Читать книгу LIFE AFTER RUSSIAN ROULETTE: REDEMPTION - Michael Kaminski - Страница 5

Driving through Pigtown, I glanced at the blocks of row homes that I passed on my way to Western District that first day. Although I was born and lived most of my life in Baltimore, I never spent a lot of time in the city. Now I saw the city in a new light and I paid attention to what I was looking at.

Pigtown was in the Southwestern District and it reflected the image of Baltimore City, especially South Baltimore. I grew up in Brooklyn Park. The only connection between my community and the area of South Baltimore and Pigtown was our Baltimore City zip code.

As I studied the row houses, I thought about my home. My wife and I bought a nice row home after a couple years of living in an apartment. Our house was different from the homes I looked at as I drove through the streets. We had a small front and back yard and a garage. The homes I passed only had small stoops for a porch, characteristic of the uniqueness of Baltimore City. The front yards were their sidewalks.

It was a typical cold winter day with very little movement in the streets except for the traffic going to work. The cold January weather kept a lot of life off the streets. No one sat on the stoops in January. That activity would begin in the springtime when the city came back to life. For now, the area appeared very quiet.

The residents of Southwest Baltimore were primarily white. However, the majority of people who lived within the boundaries of Western District were black. I did not know it at the time but Western would force me to confront myself in several ways – my belief in myself, my fear of physical limitations as a police officer, my uncertainty of courage in certain situations and my racial prejudice. I would learn a lot about myself in the short time I would be assigned to Western. I would learn how to adapt, adjust and survive.

Suddenly I felt that I crossed the imaginary borderline between Southwest and Western District. Then I knew as I neared the district building and I felt a sense of uneasiness inside of me. My nervous anxiety and fears were beginning to take control of my thoughts again. I did not know what to expect when I got there. I heard stories in the academy about The Wild West. And yet, in a strange way, I held a sense of pride because I was assigned to a district that no one wanted to go voluntarily.

What would my supervisor be like? Would the other police officers in my unit accept me? Would I have to prove myself? Could I prove myself? I did not know to whom or what I would be assigned. My orders only were to report to Western District.

Finally, there it was. I did not have to check the physical address of 1034 North Mount Street to find the police station. Western District looked like an outpost of the French Foreign Legion.

Unsure of what waited inside, I approached the front door. I thought how new I must look to the other police officers walking around the parking lot. I was the image of a rookie and that was a very uncomfortable feeling. My uniform was new and clean. My shoes, hat bill and holster were all polished and shinning. My new lead lined nightstick did not have a nick or mark on it. There was a lot of activity, a lot of police officers walking around me, but no one seemed, or appeared, to notice me.

I walked through the front door and a feeling of apprehension that I could not describe washed over me. Growing up in Brooklyn Park and Anne Arundel County, the presence of a police officer was rare. My only real involvement with police before entering the academy was my arrest for DWI in 1969 and that was not a positive experience. I always feared and was apprehensive about police and now, ironically, I was one of them.

The area around the desk sergeant was controlled chaos. Police officers, who all appeared to be seasoned in the field, scurried around oblivious to me. As I approached the desk sergeant to report in for my assignment, I was blocked by two men in street clothes walking out with a police captain.

“Can I help you?” the desk sergeant asked.

“Yes, sir,” I responded in military fashion. “I have been assigned to Western. Can you tell me where to report?”

“Who are you?” the sergeant asked.

“Officer Michael B. Kaminski, sir,” I replied.

“You must be straight out of the academy,” he smiled as he studied me closely.

“Yes, sir.”

“Report to Sergeant Tim Florey. He is waiting for you downstairs,” the sergeant shuffled through his records.

As I walked away, the sergeant stopped me.

“Did you see that captain walking out with the detectives?” he smiled wryly.

“Yes, sir,” I replied.

“He was your district captain.” The sergeant said. “He was just arrested for gambling payoffs. Welcome to Western.”

Downstairs, I found a group of off-duty officers playing pool in the dayroom. ‘“Where can I find Sergeant Florey?” I asked.

“Are you new?” one of the officers asked after he took his shot.

“Yes,” I responded.

“You must be fresh out of the academy,” he too grinned as he looked at my uniform. “Florey is in that room. It’s almost roll call. He is in charge of a foot patrol squad. You will like him.”

Sergeant Tim Florey looked like a young man. He must have made sergeant at a very early age or very quickly on the force. He was thin, physically, with sandy blond hair. Not the typical tough supervisor I expected to be assigned to.

“So you are my new replacement?” he asked as he studied me.

“Yes, sir,” I replied after introducing myself.

“Well, I hope you will enjoy your assignment here,” he replied. “We have a good squad. Everyone with me is a probationary officer almost fresh out of the academy. Everyone except Russo. He will be your training officer. You will learn a lot from him. He came from the Narcotics division.”

“Glenn,” Sergeant Florey called to Russo who was talking to some of the guys. “Come over here and meet our new replacement.”

Russo was transferred to Western from the Narcotics division for a reason. Nobody requests or transfers out of undercover Narcotics and then requests Western as their choice of assignments. Moreover, very few detectives choose to go back into uniform, especially out of Narcotics division.

In fact, nobody volunteered for Western because they wanted to advance their careers. You usually were transferred to The Wild West because of a disciplinary action.

Whatever the reason, Russo commanded the appearance of a cop who knew the streets. It would not be long until we learned that he still had a passion for drug deals and Narcotics investigations. Now he was in a foot patrol squad, away from headquarters, and in law school part time. Years later, Glenn Russo would be the lawyer in the divorce settlement between my wife and me.

My first lesson I learned from Russo that day: “Forget everything you learned in the academy.”

“Your job is to survive, stay alive on the street and use the streets. And don’t get your ass shot off,” he shook my hand.

Roll call began with Sergeant Florey introducing me to the other squad members. Their names went in and out of my mind as fast as I heard them. No one was out of the academy for more than six months. We were all on probation.

Foot patrol was a more personal and intimate way of policing the streets. You were not in a patrol car, protected by steel, driving around sector posts with limited contact with the people in the neighborhoods. You were assigned to a specific area of streets, dropped off by a patrol car, and you walked a beat until you were picked up at the end of shift unless your ride back to the station was engaged in a call.

On foot patrol, you were more visible than a police car. However, you were also a walking target. In Western, your role was not to become ‘Officer Friendly.’ On the streets, you had a better opportunity to interact with people and hear what was happening and gain valuable information for investigations. There is a great difference between hearing someone talk and actually listening to what is being said.

Roll call was basically learning what to look out for that shift, what happened the shift before, and getting post assignments. Since I was new, I was assigned to walk patrol with “Igor” Kulig. He was named “Igor” because of the one long eyebrow that linked both eyes. Igor was two classes ahead of me in the academy, but he looked like he had been in Western for a couple years.

After we were dismissed and walking out of the room preparing for patrol, Sergeant Florey stopped me.

“Mike. Why did you want to be a police officer?” he asked quietly.

“I don’t really know, sergeant,” I replied honestly.

“Be careful and learn from the streets,” Sergeant Florey smiled. “They will teach you what you need to know. Welcome to Western.”