obody is going to claim the Manhattan Traffic Task Force (MTTF) poses the riskiest duty in the city. More than a few of the 200-odd officers in the command can go so far as to say they have never made an arrest during the normal course of their tours, even after years. But it is also precisely because of the command’s unusual profile, according to P.O. Christopher Affrundi, that the NYPD would be well advised to play down the attractions of the West 30th Street unit where younger cops are concerned. As he puts it:

“The MTTF should be a place where you end your career, not where you begin it. Frankly, it may be the worst command in the city for learning what a New York cop is supposed to do and supposed to be. Going straight from the Academy to, say, standing in front of the Holland Tunnel and keeping the traffic going back and forth to New Jersey should not be what an NYPD cop is all about. That would be exactly the wrong way to pick up street smarts, to learn the give-andtake cops have to have with neighborhood communities, and to develop that sixth sense for bad situations that’s often the difference for surviving.”

The 42-year-old Affrundi himself was never in any danger of such a greased slide from the Academy. After graduating in December 1988, the Hollis native was assigned to North Brooklyn’s ever-active 83 Pct. There he remained for the next 13 years, before being transferred to the MTTF in 2001. He can still shake his head at some of his hairier moments while patrolling Bushwick.

“Overall, I was involved in three shootings, which wasn’t all that bad when you consider how hot that area was in the early 1990s. The worst single time was probably in my rookie year when I spotted a car with a broken tail light and went over to it with little more than a summons in mind. The guy in the car had a .357 Magnum and he was acting as the lookout for a partner who was robbing a bodega across the street. I got the better of him eventually. His partner made it out of the bodega, but they caught up with him a little while later. Then we started piecing the details together. It turned out that bodega was the eighth one they had held up that night. And the topper? Right on the seat of the car there were the release papers from Riker’s saying the guy in the store had been put back in the street that very day! Talk about not wasting time!”

Affrundi’s move to traffic problems in Manhattan didn’t mean he quickly forgot about his patrol years in Brooklyn; on the contrary.

“The longer you’re on this job, the more you see how the numberone image, public relations, whatever you want to call it, problem is the low esteem in which patrol is held. I mean, this is the backbone of the NYPD like it is of any police force in the world, but they never get any respect, from either the public or their own bosses.

"The public is into all these romantic details like narcotics, and how could it not be when it is constantly exposed to that kind of thing on television and in the movies? What are two guys in a car answering calls? Just two guys in a car answering calls. And the bosses play the same song. They’re the first ones to hold out the prize of a special detail to the Academy graduate. How else can you interpret that message than, ‘Hey, guys, you’ll have to put up with patrol for a while, but only the slow ones end up doing it too long.’ When you start thinking like that, whether you’re John Q. Public or John Q. Police Plaza, you really don’t understand the job.”

Could the Academy do more to insulate cadets against that mentality?

“I don’t see how it could do more than it’s doing. It’s the NYPD culture. Classroom lectures are the apples, the reality of where the promotions and pay raises are to be found are the oranges. The most well-intentioned young cop is going to be banging his head up against a wall if he goes against it. I’m not saying he shouldn’t go up against it, but he better not expect quick rewards for it.”

That said, Affrundi admits he wouldn’t dance for joy if he were suddenly reassigned to patrol in one of the outer boroughs. “Hey, I did that,” he laughs. “And I really can’t say I miss it. I’m older now. I’ve got an eight-year-old girl and a seven-year-old boy. My wife is a schoolteacher in Nassau County. I’ve got my four terriers at home. Every so often we go down to Myrtle Beach on vacation. I’m a settled family man! I’m fine where I am.”

As for his MTTF duties, the Levittown resident jokes that “once upon a time they saw me coming and thought of me as being in the way of their freedom; now they see me coming and thinking of me as being in the way of getting to New Jersey.”

Even within that narrower scope, have there been any differences on the job since he joined the command?

“Well, since 9/11, of course, you have some people a little more nervous about tunnels and bridges. But there’s really been no great difference outside the occasional package somebody reports finding. I guess you’d have to say the alertness of the public is much more than it used to be.”

Any surprises?

Affrundi smiles. “You don’t think of it when you think of automobiles, but you work the same location long enough, you actually get to recognize all the drivers. Just like people taking the same bus or subway every morning. I know them, they know me. So who’s stupider — me for recognizing them or them for recognizing me?”
– Donald Dewey