Robert Jestic Transcript

[00:00:00] Paul G Newton: So today it's interesting cuz we get to talk to somebody who comes from a foreign land someplace that most of us in like Arkansas, where we're from, have no idea what it's like to live there. I've never been there, but I've been to LA and Seattle and Denver, places like that. But today we're, we're, we're gonna talk to Mr.

[00:00:38] Paul G Newton: Robert Estick. Estick, is that that correct? That is correct. Do you want me to call you Robert or Rob or Bob or Rob or Bob is fine. Bob sounds right. Yes. So, so Bob, you, uh, involved in law enforcement in the New York City Police department for 40 years?

[00:00:59] Robert Jestic: Correct. Well, [00:01:00] the actual, I was a member of the New York City Police Department and actually started off with the New York City Transit Police Department for 20 years.

[00:01:09] Robert Jestic: And since that time when I retired, I've been working with the, uh, with the mta, uh, as the Chief Security Officer for the revenue department. Nice,

[00:01:22] Paul G Newton: nice. So the revenue department, you were talking about keeping the, keeping the place funded and just the turn style jumpers. We see that in every TV show that we've ever watched about New York City is I, I guess it's a problem.

[00:01:39] Robert Jestic: Oh, I ab. Absolutely . They're actually, they're actually now, um, I'm not sure how this is working out or if it's gonna work out, but they're, they're hiring in placing, uh, private arm guards down at the, uh, near the, near the turn style in the, uh, the MBM machines where you get the metro cards [00:02:00] and would soon be transitioning over to a thing called do, uh, cards.

[00:02:04] Robert Jestic: But they're placing armed guards there. Wow.

[00:02:08] Paul G Newton: Armed guards. So, But not police. They're private, right? They're private. That's not gonna work out well, is it?

[00:02:15] Robert Jestic: Well, we'll have to see. .

[00:02:17] Paul G Newton: Wow. This some dude making 40% less than the union cop is now going to be. Yeah, his buddies by, He is like, Ah, don't worry about it, Bill.

[00:02:28] Paul G Newton: Jump the Stile who cares?

[00:02:29] Robert Jestic: Actually they, they're paying them $50 an hour.

[00:02:33] Paul G Newton: Oh wow. Well, I guess in New York City, when you have a one bedroom loft is like, it's five grand a month. That's probably still lower pay.

[00:02:42] Robert Jestic: Mm-hmm. .

[00:02:44] Andrea: Wow. So I guess

[00:02:49] Paul G Newton: you've got tons of questions, don't you, Andrea?

[00:02:51] Andrea: Well, just some stuff that I've thought of, like Okay.

[00:02:53] Andrea: I've always thought,

[00:02:53] Paul G Newton: well, you know, first off we have to give credit where credits due. You've got some books?

[00:02:58] Andrea: Yes.

[00:02:59] Paul G Newton: [00:03:00] And that, and that you've written and, and tell us about those.

[00:03:05] Robert Jestic: Well, I started back in, I guess now it's 2017 is when I finally, um, got books published. I, I had started years and years ago. Um, you know, I think every cop thinks that, you know, they've got a book in them.

[00:03:19] Robert Jestic: And I was no exception, but I was always great at starting, but not very good at finishing. And I had this one book for years that was sitting, partially written. And then finally in 2017, I finished it and it was like opening up floodgate. I haven't stopped writing since. Nice. Uh, I have a series, um, a dark night series that I've seven books now in that series, which is, these are nonfiction, they're true stories.

[00:03:51] Robert Jestic: Talk about different aspects of, basically, of my career. And they emphasize the humorous side, the dark [00:04:00] humorous side. You know, there's all kinds of,

[00:04:01] Paul G Newton: Oh, he's gonna fit in right around here, isn't he?

[00:04:03] Robert Jestic: There's all kind, you know, books and TV shows on the, uh, you know, the ca you know, the catching the criminal, the crime of the century.

[00:04:13] Robert Jestic: And that's not really what my career was all about, but I kind of specialize on more of the offbeat type of stories. And maybe it wasn't the crime of the century, but it, I think people would find them interesting funny.

[00:04:26] Paul G Newton: I, I think that if you're the person, the crime happened to, it was the crime of century.

[00:04:31] Robert Jestic: Absolutely.

[00:04:32] Robert Jestic: Absolutely. .

[00:04:34] Andrea: I mean, not everybody in their career can say that they've caught somebody like Ted Bundy. But I mean, every,

[00:04:39] Paul G Newton: I, I don't wanna meet Ted Bundy. I don't care if I catch him unless somebody else catch him. As long as somebody catches him, I don't care.

[00:04:44] Andrea: He's gone. But you know what I mean?

[00:04:45] Andrea: Like, to everyone, that's a crime victim. Your assistant meant the world to

[00:04:50] Andrea: them.

[00:04:50] Paul G Newton: Yeah. So absolutely. The, the police are so underrated. They, people don't know how badly they need police until they actually need a policeman.

[00:04:58] Robert Jestic: That's true. [00:05:00] That's true.

[00:05:00] Paul G Newton: They complain and moan and groan about it until they actually need one.

[00:05:03] Paul G Newton: Oh, well, here we are.

[00:05:05] Andrea: So I've always

[00:05:06] Andrea: kind of wanted to know this,

[00:05:07] Paul G Newton: but

[00:05:08] Paul G Newton: his, Where are your books?

[00:05:09] Andrea: Yeah, where your books at? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:05:11] Robert Jestic: Best place to find my books is on Amazon. If you just, uh, look up my, I write under the name of Robert Bryan, b r y a n. And if, uh, you just look up Robert Bryan under my author page on Amazon, that's the best place to look.

