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The Moth
Steve Osborne: Walk Like a Cop, Talk Like a Cop
00:17:28
A visit to Washington Square Park makes a New York City police officer realize that there’s never a time when he isn’t walking and talking like a cop. Steve Osborne was a New York City police officer for twenty years and retired as a Lieutenant assigne...
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- [00:00]
Dan Kennedy
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- [01:08]
Steve Osborne
Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy and the Moth features true stories told live without notes. All stories from the podcast are taken from our ongoing storytelling series in New York, Los Angeles and from our tour shows across the country. Visit themoth.org the story you're about to hear by Steve Osborne was recorded live at the players club on February 22, 2006. The theme of the night was trials and stories about the law. Many of you podcast listeners have grown to love Steve through his stories that we've featured here on the podcast. And today's story was actually the first time he had ever told a story with the Moth. We knew after that night we had to have him back.
- [01:51]
Let me just start out by saying that the guy in my story is guilty. He's definitely 100% guilty. I mean, please have no doubts. My name's Steve Osborne. I was a cop for 20 years. I was just a hard working cop, just trying to do the best job that I could. And being out in the street for 20 years, you learn, you get a million stories. And this is just one of them. My girlfriend calls me up one day and she says, can you take me to the dentist? So I says, yeah, no problem. So it turns out her dentist is right across the street from Washington Square park. And this is where I work. I work in a 6th Precinct down at Greenwich Village. So my plan was I'll take her to the dentist it's only gonna be like a half hour. I says, I'll go grab a coffee, the paper, I'll go sit in the park, enjoy the day and wait for her. So that's what I do. I drop her off, I go get my coffee, the paper, I find an empty bench and I go sit there. It's a nice day. The sun's shining. Everybody's hanging out in the park. There's a little three piece band over here, a little classical band. There's a guy playing a tuba, you know, bump, bump, you know, like you see in a marching band, there's a girl playing this little fancy guitar. There's another guy playing the drums. There's a guy by the fountain flipping pots and pans in the air. He's juggling and passing the hat around. The NYU students are over there, they're doing their algebra or something. A couple of the hippies are over there. They're smoking weed, contemplating the universe. And in the middle of all of this, there's the drug dealers. I see them, they're all swarming all over the park, contemplating what the cops are up to. So I'm sitting there, I'm reading my paper, enjoying the day, when two real salty looking dudes come walking by. They look at me and they stop dead in their tracks. I'm not fooling anybody. I look like a cop, I act like a cop, I talk like a cop, I smell like a cop. These guys made me, so now they want me to know that they made me. So they stop and they give me that staring at me, sucking their teeth and just giving me that tough guy look. So I'm sitting there, I fold up my paper and I give them my best go fuck yourself look. They keep on walking. They're right balling me, I'm right balling them. All I want to do is sit in the park like everybody else here and be left alone, you know? But a cop's life, it's just different than everybody else. So I'm sitting there reading my paper again. Few more minutes later, this skinny little black dude comes walking by. He looks at me and it looks like he saw a ghost. His eyes pop out of his head and he looks at me and he goes, hold it. Don't go nowhere. Stay right there. And it looks like he's trying to stop a speeding train or something. And I'm like, what does this guy want? He takes off running, running right through the park. So I'm sitting there trying to figure what now? What could happen now? So I'M sitting here thinking about this for a few minutes, and next thing, I see him coming back through the park, and he's running and he's dragging this girl behind him. He's got her by the arm and he's dragging her behind him. She's doing her best to keep up. They come running right over to me and he's like, honey, honey, this is him. This is the guy. That's the guy. That's the guy I told you about. So I'm sitting there and I'm looking at him and I'm looking at her. So I tell him, I don't know you, bro. You know? And I give him that tone of voice, like, tell your story walking. So he's like. So he's like, come on, you know me. You know me. Don't you remember me? You know me. The hot dogs. So as soon as he says the hot dogs, I go, all right, all right, all right. It all came back about five or six years earlier. I'm in uniform. I'm out on patrol with my partner. I'm looking for a collar. Collar's in arrest. So I tell my partner, Big John. I says, johnny, take a ride around 6th Avenue. Let me go see if I can find something down there. Well, what happens is the drug dealer's in the park. There's a lot of cops by the park. So they steer the buyers down to 6th Avenue. They mingle in the