It was — and remains — the bloodiest police precinct in New York City.
The 75th in East New York, Brooklyn.
It was the late 80’s. The streets were flush in cocaine and blood. More than 1,000 shootings a year.
Cops at the 75th weren’t shy about taking their taste. The boys in blue acted more like drug gangs than public servants … murder, cocaine, kidnapping, armed robbery.
“I never had to hit anybody with an axe-handle twice,” said Walter Yurkiw, who was sent to state prison for mayhem and corruption.
Yurkiw was the enforcer of the Michael Dowd squad. Even today, Dowd is know as the dirtiest cop in New York history.
Yurkiw’s opinion on the state of law enforcement in America today? “Never trust the police.”
And he should know.
A real life story more fascinating, and more devastating, than Goodfellas.
As for the dope house in Detroit next to an elementary school in Detroit?
It’s still there.
God Bless America. We need it.
Transcript:
Yeah, within 12 hours, we’re talking about two separate gas stations here in the city of Detroit. Incidents involving accelerants and fire. Look at all of this damage. An angry customer used gas, gasoline, and a blow torch to light it on fire. And the clerk that was on duty, a 27 year old guy, he actually had to run through the flames to safety. He didn’t have another option. The video picks up here,
I want my money
Back. Well, I don’t care cause I’ve told you one time told you 200 times you’re not getting your money back because we don’t take back these lottery tickets. All
Right, then I’m about to light your ass
Up. We’ll get the fuck out of my store and I’m calling the police on your ass.
Fuck you bitch. Burn bitch.
You have reached the city of Detroit 9 1 1 Emergency Center. All operators are handling emergency call. Remain on the line. Do not hang up. Your call will by the next available operator
Live downtown Detroit. It’s news.
No, no, no.
Bullshit.
Just breaking this. Double more bullshit. D, more bullshit.
Scoop. Scoop, man, stop texting me in the middle of his show. It’s Scoop Stanton is the partner of Walter Que, who’s our guest today. Okay. Okay. So Walter is the host of the seven five Radio on the Liberty Radio Network. Walter, how do you put this? He’s the star of a documentary if you haven’t seen it. This thing is unfucking believe, isn’t it? It’s wild. It’s it’s riveting. It’s, it’s better than Goodfellas. And it’s a documentary. It is. It’s called the seven five. And it’s a story about the world’s most dangerous police precinct, right in East New York in the late eighties when Crack was rolling and a crew of bad cops. Walter was one of them that was, I think he got arrested in 89. He’s done his time, he’s doing things and we just had to have him. Yeah, he’s going to be a good conversation. Charlie. The is a honest talker is, and I know East New York and to this day, east New York is the most violent precinct in New York City.
So not much has changed.
Not much has changed. It’s in East Brooklyn. It’s way out there in the border of Queens. What’s it Stop calling Scoop? What?
Come on, dude. Now why is he calling? I don’t,
I’m going to, I’m going to ask, I’m going to have a Walter slap him around. Oh, trying to get on but first, or
It’s just something he doesn’t want on. That’s the other
Thing. No, Walter’s a true talker. I can’t wait for this. But first we’re from a couple of sponsors. If your business is staggering in the darkness of the digital dome, if your profits are jaundiced, if your growth is anemic, there’s light XG service group specialists in voiceover internet security cameras and off-campus access control wifi for homes and businesses. Drive through systems, railroad cameras, total wireless camera systems for the home and the business and Super Nova customer service. Call me at Matt Ovitz at 7 3 4 2 4 5 4100, mention and bn and you’ll receive a 15% discount. No, I don’t like that. You will receive a 20% discount. Thank you Bernie. Right over there, 20% mbn, 20% free consultation. And Mark,
Yeah. Hi,
Trouble sleeping bro. How do we fix
It? Oh my God. Do I have trouble sleeping? Well, one of the things I like to use no joke is Nex Evo Nvo Naturals. They combine for the sleep, they combine the melatonin so it knocks you out. And the CBD does its work. They also have stress reducers, lots of stuff. So right now stay well this summer with smarter CBDs. We like things to be smarter from next Evo Naturals. Go to next evo.com/nobs. That’s next evo.com/nobs to get 20% off your very first order. $40 or more. I know there’s a lot of variables there. 20% off any xt eev.com/nobs. Okay.
I don’t like it. I like the books to balance out. So Bernie is going to give you 20% and next EVO is going to give you 15.
Well, wait a minute. Wait a minute. I couldn’t, couldn’t remember the code for my first order. I can’t believe did that do again? So, no, wait a minute. So do I get 20% on my second order?
Use a different email address? That would be my suggestion. I have no idea. Karen,
Let it
Go. There’s only one. It’s not customer service to me. The only way to find out is by doing it.
All right, I’ll try it. Did
You just do that? It’s not customer service to me.
I said I need, I’m going to, that’s my, I want I 20% off. I,
You know, got to hear back from these sponsors because it’s negative. Karen, over here. That’s not
Negative. I ordered something from them’s not caring for free. Oh no. Oh, see now you got
Bernie for free for you have security cameras, don’t you? Well then I’m
Done.
You have wires all over the place.
You know what? I don’t, but I’m going to call, I need those myself because I can keep an eye on my neighbors. Okay, thank you. Let’s go. Come on. Okay,
Let’s go. Okay. Yeah. 7 34. Thank you, Bernie. 5 4100 for Bernie. All right. I like it. It’s like an auction. And
Who’s
Up next? N ADR experienced overseeing more than a quarter billion dollars in private and public construction projects since 2001. ADR competent. Reduce your cost, increase your bottom line. Saving clients millions ADR consultants are experts in procurement and government compliance and information technology. And I believe they’ve overlapped with XG Service Group. That’s what happens here. That’s good. Call Burial Nantucket (248) 318-9424 for a consultation. Get the job done right on time on budget ADR 2 4 8 3 1 8 9 4 2 4.
Now I’m Grace Carros and I’m third generation
Of America. No, no. Oh, alright. No, you too.
Am I? Am I fired again?
Get back in there. Come in here with a new attitude.
A new, you already said he likes Drew better. So maybe that’s what it is
Now. Yes. What do you got the latest commercial from our favorite restaurant, American Coney Island. Roll it right now. Yeah. You sure? Yeah.
