've had someone on the show, Samantha HORWITZ, who talked about being in the towers on 911. She was serving with the feds during that time, but I'd be curious hearing about it from your perspective.
00:24:38:07 - 00:24:56:20
Vic Ferrari
Yeah, my office was in the Bronx, which with no traffic, is about a 45 minute ride down to Lower Manhattan. That particular day I went to my office in the Bronx. I had Manhattan Criminal Court, which is walking distance of the World Trade Center. I had locked up some guy for some stolen cars. He was going to flip and become an informant.
00:24:56:20 - 00:25:14:01
Vic Ferrari
Give us a guy in Harlem DMV that was pumping out driver's licenses. So my sergeant, I was going to come in at seven in the morning, go down, go down to Manhattan court, pull this guy out and try to work out a confidential informant agreement. And my sergeant was running behind, you know, he's supposed to be there in seven.
00:25:14:01 - 00:25:29:04
Vic Ferrari
He's not there at seven. He walks in the door at eight and I'm on his ass like, Come on, we got to go. We got to get downtown. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, winds up happening is the first plane hits one of the cops from downstairs, runs upstairs, tells us to put on the television set As we're watching this, the second plane hits.
00:25:29:14 - 00:25:49:18
Vic Ferrari
So we knew it was terrorism. All came from downtown. Everybody going into uniform. And by one 130, I mean, I was down there walking around. I mean, it was like something out of a movie. You can't it was the closer you got, like we parked to the west Side and then we kind of came in through Broadway, cut through like one of the side streets.
00:25:49:18 - 00:26:14:00
Vic Ferrari
And the closer you got to Ground Zero because of all that debris that was blown in the air, the sunlight had a difficult time getting through the particles. That stuff. It was like volcanic ash, like blowing around. Yeah. And so it was like a weird haze. It was like a twilight haze. Everything was covered in that debris, asbestos and ground up concrete.
00:26:14:11 - 00:26:34:01
Vic Ferrari
But the thing that I'll never forget that is, as it were, coming down Broadway, we see thousands upon thousands of pairs of women's shoes. So you had all these women that worked on Wall Street, the Twin Towers, when they were running away, they took their high heels, too, off to get the hell out of there. So, I mean, it was just like odd, you know, you just saw all these shoes and that was like, oh, all right.
00:26:34:14 - 00:26:52:23
Vic Ferrari
And when we got like literally up to the pile, there was all sorts of crazy shit, like a guy walk by in a spacesuit with a Geiger counter and, like, the fuck is this? Like, is he from the government or is it a guy from New Jersey with a Geiger counter that thought like, today's the day. I'm going to go down and see if this thing works wrong?
00:26:53:20 - 00:27:08:08
Vic Ferrari
There was a piece of the facade that had come down thousands of feet and just was like stuck in front of the pile was weird. And it was like the last scene of Planet of the Apes when Charlton Heston sees the Statue of Liberty head on the beach and he's like.
00:27:08:08 - 00:27:09:00
Wayne Mulder
Yeah, holy.
00:27:09:00 - 00:27:27:01
Vic Ferrari
Shit. Like, that's, you know, because I'm like, What is that now? Like, that's the facade of the building. So it was just dumb. It was it was chaos down there. We didn't really know what to do. It just was the first day I was down there from like 130 in the afternoon. I didn't go home until like 530, 6:00 in the morning.
00:27:27:01 - 00:27:44:22
Vic Ferrari
We got dismissed. They told us, Go home, get some rest. Ron, you pulled through a washing machine and be back at the office up in the Bronx by about 530. We're coming back. So I was doing like 12, 13 hour tours for the first couple of days. Okay. Then they pulled us back and I worked in auto crime.
00:27:44:22 - 00:28:03:19
Vic Ferrari
So then they sent us out to the dump. So there was this long abandoned landfill out on Staten Island that they reopened when they started getting heavy equipment in there and starting to pull out stuff. And they had us like when they were pulling vehicles out of there, they had us chopping the vehicles up to make sure nobody was trapped inside.
