This period represents a change of direction within the job. The Mayor was forced to lay off one thousand cops in order to balance the budget. This caused long-time harm to both the Department and to the City. The feeling, at this juncture, within the ranks was that the City didn't care, and the more familiar feeling was the "job sucks." No one could foretell what would take place in the ranks.
On February 21, 1978, I received a memorandum from my boss, D.I. Hall. He was conveying the desires of the Chief of Personnel to revitalize the early warning system. The purpose of the system was to identify "problem cases," those who the Department had been unable to separate either through disciplinary action or disability pension. He went on to say that the department wanted to target problem cops and try to retrain them or have them removed from the rolls of the Department. As a first step in the training core for this project, a series of meetings were to be held at the Police Academy.
Three weeks prior, Officer Walter S., M.S.W., who was assigned to the Counseling Unit as a counselor, and I sent a memo for a cost-free program dealing with stress. This proposal was shifted from one unit to another in headquarters. Meanwhile, on March 27, 1978, the first meeting reactivating the early warning system took place. I was sent to these round table discussions, but no invitation was given to Dunne. The Police Commissioner was easing Dunne further and further from the power structure of the job and I didn't like the position I had found myself in. Anyway, the first presentation was given by Sergeant Kelly of P.A.S. and he covered the Central Personnel Index (CPI). The CPI was a data bank of information relative to various aspects of poor performance, judgment or other negative records. This was commonly referred to as a round robin and used prior to promotion or assignments. Kelly went on to the types of data collected. Of the 13 listed, one was listed as "d) referral to the Alcoholic Counseling Unit." I was quite surprised because Dunne and the Policy statement had said that all records were strictly confidential. Kelly went on about the lengths his unit goes to get adverse material on cops. All the while Kelly was using baseball terminology throughout his talk.
The second presentation was given by the Health Services Division and D.I. Hall spoke on all the police agencies counseling units which had assisted in helping set up alcoholism programs for their members. On the municipal level: Philadelphia, Detroit, Fort Worth, Louisville, New Haven, Albany and Yonkers. On the county level: Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester. At the state level: The California Highway Patrol and the New York State Police. At the federal level: the F.B.I., the Bureau of Indian Affairs. At the international level: Sidney, Australia and the Royal Canadian Police. Right here at home: our Transit Police and Housing Police. Then Dr. Harvey Schlossberg of Psych Services gave a rundown of the services that his unit offered in this specialized area.
The third presentation gave a proposed schedule of training for the precinct commanders and unit commanders.
In the meantime, Conboy, the Deputy Commissioner of Legal Matters, was moving ahead with his pet project, "Stress." He had Sergeant James F. D. appointed as Stress Project Coordinator. Conboy had told me in a face-to-face meeting that he wanted Police Commissioner McGuire to have a living memorial in place when he left the job. That monument would be a Stress Program for all cops.
Conboy sought funding for the stress project via the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Public Health Service, Alcohol, Drug Abuse and Mental Health Administration, National Institute of Mental Health, 5000 Fishers Lane, Rockville, Maryland 20857. Meanwhile, Conboy acted as if he NIMH already funded the NYPD. Conboy started his correspondence to NIMH on September 29, 1978 and it continued into the first half of 1979.
On December 8, 1978, I received a pair of proposals via Conboy's office. The first proposal was from Rohrer, Hibler and Replogle, Inc. (RHR). The other came from Personnel Management Consultants (PMC). Although I was a member of the Stress Committee, I never received a copy of the stress proposal from John Jay College. On January 16, 1979, the selection of the Stress Grant Vendor was decided and RHR was given the contract. The committee was duly notified by Conboy on January 26, 1979. The base to the McGuire Memorial Monument was set in place.
Life is what is happening as we are making other plans. On the 29th of January, I requested that the Counseling Service give a presentation on Alcohol Abuse to members of the 10th Precinct. The Command takes in the west side of Manhattan, covering parts of Greenwich Village to West 23rd Street, from the west side of Fifth Avenue to the Hudson River. The Counseling Unit had six cases referred during the past three months. Only one case came from the 10th Precinct.
One of the cases had made all the local papers. As a case study, it illustrated a breakdown of communications. The case involved a 10th Precinct sector car being driven around in eastern Suffolk County in the evening. The operator of the car was an off-duty cop in civilian clothes driving with his turret lights flashing and the siren blasting. In the back seat were his three kids and he was taking them for a ride in his police car. He promised them a ride and he was doing it and the Suffolk County Police were in hot pursuit. When they caught him, he was intoxicated. How did all this come about with an "Early Warning System" in operation? Like everything on the job, if it looks good on paper, make 100 copies and send it out to the commands and get on to the next project.
The 10th Precinct had further repercussions. It had logged the radio motor patrol car as patrolling its assigned sector when, in fact, the operator left his assigned sector to pick up his partner in Felony Court in lower Manhattan. After all, isn't that what a stand-up partner does? CYA (Cover Your Rear End)! From the court, the pair go back to the station house and change into civilian clothes. Next stop was the Long Island Railroad Station at 33rd Street. They had to kill an hour, so they went to a gin mill and had a few drinks. The partner missed his train so the driver of the car said he would drive him home to Suffolk County.
