Photos by Glenn Triest
The
mitzvot
and the
meshuga
of Jewish
policemen.
AARON ROBINSON
SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
The Boys In Blue
etroit Police de-
tective Marty
Gaynor
freezes in
mid-sen-
tence, snaps
open the glove-
box of his paper-bag
brown Caprice, and cranks up
the volume on a hidden police
radio. Somewhere near his 8th
Precinct office on Grand River
Avenue and Six Mile Road in
northwest Detroit, a car is be-
ing stripped in broad daylight.
Despite nearly 20 years of
chasing such calls for the De-
troit Police Department as a
decorated patrol officer, Mr.
Gaynor still leaps at the crack-
le of the dispatcher even though
he exchanged his patrolman
blues for the plain clothes of the
detective bureau last October.
He now wears his coal-black
pistol tucked neatly among the
folds of a tailored sportcoat and
tie.
With the City of Detroit
poised at the cusp of a new lead-
ership era, Mr. Gaynor is one of
only a shrinking handful of
Jewish officers in the 4,000-
member Detroit police force,
manning the front lines in the
Archer administration's cru-
sade for a safer, more prosper-
ous city. He is also one of a
small community of Jewish po-
lice officers nationwide who
have managed to chip out a
niche for themselves among the
mainly Irish, Polish and black
ranks of society's thin blue line.
Mr. Gaynor chuckled when
asked what a Nice Jewish Boy
is doing battling crime on the
streets of Detroit. He explained
that after making two motor-
cycle trips around the country
as a teen-ager, he took a job
with the police because it al-
lowed him to stay active and
avoid being stuck behind a
desk.
`Tye always been a pretty ac-
tive guy, and it was something
I always wanted to do," he said,
adding that he had planned to
go to law school after a few
years but began to really enjoy
the work.
"The question should really
be, what's a nice Jewish boy do-
ing getting thrown out of two-
story windows?" answered
Michael Pearl, 27, a former po-
lice officer in Broward County,
Fla, who was pushed out a win-
dow while wrestling with a sus-
pect in the early days of his
career. "I lay there for a few
minutes thinking, 'Do I really
want to do this, and was my un-
cle right about law school?"
Like other Jewish officers,
Mr. Pearl said the daily uncer-
tainty of police work is what
gets him back on his feet in
those situations and what is
prompting him to search for a
police job in another large city.
"I like not knowing what is
going to happen from one
minute to the next. I could be
sitting at an intersection and
anything could happen. I could
see someone blow a red and be
involved in a traffic stop. I could
get called to the scene of a homi-
cide. I could be called to a traf-
fic accident and be the first one
on the scene. You just never
know."
A native of compara-
urbs where they mostly
Gene Shaffer
tively sedate West
give out traffic tickets.
sketches
police
Bloomfield and a gradu-
renderings with
ate of Michigan State both a computer Down there I was deal-
ing with dope and gang
University, Mr. Pearl
and more
violence,"
he said.
said he became inter-
traditional art
After
being
called to
ested in law enforce-
materials.
seven
shooting
scenes,
ment after cruising with
attending
the
funerals
the township's police as
of four fellow officers, confis-
part of their community ride-
cating
an Uzi sub-machine gun
along program. While traveling
from
a
15-year-old boy driving
in Florida with a friend, he
a
stolen
car, and being shot at
landed a job as a police officer
twice,
Mr.
Pearl said he prob-
in a precinct that included the
ably
would
not last long as a
older, grungier neighborhoods
West
Bloomfield
police officer
of Fort Lauderdale.
today.
"I grew up here in the sub-
"I think I would get bored."
Some officers say that despite
the danger and the grinding 12-
hour days, the pay is relatively
good if one factors in the bene-
fits. "It's not enough for getting
shot at, but it's not bad," re-
flected Mr. Pearl.
However, no police officer is
destined to get rich practicing
his trade, and as the danger in-
creases in poorer communities,
ironically the pay often shriv-
els. Detroit police make less
than any other officers in the
tri-county area, personnel at the
top of the pay scale in Detroit
earning about $37,000 a year