Waters - NYPD green: a memoir

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Touchstone

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Copyright 2015 by Luke Waters

Written with Patrick Ryan

Originally published in 2015 in Ireland by Hachette Books

Jacket Photographs: Background Sam Edwards/Plainpicture/Caia Image, Police Officer Keven Osborne/Fox Fotos/Lonely Planet Images/Getty Images, Irish Flag Gregoria Gregoriou Crowe Fine Art and Creative Photography/Moment Open/Getty Images

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Touchstone Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Touchstone hardcover edition January 2016

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Waters, Luke.

NYPD green : a memoir / Luke Waters.First Touchstone hardcover edition.

pages cm

Originally published in 2015 in Ireland by Hachette Books.

Summary: In the tradition of bestsellers like Blue Blood comes a book that takes us inside the New York City police department and offers a glimpse at the grit, the glory, and often the absurdity of police work in the Big Applethis time, through the eyes of an Irish immigrant who spent more than 20 years as one of New Yorks Finest, in an account that will make you sit up, stay up, and keep reading (Ed Conlon)Provided by publisher.

1. Waters, Luke. 2. New York (N.Y.). Police DepartmentOfficials and employeesBiography. 3. PoliceNew York (State)New YorkBiography. 4. Irish AmericansNew York (State)New YorkBiography. 5. ImmigrantsIrelandBiography. I. Title.

HV7911.W367A3 2016

363.2092dc23

[B]

2015018923

ISBN 978-1-5011-1901-9

ISBN 978-1-5011-1902-6 (ebook)

To my wife Susan and our children, Tara, Ryan, and David

Central, stand by; ten-thirteen, stand by! I call tersely into the handheld radio. The police channel which crackled with coded updates moments ago is silent.

Thousands of police officers pause, waiting for my location.

Those nearby will respond immediately with lights blazing, sirens wailing, pistols drawn to the most serious of all calls: Officer needs assistance.

Updates on my position have to wait. My attention is focused on the large Hispanic man who has broken away from his three friends, the sunshine glinting off his chrome semiautomatic pistol. He raises it towards the crowd of men, lead pipes held aloft, who are approaching him and his companionsand he pulls the trigger.

People scatter in all directions, including the gunman and his crew, who pile into a silver SUV which accelerates away from the curb with a squeal of tires. I take off on his tail, my cherry light, beloved of Kojak, beside my Kevlar vest and NYPD jacket in the trunk. Whatever I am about to face, it will be alonewhile I handle this hot pursuit my partner is off duty, nursing a cold bottle of beer, working on tomorrows headache. So for now its just Luke Waters along with Messrs. Smith & Wesson.

I know that I need to call in my location, but I struggle to juggle a gun in one hand and a radio in the other while steering the bouncing Buick as the speedometer needle tickles a hundred miles per hour and street signs blur.

Okay, Bronx Homicide, 165 and Westchester... fuck!... Central, silver Lincoln, New York plate, 165 pursuit... Da-vid-Frank-Will-iam... 627... 167th Street... Lincoln Navigator... 167 and Intervale... 167 and Boston Road... Crotona Park... Fulton Avenue... shots fired! Shots fired!...

My car struggles to keep up with the SUV, and I pray that we dont hit another car or a mother pushing a baby carriage as we blaze through lights and intersections, the driver in the Lincoln desperately trying to shake his pursuer.

Claremont Parkway... southbound on Third Avenue... male Hispanic in a white T-shirt with a silver semiautomatic pistol... southbound on Third Avenue 170... ten-thirteen. The gunman suddenly pulls to the side of the street and jumps from the car.

Im out of my vehicle and running, crouched and frantic.

Get the fuck on the ground! Eighty-four Washington and 170.

The radio goes silent again. Throughout the South Bronx every cop on duty waits for another update. I take a moment to catch my next breath, thankful that its not my last.

Bronx Homicide: negative on shots fired at MOS, I gasp into the Motorola handset. The cavalry has arrived.

The Lincoln is pulled up on the curb, its occupants lying facedown, breathing heavily through mouthfuls of asphalt and tar as they are cuffed by the officers already on the scene. I lean against the wall, my suit drenched in sweat, just knackered, offering a prayer heavenwards and a thumbs-up to the NYPD helicopter hovering above the rooftops.