The Newspaper Man is Defunct - Part 19

Sane criminals never enjoy being interviewed. To them, a reporter is just another part of the "system" that lives off them, that gets what it needs and leaves them in their cells alone. The reporter as parasite, a long-told tale and most likely true. Of course the cops don't like reporters. They're just looking for dirt. and some cops are pretty dirty. And the judges hate you, probably because they have the most to lose if you expose something they've done their best to hide. All of them - criminals, cops, judges - don't want you around. So they must be doing something sketchy. That's how I see it anyway.

I must admit I have always had an interest in the criminal, so simple-minded are most of them. Really, they can be funny; at least the ones who don't hurt people. Maybe 90 percent of them are idiots, but they're not aware of this so they just carry on what they think are normal conversations with you. They are sitting in prison, really, so how smart can they be?

But you have to look at it their way. Getting caught came about because of some magical thing that happened giving the cops more luck than they would normally have. Yes, they were lucky to catch him. Could have gone either way. This kind of magical criminal thinking is very powerful stuff and probably began early in their lives when they discovered they could get away with slipping a fiver or even a twenty out of Aunt Jody's pocketbook, and no one was ever the wiser. It was magic.

Years later, after dozens of failed magic tricks, our criminal lives in a metal and concrete place that smells like piss. Really, it is like all the prisoners are ordered out of their cells at night to go take a leak in the visitors area. That's not true of course, but someone might sell me on a story about that if I had a few photos to go with it. You sit there across from some guy who killed some other guy in a bar by kicking him in the head too many times, and all you can think about is taking a shower.

But it is always the same kicked-to-death-in-the-head story. "I didn't know I kicked him in the head that many times and that hard. Are they sure ? How do they know? Maybe I just lost track, you know?" Really, he has a point; how could you not lose track of how many times you had kicked someone in the head, especially if you were more psychotic than usual? I see a defense taking form.

I was always surprised to learn that bank robbers are usually very optimistic people. The average bank robber will tell you that it is possible to never get caught in a whole lifetime of robbing banks. And he's right. If you are smart and you have it all planned out well and know just what you are going to do, there is no excuse for getting caught.

You are up against some small-town police department and quite often the cops don't even know how to shoot. I love some of these cops They will tell you that they have been on the job 30 years and they have never shot anyone. They will not tell you that, when it comes to marksmanship, they couldn't hit a brick wall at a distance of five feet.

Really, they spend too much time getting pissed at night and they can't see. So you just take the money to your car in the bank parking lot and allow them to shoot, weave back and forth a little and maybe the hung over cop will see two images of you instead of one, or lose his balance and fall over. There are some people robbing banks in this country who are pros and a small police department is just no match for them. Hell, some of these guys could probably rob the police station itself if there was money there to make it worth it.

Don't think I am taking this too lightly. I am not. The cops are a vastly misunderstood sub-culture in America. All around the world, really. In the large city you will find that inevitably they don't want to be understood and immediately become suspicious if someone even tries to, (Civilians; that's the word I was trying to think of; that's what they call us "civilians," as though they are somehow separate from our reality as citizens.). I knew a lot of cops when I was a working journalist, and I feel as though I can talk about them, almost in general, because I knew hundreds of them

First of all, many are very secretive, believing they have been entrusted with upholding the law because they are different, perhaps more concerned about crime than the average citizen. There are plenty of bad cops out there. Their numbers increase every year because police tend not to report the criminal element within their own ranks.

I knew this one cop who, in broad daylight, threatened to murder another cop if he didn't get off his motorcycle. Both were detectives. One was drunk, at the bar, when he witnessed this other detective he knew climbing aboard his bike just to get the feel of it. Well, there would be none of that. The cop in the bar rushed out, his weapon drawn, locked and loaded and ordered the other cop off his bike.

"What are you nuts; you gonna shoot me?" the other cop said. "Yes, if you so much as touch my bike again I will shoot you." Well the other cop just couldn't resist so he touched the motorcycle. Now there are two detectives, one with his weapon drawn and against the head of the other rolling around on the public sidewalk in the middle of the afternoon. And a crowd is gathering.