All right. I’m Grace Caros and I’m third generation of American Coney Island. People say Detroit’s a comeback city. I say where you been? We’ve been here for over a hundred years. My family’s been here on the same corner serving our famous proprietary American Coney Island hotdog. So like always we’re keeping things fresh, updated, and new. We’d love to have you come downtown and visit us, but if you can’t, you can always go to American coney island.com, order a Coney kit, get it delivered fresh right to your door.
See how she caught that Coney box?
Hey, that was better than Red’s commercial that he does. I like, I’m sorry. There she goes. Yeah, I like that. That’s not negative. I’m saying Grace did an excellent job. I like that commercial.
Did you see her catch the box? Yeah. You know she’s in the basketball Hall of fame.
Yeah, you told me that. That’s cool. Yeah, and it shows. I
Just want to say, Karen, you’re the last one. I expected to hear that from, I get enough
Shit from him. I didn’t say I didn’t like it. I said that was a compliment to Grace, not an insult to you. That’s all. Oh,
Okay. You don’t have to explain yourself, my friend.
I don’t want to offend anybody. Yes, you do nothing.
You
Do only the sponsors you
Doing if
You wanted.
Right. Hey, listen, I ordered something before you even ask me to. So don’t tell me that.
And if you want to see Karen’s latest defense to the giveaway nature of the connected here in Detroit Reader column next Tuesday in the Detroit News, you a red-blooded American on Independence Day will be fucking livid because Karen’s dropping bombs. But she didn’t want to be negative.
No, I’m not negative.
The city for sale. Wow. Jeez. Talk about thieves, man. Take down. Oh my God. Listen, okay, real quick. Today, historically, the Supreme Court rollback affirmative action on college campuses. This will have ramifications all over the place. We’ve all been, all of us adults have been thinking about this. All of our adult lives, quite, quite. We’ll get to that on another day when we have more to talk about more experts and lawyers. And we have a lawyer sitting here, Chris, an Jack with his son, cj, who’ll take us out with a Star-Spangled Banner then to show you’re going to, you’re going to want to see that he’s all grown up now. Little angelic boys back in the day. Come over here. Sit on my lap young man. Show him how you grew up. No, no. He’s all grown up. No, he’s got hair on his legs. It’s unbelievable.
No lap sitting.
Not fair. I hope they’ve watch this show in the college campus. Boy, I tell you,
You’ll never live it down. Don’t do it.
Okay, but listen, you know affirmative action about lifting boats. I’ve got some affirmative action for young black children. Tear down the fucking dope house next to the school. I went back this weekend and the faces of the dope fiends were bathed in a warm light on the front porch given off by a hibachi grill. Swear to God, they were cooking barbecue on the front porch at a rotten house directly across Verona Street from the tidy home of Ken Berman. And across the other street is the Pulaski Elementary School. The junkies were cooking sausages by the smell of it. Now the abandoned house has become a magnet for suburban drug addicts, a sort of low level gentrification. All the amenities they need are within walking distance, a gas station to buy hot dogs and copious dope houses to score cocaine, heroin, and fentanyl. The ghost house across from the elementary school actually belongs to the Detroit Land Bank Authority, which answers the city home.
Naturally. The neighbors like Ken and Frankie and Al have been claiming for years about the eyesore. Now it’s become a public safety nightmare for the children. The school staff are afraid. The parents are incensed. The junkie’s not out in the garage sometimes. Sometimes they pull down their pants in front of the school kids. Jesus. Kenny said The city owns this and they need to do something. Now. Kenny’s walks around, wheezing and toting his oxygen tank. This is what what Kenny gets in his later years. He says, the city only takes care of its friends and not the people. But I reminded Kenny that the city is a public collective and that there’s simply not enough money in the public pot to cure every ill that plagues it. There should be priorities, however, and a dope house next to an elementary school is nothing I have ever seen in America.
Not in Oakland, California, not in East New York, New York. Have you seen that? Have you ever seen a dope house, Walter in front of an elementary school to school? Yeah. No, no. Nah. That’s Walter. Man. That’s crazy ass. East New York. 1988. Dominican cocaine gangs never happened. It didn’t, does not happen in Chicago, Illinois. And it does not happen in Livonia, Michigan. The children should come first. That’s the priority. So why do I keep telling you all? It’s doubtful. Many of you reside on the city’s wild east side. I’m reminding you because you pay for this. The federal government has sent at least a third of a billion dollars to Detroit to battle its pipe. Pipe problem. To say that the city has mishandled that money is to put it generously. Then there’s the humanity of the thing. Consider the school kids, then think about Ken and then Frank, and then Al our fellow citizens.
Certainly their lives matter. And that’s what this is all about. Fighting city Hall, I’ve learned does create hard enemies and stony hearts. So I tried another way. I called the mayor’s man last Thursday and detailed the situation about the school kids and wouldn’t it? What happened The following day, the police came with a battering ram and breached the door. The junkies incredibly had put their own locks on the doors and carried their own keys no less. Wow. And refused to come out. So after beating down the door, the cops gave the unwanted neighbors 20 minutes to get their shit together and get gone. When police kick down a door and run on a mob of human pin cushions, you start to believe things can change. Then city workers came and sealed the doors with plywood and heavy bolts. So get this drum roll. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Mr. Mayor.
But the junkies came back Saturday night, couldn’t get in, but not wanting to let a pleasant summer evening go unused. They partied in the backyard hidden by the overgrown trees using the hibachi for mood lighting. Then Monday morning came and the contract for the city came to assess the soundness of the structure. I know it’s a bureaucratic step required before demolition can commence. Now, Kenny wondered how a house with phantom windows, bootleg piping and wiring and a tree limb snaking below the shingles of the roof might be considered sound patience. I advised him Rome wasn’t demolished in a day. Yeah. Okay. And then Kenny said, pointing to the cops of mulberry trees that had grown over the sidewalk. But tell the land bank, Kenny says to at least come over and cut down the trees and mow the grass. I told him I ask. So I’m asking, come cut down the trees so the sidewalk’s visible so the children are safe. And please tear down the house before school starts. And if you’re not going to tear down the house, sell it to me and I’ll tear it down.
That’s good, Charlie.
It’s not good. I mean, how about some action? That’s affirmative. Well,
That’s a little step. I mean, it’s not much. I mean, because the mayor’s pushing solar panels to fight blight. That’s been the big thing over the past couple days. So I don’t get the connection, but
I got one. How about we give these houses to people who lost houses when all that extra shit was going on? Because,
I’m sorry.