big crowd. They hit them off over there, you know, try and hide out in the crowd. So me and John are riding up 6th Avenue, and I see my little skinny crackhead friend there. And he's talking to a guy, well dressed guy in like a Brooks Brothers suit. And they're all buddies. But I know that on any other given day, Mr. Brooks Brothers would not piss on him if he was on fire. But the reason that they're real buddies is because that Mr. Brooks Brothers is a crackhead, too. He's just better dressed. So I tell John, now everybody else is on 6th Avenue. There's a thousand people out there. Nobody notices this. But to me, these two guys stick out like two broken thumbs. So I tell John, I says, whip it around the block. I'll catch him when we come around. So Johnny hangs the right on 4th street, hangs the right on McDougal. We get stuck in a little bit of traffic. He jumps up on the curb, rides down the sidewalk. People are yelling at us. He jumps the other curb, third street, back down the Sixth Avenue. And I see my skinny little friend over there, Mr. Brooks Brothers is gone. He must have hit him off. These friendships only last for, like, maybe a minute. So Brooks Brothers is gone. So I figured, let me grab this guy so I don't have to say nothing to John. We've done this a hundred times. It's kind of like it's choreographed. I jump out of the car, I get onto the sidewalk. I start mingling in the crowd. John's in the street. John's in the car. He's following right behind me. I'm creeping up through the crowd. I'm trying to get close to this guy. Johnny's staying right with me. The way we do it is as soon as I get ready to grab this guy, John's going to cut him off with the car. I'm going to come this way. We box him in between us. Boom, I got him. So I'm making my way through the crowd. I'm getting close to him. 10ft, 5ft. John's right there with me. His spider sense must have started tingling or something, because he turns around and there I am. His eyes pop out of his head like a cartoon, and he turns and he starts to run. I get him by the back of the jacket, I yoke him around the neck. Him and I go falling down to the ground. We're rolling around on the ground fighting. And as we're fighting, I see him. He pops something in his mouth. I know exactly what it is. He's trying to swallow the evidence. So here I am. I got him by the throat, and I'm choking him. I'm like, come on, spit it out, motherfucker. Spit it out. You know, without any evidence, you don't have a collar. So I'm choking this guy out in the middle of 6th Avenue. Now, if he wants to breathe, he's got to spit it out. So he spits it out right there onto the sidewalk. A clear plastic bag with 28 vials of crack in it. All right, we're in business. I get him cuffed up, and a couple of concerned citizens start yelling at me, leave him alone. He ain't bothering nobody. You just jumped him, started beating them up. What am I gonna do? My partner Johnny's a big burly guy from Italian, he from Brooklyn. He explained. He explains to them he's not as nice as I am. He explains to them that they better shut the fuck up and start walking or they're gonna join this crackhead in the back of the car for a ride to the station house. So they weren't that concerned about his. Well, Being anymore. Cause they left. So we throw him in a car. I take him into the station house, bring him to the desk, the old crusty lieutenants there. And I look. It kind of looks just like this guy right here. So I bring him to the desk, and I tell him, lou, I got one for sale. I got the rubber glove on. Because this plastic bag is covered with spit and goop and all this other crap that was down his throat. I hold it up. I got it, Lou. He goes, all right. He groans at me, get him out of here. So I take him in the back and I throw him in the cell. He knows what's coming next. I know what's coming next. Give me your jacket, Give me your shirt. Give me your pants, your shoes. You got to get strip searched. That's the way it is. So I take his jacket. I go through every. Every pocket, every cuff, every hem, everything. His pants. I turn his shoes inside out. Now I gotta check the last possible place that a guy can hide some evidence. Turn around, I take out my flashlight, bend over. Police work is not as glamorous as you think it is. When I was a kid growing up, I never saw columbo or Adam12 shining their light up some guy's ass. So I give him his clothes back. But I noticed he's like this. The guy's skinny as a rail. It looks like he hasn't eaten. So I go out to the vending machines. I grab two sodas and two bags of chips. So I come back, I says, here. He takes the bag of chips, crushes them, pours them down his throat and drinks half the soda. And I'm looking, I'm like, this guy's hungry. So I give him my bag of chips. He does the same thing. He crushes them, pours them down his throat and finishes the soda. So I tell him, lay down, relax. He lays down on the floor. He goes to sleep. I go out to the typewriter. I bang out about two hours of paperwork. I tell john, come on, we gotta go down to Central Booking. Throw him in the back of the car on the way down. I'm starving. My stomach's growling. I need some real food. I see a hot dog wagon in front of 100 Center Street. So I say, johnny, pull over, man. I'm starving. So he pulls over. The old Italian guy says, give