Chicago Street cop tells amazing stories from life on the job

By Mitchell Krugel

Two years after joining the Chicago Police Department in 1976, Pat McCarthy transferred into a Special Opps unit that included the CPD SWAT team. Special Opps combined with Gang Intelligence to form the Gang Crimes Unit in the early 80s, and McCarthy went undercover to infiltrate the gangs that controlled Cabrini Green, Humboldt Park and other areas on the north and west sides of the city.

Some of those days led McCarthy to ride his department-issued motorcycle wearing only faded, torn jeans, boots and his firearm strapped to an ankle holster, making drug buys from Chicago’s most notorious gangs. As he moved into other undercover details during his 26-year career, McCarthy dressed up as a female prostitute, infiltrated a Chinese Organized Crime family as a corrupt cop , worked with an FBI task force on International Criminal Enterprise and rode the with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Canada.

“When I was working undercover, everybody told me I should write a book,” reveals McCarthy, who retired from the Department in 2000.

So he did.

Chicago Street Cop, Amazing True Stories from the Mean Streets of Chicago and Beyond premiered in March and is making quite the presence on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and other venues where the most compelling books are sold. Described as a book that will forever change the way you think about police officers and the dangerous work they perform, Chicago Street Cop combines touches of Serpico, Donnie Brasco, American Gangster, The Untouchables and the classic law-and-order stories written by the great Joseph Wambaugh.

“I had written a lot of notes throughout my career on cases and stuff, almost like a journal,” McCarthy explains. “I was so lucky to have such a wide variety of experiences, and I wanted to tell my story to encourage other coppers to live their dreams because I got to live my dream.”

The “Rush,” The “Streets”

McCarthy’s dream began watching his dad, Harry, put on his uniform every day and go to work for the department, and actually his family has given four generations to the CPD. (His great grandfather emigrated from Ireland to join the force, and Pat’s son, Ryan, works on a tactical team out of the 11^th District.)

Chicago Street Cop begins with the moment McCarthy realized he was meant to be a cop. As a kid in the 1950s, he writes about hearing a domestic incident across the street from his north side home and running out in his underwear to try to help.

“Being a cop, you don’t get a rush from anything else like that,” he confides. “It’s a pretty intense feeling.”

Harry passed away in Pat’s first year on the job, but one of Harry’s friends, Commander Michael O’Donnell, helped Pat get into working undercover, something he had a passion for since seeing an undercover copper speak when he as at the academy. Following five years working undercover in Special Opps, which included “Operation Angel” that led McCarthy to borrowing a wig from his sister, a fur coat from his mother and dressing up as prostitute alongside a female partner to address the growing sex-for-sale problem in the city in the 80s, he spent 11 years assigned to three different FBI task forces.

So working on worldwide drug investigations, violent crimes, Asian organized crime and surveillance and wire-tap cases could fuel a full season of episodes for Chicago PD, let alone a riveting book.

“It’s about as crazy as you can get, so I just tried to tell the stories like they happened,” McCarthy reasons about turning his work into prose. “I didn’t add stuff or fake stuff. There are true stories that I tried to make as gritty and real as possible.”

Book ‘Em 

A disguise Pat wore to court when testifying against gang members. 

Following retiring from the CPD, McCarthy decided to get serious about writing a book. And here’s how serious: Despite traveling more than 30 weeks a year for his “Street Crimes” business he had started to train officers across the country on surveillance, gang and drug investigations and other areas of his expertise, he would spend additional weeks going to Australia, Paris, China, Thailand and other faraway places just to write.

“Every year at the end of the year, I would take a trip,” he explained. “I would lock myself in a room for five days and all I would do was eat and write.”

His goal was to create a ride-along for readers and present his wide range of experiences. He notes that the only facts he changed were the name of three informants, and the book really comes to life with that intimate story-telling ability that some cops just seem to have a knack for.

When he writes about mixing it up with the gangs and knowing everybody in the gang by name, their girlfriends, the cars they drove, where they laid their heads down at night and where they ate and drank, you can picture McCarthy making the rounds at Cabrini Green. The authenticity apparently makes an impact as some readers have noted in the first round of reviews showing up online, including:
Rte66guy: “A true and realistic account of what goes on in the life of an undercover cop. Gritty with no filter added, a must read for anyone interested in true stories from the mean streets of Chicago.”