[00:05:26] Paul G Newton: Okay, cool And

[00:05:27] Andrea: awesome.

[00:05:28] Paul G Newton: So have they had, have they been, have they done pretty well for you?

[00:05:32] Robert Jestic: Uh, as far as I'm concerned that you have, you know, it's, believe me, I'm not gonna be on any New York Times best seller, assume, but I'm, I'm, I'm very happy with how, how they

[00:05:43] Robert Jestic: sell.

[00:05:44] Paul G Newton: Yeah. That's very nice. And, and I'm, I'm sure they're quite interesting.

[00:05:48] Paul G Newton: I mean, you were the, the head of, Tell me your, your last title again.

[00:05:54] Robert Jestic: Um, the, I retired at the, I retired from the police department, the rank A captain. Oh. [00:06:00] And, uh, like I said, now I'm the Chief Security Officer with the revenue department at the mta. Uh, but I, you know, you go in the police department and you go up from police officer to Sergeant, Lieutenant, and then Captain and I retired at the rank A captain.

[00:06:15] Paul G Newton: Well, interesting enough. So just to kind of put this in perspective, uh, obviously people know that captain's gonna be quite important, uh, but there are 35,000 roughly. Police officers, uh, that work in the New York City Police Department. I think maybe Springdale, Arkansas has like 2000 at most . This is that this total, there's 35,000 folks, but there was only 355 captains.

[00:06:44] Robert Jestic: Right.

[00:06:44] Paul G Newton: And seven million, eight million million people living in New York City and its boroughs and whatnot. That's not very many. You would think there'd be more. Yeah,

[00:06:53] I

[00:06:54] Robert Jestic: guess you would when you know , that's the way it is. Yeah. That's the way the Manpower's broken down. Yeah. [00:07:00] Somebody's,

[00:07:00] Paul G Newton: you know, you gotta boss all those cats around, you know, So, So what's

[00:07:05] Robert Jestic: above captain that then you have Deputy inspector, Full inspector, Deputy chief, Assistant chief.

[00:07:14] Robert Jestic: Uh, and then you get into just the four star, the Super Chiefs. From police officer up to captain or civil service appointments, you have to pass a competitive civil cervix exam. Anything above captain is an, is a is an appointment. Yeah. It's not. Yes, yes. Wow, I didn't know

[00:07:36] Andrea: that. That's interesting.

[00:07:37] Robert Jestic: Yeah,

[00:07:37] Paul G Newton: it's, And so, so one of the things I guess I, I, Andrea is dying to ask these questions and I keep interrupting her.

[00:07:47] Paul G Newton: I'm trying to do the business, the business here, the business .

[00:07:51] Andrea: I just, I'm just, When he said he was gonna interview you, I was kind of excited cuz I was like, Wow, I can finally like ask somebody something. I've always wanted to know, like this cop shows that you [00:08:00] see on TV and they always hype it up and keep your interest.

[00:08:04] Andrea: I know when I watch medical shows I can't watch them, number one, because I get irritated at how inaccurate

[00:08:10] Paul G Newton: they are. It's like me watching movies, I'm like, No, that's so badly wrong. Done.

[00:08:14] Andrea: Yeah. I just can't do it. Cause I'm like, that's never gonna happen. This is not how it goes. Is cop shows kind of the same way cuz there's, or is there a little bit of truth to it, but they just really Hollywood it up?

[00:08:26] Andrea: What are

[00:08:26] Robert Jestic: your thoughts? I think there's a very few that really strive for complete realism and, and I don't blame them for not being completely realistic because they have to put on an entertaining show. And a lot of police work is not entertaining. You know, there's in, in the shows a cop fires his weapon shoots someone and he's back to work the next day.

[00:08:53] Robert Jestic: That doesn't happen. , It doesn't seem to be really any paperwork that's, that's completed. [00:09:00] Uh, you know, and, and the fact that as detectives. They're never overwhelmed, you know, with cases, they always seem to have an unlimited amount of time to work on that one case. You know, I mean, there's a lot of it.

[00:09:14] Robert Jestic: Witnesses are always easy to locate and they're very, very happy to tell you what they saw, which really isn't, isn't true. Um, but again, with, with some of this, I understand they, they have to, but I, I don't watch a lot of the police shows and I do get turned off with just the visible, unrealistic aspects when, when they've got the wrong type shield, the wrong type patch.

[00:09:40] Robert Jestic: Yeah. You know, they do. When, when just the setting is wrong. That's, to me, that's kind of eternal. And it's weird

[00:09:45] Paul G Newton: because they have advisors that are from the police department hire, there's guys, hi, that just make a living well following around these TV shows and yet they still get it wrong. Is the advisor just like a union job or something?[00:10:00]

[00:10:00] Paul G Newton: Or he's phone it in or, I mean, come on. Yeah, I don't know the

[00:10:04] Robert Jestic: ins and outs of that. I think sometimes though, with some of these departments, if they don't sign off and authorize the use, then they can't really use the, the realistic looking shield or insignia from a particular department. Well, that, that should be protected

[00:10:20] Paul G Newton: under like Constitution or something like that.

[00:10:22] Paul G Newton: You would think, Yeah. Maybe it's copyrighted. I don't know. Well, even if it is, it doesn't matter. I mean, it's, it's a dramaticized event and it's, I don't know, Hey, we get into, get into that craziness and go down. We need a lawyer for that.

[00:10:34] Andrea: I totally get it cuz I get annoyed with the medical shows. I'm like, No, no, no.

[00:10:37] Andrea: That's not how this goes.

[00:10:39] Robert Jestic: the most real, most realistic show that I've seen, and again, I don't watch a lot of them, but a number of years ago on hbo, The Wire, if he ever saw that it was a, uh, series about the Baltimore Police Department, but just the characters, the environment, the grittiness of it, that was extremely, in my opinion, at least, [00:11:00] extremely realistic.

