Ralph Friedman has taken more than a few bad guys off the street. The former NYPD detective has arrested more than 2,000 criminals.
While working in the crime-ridden South Bronx in the 1970s, he was prolific when it came to taking down the perps who shot at him, pulled knives and pummeled him with everything from fists to a tire iron.
If cops had box scores, he’d be the Russell Westbrook of the NYPD.
“I enjoyed police work; actually, I survived on adrenaline rush,” said Friedman, who chronicles his gritty tenure in the new, action-packed book “Street Warrior” (St. Martin’s Press), out this month.
Many cases were violent and memorable for Friedman, who toiled in the plainclothes anti-crime unit, but it’s the one he never solved that still eats away at him — a deadly terrorist attack, for which no one was ever punished.
In 1975, the historic Fraunces Tavern in lower Manhattan was bombed by Puerto Rican terrorist group FALN, killing four and injuring 43. A month after the incident, Friedman received a tip from a reliable confidential informant (CI) who overheard men in a Bronx watering hole celebrating the bombing. His mole, Rafael Fernandez, was certain they were involved.
“This guy had good information. My faith was in him,” said Friedman of Fernandez.
The case was assigned to the legendary cop Joe Coffey, and investigators were still sniffing for a break. Armed with the informant’s intel, they hatched a plan for Friedman to wear a wire and accompany Fernandez to a wedding where the suspects would be partying.
The plan was simple but dangerous. When the bombing suspects arrived at the venue, Fernandez would finger them and Friedman would alert Coffey, whose crew would swoop in and arrest the thugs.
But, before they entered, a very nervous Fernandez — who wasn’t exactly a Boy Scout himself — whipped out a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson snub-nosed revolver. “Nice f - - king gun,” he quipped, letting Friedman know he could protect himself.
Coffey, who was in a nearby car listening in, flipped out. Instead of heading into the wedding, Fernandez was cuffed and charged with criminal possession of a weapon. Coffey accused Friedman of giving Fernandez the gun. After hours of interrogation at the 47th Precinct, Friedman’s superior convinced Coffey of his innocence, citing his clean record. Friedman was free to go.
Fernandez, however, was still in cuffs and never spoke to law enforcement again.
Friedman can’t help but wonder what would have happened if things had gone differently.
“Maybe it could have been a disastrous shootout,” said Friedman, now 68. “Maybe it could [have] cost me my life or other people’s. I don’t know. It’s all speculation at this point. But it was very, very close.”
One thing that is not up for speculation is Friedman’s impressive record.
When he left the force in 1984, he became the most decorated detective in the NYPD history. Along with his 2,000 arrests, he assisted on more than 5,000. He made more than 100 arrests while off-duty and was involved in 15 gun battles, shooting eight criminals and killing four. He collected 219 NYPD awards and 40 civilian honors. And he earned the Combat Cross, the department’s second-highest honor, for shooting dead a deranged man who shot a teenager for calling him a “cheap bastard.”
In his book, Friedman reflects on the bygone era, which could be both frustrating and freewheeling.
“We didn’t have cellphones, cameras and beepers yet. It was a different era of policing. Back then, ‘PC’ meant ‘police commissioner,’ not ‘political correctness.’ ”
He was sworn in as a cop at age 21 on Feb. 2, 1970, during a time when the Big Apple was rotting from rampant crime and would soon be on the brink of financial disaster. A graduate of DeWitt Clinton High School, Friedman grew up in the working class Fordham section of The Bronx with a stay-at-home-mother and a father who managed the San Carlos Hotel. As a police officer, he was happily assigned to his home borough: the notorious 41st precinct, fittingly called “Fort Apache.”
The neighborhood was something of an amusement park for depraved criminals. Shootings, robberies and arson were daily fare, and drug dealing could have been considered the official sport of the burned-out hood.
“New York was bad, but The Bronx was the worst. I loved it. It was the like the Wild West, but 10 times worse,” said Friedman, who even investigated his own mother’s mugging and went after a mobster’s son who shot and wounded his brother Stu, a transit cop.
The job didn’t do his love life any favors.
While driving home with a date, he heard two gunshots, and two guys fell on the hood of his car at 105th Street and First Avenue. One had been stabbed and the other had been shot and stabbed. Friedman drew his weapon and wrestled them to the ground. “Turns out they were fighting for, like, 15 years over the same woman.” Both men died, and Friedman had to deal with business. The date — who wasn’t his steady girlfriend — was whisked away by Friedman’s brother at his request.
“I needed to get her out of there before press gets down there and interviews me or talks to her.”
One particular girlfriend would prove especially problematic.
It unfolded one Friday night in 1977, when Friedman and his partner netted an arrest, keeping them late at work. He had to cancel a hot date with a woman he was seeing at the time.
The woman, Lucy Santiago, was “5-foot-6 with long dark hair and a dynamite body,” he recalled. She had invited him to her apartment, where she had promised to cook dinner and suggested dessert was definitely on the menu.
“We were planning to go to her house and have sex. And I was looking forward to it,” said Friedman.
After the arrest spoiled his plans, he phoned to cancel, and she was annoyed. Friedman promised to make it up to her and rescheduled for the coming Wednesday.
But he’d never make it to their date. Three days later, he was stopped in his precinct house by two detectives from the intelligence division.
“They tell me that when I didn’t show up at her place, she had, like, two or three guys there waiting to execute me,” said Friedman. An informant got wind of the twisted murder plot and alerted police.
Friedman was stunned but learned Santiago was the half-sister of Manny Rivera, a thug whom Friedman had shot and killed months earlier after Rivera lunged at him with a knife.
The near miss shook the hardened cop. “I couldn’t trust anyone,” he said.
‘They tell me that when I didn’t show up at her place, she had, like, two or three guys there waiting to execute me’
- Ralph Friedman
After cheating death for many years, his NYPD swan song came courtesy of a car accident in 1983.
While rushing to the aid of a fellow cop, his car was T-boned by another police car also responding to the call. Friedman had to be extricated from his vehicle by the Jaws of Life, and he was in terrible shape: 23 broken bones, including his pelvis and a shattered hip.
Then 34, he was heavily sedated for two weeks, and doctors said he only survived because he was in such pristine physical shape. “And here I am, incapacitated. I can’t move an inch in any direction without feeling a tremendous amount of pain. It was devastating.”
Adding insult to injury, he was seeing seven women — all of whom showed up at the hospital.
“At first, I thought I was hallucinating. But on closer inspection, I realized that I’d been dating these women concurrently over the last year, and they all picked the same time to visit me,” said Friedman.
One of the women, Grace, stuck with him. “She must have had a good sense of humor.” She moved in with Friedman and helped him recover.
She’s now his wife. They have no children and live in Connecticut.
Friedman took years to fully recover and slowly eased into civilian life.
“[The job] made me very hard. I’ve seen people with their arms cut off, legs cut off, body parts. And it didn’t bother me. I could go out and eat pizza after all of this,” said Friedman, who now spends most of his days working on home-improvement projects. He’s softened with age.
“I see myself very different today than back then. If I saw a sad movie today, I think a tear would come to my eye.”
But inked on his back is a reminder of his wild ride in Fort Apache: “The Rush was worth the risk.”
“It sums it all up,” he said.