Clayton E. Searle: “McCarthy makes you feel like you are there as he buys drugs from a homicidal maniac and searches for a robbery suspect in a dark alley.”

Amazon Customer: “As a former cop, I feel Pat has certainly captured the excitement, thrill and emotion of what the job is truly all about.”

Read all about it

 Pat on the far right with members of his FBI task force team. 

What McCarthy’s job was all about comes through loud and clear in the 27 chapter titles that make up Chicago Street Cop.

Some that stand out include Chapter 10: “The Airport,” which recounts his work sifting through the carnage of American Airlines Flight 191 that crashed shortly after taking from O’Hare in May 1979; Chapter 17: “Sticks and the Insane Deuces,” an inside story about one of Chicago’s most violent gangs; and Chapter 24: “Let Them Eat Pigeon,” which you will have to read for yourself.

The one that might stand out at first glance is Chapter 22: “Thai Hookers.” When McCarthy was assigned to the FBI’s Asian Crimes Task Force, he tracked a case to a murder at an Asian massage parlor in Philadelphia. By getting five of the “employees” at the massage parlor to turn informants, he was able to solve the case.

And the hits just keep on coming. McCarthy tells about an encounter with “Lady D,” while making a drug buy with the Insane Deuces and how he fought off the attack of…again, read that for yourself. One of his favorites titled “What It’s Really Like,” begins with a tale of a screaming woman running out of a house after seeing two dead bodies in the basement and goes on to describe some of the ugly details cops must deal with.

Another chapter he calls one of the most intriguing is titled “A Night with Professor Daye,” which recounts a professor from Bowling Green, Kentucky who had been wanting to ride-along with McCarthy coming to town and getting to see up-close the aftermath of a gang member shot in the head at a pool hall.

And the response to Chicago Street Cop has been so overwhelming already that nobody should wait for the movie, which certainly could be coming.

“I wanted to make my book very pro-police, which I did,” McCarthy emphasizes. “All I ever wanted to do was be a police officer. I would have done it for free. I never had a bad day on the job even when I had a bad day. I loved every second of it.”

The safest way to buy medicaments online

By Dan Campana and Nick Swedberg

The call of duty takes on many forms for law enforcement officers.

Sometimes it requires actions that go beyond just the “protect and serve” mantra to preserving someone’s life.

Recently, officers around the Chicago area were recognized for their work to act quickly and save the lives of people they encountered while out on the job.

The following are stories from Lake County, University of Illinois-Chicago, Park Ridge and Aurora:

Juvenile pulled from ledge by Lake County deputies

On Sept. 8, Lake County Sheriff’s Deputy Christopher Perley, a six-year veteran, was doing a business check at a parking garage along Lake-Cook Road in Deer Park when he noticed two teens with a “plume of smoke” over their heads on the fifth level around 9 p.m.

After talking with the teens, Perley opted for calling their parents instead of any charges. The respective parents arrived and, after a few minutes, one set of parents went with their son to the fourth level to retrieve his car.

“All of a sudden we heard these blood-curdling screams … of terror,” recalled fellow Lake County Sheriff’s Deputy Tina Cora.

She immediately drove to the fourth level to find the teen battering his mother, Cora said, adding that the teen looked at her and then at the ledge. Her “gut feeling” that something bad was about to happen rang true when the teen ran to and over the ledge.

“For a minute, I thought he was dead,” Cora said. “Then I noticed his hands were still on the concrete.”

The teen dangled by his fingers from the fourth-level ledge. Cora, who admits she’s afraid of heights, ran over, grabbed the teen’s wrists and hunkered down even as he tried to pull free of her grip.

Perley had been on the fifth level with the teen’s father, but arrived quickly to help Cora by grabbing onto to the teen’s other arm. Even as the teen’s fingers began to slip, he kept his feet wedged in the third-level opening to try to fend off the rescue effort, the deputies described.

“It seemed like an eternity,” Perley said of the two- to three-minute incident.

“We had no leverage to pull him up,” Cora described. “My biggest thing was just holding on.”

The deputies, with the help of the teen’s father, were able to pull him back. The teen continued to resist, but Perley and Cora kept him on the ground to prevent him from trying anything else to hurt himself.

“Honestly, I thought he was going to jump off the other ledge,” Perley explained of the teen’s apparent motives once pulled to safety initially.