[00:11:01] Andrea: Okay. I've not seen that, but now I'm really curious. So

[00:11:03] Paul G Newton: like n Y p D blue and stuff like that probably drives you, probably drives you nuts, doesn't it?

[00:11:08] Robert Jestic: Yeah. Yeah. I, I haven't too many of that.

[00:11:12] Andrea: Gray anatomy drives me insane. Cause it's not even a remote. What about

[00:11:15] Paul G Newton: Hill Street Blues Outta Curiosity?

[00:11:18] Robert Jestic: Hill Street Blues back in the day.

[00:11:20] Robert Jestic: I, I, I watched some of that again, some of the, some of the character, uh, portrayals were fairly realistic with that from what I remember. Um, but again, it, it, the, the drama, some, the drama involved with it, sometimes it's hard to relate to that. Uh, um, but again, they're trying to pack so much into, I think that was an hour show at the time pack much into an hour 30 going on at one

[00:11:46] Paul G Newton: time.

[00:11:47] Paul G Newton: Yeah. It literally only lasted 37 minutes. Yeah. The rest of it was commercials. That's probably about right. That's exactly what the way it was back then because it was before the internet. Hill Street Blues is an old show and, but I [00:12:00] think actually Hill

[00:12:00] Robert Jestic: Street Blues was like a transition from where they were trying to give you a more realistic version as opposed to, you know, the Adam 12 and the drag net

[00:12:12] Andrea: dragnet, whatever.

[00:12:13] Andrea: Dragnet, Yeah.

[00:12:14] Robert Jestic: Just the

[00:12:14] Paul G Newton: facts. Just the facts. I'll tell you whatever the fuck I wanna tell you. I'm gonna give you the facts. I'm, you try to put me in jail. Hell no, , sorry, mean that that's what they're thinking in their brain. The internal dialogue for a criminals like

[00:12:35] Andrea: All right. Here's a question that my son wanted me to ask, and he is very curious. He's like, What's the strangest thing that you saw as an N Y P D cop? The thing that always stuck in your brain. Cuz I have stories of patients and things and situations that are forever gonna be ingrained in my brain. Yeah.

[00:12:52] Andrea: But please

[00:12:52] Paul G Newton: remove this situation. That was very interesting. Please remove it. Remember the guy came in the er, he says, Can you please get this out?

[00:12:58] Andrea: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, [00:13:00] yeah.

[00:13:00] Robert Jestic: We will go over that right now. But,

[00:13:02] Andrea: um, so he was kind of curious like what's the strangest thing that stuck in your brain that you'll forever

[00:13:07] Robert Jestic: remember?

[00:13:09] Robert Jestic: Hmm. Strangest thing, which actually is popping into my brain now, mainly because somebody just brought this up the other day to me and I, and it did cause me to recollect on it. And again, it's just a strange, funny thing, but it, it's, I was a lieutenant at the time and working in Flushing area of Queens and it was a winter's night and I was working midnights and it was three o'clock or so in the morning and it was, Extremely cold, but one of these, there was no snow.

[00:13:46] Robert Jestic: It was cold, crisp, clear nights, and it was very, very quiet. For whatever reason, I forget why there were, there were cops detailed out to certain [00:14:00] areas there. I don't know what was going on that evening or the next day, but there were cops detailed on certain corners and I was visiting them and with stopping my car and my driver and talking to one of the cops, I'm on these corners and it says it's three o'clock.

[00:14:16] Robert Jestic: It's extremely, extremely quiet, but then often the distance can just start hearing this high pitch squeal. Very never heard this sound before, like a squeal, a metal type of a sound. And it starts getting louder. It starts getting louder, and then all of a sudden off in the distance I can see. All kinds of sparks and uh, uh, it looks like it's street level.

[00:14:46] Robert Jestic: And then the, the sound's getting louder and louder and all of a sudden coming, driving by is a car that one of his tires is actually gone, including the rim. And he's driving [00:15:00] along on the axle of one of the cars and we immediately stop him. And the guy didn't even realize. His, his tire was gone. what's and, and what's wrong now, the guy was obviously intoxicated, , but um, but didn't realize he was driving along with sparks flying everywhere.

[00:15:23] Robert Jestic: This, this ungodly squeal and he's just driving through the night ton with throwing up a ton of sparks with, with his, with his tire and his rim gone. Oh my gosh. See,

[00:15:36] Paul G Newton: call the fire station. Cause half the block is on fire now. .

[00:15:41] Andrea: Oh my, He must have been extremely intoxicated. Not to know that. I mean, yeah,

[00:15:47] Paul G Newton: probably, probably smoking weed and weed cocaine and alcohol probably.

[00:15:53] Paul G Newton: He was like, Nah, I'm good man. Don't worry about it, .

[00:15:57] Andrea: Wow. That would've been [00:16:00] something to see. I don't even know how a car could do

[00:16:01] Robert Jestic: that. Yeah, yeah. I, I didn't, I didn't know at that time he could actually go along at 20 miles an hour without, uh, without the. Bad boys bad.

[00:16:11] Paul G Newton: He's always those guys, you know, , , I'm not stopping.

[00:16:17] Paul G Newton: I don't care. ,

[00:16:19] Andrea: those shows I know were very popular one point in time. Even my little at the time, my son was pretty young. I'll tell him the cop story. Oh, this is funny. I get pulled over cuz I'm speeding. Not proud of it. When I tell the cop and I, yes I was speeding. My son taking him to was. Five or six.