Cause
That’s family. That’s dumb. That’s that’s more talking bolts. These houses are fucked. You can’t live. They’re done. You everybody that bought one of these and tried to fix it up, can’t fix it up because how much does it cost Bernie? A hundred grand to fix up a totally stripped down house? Yeah, at least a hundred grand. Really? I bought it for a thousand. It’s a pipe dream. It’s stupid.
Oh my bad. I stay in the Normandy. So my perspective is all up from there. Let’s
Build. And again, I mean, how is a solar paneling supposed to stop light? It’s cheaper. Hibachi grills, we can create more like quickly if we just give everybody a hibachi grill.
But that was the narrative being pushed the other day. This is going to fight blight. They brought one of the directors out and talked about how this was going to resolve blight. I didn’t get the connection, but
That was more
Bullshit. That was the talking point of the day.
Bullshit tax reform and it’s solar paneling. And when you Google this crap and you look year after year, it’s the same thing. 10 million over here, 10 million over there. I’ve been asking for two years for this house. Two year. You want to help a kid. You want to get people out of the cycle of poverty, care about ’em. True. Keep ’em safe. It’s, it’s easy. It’s is a no-brainer.
And it’s basic stuff. It’s not like you’re asking for anything above and beyond what should be provided anyway.
Yeah. Chris, one third of a billion. Dude, where do you think that came from? That came the trouble Asset relief program. That was everybody in America chipping in. And where is it?
Speed bumps.
Tell you what. Now I quickly want to recognize and think about, and I won’t say pray if I don’t like people telling each other to pray. Malik Shabaz, the chairman of the new Black Panther party here in Detroit, him from the program, he suffered a major stroke Hess at Henry Ford Hospital. He’s on a ventilator. I’m not sure, guys, whatever you think of him. And there’s a lot to think about. He’s been a warrior out in the streets. Yeah, he does care. He’s got some crack houses torn down. He goes to crack house and he punches the door open and get the fuck gone. I mean, who does that?
I want to say the last piece that I was did on the crack house, I had the honor actually watch watching him in action live. He goes in fearless. He don’t give a damn. And he don’t treat them like lesser than he works for everybody’s true. The neighbors. That’s true. As well as trying to encourage the folks with the drug use and problems to get some help. So he was a really solid guy. You got a
Little clip of that. You remember we were trying to shut down the crack house. Two. Two. The crack house got shot up. Five people shot inside, two dead on the lawn. And we go out there. I don’t send red, I said red. That’s part of no bullshit news. How red goes out there two days later and it’s still in business.
Wow.
We got a little something Mark. Yeah, I’ve been rolling B roll where he walks in there. Yeah. When people listening. Yeah, I know.
But I’ll tell you this too. When Malik read your story and heard us talking about the very drug house that you just talked about a second ago across from the school, he sent me a text message. He said, Hey, what can I do? Where is it? What can I do to help? So he listened. He was a friend of the show and a friend to Detroit, even if his methods weren’t understood or respected by everybody. So
There was a time at the bankruptcy, I think it was 2013, they’re talking about running Detroit into bankruptcy. And he’s at a meeting and he says, oh yeah, white man, take this city. We will burn it down. And I’m like, there goes malin again. Little fire and brimstone black. Well, didn’t happen. And I wake up in the morning and the clock alarm goes off. It’s like Wwj breaking news at seven in the morning. And it’s Malik going, we’ll burn it down. And I’m like, woo. I call him Malik and go, yo, brother. Yeah, I think you might have some problems. Meet me at 10 o’clock. So we meet north of Hamtramck in a burned down neighborhood. We in front of a burned out house. And I, he’s a mountain of a man and yeah, he’s big. I look really small next to him and I’m wearing a buck skin jacket and shit, and I’m looking up at his eyes.
And the fuck is a matter with you? That’s how the news piece starts out. What the blip is? It matter with you. I go, it’s all burned down, dude. Isn’t there going to come a point when we aren’t going to care about each other? Maybe bankruptcy could help us all. Isn’t it time this great sin of ours, like black fighting white and white fighting black, like time to move. And it was great because his shit was completely ridiculous. He goes, I didn’t, didn’t say, Hey white people. I say, burn down white supremacy. And I’m like, all right, okay, that might do it. And it did throw a little water on the fire, so to speak, and we’ve been pretty good pals since. So I am thinking of him. And I’ll be honest, I went to the hospital and I couldn’t reach his cheek to give him a kiss because he had all the stuff and the wires and the ventilator tube. So his feet were poking out of the blanket. So I kissed his foot. What would Jesus do?
That’s a good question, Charlie. But you did what you felt you could and should do at the time. So that’s
Admirable. Yeah. Now speaking of the afterlife, no Bullshit News Hour, this segment with Walter Yq is brought to you by Luke Acki. This message of Uplift is brought to you by Business and Personal Wealth advisor, Luke Acki, who reminds you that what does it profit a man to gain the whole world but never enter the kingdom of God? But while you’re waiting, Acki wants you to remember that overreaction is not a sound financial strategy. So call Luke Acki at (248) 663-4748. For Sound Financial. It was,
Did you know that with Hall Financial’s new Easy Start program, you can lock your mortgage rate 2% below the current market. If you were to purchase a $250,000 home with 5% down, instead of paying $1,600 per month, you only pay $1,300 per month, saving you almost $4,000 a year. See if Easy Start is a fit for you. Get started now at eight sixty six. Call Hall or go to call hall first.com.
You guys got, is that me? Thank you. It’s like, why is the camera shaking? It’s a burning delivery. Oh, it’s Bernie, right? That’s what’s Bernie working on the cameras. That’s XG Service Group. I want 25% off Shaking XG Service Group to the Save Again. Now last but certainly not least, legacy Partner Insurance. When’s the last time you checked your home in auto insurance rates? If you haven’t checked in the past year, then chances are you’re paying too much. But if you work with Legacy Partners Insurance, they won’t let that happen. Legacy keeps an eye on your rates and continuously chops all carriers to make sure you have the best program. If you haven’t called them this year, then call them now and you’ll probably be pissed off at your current provider. Not only does Legacy do home and auto, they also have great life insurance programs and can even get you signed up for Medicaid and Medicare. That season’s coming. So give ’em a call today for any insurance need at 5 8 6 2 0 9 4 1 0 6. All right. Now Pacha, I’ve been waiting for Walter Que, I don’t even know what to look. He was was a N Y P D cop in the seven five Precinct in East New York, Brooklyn at the height of the crack wave.