00:28:04:08 - 00:28:04:23
Vic Ferrari
Oh, wow.
00:28:05:19 - 00:28:10:23
Wayne Mulder
Wow. That's incredible things you don't even think about. Yeah, there's definitely I can't even imagine.
00:28:10:23 - 00:28:22:24
Vic Ferrari
Being all the cars and police trucks and fire engines like, I mean, just rows and rows and rows stacked on top of each other. I mean, thousands of vehicles. Well, hundreds.
00:28:22:24 - 00:28:37:01
Wayne Mulder
Yeah. Those are things you don't even think of. I mean, this whole thing with the women's shoes, that's just, you know, it makes sense because you see that, you know, when you were in the high heels, whatever, your wife always takes them off, you know, to carry them or whatever. And if you're running from something like that fateful morning, yeah, absolutely.
00:28:37:01 - 00:28:43:09
Wayne Mulder
That's just amazing. At some point, you decide you want to become a writer. What was that process all about?
00:28:43:23 - 00:29:01:05
Vic Ferrari
Well, after I retired from the NYPD, I was bored out of my mind. So I came down to Florida, I got my certification, I became a cop down in Florida, and I worked for a small municipality, which it was a great department. But here's the deal. I'm in my early forties and now I'm going back on the road.
00:29:01:10 - 00:29:21:09
Vic Ferrari
I went from being a detective in America's largest police department to being back on the road, which is a young man's game. And now it's the domestics, now it's the DUI. And I'm like, It was like a bad episode of Reno 911. It's, you know, it's different down here. Like I had a half a day class on how to wrestle an alligator.
00:29:21:09 - 00:29:44:13
Vic Ferrari
I'm like, Can we just fucking shoot this thing? You know, like now? No, Every car has got duct tape and about, like, even one of these days. No way, man. So I did that for about eight months. They were great department, but it was big. I was just too old. The game changed. I should have stayed retired. And at the urging of friends and family, they said, You know, you got all these wild stories, you should really write them down.
00:29:44:23 - 00:30:01:00
Vic Ferrari
And I was apprehensive because, you know, I didn't know how this was going to get viewed by my peers. That was that that weighed heavily on me. So I said, if I'm going to write these books, couple of things I don't want to do is I don't want to get my divorce. I don't want to get in trouble.
00:30:01:00 - 00:30:20:04
Vic Ferrari
I don't want to embarrass anybody. So in my books, I mean, they're all loaded with short stories, a behind the scenes things that happened in the NYPD. But I changed the names, the dates, the locations, you know, the people I like, even people I didn't like. I don't want to single anybody out. But I mean, I get phone calls from my friends every time a book drops.
00:30:20:04 - 00:30:36:10
Vic Ferrari
I know who you're writing about, you know, So, you know, it became a cottage industry. I started writing these books and they started selling. And now I'm, you know, I mean, to sell them people like yourself with these forums and television shows and podcasts are nice enough to put me on my books.
00:30:37:02 - 00:30:44:16
Wayne Mulder
That's awesome. Was your first one the through the through the Looking Glass NYPD Through the Looking Glass. Was that the first of your books? Ah.
00:30:44:24 - 00:31:04:09
Vic Ferrari
No, I didn't. My first book is called Dickheads and Debauchery and Other Ingenious Ways to Die. It has nothing to do about police work. It's about the ridiculous things people do, destroying their life expectancy. Actually, it's a picture of a bad guy and a wife beater, drinking a beer on a ladder, smoking a cigaret, playing with electricity.
00:31:06:03 - 00:31:13:23
Wayne Mulder
I love that. The guys love that. So tell us a little bit about that book. What can they is that available on Amazon as well?