A short time later, paramedics arrived to take the teen for treatment.

“Everybody went home safely, that’s the most important thing,” Perley added. “(The teen) got the treatment he needed that night.”

Cora, who joined Lake County in 2014 after several years in other departments, and Perley downplayed their heroics, suggesting it was what anyone in their position would have done. Each was grateful for their partner’s actions.

“It was definitely a team effort,” Perley said.

Cora acknowledged thinking back on the “traumatic experience” has made her emotional at times partly as a parent of two daughters, but also because of the tragic potential if the teen had fallen.

“At one point, his life was in our hands,” Cora explained. “I still get the chills.”

UIC officer rescues woman from beneath semi

University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC) Officer Mike Mesce, a four-year veteran, was on regular patrol in September when he heard a young woman yelling for help.

Glancing out his patrol car window, Mesce saw a woman whose legs had somehow become trapped in the wheel well of a moving semi-truck. It was a “gruesome and scary” event the 28-year-old officer likely will never forget.

“Out of my driver’s side window, I hear a woman screaming,” he said. “I look over and I see the upper half of a (woman) and her arms are flailing.”

Within moments, Mesce flipped on his lights and sirens and whipped his patrol car around on Roosevelt Road to stop the truck.

The 22-year-old woman, a former UIC student, had been jogging that September morning and was still in her running clothes when she stopped at the corner of Roosevelt and Ashland Avenue. That’s when the semi truck’s rear wheels jumped the curb while turning onto Roosevelt, striking the woman and dragging her for 15-20 feet.

Mesce remembers the woman yelling “Stop!” between guttural screams as the truck rolled forward.

“When he came to a stop, she somehow untangled from the wheels,” Mesce said.

The woman’s legs were bleeding profusely and she had severe lacerations, but she was “surprisingly calm,” Mesce said. He assumed she was in shock. Doctors would later determine that a large amount of skin and muscle were torn from her leg, and that the truck broke bones in her pelvis, legs and feet.

A campus ambulance arrived within 90 seconds and the student EMTs stabilized her until Chicago Fire Department personnel arrived and transported her to Stroger Hospital.

About two weeks later, Mesce was able to visit the woman in the hospital. She had gone through multiple surgeries and needs more. She thanked him for saving her life, as did her parents, who cried and hugged the officer during his visit to the hospital. They also called him a hero, he explained.

“I don’t think I did anything overly courageous,” Mesce said.

He believes he did what any law enforcement officer or first responder would have done.

“You see someone screaming for help, you do what you can to help them,” Mesce said.

CPR by Park Ridge officer revives overdosing man

Park Ridge recognized one of its own last month when Chief Frank Kaminski awarded the police department’s Life Saving Award and Medal to Officer Jeff Koller.

Koller was on patrol the evening of April 30 when a call came in of a possible overdose. Koller arrived to find a 21-year-old man unresponsive in the passenger seat of a vehicle. The driver told Koller the man had overdosed on heroin, Kaminski told those in attendance at the Park Ridge City Council meeting where the award was presented.

“He had been unresponsive for 10 minutes, that’s a long time,” Kaminski said. “(Koller) quickly removed the subject from the vehicle, put the person on the parkway … noticed he wasn’t breathing. (Koller) immediately began CPR.”

Koller also had radioed for medical personnel, and the fire department arrived a short time later to take to the man to the hospital for further treatment. The man survived, Kaminski reported.

“You talk about people being heroes. Someone like this is a hero. I can’t tell you how proud I am of Jeff,” Kaminski shared.

Koller’s wife, son and other family joined in the moment, with his wife pinning his new medal on him as part of the ceremony.

Kaminski also used the moment, which came shortly after the death of Fox Lake Sergeant Joe Gliniewicz, to reflect on the idea of all the importance of highlighting the positive work being done by police in Park Ridge, as well as around the country. He also mentioned Koller is the latest Park Ridge officer to make the ultimate save in the line of duty.

“This department has saved more lives of people than I had at my previous agency,” Kaminski, Park Ridge’s chief since 2009, said.

Aurora officer recognized for bridge save

Aurora Officer Ronald McNeff earned Employee of the Month honors in August after handling a series of high-profile calls, culminating in the rescue of a woman who threatened to jump off a bridge.