But that's not the end of it. The two desk officers had a fist fight the next day. Each accused the other of not covering the other in the Suffolk County caper. Both desk officers were injured, both held the rank of Lieutenants, and both had reported sick. Both had drinking problems. In turn, I ended up with the four-some. One of the Lieutenants had threatened to blow the brains out of any cop who came to his home in Suffolk County to take his guns. It was my job to talk to him, face-to- face, and see if I could get him to go into detox. The Chief Surgeon, Clarence Robinson, wanted to send a "SWAT Team" to the Lieutenant's residence and was angry that I went alone and disarmed the man and got him to the hospital. The Lieutenant is now sober, still in the NYPD and has since been promoted several times.
The Police Commissioner never answered that request that I made to give a presentation to the members of the 10th Precinct on January 29th.
In November of 1977, I was appointed Detective Specialist by Commissioner Michael J. Codd. Dunne pulled a lot of strings to get me the Gold Shield. Along with the shield, came a raise in pay.
Dunne had his heart set on moving the Counseling Unit from its present location at 346 Broadway to John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He wanted to get away from department buildings, and more importantly, assist in his much larger plan for an Institute of Alcoholism, which, at that time, was an ongoing program. But a complication arose to delay that plan. It arrived in the guise of a new Police Commissioner. This one didn't come from the ranks but was a political appointment by the Mayor. Robert J. McGuire was a "Bronx" born whose father was a member of the force, a retired Inspector. Dunne found out real quick that he no longer had an open door to the Commissioner's office located on top of One Police Plaza. This Commissioner let it be known that he didn't care for cops who drank. That reminded me of a boss who put me on the spot at a conference in the Board Room of the Police Academy. Dunne had scheduled me to speak to the top bosses in the Department one day in the late 1960's. Dunne took it upon himself to introduce me as a member of "AA" and expected me to tell my story. I found this quite awkward but there was nothing I could do but go on with it. When I finished, the Commanding Officer of the Police Academy, with his Phi Beta Kappa key hanging down on his gold watch chain, gave forth with his intuitive observation by saying, "Joe, when I was the skipper of the 5th Precinct (which covers the Bowery), I noticed all alcoholics have a good head of hair like you." I looked straight into his eyes and replied, "Well, Inspector, when I sobered up in "AA," I noticed bald-headed alcoholics like you sitting in the same room trying to get sober." The remark by me went sailing right through him and it didn't sink in for about ten minutes. A sad note - this brilliant man was too smart to want to take help. He would die on a plane returning from Erin's Isle with a drink in his hand.
Returning to the new P.C., one day the Captain told all the men assigned to the Medical Section to dress up because McGuire was coming over for a meeting on site. Everyone was directed to report to the examining room to hear the P.C.'s talk. That is, all but Dunne and me. Word leaked down that he didn't hold Dunne or the Unit in high regard. Well, all I could do was to sit tight and wait it out.
A couple of weeks later, a cop who went to St. Helena's High School in the Bronx and was a school buddy of Robert J. McGuire, the present Commissioner, was sent to the Unit. This cop had gotten jammed up off-duty with a serious "hit and run accident." The cops who responded to the case couldn't cover it up and he ended up suspended for being unfit for duty because he was drunk. He was also arrested. The cop was facing loss of his job and maybe some hard time to boot. I interviewed and charted the cop. After conferring with the Surgeon assigned to the Unit on that day, the cop was placed in the hospital for detox and then up to the Villa for three weeks. Sometime during the course of this cop's treatment, I received several calls about his progress from up high in One Police Plaza. I told the caller that the man's progress is confidential and I cited a legal opinion from the Director of the Legal Division, Thomas J. Flanagan, plus the Policy Statement that records will be kept strictly confidential, dated 5/12/66.
Effective 0800 hours, March 13, 1979, I was designated ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR of Counseling Unit (H.S.D.) by direction of the Police Commissioner. This came about by McGuire ordering me over to his office. The telephone call came directly to me and I was ordered over to his office, forthwith. Once there, I was ushered in by way of his private entrance. It was a very large room, comfortably furnished, and a Water Spaniel breed of dog was reclining on one of the three couches. Enter McGuire followed by his side-kick Kenneth Conboy, who was a Deputy Commissioner. The P.C. smiled and extended his right hand to me, shook my hand and asked me to be seated. The spaniel leaped up into the P.C.'s lap and he went on to explain that he was dog-sitting for the day. I took this for a heavenly sign. A man who brings his dog to work can't be all bad.
McGuire then began to talk in earnest to me. He said that he didn't care for, nor did he like my boss, Dunne. He said he was designating me the Associate Director of the Counseling Unit in order to neutralize Dunne. I told him that this would put me in the middle of the storm by making me Director. The Commissioner went on to say that he researched Dunne's title of "Director" of the Unit and there was no record of it in the job. Furthermore, he wanted to deal with me only and not Dunne. He said that I can call him any time, day or night, and he started to give me his private phone number. Conboy said that it would be better if I went through his aide. I asked McGuire what to tell Dunne and he said he would get word to him. To make the cheese more binding, Mayor Edward Koch had made a move to abolish the Chaplain's Unit as an economy measure. So, Dunne didn't protest too much when Personnel Order No. 91 was published with my new designation. In fact, Dunne took me down to the C.O. of the Health Services Division, as it now was called, and told him that he spoke to McGuire and prevailed upon him to designate me the Associate Director. This was typical of Dunne - how to turn a loss into a profit ploy.