I guess. Walter, what do you say? You were a part of a crew. Mike Dowds crude, right? Who is known to this day as New York’s 30th cop. And in the history of that great city, that’s not a little, so Bri k to have, that’s quite a nickname now. The host of Seven five Radio, the Liberty Radio Network. And welcome to the No Bullshit News Hour, brother.
Well, thank you very much, man. I’m happy to be here with you finally.
Yeah, no, I know his partner on his radio show, scoop Stanton and I called in a couple times, just bullshitting late Saturday, have a few pops. And the first time I’ve seen his face, and he’s a funny guy. I mean, I love New York. I love New York. And then it starts coming out, what his background is, and I’m like, holy shit, this guy’s fascinating. And then we all watched that documentary, the seven five, and meant Wal Walter, just from the beginning. How did you become a cop? Where are you from?
Originally from Long Island, the west end of Long Island in
Suffolk.
I became a cop Nassau because I was tired of being a union carpenter and working dumb ass hours and shit. So took the test, I passed it and couple of years later they called me, went down for the physical, the psychological testing and all that other stuff. I got accepted in July 85
And
Went through six months of the police academy. And you, you’re in the police academy to pass the tests that they give you at the end of each two months. And the day you get your badge and gun is the day before graduation, which was at Madison Square Garden. By the way, they pretty much tell you to take all your books and throw ’em in the garbage cause they ain’t going to work out there. Wow. So I did six months on probation in Queens in the one 13. And from there I went to the seven five. I saw a lot of dirt when I was in, was a rookie.
Let me stop you
There. I found some money here and there when I was a rookie.
Let, let me stop you here for a second, Walter. So you decide you need a career change and you’re going to take, by the way, I took the N Y P D test. I believe I got 99 out of a hundred. It’s not a hard test. They give you drawings of a footprint and then they say this footprint looks mo most like which other footprint? It’s like a cartoon matching game. Yeah, it’s the matching game. It’s like, well that footprint’s the same as that footprint that was, it wasn’t hard. It wasn’t hard. Yeah.
They also give you a street maze start and a finish and you got to drink a pen through the street maze to take the shortest route to get there, stuff like that.
Now, I did that because it was after nine 11 and I got tired of being a reporter and watching people of action do stuff. I wanted to do stuff. When you decided to become a cop, was there something altruistic in the reason to do it? Or was it just a paycheck and you were sick of being a construction worker?
It wasn’t just a paycheck. I mean, I’m a carpenter to this day. I just still build stuff. It wasn’t just a paycheck. I wanted to do things out in the street and help people. I was always a sociable kind of person, social worker kind of guy. And maybe I could make a difference. And I think I did in a couple of ways. But people tend to look on a negative of what I was doing and what I got involved with. Why don’t we, I mean you just talk about it yourself. You had the drug. You had the drug then right next to the school. If that was in my neighborhood in East New York, Brooklyn, it would’ve lasted maybe a day. I would’ve took all their money and all their drugs, put ’em out of business, make ’em owe the bigger guy their money in drugs, and you never would’ve seen them again.
And would you have kept the money in drugs back in the eighties? Of course.
Well, I keep the money, the drugs. I turned over to a local fella or I had a contact in the Wall Street area. So
You’d sell the dope.
A lot of the merchandise that I found went to the Wall Street area. So I don’t know if you can blame me for the recession, but
Did you give it to them street or did you Wall Street. Did you give it to them or did you sell it to them?
Oh, I turned it over. I sold it to ’em. 50 cents, 60 cents on the dollar back then. Say Kea Coke was going for 25 grand, I’d get probably 13, 14 grand for it.
Wow. So how does a guy who looking for a career change, you’re looking for a career change, you want to do some good, how does it flip like that for you?
Well, you know, think you’re out there, you’re doing some good. But you know, just out there, the department used to call it omnipresence. If they saw you, they wouldn’t do nothing wrong. But they really didn’t train you to see if there was anything wrong going on. I mean, you were just sitting out there, they put you out on a street corner that you’ve never been before and you don’t know who the hell is aiming a rifle at you out the window. So in time you make enough arrests and these arrests, they go by the wayside and they usually back out on the street on the same foot post you were yesterday before you get back to work. So it was just a revolving door, as they said. That’s the cliche for the past 40, 45 years. It’s a revolve, it was a revolving door back then.
And so what happens to you? You just decide, well, what the fuck is the difference then?
Well, no, not so much that. What’s the difference? There were times I just kept the money, let the guy walk, you know, take him down the end of an alleyway and you take his stuff away from him and you tell him not to come back. Well, turned down he couldn’t come back because I had the money. He was supposed to pay his superior Walter and he’s responsible for it
To that point. So the guy ends dead, is what you’re saying? Yeah,
I have no idea about that. Just didn’t see him anymore.
At least out of business. I understand how it would be maybe skimming you
Just jumped over that. He goes, I don’t know if he was dead. You just didn’t see him anymore. Yeah, decided to go back to Dominican Republic.
He was out of business,
Out of breath. Come on now.
But I understand skimming money because maybe you’re just a little, it’s unethical, but you know, see these people coming through the revolving door over and over. How does it make that leap to a full, almost a criminal enterprise where you guys were breaking and entering after the police were there to shake ’em down? I mean, it really grew from what I think people would turn a blind eye to a full on criminal enterprise.
Well, when you get a call, you saw the 75 documentary, obviously terrific. And when you get called to a place and you open up a closet and there’s a bag full of money, there’s not much you could do because the cops were everywhere. There’s not much you could do about it. The only thing you could do is make note of it, keep an eye on it, and maybe something else will pop up in there. And you could be first on the scene, get in and out. Mainstay was to get the money and dope away from these guys. And like I said, they’d leave. They wouldn’t come back
Was, I guess I should explain at some point the almost becomes a crew. Well, there was a few crew. The 77th in Brooklyn got taken down heat’s on the 75th. But there’s a crew in the 75th led by Mike Dowd. Who was his partner?
Kenny. Kenny.