McNeff, who started with the department in June 2012, responded to a call of a suicidal woman on the High Street Bridge. The woman began to run when McNeff approached and then tried to climb over the bridge railing. McNeff then bear-hugged the woman and pulled her away from the railing.

Department officials said the move effectively saved the woman’s life. She reportedly was very distraught and repeatedly made suicidal statements to a sergeant who arrived on scene. If not for McNeff’s quick actions, the woman likely would have succeeded in the suicide attempt, according to officials.

Earlier in his shift, McNeff helped investigators handling an attempted child abduction case and, after the bridge incident, McNeff was the first officer on scene to perform CPR on an 18-month-old child who was pulled from a backyard pool.

“In these instances, Officer McNeff’s actions epitomize the mission of the Aurora Police Department and underscore his dedication to the people of Aurora,” Chief Greg Thomas said in a statement.

The safest way to buy medicaments online

By Dan Campana

Oak Lawn Police Officer Matthew Harland got out of the Marines and ended up in law enforcement by accident. Well, sort of.

Harland, fresh off his four years in the Corp, found himself in a traffic accident that led him to have a key conversation which went a long way toward deciding his career path.

“Getting into law enforcement happened pretty quick for me,” Harland explained. “Shortly after getting out of the Marines, I was involved in a vehicle accident. I got to talking with the officers that came out. I was starting college soon after, so I decided I’d give criminal justice a try.”

Like many people in local law enforcement, Harland started with an associate’s degree, which he earned at Moraine Valley, and went about testing for local departments. He finished his studies in about a year-and-a-half, and had Oak Lawn and a couple other communities calling him about potential jobs.

What happened next for Harland also fits a common theme when it comes to police officers and completing their education. Harland was hired by Oak Lawn about four years ago and, after getting through the academy and field training, he went to Saint Xavier University to finish his undergraduate work.

In today’s law enforcement world, one that many see as growing more and more professionalized, an officer’s schooling has taken on greater importance. The history of the law enforcement-academic connection goes back years, but the emphasis on higher-minimum requirements is something some aren’t dismissing as a passing fad.

“ISP won’t even look at you with an Associate’s (degree),” Richard Wright, Justice Studies program coordinator for Rasmussen College, offered.

What is clear is that law enforcement education has a broad appeal – from the undergraduate, traditional student to officers going back to school like Harland, to the more veteran group looking at advance degrees in order to move up the ranks or in preparation for their next career.

“So many officers have so much experience and education, I need to continue my education to remain competitive and study some things that might set my education apart from everyone else,” Harland explained. “Sooner or later, I will have to get a Master’s degree just to remain on par with some of my fellow patrolmen.

“It’s almost comical at some points to have someone yelling at you about how we’re just dumb cops…meanwhile they’re surrounded by officers with military experience, associate’s degrees, bachelor’s degrees and master’s degrees,” he said.

Education always important

Calvin Edwards, head of the criminal justice program at Lewis University, frames the topic in a couple of ways. First, there is no downside to police officers facing a higher bar, or raising the bar themselves, when it comes to their educational background.

“You’ve got to have an education,” he said. “It all opens you up to so many more possibilities and makes you so much more employable.”

Edwards also said the idea isn’t necessarily a new one in the world of policing.

“A lot of the police departments want people with college degrees – that’s not unusual – and nothing unprecedented,” according to Edwards.

Edwards explained that many criminal justice programs were born out of a 1960s commission focused on modernizing police forces. The commission established the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, which, in turn, distributed “a great deal” of grant money into universities to educate police officers.

“CJ programs got big very fast. Police departments were educating their workforce to get bachelor’s degrees through grant money,” Edwards said. “The thinking was, the more educated the workforce, the less problems (departments were) going to have. The more enlightened they are, the more than likely they are not to cause problems.”

That line of reasoning seems to have remained consistent in today’s environment. Even as more officers are seeking to deepen their academic base as educational expectations increase, the image of law enforcements has taken its hits in recent years. Academic leaders suggest, as Edwards noted about the movement 50 years ago, that officers taking classes in this era are adapting to what’s needed to better serve the community.

Critical thinking, interpersonal communication and sensitivity are the key skills helping shape officers that do the job in ways that de-escalate situations and limit the risk of turning a common occurrence into national headlines, Wright offered.

