Posted on 07/09/2026 6:51:25 AM PDT by MtnClimber
The problem: Thugs were murdering cabbies in New York City. The solution: Get cops to drive cabs and catch the thugs...and I was the cop.
It was around the early 1970s, and New York City was experiencing a wave of robbery-homicides of taxi drivers. A team of three black males was killing cab drivers after forcing them to drive to Harlem neighborhoods and taking their cash.
Since I was a member of a plainclothes undercover unit, I was assigned to drive a cab during the evening hours in Manhattan. Anyone who has driven in that hustling, bustling borough knows that it takes the skill and daring of an Evel Knievel wannabe to maneuver through the frenzied traffic without having your car turned into scrap metal. The driving dexterity I had accumulated in countless car chases would surely be put to the test as a cab driver in the Big Apple. However, my new assignment was in a yellow car with rate info on the side, not a blue and white, equipped with a siren and a rotating bubblegum machine on top.
The plan was to publicize the fact that off-duty cops were acting as decoys, thereby dissuading potential thugs from preying on cabbies. In order for the plan to work, we had to actually be taxi drivers each night, which meant picking up fares, driving them to their destinations, and keeping a record of the money and the tips. Each night, when I picked up my cab, I would head for the busiest streets of midtown Manhattan, with the “unoccupied” light on the roof.
My .38 cal. Smith and Wesson snub-nosed pistol was between my legs, with the handle just barely visible and easily accessible. When I had a passenger in back of me
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
New Yorkers have forgotten about when Rudy cleaned up most of the crime.
Yeah, he absolutely turned the city around after Dinkins. Such a disgrace the way he has been treated by so many.
New Yorkers also forgot how he did it and why it worked!
They will rue the day that Their Moslem/Communist Mayor took over!
I read that yesterday-that was an interesting article!
Funny-my wife and I were watching an old “ER” episode where one of the female doctors (Sherry Stringfield) has to go to New York and is riding around in the backseat of a black and white, and is horrified by the rough treatment the cops use on bums and informants to get information from them (slamming them on the hood of the cruiser, that kind of thing)
This article made me kind of think of that...it ain’t all pretty and clean and fun!
Cool story about taxi driver life, the cop got to experience a working man’s life and saw how challenging it is, it probably made him a better cop to be reminded that a lot of the minor violations he sees are from people dealing with tough work obstacles in a crowded city, not just being scofflaws.
True stories that spawned this guy.
Wow, Bob Weir was a real badass before the Grateful Dead.
So many uber and lyft drivers, who barely speak English, if at all - drive like this regularly across San Francisco, weaving in and out of traffic, running lights, not stopping at stop signs, going over the speed limit...
We've switched to this:
And haven't looked back.
Bkmk
Excellent story and very well told. Probably the best thing I have read from American Thinker
“”””horrified by the rough treatment the cops use on bums and informants to get information from them (slamming them on the hood of the cruiser, that kind of thing)””””
An example of how some of us played cops was when some young guys picked me up hitchhiking one night in Los Angeles, they were drinking and we got pulled over, as the two cops got deeper into questioning the driver outside of the car and it looked like a drunk driving charge was coming, I got out and made a big obnoxious display of “what’s your probable cause!!!” and so on, they turned their full attention on me with the hood slam and such, I knew I was clean so eventually they had to leave me alone, and by that time they were satiated, the moment of the initial stop was over, and we were just told to get the hell out of there and we drove off.
That was a big save, not just for the driver but for all the problems it would have caused for all of us for the night and car, including me being stranded somewhere in Los Angeles, or at some police station, I and others used that technique with the sheriff’s in Fallbrook and Vista California frequently and it almost always worked back then, although it could (unpaid ticket warrant for example) result in some minor charge and night in jail for whoever was playing the asshole for that late night stop, but it would save the driver or the guy who was facing more serious problems if the check went deeper.
Re. Rudy and NYC, the old saying applies:
Hard times create strong men.
Strong men create good times.
Good times create weak men.
And weak men create hard times.
The problem is that the cycle doesn’t always repeat. Then the hard times last forever. I fear that will be the fate of NYC.
That would have solved this and many other problems.
But.... you didn't.
I thought Johnny Mercer was dead.
LOL, I would never have done that. I am completely a “Yes Sir-No Sir” kind of person when I get stopped, especially now that I am older.
At a younger point in my life, I thought all cops were out to get me no matter my status as a law-breaker/law-abider, but then I grew up, I realized that most of them were just trying to do a job and get home to their families at night.
What’s that saying about trouble-”Don’t start none, there won’t be none.”
And of course, I always keep in mind the Chris Rock “How Not To Get Your Ass Kicked by The Police” video!
I have also always been polite to cops, except for those deliberate acts in California (Houston cops might beat you to death) which fit the situation, were part of fun making and guys just playing a game with them about routine late interactions coming home from the bars in Vista and which were a plan, not emotional reactions, remember it is a play to distract them and shift their attention, and then becoming nice and polite as they find nothing on you and get bored with the stop and then just let the young guys go home.
At that time there wasn’t a jail close and any arrest meant going to downtown San Diego (if I’m remembering correctly) which no one wanted to do unless they had to.
One reason I have always been careful around cops is because I have always scared them, that is a worrying thing and I am aware of a lot of insecurities in cops and know that is one reason they so often act as they do, a lot of cops are weak men inside, California cops were so much less violent than Houston cops at the time, it was sort of amazing to a Houstonian, it was like the California pool tables where they never had to fight for whose table it was, where one doesn’t note what could be used for a weapon in the bathroom, California bars were so gentle compared to Houston bars of the time, in fact, just plain gentle period.
Great story!
So true.
Cops are human. There are bad ones and good ones. There are ones who let a small degree of power go to their heads, and some who would be good and judicious people no matter what field they were in.
By default, I treat them all as if they are in the latter category and not the former.
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