Read Online The Turnaround: How America's Top Cop Reversed the Crime Epidemic by William Bratton, Peter Knobler - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: William Bratton, Peter Knobler
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building had been built in 1890, and seventy years of stale smoke had built up in the room—you felt it in your chest when you came in. The walls were green and peeling. Four men were lounging behind old oak desks. Irish faces. I couldn't place it, but there was something unfriendly about these guys. They didn't react to a kid, and they didn't interact with the uniformed cop. We were out of there pretty quickly.
After my father's business was finished, we walked home. I was thrilled that I had gotten inside. The only exposure we had to police, the only time they arrived at the house, was every few years when they came around to take the census. In Boston in the fifties, hundreds of cops were assigned to go door to door and fill out census cards. Sometimes, they'd show up to verify and validate voter registration.
There just wasn't any crime to speak of in our neighborhood. Maybe now and again something was broken into or vandalized, but I don't remember anyone's car ever being stolen, and my group of kids certainly wasn't the kind to give them any trouble.
When we got to an age where we had begun to earn some money doing odd jobs or were being given our first small allowances, the kids on the corner started playing cards and gambling—seven-card draw and five-card stud poker with our pennies and nickels and dimes, all the time and into the night. Once, we had a card game going, and from working and my allowance and my winnings I amassed the considerable sum of one dollar and sixty cents. My sister's friend Ann Marie Anderson had a penny. She was a tall blonde girl, kind of gangly, and she sat in with a bunch of us. I was going to win that penny.
She won the first pot, and now she had a nickel. She won the next one.
And the next. I got in deeper and deeper. Eventually, she won my entire buck-sixty. Taught me a lesson. I lost everything trying to win a penny.
I remember sitting under the new electric light pole on another evening, four or five of us in the game, and I thought I had been treated unfairly, cheated. I stood up and started swearing a blue streak. It was the thing to do at the time, to use rough language, and I was just getting good at it.
Our apartment was on the second floor, and it looked directly over the corner. It was springtime and my mother was sitting by the window, taking in the breeze, looking out at the night. Next thing I knew, she came charging down the stairs, grabbed me by the ear and dragged me into the house.
“I don't ever want to hear you use that language again!” she yelled at me. My friends were all watching. She gave me a few whacks and kicked me upstairs. That nipped it in the bud. I would use certain words for emphasis, but I seldom truly swore from that time on.
While I could be completely happy sitting in my room and reading, I definitely liked getting attention. I was in my glory in sixth grade when they made me school crossing guard and gave me a white strap to wear across my chest (I always kept it spotless) and a shiny silver badge. My post was the corner of East Street and Adams, and I would stand there with my book bag and my metal lunch box—Hopalong Cassidy, Wild Bill Hickok, Zorro, Davy Crockett, whoever was the latest craze—and I would stop traffic and cross the kids from one side of the street to the other. Everybody stayed between the white lines while I was on duty. Maybe I took it a little too seriously; a gang of girls used to chase me home at the end of the day.
That year, I really started to shine. If there was a center stage, I sought it. When I brought my clay figures into school and talked about my hobbies, the teacher was so impressed she sent me to see the principal, who assigned me to be master of ceremonies for our celebration of Flag Day. I stood in the auditorium in front of the whole school in my Boy Scout shirt (we didn't have enough money to buy the pants) and my good school trousers, which always seemed to be too short. I graduated with honors
After my father's business was finished, we walked home. I was thrilled that I had gotten inside. The only exposure we had to police, the only time they arrived at the house, was every few years when they came around to take the census. In Boston in the fifties, hundreds of cops were assigned to go door to door and fill out census cards. Sometimes, they'd show up to verify and validate voter registration.
There just wasn't any crime to speak of in our neighborhood. Maybe now and again something was broken into or vandalized, but I don't remember anyone's car ever being stolen, and my group of kids certainly wasn't the kind to give them any trouble.
When we got to an age where we had begun to earn some money doing odd jobs or were being given our first small allowances, the kids on the corner started playing cards and gambling—seven-card draw and five-card stud poker with our pennies and nickels and dimes, all the time and into the night. Once, we had a card game going, and from working and my allowance and my winnings I amassed the considerable sum of one dollar and sixty cents. My sister's friend Ann Marie Anderson had a penny. She was a tall blonde girl, kind of gangly, and she sat in with a bunch of us. I was going to win that penny.
She won the first pot, and now she had a nickel. She won the next one.
And the next. I got in deeper and deeper. Eventually, she won my entire buck-sixty. Taught me a lesson. I lost everything trying to win a penny.
I remember sitting under the new electric light pole on another evening, four or five of us in the game, and I thought I had been treated unfairly, cheated. I stood up and started swearing a blue streak. It was the thing to do at the time, to use rough language, and I was just getting good at it.
Our apartment was on the second floor, and it looked directly over the corner. It was springtime and my mother was sitting by the window, taking in the breeze, looking out at the night. Next thing I knew, she came charging down the stairs, grabbed me by the ear and dragged me into the house.
“I don't ever want to hear you use that language again!” she yelled at me. My friends were all watching. She gave me a few whacks and kicked me upstairs. That nipped it in the bud. I would use certain words for emphasis, but I seldom truly swore from that time on.
While I could be completely happy sitting in my room and reading, I definitely liked getting attention. I was in my glory in sixth grade when they made me school crossing guard and gave me a white strap to wear across my chest (I always kept it spotless) and a shiny silver badge. My post was the corner of East Street and Adams, and I would stand there with my book bag and my metal lunch box—Hopalong Cassidy, Wild Bill Hickok, Zorro, Davy Crockett, whoever was the latest craze—and I would stop traffic and cross the kids from one side of the street to the other. Everybody stayed between the white lines while I was on duty. Maybe I took it a little too seriously; a gang of girls used to chase me home at the end of the day.
That year, I really started to shine. If there was a center stage, I sought it. When I brought my clay figures into school and talked about my hobbies, the teacher was so impressed she sent me to see the principal, who assigned me to be master of ceremonies for our celebration of Flag Day. I stood in the auditorium in front of the whole school in my Boy Scout shirt (we didn't have enough money to buy the pants) and my good school trousers, which always seemed to be too short. I graduated with honors
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