Guest Column

“You done good, Michael’'

Posted

My course on Community Policing at John Jay College of Criminal Justice focuses on the basics: Partnership and Problem Solving. My muse is Mike Tangney, the former Long Beach Commissioner who was the embodiment of Community Policing. He left us too soon.

Robert Peel, the father of Modern Policing, said 200 years ago that a key to law enforcement is “the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police.”

Americans have taken this to heart with nearly 18,000 departments nationwide, nearly all staffed by locals, people who remain part of the community at the end of each shift.

Mike was Long Beach-born. He wanted the things we all do - safety for our families, a dip in the ocean and a glass of something at a backyard barbeque surrounded by friends.

He started as a beat cop, working his way up through the ranks participating in the historic drop in crime, one we continue to enjoy.

I remember him rushing through the aisles of Key Food, scooping up eggs and milk. “She’ll scalp me if I forget something,” he’d say, a smile bursting at the notion of his beloved Darlene.

Before dashing off, he’d always ask: “How’s the boys?” He knew my boys, by name. Danny and Jack. Mike knew most of our City’s Danny’s and Jack’s and Marissa’s and Tiffany’s. He knew them as tangle-footed munchkins he coached, as happy demons whizzing past on bikes and skateboards beside his own kids. He knew who rode a bit close to the line and tried to steer them right. It broke his heart each time one was lost, the heart of a cop, the heart of a dad.

Mike proposed putting Long Beach officers on patrol in the middle and high schools to cut tension. “We’ve known these kids since they could walk,” he said. “Nassau County cops, God love em, don’t have that  perspective, all they see is trouble.

My guys see a kid and remember when they hit a home run, scored a goal, or skinned a knee. A kid in the throes of peer pressure might wise off to a blue uniform. They don’t dare pull that nonsense on the coach from Peewees. Police work is not about force, it’s about shared respect.”

Alas bureaucracy continues to block that good idea, an idea we academics tout as “police reform.” Mike did not need a professor to show him the obvious.

Mike was a problem solver. When Park Avenue became a speedway for Suffolk County drivers, he dangled cops from Fire Department bucket trucks like snipers with radar guns picking off invaders. Weeks of tickets mostly wiped out the problem.

Mike understood that traffic enforcement is not about revenue, it’s about safety. His own family suffered a horrible loss in a traffic tragedy. He pledged to try to prevent that from happening to anyone else’s family.

He was a cop’s cop. When a distraught man threatened to burn down the West End with a propane tank, Mike pushed past the hostage negotiators and cold cocked the fellow. Case closed, happy ending.

Mike Tangney was not necessarily everyone’s cup of tea. With Mike everyone knew where they stood. Better that than a flock of glad handers.

As I teach the next generation of cops about Community Policing, I wish they could have met Mike, to hear firsthand the most important lesson of law enforcement - a cop’s best weapon is the ability to listen and to smile.

God speed Mike Tangney. You done good.

 

James Mulvaney lives in the Canals and teaches in the law and police science department at John Jay College