00:31:13:24 - 00:31:30:02
Vic Ferrari
Yeah, yeah. All my books are available on Amazon, but it's just the ridiculous things that I saw. And I guess this police story is in there, but it's just the ridiculous things that, you know, I've seen throughout my life that people do to shorten their life expectancy. Like, why are you going to travel all the way to Spain to run with the bulls?
00:31:30:06 - 00:31:39:06
Vic Ferrari
You really want to take your life in your hands and be scared shitless. Go down to Manhattan and ride the subway at midnight. You know, you'll you'll get way more excitement. It'll be a lot cheaper.
00:31:39:13 - 00:31:48:12
Wayne Mulder
Yeah, well, the subway anymore may not be considered safer either, but that's a different conversation.
00:31:48:12 - 00:31:55:05
Vic Ferrari
Very true. Yes. So my first NYPD book is NYPD Through the Looking Glass Stories from Inside America's largest police department.
00:31:55:24 - 00:32:05:00
Wayne Mulder
Very cool. So you want to just walk us through a little bit on what the readers can expect. The listeners who will hopefully become readers can expect to find when they get these books from Amazon.
00:32:05:18 - 00:32:25:05
Vic Ferrari
Yeah, there's no beginning, middle end in my books. It's just that they're perfect travel books. They're just it's a chapter. And then there's stories with it's a there's a chapter in NYPD through the Looking Glass called Practical Jokers. And it's like the stories I laid out earlier, another chapter from one of my books, Crossing Over to the Dark Side.
00:32:25:05 - 00:32:48:14
Vic Ferrari
It's cops that I saw go back, you know what I mean? And got themselves in all sorts of trouble. And some actually went to jail. My my opening the opening chapter of my book, NYPD Law Disorder. There's a chapter called Embarrassing Moments where I write about some really embarrassing things happened to me on my days on patrol, you know, like and I kept the stories to myself, obviously, until 30 years later when I got into writing books.
00:32:48:22 - 00:32:58:06
Wayne Mulder
Right? Yeah. It's funny how that all changes once we get a platform of some sort, and then you start telling these stories to everybody and you're like, I didn't want anyone to know about this back in the day.
00:32:58:09 - 00:33:18:00
Vic Ferrari
Oh God. In that embarrassing Moments chapter, it opens up with, I'm in a public restroom and I, I took my gun belt off and I hung it in the stall on the hook. And these teenagers ran into the bathroom and they were roughhousing and stuff. One runs into the next door, he jumps on the toilet and he's reached over to grab my gun belt.
00:33:18:06 - 00:33:36:01
Vic Ferrari
So now I'm taking a dog. I jump up with my left hand and start pulling up my uniform pants. And with my right hand I grab it around the neck and I pull up. But what I inadvertently did was when I pull him towards me now, he grabbed the gun belt with to here. So now I drop my pants in the pool and I'm in a hockey fight.
00:33:36:06 - 00:33:55:15
Vic Ferrari
So I got this pucker around the neck and I'm just well, and I'm a righty, so I'm at a disadvantage hitting him. Lefty. Right? Right. Yeah. Let's go with a gun belt. This friends run into the neck stall and they grab his leg. Now it's a tug of war from my gut about this kid, right? Finally, he drops the gun belt, right?
00:33:55:15 - 00:34:13:23
Vic Ferrari
When he drops the gun belt, they pull and you know, the partition in a public restroom. It's like made out of aluminum. That thing's a butt. So the whole thing with crashing over to the other side of to the next door, he drops a gun belt. I pull up my pants, I put on my gun belt, I go charging out after him, and they hit the food court.
00:34:13:23 - 00:34:32:10
Vic Ferrari
They were gone. And like I write in the book, I mean, they're gone. And I'm standing there and I got the radio in my hand and I'm like, if I move, I get to call the police. The responding cops are going to show up in the Bronx is a small place like I'm going to be the laughing stock of the Bronx, right?