me two with everything and a soda. So he hands them to me. I open them up in the back of the car. And the smell of the onions, the sauerkraut, the mustard. It's beautiful. It's filling the car. I take the dog. I'm ready to take a bite. And I look and he's staring at me, and he's practically drooling. So I'm like, are you hungry? He's like, yeah, now I got a little bit of a problem. I don't mind feeding them. It's no big deal. I mean, he does what he does, I do what I do. You know, you don't take it personal. You know, this is business. But the problem was that he's cuffed, he's rear cuffed. Now, I'm a nice guy, but my kindness only goes so far. And I'm not gonna hand feed this guy a hot dog. So I tell him, I says, look, I'm gonna uncuff you. And I explain to him very seriously that I'm not kidding. And I tell him, you try anything stupid, I'm gonna fuck you up big time. You understand me? So he's like, no, no, I swear, I'm just hungry. So he leans forward, and I see my partner's two eyeballs glaring at me in the rearview mirror. He didn't say nothing. But his eyes, I knew what he was thinking. Don't do this. This is stupid. Don't uncuff this guy. I uncuff him, give him the hot dogs. It was like a Coney island hot dog eating contest. Boom, boom, the two of them were gone. So I'm looking at him, I'm like, are you still hungry? He's like, I said, give me two more. I give him two more. Boom, boom, they're gone. Well, six hot dogs and two sodas later, he's finally full. So he was a gentleman. I give him credit. He leans forward, puts his hands behind his back. I cuff him back up. I says, come on, John, let's go to Central Booking. So I bring him inside. If anybody's ever been to Central Booking, I know Liz has. It's a very dehumanizing place. It's not a fun place. Don't go there if you don't have to. If you had a choice of being arrested or not being arrested, don't do it. It's steel doors, cement floors, walls, ceiling. And the place stinks like body odor. So I bring them inside and I bring them over to the bullpen. The bullpen is like a cage that's like 20 by 30 packed with prisoners. So I bring him over to the bullpen. I gotta lodge him. And I'm uncomfortable. And he says to me, he goes, you know, thanks, for the dogs, man. I appreciate it. I said, I don't worry about it. Ain't no big deal. He goes, nah, nah, nah. He goes, I know you didn't have to do it, but you did it anyway. You were nice to me. I said, don't worry about it. Ain't no big deal. So he's like, what do you think's gonna happen to me? So I give him my feel good speech. Don't worry about it. You know, you see the judge, maybe you get time served, tell Ro, you know, release you on your own recognizance. Don't worry about it. But he knew better. He had been collared a whole bunch of times before, and he knew he was going to do a little time for this. But I noticed as the two of us are talking, we're both whispering. And the reason we were whispering was he didn't want the guys in the bullpen to know that he was being chummy with the cops. And I was whispering because I didn't want the cops to think I was a libra. So I tell him. So I tell him, you know, don't worry about it. You know, good luck with your case. You know, say one case out of 100 goes to trial. Hey, good luck, man. You know, have a nice life. I'll see you around. So I get him lodged. Five, six years later, here I am, he's standing in front of me in the park, and he remembers the hot dogs. And his girlfriend's like. Like she knows me. Like we're all friends, apparently. He must have told her this story like 20 times. So we're out there, we're shaking hands and this and that. How you doing? Hey, you got kids? You married? Hey, where do you live? Oh, you know, what's your favorite color? And it's like. It's like we're all friends, you know? So finally, you know, we're done reminiscing and everything about the good old days. And, you know, he goes on his way, and I go on my way, and I go pick up my girlfriend from the dentist. So she goes, how was the park? So I just met her. So it was kind of hard to explain to her that my job is I chase a guy down, I choke the loving shit out of him in the middle of 6th Avenue. I shine a flashlight up his ass, and then I buy him dinner. So I just tell her, I met an old friend in the park. Right. Thank you.
- [16:15]
Steve Osborne was a New York City police officer for 20 years and retired as a lieutenant, assigned to the Detective Bureau. The Moth is a non profit organization, so consider supporting our free podcast by going to our podcast page, contribution page, or by becoming a Moth member and you can do that@themost.org and also moth stories are now available on itunes by running a search for the best of the Moth and include today's story which can be found on Audience Favorites Volume 4. And don't forget now you can also stream the Moth podcast on your smartphone. Visit stitcher.com to download the free application.
- [16:53]
Dan Kennedy
Our podcast host, Dan Kennedy is the author of the book Rock An Office Power Ballad. Learn more@rockonthebook.com thanks to all of you.
- [17:02]
Steve Osborne
For listening and we hope you have a story worthy week. Podcast audio production by Paul Ruest at the Argo Studios in New York Podcast hosting by PRX Public Radio Exchange Helping make public radio more public@prx.org.