Back in the day, circa 1988 or so, I was a rookie police officer assigned to an ‘A’ house, PD slang for a busy ghetto precinct. Rookies in my command had to guard hospitalized prisoners on the 8x4 & 4x12 tours; the old-timers did it on the midnites so they could sleep. Anyway, almost all of the perps were street Robbery/GLA type crimes that-went-wrong or DWI or GLA crashes, you get the drift.
One day I’m assigned to guard a perp, a gunshot victim from Bensonhurst (Mob-hit gone-bad). He was a burglar, specifically fur vaults & banks; a skinny Italian kid in his mid-twenties. In fact, there was to be a detective from the Safe, Loft, & Truck Squad guarding him as well. Usually you’re guarding the perp, so he doesn’t escape; in this case it was to prevent a 2nd chance at the botched hit, hence the double guarding assignment. BTW: The vic was seated in a car when shot: 6 hits w/a .380 as follows; 3 to the head, 1st one in the head ended up under his eye, it was just cut out, the 2nd one went around the skull under the skin & out the back,..3rd one bounced off his forehead so no damage; but he also took 3 to the chest…& he lived! & was able to stand up 2 weeks later!
Anyway the Safe, Loft, & Truck Squad wanted this commercial premises burglar obviously & the detectives assigned there were top-notch, all were 1st Graders (detectives who make Captain’s pay!). I relieved the day tour cop & then the 4x12 detective came too. Well, we sat down together for the next 8 hours outside the single room where the perp was and he started to talk...This is one of his stories...keep in mind he came on the job the year I was born, 1958!
There was a homicide by gunshot in a pool room in Bed-Stuy. The investigation determined that the perp fled to Philadelphia. His family was given the detective’s phone # & told to have the perp call so we can “straighten this ‘thing’ out”.
Sure enough, he calls...from a payphone in Philly (call was traced & Philly PD was responding to the location to arrest). The dialogue went..."I had to pull the trigger… it was a bet"...The detective said he understood & the best thing to do was to surrender to the Philly Police &...The perp said, “Man, NO ONE surrenders to the Philadelphia Police!” The next thing heard was a scream & a car crash as a police cruiser ran over the phone booth! w/the perp still inside! Next was heard the following, “This is so&so of the Philadelphia Police Department; We have your man!” And they did, pinned inside the booth.
So the Brooklyn detectives drive down to Philly to pick him up. You never saw a happier perp when he saw the NYPD DT’s. Back in the Brooklyn precinct, the perp told the following: They were playing Russian Roulette where you point the gun at the loser of the bet & pull the trigger. 5 rounds had gone by…& only 1 chamber left. The perp had bet that he had a certain ‘appendage’ 13 pennies long & the victim said BS pull the trigger to which the perp did! At the trial his defence attorney argued that since the vic loaded the gun & under the circumstances, his client couldn’t imagine that the gun was
really loaded so...He was found not guilty!....(& indeed it was 13 pennies long as measured by the detectives in the precinct!)...And that's the way it was...