What’s his last name? Man? U. U Uro. Yeah. Okay. And then what was his name? Chicky.
Chicky was his first
Partner. Chicky. And then Chicky quit because he was getting on from the 77. So Chicky was the street guy. And then you come into it. Walter me, if we could play a little, I I’m going to ask your permission. You probably don’t have permission, but fair use YouTube. So fuck you. You’re going to hit us with this fair use commentary. This is Walter in the documentary 75. You can see it on YouTube. I really, really recommend it.
Mike had a
Friend. This is Adam Diaz, head of the Dominican Go kick. Tall
Guys. Fucking hands are like three of my hands. Walter. Yeah, Walter fucking big guy. Huge guy. Motherfucker’s. Big
Walter’s a mad man. Just straight up adrenaline. Go through the window, go through the door. Didn’t, didn’t bother. Straight up mad man.
Michael liked the idea of me being around because I was a big fucking guy. 6 5, 290 pounds. I’d break your fucking neck if your neck needs a breaking.
The first time I saw Walter, I said to myself,
Bad, bad. So how do you fall in with Mike Dowd?
It was actually a story that he says, I don’t tell. Well,
Good enough for us.
I knew about Mike, I knew about Mike at the precinct. I was there about, I don’t know, five, six months. And then we finally had a foot post together, an adjoining foot post at Martin Luther King Park in East New York. And I was walking out the back door and I started walking down the street and it wasn’t far, it was about a half a mile to walk down there. And he goes, oh, where you going? You going? I turn around, we see him, he says, come on over here. Puts me in his Hyundai. And we drive over there, which of course you’re not supposed to do. And we park him. And we sat there the whole time in his car. Most of the time it was cold, it was November. And I noticed this white guy walking around. I figured he was out there buying dope.
And he says, you hungry? Yeah, I’m hungry. We take off. We went to a bodega and he gets these burgers and it turned out that it was an eight pack of beer was remember the nips, the Budweiser nips. And we go back and we sit in his car. Now I can’t eat spicy food, man. I’m, I’m delicate when it comes to spicy food. But them, them, those Latinos in East New York, Brooklyn, they really spice that damn hamburger up. And like I said, it’s November. So I got my duty jacket on, then I got a shirt on, then I got a sweater on, then I have a vest on, then I have a t-shirt on me. It was cold, it was November. And by the time I got halfway through to that burger, I was down in my T-shirt. It looked like I, it looked like I just took a shower.
I was soaking wet from sweating, from eating all that food. And then there’s this white guy still walking around. And Michael noticed him sort of, and I’m noticing him sort of. And then it was time for Michael to really go and have dinner. And I said, take me back to the station house. I’m going home. Cause I wasn’t feeling good after I ate that damn burger. So Mike goes to have his dinner at eight o’clock. I asked the sergeant if I could go out, sign out and go home. And he said, yeah, sure, go ahead. And I signed out and I went home. Three days later, I come back to work and there’s a note on the roll call. It’s called Geo 15, which means you’re in trouble and you need to contact the P B A attorney’s office, which I did. And there was an investigation going on, me and Michael that we were off post and drinking beer and stuff like that on post.
I says, well, if we were off post, how did I know we were eating and drinking beer? We were obviously there, but I’m headed to the nine oh where Brooklyn North Field Internal Affairs was. And again, Michael pops out the back door, yo, where you going? I says, I got to go to the nine oh for this thing. And he says, whatever you tell him, don’t tell him we were drinking. And of course I’m not going to tell him that we were drinking. I get down there and that’s when I first met that Joe Trombley, that guy that was chasing us down for so many years, he was in the 75 documentary also. And he says, I don’t care what you did. He says, I don’t care if you were drinking beer. I want to know. I want you to tell me Michael down drinking beer.
And I said, I don’t know what you’re talking about. We weren’t drinking beer. Well, where did you go? I says, he took me to a bodega. We come back, we had some food and some soft drinks. And that was it. He said, there wasn’t no beer in that bag. I said, I didn’t see any beer in that bag, I swear. And that was it. I lost two days vacation. He lost 30 days vacation. And that was the end of that. But that was the start of the department putting me and Michael together. After that, we played cards together. We went out to strip clubs together, him and a couple of other guys. And that’s how I got to know Michael Dowd. Did I know what he was doing? Absolutely. Everybody knew what he was doing. Pretty much everybody in the precinct knew what everybody else was doing. They call us a crew, I guess. But there were other crews working in the seven five also at the same time, 9, 10, 15 guys in one crew. And they were doing the same thing. We were
Hitting licks.
It was all about the money and getting the drug dealers off the street. And Michael hooked up with Adam Diaz one way or another. And I wasn’t involved in that, but I knew about it. And it was like this, the United States government, when they grabbed Sammy Gravano, they let him slide on 19 murders as long as he would give them information. And basically that’s what we did with Adam. We let him slide, but he gave us information on all the other drug dealers. So we kind of used him as our government witness unofficially.
But it’s interesting cause that’s
How knew where money
Was in the documentary. I don’t know exactly. Doesn’t lay you out particularly deeply. But Michael Dow and Yal, what’s his first name again? Kenny. Kenny URL. We’re in the employee of Diaz. They would give him tips, they would give him badges. Somebody ripped off Diaz’s cocaine and Dowing Yel picked him up and gave him to Diaz. And that guy’s never been heard of from again. Right. So that’s way deep. I know. Get information. So what did
You do? Who knows? It could be in the Witness protection program. Now, who knows?
What did you do? Were you the beef that broke kneecaps and shit?
Well, lemme put it to you this way. When I went to a building, I used to go in with an ax handle and I didn’t have to hit anybody twice.
Oh shit.
They usually gave it up the first time. Or even before they got hit.
Ax handle. Fuck. It’s like Buford Pusser and shit. Really? Like you were talking about the cinder blocks in my studio here in Detroit. And you said it reminded you of East New York dope houses.
Yeah. Yeah. They put cinder blocks up in the windows in the doorways and it didn’t stop anything. I mean, if you wanted to make a racket, you just take a sledgehammer, just take ’em down.
Okay, well look you, so you got arrested July 2nd, 1989, which I guess 88. 88. 88. So July 2nd. So happy anniversary, happy 35th anniversary.
I don’t know, it’s just air on July 2nd.