“One of the reasons for that is because law enforcement is under constant attack,” he continued, suggesting increased professionalism is a way to combat the scrutiny on, and belligerence toward, police in recent years. “You’ve got to be a psychologist, a social worker – you’ve got to be all these things now as a police officer.”

Although the importance of education has increased, educators have noticed some roll back in the number of those setting out to joining the law enforcement ranks.

“People are thinking it’s open season on police and that people don’t have our back,” National Louis University Criminal Justice Program Director Richard Schak said, adding that such ebbs and flows in support for law enforcement are part of the “cycle.”

Wayne Johnson, an associate professor and law enforcement program coordinator at Harper College, agrees to a certain extent about how perceived negativity toward police could sway decision making.

“It might deter (students) from getting into law enforcement,” he said.

However, that hasn’t stifled the types of courses available or undermined the quality of those who are teaching courses for students at all levels. In fact, the convenience and style of local offerings is part of the shift. Two-year through high-end degrees, as well as certification programs, are physically nearby and, thanks to technology, available online, to suit the needs of students with various personal and professional backgrounds.

Programs aplenty, yet diverse in offerings

Johnson touts Harper as having a “big, robust program” with 30 courses per semester and two dozen adjunct professors who carry, as he does, real-world experience.

“You need people who worked in the field,” he emphasizes.

Harper’s program emphasizes hands-on opportunities – such as the large-scale live practical exercise held this past May that blended police, forensic and fire students with professionals to handle a multi-layered investigative scenario – with internship opportunities that, for some students, have clinched their interest in law enforcement.

Johnson is a proponent of students completing the Associate’s degree to “show commitment to the field” en route to picking up that first job. His goal is continue the Harper program’s growth, through partnerships, and to offer bachelor’s and master’s tracks in a convenient location for Harper’s core geographic region. In 2016, Palatine-based Harper will team with Governors State University at a nearby satellite campus to offer a two-year bachelor program.

“Many, many of our students are working full-time or part-time, and they don’t have the time to travel to get that bachelor’s,” he added.

Schak spent three decades with the Chicago Police Department, including many years as a homicide detective. Still, during his 40s, he decided to take some classes to learn some new tricks. That evolved into eventually earning a Master’s and teaching graduate-level courses. Schak doesn’t mention that turn of events to brag, but to point out the value of continued professional growth.

NLU’s three-year-old bachelor’s program has a mix of traditional and non-traditional students, though everyone seems to benefit from what Schak calls “experiential learning” led by “the right people.”

“We’re trying to turn out criminal justice professionals,” he adds. “We want them to exercise those skills that are above the shoulders.”

NLU attracts mostly adult students with diverse backgrounds, and has a slightly greater portion of its enrollment focused on criminal justice careers, such as private or homeland security, that aren’t policing.

“You get a lot of people who want to get into other areas,” Schak said. “They all want to do something to give back to the community.”

Wright said Rasmussen’s accelerated bachelor’s completion program helps bolster opportunities for cops already on the job who might be ready for the next level. He referenced a 10-year Cook County sheriff’s deputy who went the accelerated route – which takes about a year – in order to test to become a sergeant. Wright points out the benefits of having active officers involved in the learning scenario.

“They’re able to take the actual work experience and apply it to the (class) exercise,” he explained.

Of course, what students do with their education in their careers is the ultimate takeaway.

Harland teaches Oak Lawn’s anti-gang program and coordinates the department’s cadet program.

His education prepared him for both roles, and he’s not done yet. Harland said he’s back at Moraine Valley to work on a homeland security certification and to take his fourth Arabic language course.

“Education is certainly becoming more prevalent. When I was hired, I had four years of military service, an A.S. and an A.A.S, and I was essentially behind the ball,” Harland, 28, said. “Now, it’s not uncommon to be working where nearly every patrolman on the street for the night has a bachelor’s degree or higher.”

The final leg, in Edwards’ view, in all this is the cops looking at their futures in and out of the departments where they serve.

“We have a lot of police officers who are actually working toward master’s degrees because they want to know more about leadership and they know they have to understand personnel, labor relations and budget processes,” he said. “There is a relationship between the level of education and subsequent promotion.”

As for those who might be transitioning out of day-to-day police work, Edwards knows education is still a focal point.

“I would say that anybody, especially in law enforcement where you can retire early, should have a plan for your post-law enforcement career. Education is going to be key to your success post-law enforcement,” Edwards added.

 

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