00:34:32:14 - 00:34:54:06
Vic Ferrari
So I kept that story to myself. I just put the radio back and I'm like, And with the funny thing is, I was in that food court because that night I had made an arrest with four kilos on a car stop. So I was like on top of the world. And I'm like, I'm going to go from a hero to a schmuck because every cop in the Bronx is going to see me down a court and go, That's the guy that always got his gun belt taken when he was taking a shit.
00:34:54:11 - 00:34:58:04
Vic Ferrari
So I kept that story to myself until 30 something years later.
00:34:59:15 - 00:35:03:03
Wayne Mulder
Oh, that. That's awesome. Now, do you have more books on the horizon?
00:35:03:23 - 00:35:12:07
Vic Ferrari
Yeah. I mean, I've got six books out now. I'm writing a seven. I don't have a title for it yet, but it's the same thing. It's just short stories from my NYPD career.
00:35:12:12 - 00:35:19:24
Wayne Mulder
That's great. Now, do you I know you mentioned this dickheads and debauchery. Any other books outside the law enforcement genre that you have right now?
00:35:19:24 - 00:35:38:15
Vic Ferrari
Yeah, I wrote my latest book is called Confessions of a Catholic High School Graduate. It's got a picture of a kid getting chased out of a confessional by a priest. That really happened to me. No, I wasn't molested. But when you confess once in too many, it can lead to a foot chase, a crowd, an empty church. But it's just that's about me.
00:35:38:15 - 00:35:43:11
Vic Ferrari
Growing up in the Bronx and being a little son of a bitch and going to Catholic high school and turning my life around.
00:35:43:20 - 00:35:54:14
Wayne Mulder
Yeah. Now that's good. And I love your sense of humor. I like how just in the short conversation with you and some of the stuff that I've read, I just love how you bring your sense of humor to telling these stories. So that's good stuff.
00:35:55:00 - 00:36:15:24
Vic Ferrari
It's a part of my personality and, you know, it's I wanted to kind of be a little different than and I love true crime. Love it. I mean, that's pretty much all I read, but I kind of wanted to most guys that leave law enforcement, the books tend to be serious. But I kind of wanted to shine a light that there's a lot of fun stuff that goes on behind the scenes in police work.
00:36:16:11 - 00:36:34:01
Wayne Mulder
Yeah, And that's that's an important thing for people to understand, because I think sometimes the human side of it gets lost, right? So I think it's important to shine a light on the fun stuff, the silly stuff and the crazy stuff because Globules have no idea what cops see on a regular basis. So I think I think it's good to shine a light on this.
00:36:34:24 - 00:36:59:22
Vic Ferrari
Yeah. And I mean, I this stories in there about cops that got themselves in trouble, not criminally, but just this stupid shit that you would never believe. Yeah. I mean, we hire in bulk New York City Police Department, a small class police academy class is like 250, and we've had classes as much as 2500. So we ironbark. So you got to get morons or bad apples.
00:36:59:22 - 00:37:23:15
Vic Ferrari
It's a small percentage, but eventually, you know, they pop up, you know, I mean, there's a story in there. There was a guy he worked in applicant investigation, so he's in charge of, you know, screening recruits. And his friends got a criminal record. So we fingerprints himself. So his friends record like. Didn't he know that he's got an FBI B number and, you know, he's got a New York state nice ID number So, yeah.
00:37:23:15 - 00:37:44:22
Vic Ferrari
So what happens is he fingerprints himself as his friend. It flags down at NCIC with the FBI. They call the New York City Police Department or he got suspended. You know, I mean, nowadays you probably would have been fired. There's another story in one of my books. I knew a guy didn't particularly like them. He moved the dead body to work to avoid getting out of overtime.
00:37:44:22 - 00:37:47:15
Wayne Mulder
It's what you do, like drag him across the way or what?
00:37:47:15 - 00:37:49:14
Vic Ferrari
He you? I had the story. I got that.
00:37:49:14 - 00:37:50:13
Wayne Mulder
One. I got it here. Yeah.