Well, I mean it’s holiday weekend long s were, did you get arrested for, were you under investigation or like you got arrested? Tell us about it the night you got picked up. Because
We went to a store on Lavonia Avenue. That was a money drop location. And that’s what we were there for. We were there for the money and we missed it by about 10 minutes. We missed it by 10 minutes. And the clerk, he knew me. I’ve been in there dozens of times. That’s where I used to get my cigarettes on the way in or on the way out of work. That’s where I’d pick up my beer. On the way in or on the way out of work, he knew me. He knew who I was. And one of the people that were with me that night said, do you know where the money went? And he says, yeah. And all of a sudden he’s in the back of the car. So he changed his mind, and I don’t blame him, but he changed his mind and we dropped him off. And I went to work three hours later, internal affairs was in the precinct. They called me into the captain’s office. They told me I was being detained for off-duty robbery and that was it. So about 15, 20 hours later, they put me under arrest for robbing the grocery store. Now nothing for nothing. But they charged me with robbery, stealing $910 out of the cash register. So my thing was, look, we’re in East New York, Brooklyn during the cash register, within five miles a year, it’s got $900 in the till.
When they get cash, they stick it down into a safe that’s under the counter, like in Las Vegas at the table. They push it down into underneath into a safe. And there wasn’t no $910 in there. They couldn’t show any receipts for the day or anything. They said, I took all the, excuse me. They said that we took the food stamps and everything. So anyway, they took me away and then they locked up Chicky and another fella in the ensuing months. And that was that. I mean, it was front page news for a couple of weeks there, a couple of months.
It really was. I looked it up. I really, so you got convicted of it. Did you plead guilty?
I took a plea. I mean, I was facing 33 years to life.
But you didn’t do it for
The
Robbery, but you didn’t do it,
The robbery and the kidnapping? No, I didn’t do it. You
Didn’t do robbery and kidnapping, but you took a plea. Why?
But we were there. We were. There was
No discre. No, no, no, no. Here, man. They had you on a wire. You guys were wired up the whole time. The because that’s that’s local. That’s the feds.
No, no.
According to the documentary,
No, that was a different case. That was Michael’s case in 92.
Well, that’s what I mean. But I just think, am I wrong because it’s fascinating me. Now maybe you were implicated and all that and they put some sweat on you.
When I was arrested in 88, Michael and that other guy didn’t get arrested until 92.
Yeah,
That was after I got out of prison. So I pled to a attempted robbery and a third degree, they dropped the kidnapping charge and the weapons charge. And I did 30 months in the state prison.
But why did you do that though? Why did you resolve to a plea if you knew that you didn’t do it? Was it because all the other stuff that you knew was kind of hanging around and lingering? That could come out? That could come down. Let me,
At that point, the deal included crimes known and unknown.
Okay.
When did the federal investigation start? So they weren’t tapping you then?
He wasn’t tapping
If it wasn’t already started. By the time I took my plea, it started soon after.
Yeah, yeah. Okay. Were you a witness? Let me just put the street vernacular. Were you a rat? Did you give information as quietly as part of the deal? No.
No.
Okay. 30 months in state prison, where were you? Sing, sing?
No, no, no. I was in the medium. I was in Onida.
In Onida? Yeah, New York,
Which is northern central New York. And then they transferred me up to, where the hell did they transfer me to Franklin, which is up near Clinton, where them guys escaped about eight, nine years ago.
Yeah, right around there. Another good movie. Another good. So you’re a cop in the state prison system. Were you under special protection? Did you have to line up with the peckerwoods or something like that? How? How’d you make it through 30 months? Yeah, for the
First year they had me in protective custody. But it was a unit where there were other New York City cops and other cops from various agencies around the state, freaking child molests, shit like that, which sucked. But I got into a couple of fights, spent some time in the box, and they transferred me out to a place where I was in Oneida was a working dorm. I mean, I went out every day. I wasn’t always locked in the room. It was a functioning place. They transferred me to a place where they were going to put me in a fucking cage for 23 hours a day. And when I got there, I refused. So I went into population.
And what was that like?
Yeah, you went into population. You had to be marked,
I mean general population. I assume it was
Like a schoolyard playground with grownups. Really? Everybody was a drug dealer. There wasn’t anybody in there for possession. It had all the drug dealers in New York in that jail. Everybody was a drug dealer. Nobody ever bought or used according to them.
Anybody you
Knew. Anybody you had put away?
No, no. They made sure that that kind of thing wasn’t going to happen. But there were a few people that recognized the name and recognized me. I mean, how could you miss 6, 5, 300 pounds with red hair? Which was obviously a long time ago. So I says, all right, well I’ve been playing softball with you. I’ve been playing cards with you, pin knuckle. And I says, now what? And they said nothing. But I did get into a couple of fights from people that thought I was a cop and shit happens. Just take care of business. Like white
Guys, black guys, Dominican guys.
Who did you Mostly the black guys. The Dominicans didn’t give a shit because I was in tight with Adam at the time. He was still out on the street.
So you had some weight with Adam behind you?
And I didn’t ran anybody out.
Did you get your ass stumped or did you have to crew up with white cops or whatever?
No, I walked alone. It was me against them. I walked alone. I didn’t walk. I didn’t join anybody. No groups, no gangs, no clubs, none of that shit.
So were there any dirty cops there that maybe there was brought you something did. I mean, was that there was that culture there? Yeah, the
CEOs, there was some CEOs that were bringing stuff in. Mostly cigarettes and liquor or tattoo ink was a big thing. So if I had to with a cop, some of the biker gangs would approach me and say, get some inking. Get some inking.
And I got to ask, because it’s prison and everybody wants to, did you get one up to ask
Charlie
One? What? Tattoo?
No. Did you get raped? Charlie? Karen? No. No,
No, no. He’s too high. He’s six.
That’s fascinating. That’s what I want to see.
No, it’s not.
No, I mean, see six five. That’s why I mean we, you please don’t shut the answer now. I’m not shutting the answer. Now I really want to know. We’re guys. You want to know, don’t you?
No.
Yeah, I do. That’s the thing. Don’t go to prison. Okay, I’m saying, right. Is that true, Walter? I
Mean that’s, nobody smoked my butt.
That’s what I’m saying. I mean this.
Yeah, but no, but Walter would tell you about prison that happens. Doesn’t happen to him. I’m
Sure it happens. But I would bet money that it did not happen to him.