[00:16:35] Andrea: Yeah. Leans. Rolls down the window, leans over and goes, Are you gonna arrest my mom? ? And the cop starts laughing and he goes, No. And then he starts singing the bad boys songs, . And the cops just laughing and laughing and he looks at me, he goes, I can't give you a ticket. He goes, That's the funniest thing that made my morning.

[00:16:53] Andrea: He said, Just don't speed. And I said, Yes sir. , now he is not 19. I'm like, Do you remember doing that? And he goes, I [00:17:00] was just curious. Just the first time I saw a cop, I thought he was

[00:17:02] Robert Jestic: gonna arrest you.

[00:17:05] Paul G Newton: six year old in the backseat, yelling, Bad boys, bad boys, What you

[00:17:09] Robert Jestic: gonna do?

[00:17:12] Andrea: He was a very cantankerous handful of a child, but God love him.

[00:17:16] Andrea: He's 19

[00:17:16] Robert Jestic: now. .

[00:17:18] Paul G Newton: So, um, when now the books that you wrote, um, what, what, what do they generally surround themselves with?

[00:17:28] Robert Jestic: Well, as, as I'd said, the, the Doc Knight series is nonfiction. True stories from my career. Now I actually, I have another series called Hair Bag Nation. Now, I don't know if, have you ever heard the term hair bag before?

[00:17:42] Robert Jestic: No. Where of Southerners Wheat? Yeah. That, that's more or less a, a, a, as I'm finding out that's in New York, uh, term, uh, hair bag is. Is a slang term that's used for a, let's say, a veteran cop, but it's not a compliment. [00:18:00] It's, you know, that, that old hair bag, uh, you know, a guy who has a lot of years on the job but really doesn't want, isn't really interested in doing anything, he's just riding out he time.

[00:18:11] Robert Jestic: Uh, so those are fictional stories. I have a series on, uh, with Hair Bag Nation, and I also have a series that I've just, I'm in the middle of right now. This is nonfiction. It's called The Police of New York City, but it does not focus on current M Y P D. It, it, it tells stories of basically obsolete police departments.

[00:18:32] Robert Jestic: Like there had been at one time a separate Brooklyn Bridge Police Department. A separate, Huh? Um, a separate Prospect Park in Brooklyn Police Department.

[00:18:42] Paul G Newton: Well, Prospect Park had, its had its issues from what I remember. Yeah.

[00:18:45] Robert Jestic: So it's, it's a series on, uh, on, on obsolete police departments. So how

[00:18:51] Paul G Newton: has, since it, it kind of goes over the, the way it used to be done kind of thing

[00:18:58] Robert Jestic: and Well, it, it, it [00:19:00] really talks about the actual, I I, it's, you know, I enjoy doing the research also with it, and it just talks about how those departments were structured, what they did.

[00:19:10] Robert Jestic: Uh, if I can find stories about some of the personalities within those departments Oh yeah. And, um, and, and, and trying to give people a flavor for how it was at that time and how the job was done at that time.

[00:19:24] Paul G Newton: So I gotta, I got a question brings, I, there's a good segue here to one of our topics today, but I have a question that preempts that, that's very interesting cuz I wanna know this.

[00:19:35] Paul G Newton: You see the stereotype of a New York City. , you know, police department officer or somebody that lives in New Jersey but works in New York City or whatever. If they can do that, I'm not sure. You can't, you can't. Yeah. I thought it one time you could, but anyway, it doesn't matter. Um, I How close are the stereotypes, stereotypical [00:20:00] actor portrayals of New York City cops?

[00:20:03] Paul G Newton: You've seen some of the crazy ones, I'm sure, like, uh, how close is that to some of the people that are actually on the force?

[00:20:11] Robert Jestic: There's some, you know, I, I run into some crazy people over the years and I think like with every stereotype stereotypes developed, cuz there's at least some little, little bit of truth to them.

[00:20:23] Robert Jestic: Maybe not a lot, but a little bit. And there's some cops that, um, you know, there, there's some cops that, you know, are a little bit off center, you know? Um, and a lot of times it's. You know, the environment that, uh, that you work in. Like, I don't know how, I mean, I've been out for a long time now. I don't know how these guys and girls do it today with, um, you know, with the, all this defund the police sentiment out there.

[00:20:49] Robert Jestic: Yeah. And, uh, prosecutors that seem more interested in prosecuting cops than criminals. Um, so, you know, it's a wonder that sometimes, you know, they don't go a little off center. [00:21:00] Cynicism doesn't set in a lot easier than it does.

[00:21:04] Paul G Newton: Yeah. And, but, you know, uh, what was that? Was it m y p d Blue that had that that little short guy with the bald guy with the mustache.

[00:21:12] Paul G Newton: He was the detective and he was always kind of half crazy

[00:21:16] Robert Jestic: that, I'm not not sure.

[00:21:19] Paul G Newton: Manko Witz or something like that. I think his name

[00:21:21] Andrea: was, I vaguely remember the show. I didn't watch much of it

[00:21:24] Robert Jestic: the beginning. Yeah. I didn't

[00:21:24] Paul G Newton: watch much of it either, cuz it just felt wrong. It felt like it wasn't real, even though it felt real.

[00:21:29] Paul G Newton: I was like, I don't know. That's. Wasn't that, uh, the punk, uh, one of the kids from the eighties sitcom was, was playing opposite of 'em. So I was like, I can't believe it all. But I, you know, I was just curious. As, as you know, you see these and they, they, it, the stereotype is that New York City's extremely rude.

[00:21:51] Paul G Newton: Would you find that, have you been outside of New York much to, to, to kind of see some other types of cultures inside of the United States? [00:22:00]

[00:22:00] Robert Jestic: Um, yeah. I wouldn't say on average, I probably travel a lot less than on the average person, but I've been, I've been, you know, out to different places and, and yeah, I'd have to agree with it.