00:37:50:17 - 00:38:08:22
Vic Ferrari
All right. So the early nineties and this cop had a foot pulse near the housing projects comes over as a cardiac he goes up by himself was an elderly gentleman that lived in the building and he was very tight with his neighbor. And when he didn't meet them for coffee that morning, the neighbor went into the apartment, found his friend.
00:38:08:22 - 00:38:33:09
Vic Ferrari
Now, the man had only died an hour or two earlier. Paramedics arrived. They say he's dead. So in New York, when someone dies in an apartment or a house, paramedics come. They say he's dead. Right? Then what happens is the detectives come. They check to see if there's foul play. Right. Sergeant comes into an inventory of the apartment, make sure there's no, you know, property or something that shouldn't be there.
00:38:33:16 - 00:38:49:22
Vic Ferrari
Then what happens is whoever showed up, that cop has to sit with the body. We call it sitting on a dog. You've got to sit on that body for hours until the medical examiner comes. And in New York, people are dropping dead all over. So you could be there for 4 to 12 hours waiting for the M.E. to show up.
00:38:49:22 - 00:39:12:03
Vic Ferrari
And when the a medical examiner is going to come, he's going to look he's going to look at their pills and maybe call their doctor off of the prescription or something. And the AMA is going to say, no, you know what? I want to look into this. They'll send the morgue wagon to take the body down to the morgue for an autopsy, or the medical examiner will say, yeah, natural death and tell the family you go call the funeral home, get your affairs in order.
00:39:12:03 - 00:39:26:23
Vic Ferrari
But the cop stays there until the body leaving. So it was a Friday night. This cop was lazy, wanted to go out drinking. As the two paramedics are leaving the apartment, he goes, Can't you take them? And he says, We don't take them. You know, we don't take them the only way we take them, if he's in public view and they leave.
00:39:27:04 - 00:39:45:22
Vic Ferrari
So this fucking idiot comes up with the bright idea, waits a half hour, he gets on the radio, he calls in a cardiac Well, the same two paramedics show up. He was hoping two other paramedics would show up the same to come running up in the hallway with all their shit. And now you've got a dead body in the hallway, and the guy is starting to have rigor mortis now.
00:39:46:04 - 00:40:02:06
Vic Ferrari
So they turn around and they go, What the fuck is this? And now the cop is like, Oh, shit. He start backpedaling. He goes, He makes up this bullshit story. He goes, You're not going to believe this. After you left, he jumped up and went, Oh shit. He went to the apartment. He opened the door and he died again in the hallway.
00:40:02:06 - 00:40:22:01
Vic Ferrari
And they're like, No, he did. He's got lividity. You can see the body was move. You drag this fuck through the apartment. Sergeant shows up, they tell him what happened, yada, yada, yada. He gets he gets suspended, he loses 30 vacation days. They put him on a year probation. They transferred around a bar. That happened. Nowadays, he would have been on the front page of every New York newspaper.
00:40:22:01 - 00:40:22:14
Wayne Mulder
Heck yeah.
00:40:22:24 - 00:40:25:13
Vic Ferrari
Lost the job and possibly been been arrested.
00:40:26:00 - 00:40:57:24
Wayne Mulder
Right. I was going to say, nowadays, he absolutely would have been arrested. That is a crazy story. I think that actually takes the cake is probably the craziest stories I've had on this podcast. So let me ask you a question. Obviously, I'm narrowing down my last couple here, but obviously times are changing. So and you still write about the profession, you still write about the time that you were in the profession, but what are your thoughts on the direction kind of, you know, what would you say to officers that are still on the job today and especially coming from New York City and to those in New York City?
00:40:58:19 - 00:41:23:16
Vic Ferrari
I feel terrible for cops right now. They're demonized. They're being used as political pawns. You got politicians that rush to judgment, you know, to pander to their donors or constituents. And, you know, it's just you know, in New York, we were always looked down upon, you know, but at the same time, you know, in different departments across the country, I always used to see cops were treated with a lot more respect than we were up in New York.
