College Magazine

NYPD Blue -- and Orange

Photos and story by Alexander Armster-Wikoff '03

The numbers tell a remarkable story. In the last decade violent crime in New York City has dropped by more than two thirds. With a murder rate now at its lowest since 1967, New York is consistently ranked as one of the top ten safest large cities in the United States.
Of course, those numbers are only a part of the story. Crime hasn't vanished from the streets of New York, where more than eight million people live. Shootings still take place, as do drug deals and any number of burglaries and thefts. There's more than enough to keep New York's finest busy - which includes Rob Dinan '94, who works as a police officer in Manhattan's 17th Precinct. Ask him, and he'll tell you that his days on the pavement haven't gotten any easier.

'I've got lots of stories'
Recently, for example, Dinan received orders to crack down on illegal vendors selling handbags and watches in his sector on Lexington Avenue and 58th Street. Street vendors are required to have a license, but few do. Dinan and his partner were blas� about the assignment. "We've dealt with street vendors before," he said. "There are so many it's impossible to arrest them all. And as soon as they see you they bolt like wildfire."

This time, however, a handbag was the focus of an unexpected type of crime. Dinan and his partner were face-to-face with the street vendors when, across the street, they saw someone snatch a woman's purse. "I see the guy who stole it back up, and like Joe Montana, he throws it across the street. I see another guy catch it, who then throws it to yet another guy down in the subway. These three guys scatter, the street vendors I'm dealing with are still trying to get away, and I'm standing there looking at the woman with my jaw open thinking, �What am I supposed to do with this one?'"
Unfortunately, the most Dinan could do was make a report and put a call in to the dispatcher. "It happened so quickly I didn't even have a description of the men," he said. "Some of these people who commit crimes are real pros."

It may be a clich�, but it was just another day on the job. Dinan said that he has seen everything in his almost ten years as a New York police officer.

A sense of family
Amiable and with a good sense of humor, Dinan clicks with people. It's clear that he's well liked and respected among his peers. Being a police officer seems like a perfect fit. And with several family ties in the field, it almost seems inevitable.

"My father was a detective, my uncle was a captain, and another uncle was an inspector. And one of my cousins was a police officer," Dinan said. "I'd always talked about becoming a police officer since I was a kid. But I never thought I'd actually do it. You're not going to get rich being a police officer, especially in New York City."

Indeed, Dinan first tried his hand at making money. Following graduation from Gettysburg College, he earned a license as a certified financial planner and started his own business. But after four years he realized he needed more from his career than just money. "I still manage finances during the day, and work the 4-12 shift as a police office at night," Dinan said. "But as my only career, financial planning wasn't fulfilling enough for me."

Remembering his boyhood dream, Dinan signed up to become a police officer and started his career on street patrol in the Bronx, the northernmost of New York's five boroughs. It wasn't an easy beginning. Within days his first partner was forced into early retirement. "We were patrolling the projects and some kids threw a lawn mower off the roof, hitting my partner who was standing on the gound below," Dinan said. "It crushed his arm. He's lucky he didn't get killed. As you can imagine, it wasn't long before I wondered what I had gotten myself into."

But Dinan has always understood the risks of his job. His father lost an eye, his uncle shattered a leg, and his cousin lost a finger in the line of duty. And Dinan himself has been stabbed. "It wasn't enough to get me out," he said, smiling. "I hope to be here for a while longer."

It's the sense of family that Dinan experiences on the street that draws him to police work. "We're like one big family," he said. "We protect one another. I'd be doing this even if my father and uncles never had."

Gettysburg and a sense of community
Dinan felt that Gettysburg College had an impact on him for the same reason: its sense of community. "Gettysburg was a great, great experience," he said. "It was such a wonderful school. It was a community. I felt great there. I loved the town itself. I loved the history that was involved at Gettysburg."

Phi Gamma Delta (Fiji) fraternity was another important part of his college experience. "For me, being in a fraternity was great because of the camaraderie," he said. "I culled some fantastic relationships with those guys in much the same way that I do in my current position as a police officer." Dinan remembers Gettysburg College as being fun and the right place for him to develop. "It's small enough that you can get to know and meet everybody," he said. "I transferred from Boston University, which had no campus and no sense of environment. I played for the football team, which was Division I, so that meant I never had time to explore or meet new people. My dorm was right next to the football field, and I essentially lived on that field." Dinan continued playing football at Gettysburg, but an arm injury forced him to stop after his junior year. He remembers Barry Streeter as a great coach and wishes he could have played during his senior year.

When Dinan left Gettysburg with a major in political science and an education minor, he thought he was heading in the direction of law school or financial advising.

Not what you see in the movies
Fast-forward several years. Instead of taking the LSATs for law school as he had intended, Dinan had his courage tested on the streets. "I've been in four or five shootings," he said. "None of them were fun. I don't even like to remember them."

Dinan is quick to point out that the action police officers experience is nothing like what people see on television. "Can you imagine a police officer running down a Manhattan street with his gun out, chasing somebody who's shooting back?" he said. "It just doesn't happen. It's not like the drama you see in movies." When gunfire occurs, Dinan continued, "you're most likely to be standing about three to eight feet from the individual who's shooting at you. Not four blocks away. We had a shooting in my sector recently. Two guys were robbing a store when two officers just happened to be driving by and saw the guys running out with guns. Before they could even put their lights on, the guys started shooting at them -- three holes in the window of the police car." The officers got out and returned fire, ducking behind their car. "Their car was shot in the engine, though, so when the guys took off down the street and they tried to follow them, they couldn't go anywhere. It's not like some Mel Gibson movie where you're jumping in other people's cars and giving chase."