No, I just actually want him to talk about
Prison. Thank you, Karen. Thank you.
Well, I knew that Mike, but I guessed that. But I want, just wanted you to talk about prison life on one side, a law. Then you’re on the other side of what do you see
Back then? And there were shower rooms. There was a slop sink room. If somebody wanted to get it or give it, there was places to get it or give it.
And it happened, didn’t it?
I mind my own business in jail. Stay away from gambling. You stay away from the drugs and you stay away from the faggots. Simple. Three rules stay away from,
Why would you stay away from gambling?
Because if you get in debt to somebody, then they own you.
How do you gamble? If you don’t have anything to bring to the table,
Then you shouldn’t sit at the table. But some people do. It’s like when you sit at Vegas and you’re losing the house, comes over and says, you know, sign this marker. Thank,
Thank Karen. Where do you think the new jailhouse prostitutes come from?
I have no idea. Red,
He saying said on you. But I do got a quick question. I’m very curious to know, coming from that generation of policing and doing what you did as a officer, what do you think policing is about these last 30 years? How can the people trust the police?
I don’t think you should ever trust the police much. If they’re there to help you because you called them, that’s fine. But if they’re there and you don’t know why they’re there, you just mind your business. You start getting into their business and then all of a sudden your car is getting ticketed all the time, or your granddaughter’s getting pulled over or something. There was a lot of money exchanging hands from good to bad to bad to good. In those days. Many cops in the police in the precinct had their hands out.
Has that changed? What red wants to is your generation, you either copied the previous generation or you infected the new generation, or it stopped somewhere where we Did you learn it from the sixties, the 1960s police officers? I
Learned it when I was a rookie cop. I mean, I knew corruption was going on in New York City before I became a cop. But anybody could justify anything that other people say they did wrong. I never took a dollar from an honest man or an honest business in the years that I was a police officer. So
It begs the question, I
Was basically taking money away from people that you wouldn’t have at your house for dinner
Still,
Unless you were a drug user. But that
Doesn’t make right. Were you a gangster or were you a cop?
You got to be, in order to be a smart cop, you got to have to have a little gangster in you and vice versa. You know? Got to be smart enough not to get caught. You have to be smart enough to coordinate things and be careful. I was on a number of capers,
But
When I was in
Five, see, but you’re talking about the gangster part, but you haven’t talked about anything about protecting and serving the cop part.
Oh, I did that. I was an active cop. I made my arrest. I handed out my summonses. I handled
Domestic dispute. Did incident give me an incident where you were proud of something as your time as a police officer carrying the shield to protect and serve?
All right. There was a car accident up on Pitkin Avenue, not too far from where that shooting was. That was stated in the 75. There was a Cadillac that rode up on the sidewalk and wiped out a family. And they landed the helicopter down because people were missing limbs. And when the helicopter landed, I handed the little girl to the E M T that was in the helicopter, and he’s like, where’s her leg? Where’s her leg? And I looked down and she doesn’t have both legs. It was jammed up underneath the bumper of this Cadillac. It was like a 74 caddy, one, a big old boats. And it was was her foot dangling down from underneath it. And I grabbed it, and as I’m handling the handing, the guy, the leg in the door, he grabs me by the arm and the collar and pulls me in, closes the door and off we went to Bellevue.
Little girl’s leg was saved. And I ended up taking the train from Bellevue all the way back to East New York, Brooklyn. That was pretty cool. I helped that. Unfortunately, the little girl lost almost everybody in her family except her brother that night. So sad. I’ve seen some nasty things. I’ve seen people cut up, people chopped up, people stabbed, people shot. And I don’t know if you’ve got a little PTs d from it. I think everybody does. I think you’re an idiot if you don’t say it didn’t affect you. Of course it affected me at that time.
Well, brother, I know you did your time, and so life must move on. You did your time. But have you ever publicly apologized to all of us as society? Have you said I’m sorry for what I did in the oath that I broke?
Well, we’re like assholes. Everybody’s got ’em. And what I did was when I got out finally in 95, I decided not to go back to the city. I went and I moved to upstate New York with the blessings of my father and started a new life. I went into social work and I worked with victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, which my knowledge from the police department came in handy. The local district attorney took notice and offered me a job in his office knowing what my background was. And then he started getting phone calls from the local police that they wouldn’t work with me. They wouldn’t contact me, they wouldn’t do anything with me. So I had to pass on that. But I started a new family and then ended up moving to the Chattanooga area with my new wife and my new son. And I got a job doing case management work for developmentally disabled people and did case management work for 17 years. And I’m retired now. So you’re asking if I apologized? No, I didn’t stand on the soapbox and say, I apologize. I apologize. I think I’ve accomplished my redemption through my actions. Just like I accomplished being a criminal through my actions.
That’s true. And I believe you have.
Everybody recognized me being a criminal, and there’s many, many, many people all walks of life since I’ve been down here that have recognized me for my accomplishments since.
Well, look, let me say it this way. You’ve grown. Life goes on. People improve, they become something more. It’s still there. And I know because there’s still a lot of anger and hard feelings about you in the police world and in the civilian world. And you’re not 29 year old Walter, you’re a Q, right? You’re 64 year old Walter. You’re Q do you want to do, want to apologize for that young man now? Might go a long way.
I think I’ve done my duty. I think I’ve done my duty to the
Oh yeah, I think you have too. But it wouldn’t hurt him. And then you might feel some absolution and you might teach young. I don’t
Think it would hurt it. It’s not that I don’t think it would hurt that. I think it would hurt. It’s not going to help
You, you mean?
Yeah. It’s not going to help my situation. When the things that we talked about in the 75 when that officer was murdered and Michael was there and that other guy was there, and I was there and such in that instance that we were talking about in a documentary and we weren’t together when we filmed all this, we filmed that hundreds of miles apart from each other, a thousand miles apart from each other and months apart in between videoing that section of that part of the documentary, the emotion in there was true. And even to this day, people say they were all crocodile tears. So
I got what you’re saying. I’m
Not going to push the fact that I’m sad, that I am sad that officer lost his life that night. And people are trying to say it was our fault. Or I mean, we weren’t the only dirty cops in the city. We just ended up being the most visible at that time. So
I never
Heard, if anybody thinks
In my whole life, my whole life, my whole life, and I’ve been around your precinct, I’ve been, I never heard a guy refer himself as a dirty cop. That’s actually an incredible thing to hear. You guys agree with that? I’ve never heard someone say that about themselves. Yeah. Well that’s a hard thing to walk around with.