00:41:23:16 - 00:41:43:01
Vic Ferrari
And now it seems like things are change and cops are catching shit all over the place. Now, I think it's wrong. I feel bad for cops. I think, you know, it's funny, when they started with these body cams, I think, you know, I think everybody thought people that aren't police friendly, like all we're going to catch these cops doing all this bad things.
00:41:43:01 - 00:42:01:14
Vic Ferrari
And the reality is it points out how difficult the cop's job is and how people do act like assholes and wind up getting themselves locked up, you know, And, you know, you can say whatever you want. It's what he does. Three sides to his story. But if you got that body cam on and it shows, you know, you know, the cop called me this.
00:42:01:14 - 00:42:15:00
Vic Ferrari
He said that he pulled me over for no reason. Well, you see that he's swerving all over the road or you see, he did this or he did that. So I don't think it's the people that don't like the police. I think the body cam backfired on them.
00:42:15:12 - 00:42:32:23
Wayne Mulder
Yeah. No, absolutely. In fact, those early days of getting body cameras, it was one of the best ways to eliminate complaints because someone would call up and be like, Hey, I want to complain about so-and-so doing such, such. And the supervisor could just simply say, Hey, no problem, I'm going to take a look at the body camera. Well, never mind.
00:42:32:23 - 00:42:39:20
Wayne Mulder
I don't want to make that complaint or whatever the situation is, because immediately they realized that it was many times going to vindicate the officer.
00:42:40:10 - 00:42:58:10
Vic Ferrari
Yeah. And what's wrong is in New York, what if someone pulls that crap? They should be arrested for filing a false police report. But they won't do it in New York. I don't know how it is in other municipalities, but I mean, you can make up the most ridiculous story. And if it gets found true, then they won't prosecute them.
00:42:58:10 - 00:42:59:06
Vic Ferrari
They will lock them up.
00:42:59:15 - 00:43:05:01
Wayne Mulder
Yeah. For that kind of situation, it wouldn't be prosecuted down here either. That.
00:43:05:09 - 00:43:05:22
Vic Ferrari
Oh, really?
00:43:06:01 - 00:43:26:24
Wayne Mulder
Yeah For that kind of thing. Yeah. No, I mean if they, if they make an actual police report that's a different situation or a CPI type investigation but not something like that. Not that not an allegation and instead it would more just become they were just unfounded, a lot faster and make it rightfully go away. So then one other question I wanna ask you.
00:43:26:24 - 00:43:42:16
Wayne Mulder
From having this many years in there and looking back at a lot of these stories and there's a huge push right now in law enforcement when we talk about mental health. What are your thoughts on that? And I'm kind of going down the road. I would think that there's a therapeutic element to doing all this writing. Would you agree with that statement?
00:43:43:05 - 00:44:07:04
Vic Ferrari
Oh, yeah. Oh, definitely. I mean, yeah, because, I mean, I get to relive I'm living vicariously through myself 25, 35 years later. So yeah, it's definitely therapeutic. And what's funny is a lot of times now I connect with guys and girls that I used to work with, you know, and I'll track them down like, Hey, remember that time this happened?
00:44:07:09 - 00:44:29:06
Vic Ferrari
You know, actually, a guy I worked with, we recovered Mike Tyson, stolen Ducati. That's a whole other story. But I reached out to him. I can remember one record, Tyson's, Ducati. I got you know, you had to ask him to fill in the blanks with a couple of things, but it is I get to connect with guys and girls I used to work with, and it is mental health wise.
00:44:29:06 - 00:44:55:12
Vic Ferrari
It is. You get to work through things and talk about things in New York, we have a health service division and in New York, if a cop goes, you know, and I'm not even talking about someone makes a complaint or they're exhibiting bizarre behavior, which has happened. But the first thing they do in New York is even if you go for help and you say, listen, you know, I'm not feeling right.