[00:22:12] Robert Jestic: New York is rude, . Okay.

[00:22:16] Paul G Newton: LA is crazy. Those people out there are just absolutely insane. They have no idea what the hell's going on. Seattle's depressed half the time. Uh, and so the stereotypes, the stereotypes seem to be true. I mean, and I lived in Seattle. Those, those cats were always, they're just kind of subtle.

[00:22:36] Paul G Newton: But it was also in the middle of the grunge movement too, in the nineties, uh, that I was out there in Seattle. So maybe that's a little different, but Yeah. Yeah. You see that folks are just rude as hell on the TV shows and stuff and you know, like Law and order, you know, they didn't seem too rude on law and order, how, how well does law and order hold up?

[00:22:59] Robert Jestic: I never [00:23:00] watched that. Oh my gosh. Nope. You

[00:23:02] Paul G Newton: should. It's a good show. It gets real. Watch the first 10 years. And then stop because they went off the air for a reason. It was every, the show was so segmented. You, anybody could tell when something was about to happen, Don Dun, because the music would pick up and you're like, Oh, it must be the end , and make that

[00:23:25] Robert Jestic: little done Dun little noise.

[00:23:27] Robert Jestic: Bum

[00:23:27] Paul G Newton: bump bump. Yeah. But to begin with, it was really good. And I, I, I thought it was fairly realistic, but, but you're right. I never thought about it. Those shows, they only have one case they're working on.

[00:23:39] Robert Jestic: Yeah. And that's not true. Right. You never see them juggling cases. I can't state spend time on this because I gotta, I have six other cases I gotta deal with.

[00:23:49] Robert Jestic: You never see

[00:23:49] Paul G Newton: that, right? Well, I was looking at crime statistics too, and in 1990, uh, murders were 2,262. [00:24:00] And in 2019 there was 319 murders. really, how that's a huge discrepancy. What's the difference between 1990 and 2019?

[00:24:14] Robert Jestic: Um, an aggressive mode of policing and which unfortunately, uh, the administrations in the last few years has backed off

[00:24:23] Paul G Newton: from.

[00:24:24] Paul G Newton: There was Giuliani is gone, so now you've got some Yeah. And

[00:24:27] Robert Jestic: this whole, um, I dunno if you've ever heard of him for philosophy of broken windows, Uhuh it, um, it was, there was a, uh, a gentleman, an academic, uh, George Ke, who was the one that put forth this theory of broken windows, and it's called broken windows because he had said that if you took a, uh, you took a look at a, a building that was left abandoned.

[00:24:53] Robert Jestic: And as soon as. It showed that the, nobody really cared about it. Windows started being [00:25:00] broken. The um, there was nobody maintaining the landscaping around it. When you got that feeling that nobody cared about it, crime would increase in that area because it was just, the environment became conducive for it.

[00:25:16] Robert Jestic: So that was translated into, in the city, if you let the little things go, you let the. Uh, you let the small violations like turnstile jumping, run wild, that the smaller violations lead to the bigger crimes, and if you crack down on the smaller violations, it impacts the larger crimes. And that's really what took place back and, and was the bottom line is, was responsible for driving down crime, including the serious crimes like Meda.

[00:25:50] Robert Jestic: But broken windows now has, has been completely abandoned. Really?

[00:25:54] Paul G Newton: I'd like to see. I'd like to see, Well, C's gonna skew everything. Yes, [00:26:00] Yes. We're not gonna be able to take 20 20, 20 21 into consideration when we look at crime statistics because it's going to be a unique situation that no longer exists.

[00:26:12] Paul G Newton: Now, how has the Covid situation changed in, in New York City? Are you guys like Australia where you're still on lockdown or does

[00:26:20] Robert Jestic: just normal? It's pretty much normal right now. And the only thing things are still coming back. I just saw an article, uh, just a few days ago how the, one of the biggest measuring sticks, the, um, the subway and railroad, uh, their, their statistics, their ridership statistics have, have jumped back up significantly in the past month.

[00:26:43] Robert Jestic: And that has had always been a big measuring stick, how, how the ridership had been way down. So more and more things are coming back to normal.

[00:26:53] Paul G Newton: Interesting. I would think that your job that you were doing would have, that the economists would be [00:27:00] extremely interested in what you're doing because the, the numbers of people coming into the city is going to probably be a good, uh, reflection of how well the economy is.

[00:27:15] Paul G Newton: true. Because if there's a hundred thousand people a day coming into the city, or a million or 2 million, what was your average writer into the city a day?

[00:27:26] Robert Jestic: Oh, I wanna say, I might be getting this wrong, but I wanna say there was a couple of million a day. Um, Wow. Yeah. At least that. But that's, see, that's something that's never gonna come back Totally.

[00:27:36] Robert Jestic: Because, um, there are organizations that determine. They can do their, they can perform the function of whatever their, their, their company is just as well working at home. And why should they pay Manhattan rents? Yeah. If they can do it all, you know, working that's been

[00:27:56] Paul G Newton: remotely drove me nuts. Is that, Can you not [00:28:00] see how expensive just, just build it in, in Maryland or New Jersey or something like that?

[00:28:04] Paul G Newton: You know, , it's not that far. Yeah. Why the hell do you need to be in Manhattan for this when it's, it's all computerized now. I could see when it was all paper. I mean, there used to be the, It's interesting that the New York City had a pnma postal service on thematic tubes. Yeah. That's how they delivered mail in the 1900, in the early 1900.