Despite such stories, Dinan stresses that not every police officer will have to use a gun. "In fact, it's very unusual for an officer to use his gun, thank god," he said. Another myth that Dinan wants to dispel is the belief that there's a rogue group of cops who are "on the take." "You get one guy out of forty thousand who gives us the reputation that the NYPD is a bunch of thieves," Dinan said. "We look out for each other as police officers, but not if someone's doing something wrong." The vast majority of cops serve because they genuinely want to help the community, he said.

Guns and drugs
Dinan hasn't spent his entire police career on the street. For more than a year he worked in some of Brooklyn's toughest neighborhoods. His specialized unit used video surveillance to nab people for illegal gun and drug purchases.

"Most of the time we were doing video surveillance in either mobile vans or in a converted apartment that local residents didn't even know we had," Dinan said. "We had access to over 225 cameras located throughout the project housing complexes. The cameras were little circular cameras placed anywhere from the sides of buildings to inside the buildings themselves." "We could pan and tilt the cameras and zoom them to almost three blocks away," Dinan said. "We had TV screens set up when we were in there, so once we set up a buy and watched it go down we would make the arrest." As might be expected, these arrests didn't always happen peacefully. "It was total insanity. It's two in the afternoon on a weekday and we're having a running gun battle with someone. I've had my partner save my life on more than one occasion."

'With a needle in her arm'
When Dinan returned to duty in his precinct in Manhattan, he kept running into a young girl who was stealing from drugstores. "She was stealing the most expensive, yet easily concealed products like batteries and razor blades," he said. Over time Dinan learned that the girl was 14 years old and that she was from Poland, where her mother had died of cancer. Her father had moved to Brooklyn to start a new life, but he was working two jobs and was never at home. The girl was also addicted to heroin. "She was a beautiful girl, except for her problem with heroin, which she kept totally concealed," Dinan said. "I couldn't tell for a while. She certainly didn't look like your typical junkie. And there's not much you can do with 14-year-olds caught stealing."

The police department sent notifications to the family, but the girl's father saw her only in the mornings when he sent her off to school. "He didn't have anyone he could depend on and was just trying to make ends meet," Dinan said. "And he thought he had raised her well enough to avoid pitfalls like drugs." Dinan continued to run into the same girl. Finally suspecting that something was wrong he brought her in for a test. "It's summertime and she was wearing a long-sleeve shirt," he said. "Sure enough, she had track marks all up her arms, on her tongue, in between her toes. But there was little we could do except notify her father. She was maintaining good grades and was never late for school. Her teachers didn't know; her friends didn't know." A year passed before Dinan saw the girl again, and her behavior was the same. He decided to bring her to the precinct and refused to let her go until her father picked her up. "Of course, she starts getting sick because she doesn't have her drugs," he said. So Dinan took her to her father's place of business and showed him the track marks.

Dinan's intervention helped, if only for a short time. "We were able to get her into a rehab program, which was great," he said. "I heard from her father that she was doing well, that she had returned to school, and that things were starting to return to normal." Unfortunately, that wasn't the end of the story. "Three months later," Dinan said, "we get a call from a known drug location where a lot of ex-heroin addicts live. And there she is lying dead in an alley with a needle in her arm. Four days before her 16th birthday. It's a shame. It truly broke my heart." Greatly disturbed by the young girl's death, Dinan decided to start a drug education program. He created a website (www.drugfreeteen.org/drug_guide.htm) and wrote a book, Drug Free Teen. Both seek to educate teens and adults about the many kinds of drugs sold on the streets and to provide information on where to seek treatment. "I don't have the credentials or resources to operate a rehabilitation service," Dinan said. "This is education so that people know the telltale signs of abuse before it becomes too far gone."

The Drug Free Teen program began in 2000. "It's an active program," Dinan said. "I've worked with a lot of adolescent child services and high schools. I recently spoke to a group of pharmacology students in conjunction with the DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] to educate them on prescription drug abuse."

'Never a typical day'
Currently, Dinan spends much of his time educating another group of people - unpaid volunteers called auxiliary police officers. He's in charge of 129 people in his sector. "Basically auxiliaries are the eyes and ears of the New York City police department," Dinan said. "It's a voluntary organization to try and help forge the gap between police officer and community. They wear the same basic uniform and go out on patrol, but without a gun. They're not trained to make arrests." In addition to coordinating the auxiliaries' schedules, Dinan also spends considerable time on supervising patrols. "I have 25 guys on the street every day," he said. "I have to inspect their equipment, make sure they're following procedure, and make sure I've got people where I need them and when I need them. It's my responsibility as auxiliary coordinator to make sure they're doing the right thing when they're representing me out there."

Dinan's other duties include recruiting auxiliary officers and teaching new recruits. "We're also involved with demonstrations, parades, and other big events," he said. "One thing's for certain, there's never a typical day in my life. That's what's good about this job. I like it."