Definitely is some weight. But I got a question for you. How do you feel about Dirty Cops now? What is your opinion?
Well, I used to read, they used to call ’em interim orders and it was a booklet. And each month or so it was updated. And in those updates were cops that did stupid things. And I used to read it and I would sit there and I would read it. And I still went the wrong way. My choice. My choice. Especially after the seven, seven. I mean, I could have stopped. I could have not taken another nickel and probably would’ve retired if I stopped. But we didn’t. I didn’t and I had no intention of stopping. The answer to your question is that after all that I’ve been through and the hundreds and hundreds of police officers in the last 35 years since I was arrested in 88, if they’re still doing it, it’s on them. It’s on them. I speak to smaller police departments in this area and I’ve been flown out to other areas and some colleges and such, and talk about my experiences in policing then and what policing is going through now.
Mostly now people don’t like cops because they keep violating many people’s rights. Smart citizen. Citizen is a smart citizen, and with that, the constitutional rights are being stepped on. And then people say to me, well, didn’t you violate these people rights by taking their money? And I says, well, maybe I took money. I says, but it was money from your brother, your sister, your mother, your uncle, your father. Because the money doesn’t grow in the ghetto. It gets there somehow. And it’s stupid white people coming from the surrounding counties. Nassau County, Suffolk County, New Jersey, Staten Island, coming into East New York, Brooklyn and spending their money there. That’s the money that I was taking. I wasn’t taking somebody that was selling cigarettes and liquor. Liquor and
Food. You were still busting knee caps and heads though. The ax handle. So that’s violation rights, even if he is a dirt bag. But let me say this movie, the seven five, again, you can see it on YouTube. This is to me, not that to diminish your life and crass commercialism, but it should be a Netflix series. It should be a movie. Is there anything in the works here?
Well, as far as I know, the rights to the seven five story has been bought by numerous film companies. The latest I think is Paramount. Sony had it for a long time and now I think Paramount has it and this talk every couple of years that they want to make a feature.
They should. I get it. I lived in LA too and yeah, there’s that. But it is,
There’s also talk that you want to do reality show on HBO O.
No, don’t cheapen it. No. What you’re doing now. No, no, no, no.
I’m just saying in the works, you asking question,
I’m just giving you free advice. No, look dude,
I mean it’s all out there. I’ve been approached and they want me to sign contracts and stuff and I’m not signing contracts for anything unless I see what I’m signing for. I don’t want to be held down to a contract for three years where I can’t talk about the seven five because exactly they own me now.
That’s how nobody, everybody wanted to buy it. Rights to my book. It wouldn’t give it to.
So what do you look forward to when you wake up every day now, Walter? I mean, what gives you hope every day?
Well, I’ve done a lot of good things for me and my family. I’m divorced now. My son is 25, no, 24. He just turned 24 and he’s out on his own. I was able to give him one of my houses that I own with Free and Clear. It’s all paid for and as long as he took it over and he wanted to redo it, I’m happy with him. He’s works full-time, makes awesome money. I see him two, three nights when we go to the gym to work out two, three nights a week. I live in the middle of nowhere. I’m surrounded by the forest. I have friends, good friends, and then there’s Scoop. But I have good friends, have thanks. I have things to look forward to. I’m retired. I’m collecting my erv, social security and my Deserve it 401k and I made some good investments over the years so I’m not doing too shabby. People will say, wow, you must have had a couple hundred grand of drug money left over when he got out of jail.
I was just thinking that.
Yeah, a lot of people think that, but you know a hundred grand don’t go far. That’s
True.
A hundred grand doesn’t go far. You buy a car.
That’s what they say,
Buy house
White boy Rick. We had white boy Rick on the show and people think like 33 years ago, somebody stashed $500,000 in a wall. I’m like, that wouldn’t buy the Maserati the guy’s got now. So anyway. Well, we like to keep it tight. We like to keep it to an hour. Would you come back man?
Sure, I’ll come back.
Okay. I’m probably going to, sure, I’ll come back. I’m going to call your show this Saturday and we’ll going to get a couple of pops in me. And I’m like this guy, I can, I tell people where they can hear your radio show, man.
The radio show is called 75 Radio. You can get it on the Liberty News Network or 75 radio.org. Go ahead and Google it, pull it up. We have an archives that go back five plus years. Wow. Scoop and I have been doing this show since April of 2018, so it’s over five years. We’re a conservative based show. We talk about the current news and events. When Robert De Niro, many years, a few years ago said, fuck Trump. I got on the air and I said, fuck de Niro good actor, but he should keep his mouth shut. All those actors, O’Donnell and Cher and all them that said they were going to Canada. If Donald Trump got elected, well I call them, I still call them out. See
This show, we say, fuck all y’all. That’s what we say. No fear, no favor, nothing. Yeah. Well
You see, I you’re, you know, you’re a Yankee like me. I don’t use those southern terms.
Well, I’m from Detroit, so we all came from the south dude, so there’s still a root here. Oh well. But anyway, I want to say
Fucking,
I want to go out like this. Thank you Walter Uq for coming on, brother. Really interesting to talk to you. And when you’re talking about this country and its meaning, it’s you know who you’re leaving behind, who you’re raising. And it is the 4th of July and I want to replay this clip of my friend friend’s son and his son is my friend. And this was when my last book came out. I was giving a reading at the Detroit Library. Nobody does readings there anymore. And we were going through the take a knee argument and what the Star-Spangled Banner meant. And I said, you can do it, whatever you want to do with this. And the young man came up just straight up, I called him up, CJ Ander Jack. And I said, can you sing it? And how old was he, Chris? 14.
Yeah,
Probably 12, 13. Yeah. It was memorable to me. So I hope he’s going to come now. He’s a rock and roller. The guy’s a beautiful musician. This is the young man that I know. And I’ll say, happy 4th of July to everybody. God bless America. Have a safe holiday. Karen. Thank you. You too. Red. Careful at the Normandy down drinking out there on and you too, mark on the corner. Thank you.
Oh, say, can you see by the lights what? So proudly we as the twilights last Glee, stripes and bright stars, but the streaming and Burst gave the, that flag was still there. Oh say can’t the come.