[00:28:28] Paul G Newton: they had all around the city, there's these tubes. If you go and look, there's, there's these tubes. I I, I saw this on a documentary, so obviously I don't know anything about it cause it's never been east. But you know, the farthest seats I've been is, is South Carolina. Uh, cuz I got a free trip to see an insurance company when I was selling insurance and it's like, Oh, thanks.

[00:28:46] Paul G Newton: I get to see the inside of an insurance building for a week. Yay. Anyway, but yeah, I mean, I could understand why you would wanna be in the city right next to Wall Street and all the other stuff. You know, that's the capital [00:29:00] of, of, of our economic system is New York City. It, I, I, I imagine it still is.

[00:29:06] Robert Jestic: Yeah.

[00:29:07] Andrea: Okay. I have a totally different question, but. Obviously from the south. I've lived in a couple places, traveled a couple places

[00:29:13] Paul G Newton: last night. Your accent really let me know. You're from the south. Oh, thanks.

[00:29:17] Andrea: It comes out every now and then. So I've always wanted to tour New York City, but after watching some of the cop shows, which we've discovered is on completely accurate and the guess the theme of New York always kind of coming across as a little rude, what tips would you recommend somebody like me who wants to go visit, but doesn't wanna stick out as a person who could become a crime victim?

[00:29:41] Andrea: Cuz obviously I'll have an accent there. I will not know where I'm going. I'll have not a clue. I probably won't blend in that Well, how, what would you recommend?

[00:29:51] Robert Jestic: Well, I would say that you want to, as you just said, you wanna do everything possible to not stick out as if you're [00:30:00] a foreigner. .

[00:30:02] Andrea: Yeah, exactly.

[00:30:02] Andrea: Exactly. I mean, cause I would, I'll have a southern draw in New York City that's gonna stick out right there.

[00:30:09] Robert Jestic: You wanna stay in the well traveled, well populated areas you don't want to be. Uh, you wanna always maintain situational awareness, you know, in the older days it used to be, you know, you, you don't wanna be running around looking, unfolding, and looking at a map.

[00:30:29] Robert Jestic: You know, nowadays though, you don't wanna be walking around with your head buried in your, in, in your smartphone. Uh, you, you, you don't wanna, you know, you wanna be aware, You don't wanna let people see that, you know, they could walk right up on you and you're not even aware of who's standing next to you.

[00:30:45] Robert Jestic: Um, and again, the main thing is stay in, in, in populated areas, shot out your, if, if you're going into Manhattan, You know, the good thing there is most areas of Manhattan, especially during the daytime, you're, you, you know, you're not [00:31:00] gonna be left close

[00:31:00] Paul G Newton: are at three o'clock in the

[00:31:01] Robert Jestic: morning. No. And, and, and I would, you know, I wouldn't be just saying, I wanna take a walking tour of the Bronx in Brooklyn in the middle of the night, just see what's going on.

[00:31:10] Robert Jestic: I wouldn't even do that. Living now. Even, even,

[00:31:12] Paul G Newton: even me, a guy that's afraid of absolutely nothing knows better than to do that

[00:31:21] Andrea: So what are the heavily populated areas of New York has, like, to me, New York, I mean, that's what I'm saying. New York City, I'm like, to me it's like all the girls and like everywhere is,

[00:31:29] Paul G Newton: so it's seven and a half, 8 million people. Yeah. Yeah. But you be,

[00:31:33] Robert Jestic: you'd be surprised though that you, how quickly you could find yourself even in Manhattan walking down some street and all of a sudden it's just a, it's an isolated empty street that you really don't wanna be on.

[00:31:49] Robert Jestic: Oh wow. That's that, that's, that's why I say it. I wouldn't just, the, the biggest thing I could say is just don't decide to go exploring if, you know, get on one of those [00:32:00] tour buses. You see them all the time. Yeah. With the double decker, you know, get on one of them and you get a, that way you know what you're seeing and you're seeing it in a safe environment.

[00:32:08] Robert Jestic: Okay. Thank you.

[00:32:09] Paul G Newton: Wow. This is, this is interesting. I just now noticed a statistic. Auto theft in 1990 was 146,000 plus cars stolen. In 2010 it went down to 10,000 and in 2019 it's only 5,400. Holy crap.

[00:32:29] Andrea: I guess I was given the impression that really to have a car in New York would be about a city would be about impossible cuz it's so populated.

[00:32:36] Andrea: Where would you park that Most people take public transit.

[00:32:39] Robert Jestic: Well, yeah, that's, that's, and also that's dealing with Manhattan. Unless you have some kind of an, uh, an indoor parking garage that you have access to it, it's ridiculous to go into Manhattan. But even in the, uh, in the out of boroughs, like I, where I am now, where I'm working now, I'm 13 miles from home [00:33:00] and my average time is an hour and 15 minutes to get home.

[00:33:05] Robert Jestic: Wow. Yeah. That's why I was here

[00:33:07] Paul G Newton: 13 miles. That's why I said she lives an hour from me and I go out there all the time. She comes in here all the time and everybody around here is like, Why are you, why are you saying this woman who's an hour drive, I couldn't put up with it. And I'm like, Obviously you've never lived in a big city.

[00:33:21] Paul G Newton: Cuz if you have an hour drive, it's not that big a deal. No. I

[00:33:24] Andrea: live north of Dallas and it, um, I was working as a nurse, working, you know, 12 hour shifts, gotta be there, six 30. Traffic was not a problem. Just zoom, zoom 20 minutes or where I need to be. I took an

[00:33:35] Paul G Newton: 18 lane highway leading

[00:33:37] Andrea: you into town. Yeah.

[00:33:37] Andrea: And then I take another position where I have to be there eight o'clock in the morning. It took me an hour to get to work every day. Yeah. So I'm so used to that, that it doesn't really phase

[00:33:46] Paul G Newton: me. Now lived in Castaic, California, tried to get in to uh, LA and that was two hours. The five, there's no way you can't get in at all.

