One of the many benefits MWA-NY offers its members is access to the experts who pursue the perpetrators and solve the crimes we write about. We asked a few of those experts to tell us about their work in law enforcement and forensics. Don’t forget to check the MWA-NY calendar for upcoming programs.
Today we’re featuring long-serving NYPD lieutenant (and MWA-NY member) Bernard Whalen, who spoke to our members in January about the birth of the United States’ largest police force, and his new book, The NYPD’s First 50 Years: Politicians, Police Commissioners, and Patrolmen, co-written with his father, Jon Whalen, a former New York state corrections officer. The Whalens also coauthored the novel Justifiable Homicide.
What made you want to be a cop?
Actually, I went to college to be a Phys. Ed. Teacher. I wasn’t good in math or science so most of my electives were writing courses. In 1978 I was a junior. NYPD recruiters visited the York College campus in Jamaica seeking out more highly educated candidates to take the upcoming police test. It was the first test the City had scheduled since the police layoffs in 1974. I took the test just in case teaching didn’t work out. So did 80,000 other people, of which about 4,000 could expect to be hired. It turned out to be a good idea. Full-time teaching positions were hard to come by in the early eighties. After subbing for a year and a half, the police department reached my list number in 1981. I decided to switch careers and never looked back.
What’s in your go kit?
I’ve been a lieutenant for a long time, in fact I am the senior lieutenant at Police Headquarters. Most lieutenants perform administrative duties. I’m assigned to labor relations. All employees in the department, uniformed and civilian, are represented by a union. It’s important that I know what’s in each employee’s contract as well as all of the rules and procedures of the department. My corporate memory also helps me do my job since I am often asked by higher-ups how certain things came about.
Who’s on your team?
My immediate bosses are a deputy commissioner who has been with the NYPD since 1962 and an assistant chief who was formerly the commanding officer of the police commissioner’s office. I work with two other lieutenants, a sergeant, a detective, and two civilian clerks. My specialty is the uniformed unions, and I have a good working relationship with all of the union representatives.
What’s one thing most people don’t know about being a cop?
Right now, a few high profile cases have given the public the impression that police are out of control. Nothing could be further from the truth. The number of times NYPD officers discharge their weapons at suspects is down dramatically from when I first came on the job. But the very nature of police work means that there will be a small number interactions that become problematic. A split second decision made by a police officer in the heat of the moment is analyzed ad nauseam over the course of months and years by lawyers with their own political agendas. A fellow lieutenant was so afraid of what would happen to his family after an error in judgement that he committed suicide in the locker room because he thought it would be easier on them for him to be dead than to have them suffer through the months of character assassination that lay ahead.
What’s the most important thing you want crime writers to get right about your job?
Unfortunately, super accuracy in details seldom results in an interesting police procedural. But that doesn’t mean the writer shouldn’t try. Whenever I write a first draft, I purposely follow the police procedures to the letter. Then I decide what changes I can get away with to make the story better, while still keeping everything, including the police procedures, within the realm of possibility. In our novel, Justifiable Homicide for example, I had to make adjustments in order to make the story more exciting, but not one of my cop friends ever said that it couldn’t have happened the way it was written. Plausibility should be the goal of every crime writer.
—Interview by S.A. Solomon
Thanks for the very useful Q & A, an dmost especially for your last sentence, putting it all into perspective.