00:44:55:12 - 00:45:14:06
Vic Ferrari
I got all these problems, The first thing they do is they put you on a restricted, a modified assignment. They take your guns away from you. They stamp your ID card. No guns, and then they ship you off. You know, they ship you off to like. And the NYPD is so big, they they kind of do the same thing to guys and girls that get in trouble.
00:45:14:12 - 00:45:31:23
Vic Ferrari
They'll send you off to, like, Siberia, like the Whitestone Pound, where you guarding 30,000 cars with feral cats that jump out at your feet when you're walking through rows of abandoned cars. You know what I mean? It's like, Jesus, if you're depressed now, wait, wait, wait till you see what we're going to send. Or you're in the court system, work in midnight stamp and paper.
00:45:31:23 - 00:45:54:11
Vic Ferrari
So, you know, it's I get that, you know, cops carry guns and that they're afraid someone's going to be suicidal. They want to avoid that. And, you know, they don't want them hurting themselves or others. But there's got to be something in between. I don't quite know what that is, but you're almost punished. And I've seen it happen to people, you know, that, you know, they weren't feeling right I don't think they were suicidal.
00:45:54:11 - 00:46:14:04
Vic Ferrari
I just think that, you know, they needed somebody to talk to. And the funny thing is, like after 911, with all that FEMA money, they started bringing us down. Like they brought my whole office down, which was like 25 or 30 of us. And you had all these counselors and they were nice people, you know, like what? Like, no, I was talking to them.
00:46:14:11 - 00:46:31:08
Vic Ferrari
You know what I mean? It was like it was like it was like a big Internet day, you know what I mean? It was just like everybody sitting around and they're like, How do you feel? Like, I feel great. You know what I mean? It was. But I but I mean, by the time that happened, I had like 15 years in.
00:46:31:08 - 00:46:46:09
Vic Ferrari
I mean, and you know this from working in law enforcement. If you're going to be effective and good at your job, you've got to be able to let stuff go and you've got to be able to compartmentalize things like, yeah, this happened, yeah, it's really bad, but I'm not going to let this ruin the rest of my life, right?
00:46:46:11 - 00:47:05:23
Vic Ferrari
You know what I mean? So or when you're in the middle of something that's horrific or terrible, like that day or I've walked I've walked into homicide scenes where I had a woman that was almost decapitated, You're like, Well, this sucks, but I got to get through it. I have to get through this. I'm here, I got to do this job and I have to push through and I have to accomplish my mission.
00:47:06:06 - 00:47:15:05
Vic Ferrari
You know, I'll worry about that other stuff later. And then, you know, you try not to take it out on your loved ones or you know what I mean? It's you got to deal with it.
00:47:15:19 - 00:47:31:11
Wayne Mulder
Yeah. No. And I think what you're highlighting there with the way the agency would have handled things back then, it does really speak to the stigma that there is around law enforcement. And the sad thing with because like you said, if if they're faced with if I seek help, I'm going to lose my gun. I could lose my gun.
00:47:31:11 - 00:47:43:01
Wayne Mulder
I may lose my career at a lot of places. Yes. It may not even be hiding, you know, some tucked away corner. It may lose their career altogether. So, yeah, fortunately, there is a large push against fighting this stigma.
00:47:44:01 - 00:48:02:19
Vic Ferrari
Oh, yeah. And I think, you know, I don't have an answer for it. Obviously, you know, the mental health profession and law enforcement don't have an answer either because I've seen it and and they will keep you on the shelf for years because basically they look at it this way. We're paying you. We're just going to run the clock out on you.
00:48:03:12 - 00:48:16:01
Vic Ferrari
Yeah, we'll pay you until you get your pension and you're going to stamp paperwork somewhere. And I've seen guys and girls for, you know, ten years, you know, just wasting away somewhere and it makes them feel worse.