[00:33:57] Paul G Newton: So, but so you're saying [00:34:00] though that between now and then in 1990 when crime was probably at not its worst, I think that would be the mid 80. The crime was, was it first? Yeah. Um, it, it's because it's because people paid attention to the, to, to what the city was doing.

[00:34:20] Robert Jestic: It also was, that was the birth of what was known as, you're still known as CompStat, which stands for Computer Statistics.

[00:34:27] Robert Jestic: The, uh, police department at that time when, um, Bill Bratton came in, um, who was Bill Bra, He was a, a police. He was, police commissioner had two separate terms as being police commissioner. Yeah. But he had a deputy commissioner, Jack Maple, who had, um, brought up this idea of tracking crime through computer statistics.

[00:34:51] Robert Jestic: And that became kind of like the, the bible of, uh, of, of police crime prevention, where, you know, precinct commanders [00:35:00] were held accountable for. Crimes in their areas. And it was based on, you know, how many, you know, pin maps, how many robberies occurred in this area, and what were you doing about it? And so every at month and sometimes a lot more frequently, precinct commanders had to be down at police headquarters to deal with this.

[00:35:19] Robert Jestic: CompStat answer questions as to how come you had, you know, if you had, if you had six robberies that happened between two o'clock and four o'clock in the morning at a certain area, what are you doing? How are you deploying manpower to deal with that specific pattern? And, um, you know, Comstat was found to be, or, you know, to be a resounding success.

[00:35:40] Robert Jestic: And that was one of the other areas that, uh, that is said to have driven down those crime statistics. So

[00:35:47] Paul G Newton: when, you know, Rudy Giuliani would, he's, he's renowned as, uh, the guy that fixed New York City from the crime of the eighties. Um, do you think [00:36:00] that lies solely with him or was he just the guy that was able to administrate it into existence?

[00:36:07] Paul G Newton: Well,

[00:36:07] Robert Jestic: I have to be fair, and I, I, I think that he had a lot to do with it, and I am no Rudy Giuliani fan because on a very personal level, Rudy Giuliani was the first time we ever got zeros on a contract where instead of getting raises, we got, uh, two years of zero raise, zero raises under Rudy Giuliani.

[00:36:26] Robert Jestic: Yeah. So I'm no fan of Rudy Giuliani, but I have to be fair and say that it was under his administration that the, um, there was aggressive policing and, and crime fighting.

[00:36:38] Paul G Newton: Well, and you know, I mean, something had to be fixed, I guess, and sometimes hard choices had to be made, but it looks like he did his job.

[00:36:46] Paul G Newton: I don't know. I, we really don't know. Being Rudy has put on on certain news networks all the time as the guy, and I just wonder is he really is the guy.

[00:36:58] Robert Jestic: Yeah, I think a lot of times also [00:37:00] it's um, you know, when you're somebody at the top, like the mayor, your success is based on who you've placed around you.

[00:37:07] Robert Jestic: And, you know, he had, uh, Again, when Bra was the police commissioner. Yeah. Uh, and,

[00:37:14] Paul G Newton: and so Bradon was the guy that really helped things crime go away. That, that'd

[00:37:19] Robert Jestic: be my own opinion. I think he was the most important piece of, of that, uh, that he's

[00:37:26] Paul G Newton: always a team. If you approach things as a team, you can win. If you try to do it by yourself, you generally lose.

[00:37:33] Paul G Newton: Yeah. That's just the way it works, unfortunately. And people, you know, people like myself chagrin that all the time because it's like, I'm so good, but I'm not really, I have to have some people around me that are good too. And that's why I'm with Andrea, because Andrea is better than me in a lot of ways

[00:37:50] Robert Jestic: I can

[00:37:51] Andrea: tell you that.

[00:37:52] Andrea: So this is totally just a different kind of question, but I just kind of wanna get, uh, your perspective on it. I have kids that are starting to learn how to [00:38:00] drive and who can't pass their test. Well, it's hard, You know, the written test is hard in Arkansas. I'm sure it's hard everywhere

[00:38:07] Paul G Newton: actually. Yeah.

[00:38:07] Paul G Newton: Arkansas made it a point to make it one of the hardest driving tests written, driving tests in the country. I don't know why, but that's what they did.

[00:38:16] Andrea: But it's good. So, you know, he's 17 and I've always instructed him when you get pulled over. Mm-hmm. , this is how I was instructed, I should say. My father was, we live in the country, there's some dark cr, you know, creepy roads.

[00:38:26] Andrea: His words were, so, he's always given me instructions of when you get pulled over, you just crack the window and ask to see their batch because it's. At that time I was learning to drive. There was a blue light rapist going around. So he always wanted me to be cautious

[00:38:40] Robert Jestic: cuz this

[00:38:41] Paul G Newton: person, Are you sure? Or was that just a rumor mill?

[00:38:43] Paul G Newton: Like, I don't know, like, like the, the, the, the, what was it? We've been seeing a lot lately as the uh, the satanic panic of the eighties. I

[00:38:51] Andrea: mean, I don't know. This is what he instructed. I'd show the badge, I'd roll down the window and I would put my hands on the wheel and I'd say, May I lean over and get my license and registration?

[00:38:59] Andrea: [00:39:00] And I always asked him, Why do we need to say that? And he goes, You don't wanna like make it any sudden moves. You wanna let them know what you're doing. I was like, okay. I pulled a license and registration, hand it to him and I was always polite, say, you know, Yes sir, yes ma'am. No sir, yes sir. You know, that kind of thing.