Suddenly the door to the bar bursts open and this overwrought, extremely unhappy woman stepped out. She wasn't a cop, didn't look like anyone special. Walking right up to the detectives, she disarmed one and began to kick them apart. She was not going to stop until they stopped. And the entire time she had a loaded pistol in her hand. "You are not getting this gun back until you are in a better mood," she told the embarrassed cop as they returned to the bar. Yes, often cops are even more funny than criminals.

Tell you the other things I learned about cops: the average cop is underpaid, over-worked, under loved, frequently a pain in the ass, and often bored to death with his job, then suddenly, out of nowhere a bullet whistles past his head and he pees his pants. Police work is the craziest job in America. Nothing else even comes close.

And it seems that way in most countries. The German police are a gang wearing uniforms and carrying sub machine guns. I got rousted by them once in a small town in Bavaria. I had been drinking and had attended a rock concert. Afterward, myself and the drummer talked one of the group's drivers into taking us to a bar. What is worse is that we talked him into drinking with us. So we were all plastered on a trip back to a hotel in a large city. The drummer - who has since died - was encouraging the driver to go as fast as he possibly could.

All of a sudden, I heard a great clanking and banging sound and the front of the car began to go sideways. We had apparently passed over a large rail track hump in the road while going 80 mph in a stretch limo. Now the limo was broken in half. We checked ourselves out to make sure we weren't hurt and then we began laughing.

We were still laughing when a small green and white car full of the uniformed sons of former Gestapo members pulled up. One of them called us "American trash." I was the only American there. The musician was a Brit and the driver was a German. So we all got a big kick out of that comment.They treated us very badly all the way to the station. Then the geniuses realized that one of us was an international celebrity.

So the band's manager came through the door, a guy who could literally eat cops and spit them out and he got his guy out of there quickly. But the drummer wouldn't go unless I was released as well. And I wouldn't leave without the driver. The manager, a medium height, stocky guy, Jewish, English -hated Germans, remembered their rockets hitting his neighborhood in the UK like it was yesterday -began to scream at these cops in a combination of Yiddish and Low German that brought all the wrong memories back.

Man, even I was scared. You should have seen these cops, whom he had promised would be depicted a "Nazis" in the paper the following morning if they didn't let us go. And there it was, we were squashed into another limo with the entire band and rolling down the road. And the manager was saying just under his breath, "Those Nazi bastards . . ."

The next time I had a run-in with the German cops was the night I watched a friend and fellow journalist flying through the air and crashing headfirst into a concrete wall. I thought he was dead. Or someone was going to die.

It was my friend's story idea. A lot of German nightclubs back then (1980) were practicing prejudice against Latino and African American troops by posting signs on their doors stating "Off Limits To Americans." But they were not off limits to white Americans, only Americans of color. So the Germans, who, along with the U.S. have perfected the garbage art of racism, thought they were pulling a fast one.

Then my friend and I were at the club one night to check it out, and witnessed some black guys from Detroit turned away at the door. My friend wanted to do a story about this racist practice. I was to be a witness. The plan was simple. We got one of the papers photographers, an African American, to attend the cub with my friend. The photographer was light-skinned so he made it into the building. But the Turkish Mafia guys who were running the place for its German owners very quickly realized the photographer was black.

They moved on him. My friend interceded. Next thing I know I see my friend and collogue flying through the air after being thrown by two bearded guys in John Travolta white suits. We called an ambulance. They said my friend, who had been knocked out, had a concussion. So we ran with the "off limits" story. The German government made the practice illegal. Mission accomplished. Right?

Not exactly. Twenty-five years later my friend calls me. He is brain damaged. I thought, even back then, that the fall had changed him. He suddenly had begun to smoke. He ruined his marriage. He laughed inappropriately. It has been far worse than a concussion. Permanent brain damage.

The VA doesn't enjoy awarding service-connected disabilities to military journalists. I know this because I have one. But here was my friend on the other end of the phone. Since that night long ago when he was assaulted, he had been the victim of multiple seizures, had died and been brought back to life twice and was losing his ability to make sense. He was only 40.

I wrote the VA on his behalf. He was injured in the line of duty performing his work as a journalist, and they (the VA) owed him. He received a full disability. He is still my friend today. He continues to deteriorate.

I remember the cops who showed up that night. They came right to us in the parking lot. The ambulance was not there yet.

"So how did you screw up this time?" one asked me in perfect English.

Cops. Always with just the right words.