00:48:16:11 - 00:48:33:00
Wayne Mulder
Right? Yeah, that's definitely not an answer. And like, you said, we definitely don't have all the answers yet, But I'm optimistic because I was definitely is seen a large push here in recent years. So so let me ask you, this has been a great conversation. Let me ask you my final question that I ask everybody that comes on the show.
00:48:33:00 - 00:48:41:16
Wayne Mulder
What is the one take away the one thing that law enforcement officers can do that's going to make a difference in their personal lives?
00:48:41:16 - 00:49:03:16
Vic Ferrari
Don't be the guy or girl in the locker room. You know, it's if I listen to the every I could speak to a New York City precinct's. Right. So a New York City precinct, you have a small precinct like those places. Staten Island got 100 cops, an average sized precinct, about 200. And then if you go into Manhattan, some of that like 500 people, there's always going to be guys and girls in the locker room.
00:49:04:03 - 00:49:24:24
Vic Ferrari
The naysayers are all put in for that. Don't do that. Don't be afraid to try something different. You know, It's like, oh, I'm never going to get that detail. I'm not going to put in for it. Put in for it. Yeah. You never know. You know what I mean? And if you see somebody, you know, got the same guys and girls that drive around in circles, they're miserable, you know what I mean?
00:49:24:24 - 00:49:41:01
Vic Ferrari
And you get the young cops, they listen to these people, we call them hair bags in New York, like you call a handbag, like a cop, a uniform assault, the you know, a cop that's got uniform deficiencies. And what when you got kid, you know the know what? I'll always try to point a bag of shit off on an unsuspecting cop.
00:49:41:09 - 00:49:58:20
Vic Ferrari
Oh, yeah, You know what I mean? So don't listen to those people. They're miserable. Don't let them bring you down. You know what I mean? Do your job. Don't worry about what they have to say. And matter of fact, don't worry. What don't they disappear? You know, there's this peer pressure of law enforcement. Yeah. No, fuck off. You know what I mean?
00:49:58:20 - 00:50:04:15
Vic Ferrari
Do your job and worry about yourself. Don't worry about the nonsense in the locker rooms.
00:50:04:24 - 00:50:15:04
Wayne Mulder
That is great advice. And it applies not just to the New York locker room. I give the same advice down here. So that's. That is great advice. Thank you very much. What is the best way for people to connect with you?
00:50:15:23 - 00:50:35:03
Vic Ferrari
Sure. So if you want to check out my books, they're all they're all $10 paperbacks. They make great stocking stuffers. Just go on Amazon, go to the book section, type Vick, the AC Ferrari, like the car. My book, my Amazon book page. You'll come up and if you want to get a hold of me, I'm on Instagram and Twitter at Vick Ferrari five zero.
00:50:35:16 - 00:50:41:15
Wayne Mulder
Perfect. And I'll be sure to have all that linked up in the show notes. Vick, thank you so much for coming on. This has been an enjoyable conversation.
00:50:42:00 - 00:50:43:07
Vic Ferrari
Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
00:50:43:14 - 00:51:05:20
Wayne Mulder
Thanks. So how was that? I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed recording it, getting to sit down and talk to Vick. It was such a funny, a humorous conversation. And yet we did get serious at the end, as you noticed, and we just had a really great time and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed getting to set and talk with him.
00:51:05:20 - 00:51:26:22
Wayne Mulder
So thank you for watching or listening however you've preferred to take on this podcast, but every episode has full show notes. We've got pictures on there, we've got links to everything discussed. We've got transcriptions that really everything. If you haven't checked out the show notes pages before, I encourage you to do so. It's on the blue line dot com for its last show notes.
00:51:27:03 - 00:51:43:10
Wayne Mulder
But the easy way to do it is whatever platform you're watching or listening to this on, just scroll down to the show notes and select the first link, which will take you to the website page. That is all for today. But don't forget that I'm going to see you Monday in the morning. Roll call. I'll see you next Thursday.
00:51:43:10 - 00:51:52:16
Wayne Mulder
In the interview room. But in the meantime, I'll see you out there on the blue line.