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Bob Weber If Bob Weber is adamant about anything — and he's not adamant about much — it's that he and all the other New York City police officers deserved a big raise. "It wouldn't have had to be so big if we hadn't had all those zeros," he notes with implacable logic. "They get you both ways. First you get nothing, then you look greedy for demanding what you should've been getting all along. Maybe that's all part of the propaganda game for some people. But for us it's a necessity." The 40-year-old Suffolk native speaks almost dispassionately. What's right is right, and there's no need to raise his voice for stating the obvious. It is a demeanor that has been on display since he came to the 113 Pct. in 1988, following a couple of years at FTU Queens North and at the 77 Pct. Whatever his personal style, however, Weber is in many ways a typical New York City police officer. He was introduced to the job through an older brother (now in with the 104 Pct.) and friends who blanketed him in police culture from an early age. He has hung around a command long enough to see changes for the better from the high-crime days of the '80s and early '90s. He attributes the improvement to a combination of factors — the quality-of-life crackdowns and the ebb of gang cycles — and remains wary that the bad old days could suddenly return tomorrow as bad new days. His idea of coming down from a tour is to work out in the station house gym. His idea of a vacation is to go to Disneyworld with his wife and seven-year-old daughter. It is that very typicality that adds weight to his words. "I don't think of myself as any kind of radical," he says. "Ask me what my greatest satisfaction on the job is and I'd tell you the satisfaction of working with people in the community, seeing that they respect you for what you're doing. I bet most cops in the city would say the same thing. I don't see any reason to be original for the sake of being original. But I know if I feel the way I do about how we're treated, I'm not the only one. And I think there's a strength in that. We all know what we're putting on the line every day." Weber's hairiest moment on that line came a couple of years ago out on patrol with Mike Mazzella when he was waiting for a light on Rockaway Boulevard. "This SUV comes along next to us, and suddenly blows off the light and tears down the street. We figure right away we've got a stolen vehicle on our hands, that these guys were afraid we'd had a call out on them. We give chase. A few blocks down, the driver loses control, smacks into some parked cars. We get out in time to see the driver falling out from behind the wheel and yelling. He wasn't a car thief at all. He was being car-jacked and he gambled that by beating the light we'd give chase. In a way it was the luckiest day I ever had on the job because the car-jackers had an arsenal with them. I mean, right down to a machine gun. But they were so shaken up by the crash that we were able to get them without firing a shot." But not a typical tour, right? Weber allows one of his rare smiles. "Having to expect something like that is typical. You'd think by now that wouldn't be such a secret for some people." — Donald Dewey |