[00:39:13] Andrea: You know, be very polite, be up and front and honest. Don't lie cuz he always told me if you lie, they already know the truth before they ask the question cuz they know if you, if you were speeding or not, and then go about your day pay ticket and that's the end of it. Well there's so much misconception out there with unfortunately against cops that the younger generation I've had explained to my children, That not all that you see in here is correct.

[00:39:37] Andrea: Peop GOs are people. There's good and bad. Yeah, you need to

[00:39:40] Paul G Newton: be nice. Police officers are just human beings like the

[00:39:43] Andrea: rest of us. You need to be nice and polite when you get pulled over. Don't throw a fit. Don't throw gruff. Just do what they ask and things will be fine. Do you have any instructions for young youth or young women that are driving by themselves?

[00:39:56] Andrea: Cuz this is the things I've always followed and I've never had any problems [00:40:00] ever with getting pulled over.

[00:40:03] Robert Jestic: Yeah, well what you've said is, is correct and uh, there's actually two aspects to this. The first one, you're pulled over you, you never want to surprise the cop. And that's why it is always a good idea.

[00:40:18] Robert Jestic: Once you're pulled over, crack the window open, and if it's night out, put your put on your, you know, your inside light. So that. The cop has full, has much visibility. And I would say just put your hands on the steering wheel at like the 10 and two position and just wait. Wait until now, until there's instructions.

[00:40:39] Robert Jestic: And now when the cop shows up at the, at the window and says, license registration, if that license and or registration is in the glove box, that's when you plane, I'm going to be going into the glove box or I'm going into, uh, a compartment. You know, just explain what you're doing before you do it. [00:41:00] Uh, and again, there's nothing, you know, you could, if you think the cops way outta line, you can always deal with that later on.

[00:41:06] Robert Jestic: But just be compliant. There's nothing good that comes out of not being compliant at the scene. The other area that you talked about, and this is something that the M Y P D actually addressed a lot of years ago with an internal memo. if it's an unmarked vehicle and you're being pulled over and it's now police out of uniform that are approaching the car, uh, plain clothes police, um, they, there's nothing wrong with not stopping until you get into some populated area.

[00:41:38] Robert Jestic: And, and the N Y P D actually came out and told unless it's a dire emergency, their plain clothes units do not stop unless it's really necessary, uh, a car in an isolated area because it is reasonable, It's reasonable for that person to want to not want to engage someone who's in plain [00:42:00] clothes. And a badge nowadays really means nothing.

[00:42:03] Robert Jestic: Anybody can get ahold of a badge. Um,

[00:42:06] Paul G Newton: so, well, you know, they sell 'em. You can buy 'em in pawn shops,

[00:42:10] Andrea: but how can you tell the difference between a good badge and a bad one? Is there like any type of numbers or symbols or anything like, Yeah.

[00:42:18] Robert Jestic: You see, the problem with a place like New York City is that there's, God, there's gotta be at least 20 or more different law enforcement agencies that are active.

[00:42:31] Robert Jestic: Yeah. You have, besides the Y P D Yes. More you have state agencies, other city agencies, federal agencies that are all running operations within the city. Yeah. And, and not in Uniforming could conceivably be doing some type of a car stop. And it's, it's, it's ridiculous to try to say that the average citizen should know what every agency's badge looks like.

[00:42:55] Robert Jestic: It's true. Um, not to mention that it's not that difficult to get ahold of a realistic one

[00:42:59] Paul G Newton: saying, [00:43:00] though, the way the, the way our laws are written is if you should be aware of them as a citizen. And that's used in court a lot to just burn people who couldn't possibly be expected to know. You know. Yeah.

[00:43:15] Paul G Newton: Well that's

[00:43:15] Robert Jestic: why, But the, the point that I'm really making with this is if you were being pulled over by an unmarked car and you actually kept not speeding, I'm saying, I'm not saying you're doing some type of Yeah. Of uh, OJ

[00:43:28] Paul G Newton: Simpson. No, not you wanna OJ Simpson, Yeah.

[00:43:31] Robert Jestic: You're just going, you know, 30 miles an hour and, and until either if you know where there's a police station or until you see an actual marked police vehicle or until east you get to some popular location.

[00:43:42] Robert Jestic: There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

[00:43:45] Andrea: Okay. I wondered about that cuz I mean, I'm thinking, do I call the police department and be like, Hey, you can,

[00:43:51] Robert Jestic: there's this part of, You can do that too. You can do that too. Calling. Yeah.

[00:43:56] Andrea: Okay. Cuz I mean, I have a daughter that's learning how to drive and I have a [00:44:00] son and he's kind of, you know, afraid of doing the wrong thing and that kind of thing.

[00:44:05] Andrea: And he's, well, partly trying to get good

[00:44:07] Robert Jestic: advice when,

[00:44:08] Paul G Newton: and I'm sure the N Y P D has a problem with. With this as well, with new officers. Um, but out here in the sticks, which compared to New York City, we live in the, you know, the sticks. Yeah, the sticks. I, I tell a joke that, uh, you know, Arkansas's not too bad.

[00:44:27] Paul G Newton: Back in 1992, we passed the law that everyone has to wear shoes. Oh my gosh. So, but anyway, um, , you know, out here, our police officers don't make much money when you get outside of the bigger cities, they're, they're getting like 35,000 a year. And, and they're having to pay for their benefits. They're not, they're not free.

[00:44:47] Paul G Newton: Uh, and they have to buy their own gun and they have to buy their own uniforms, and they don't just give, get it given to 'em. Um, specialty equipment, sure, the city owns, but you know, if you want a, a [00:45:00] stepped up, uh, you know, uh, bulletproof type vest, which there is no such thing as a bulletproof vest that somebody can, there's a round out there that will go through 'em all.

[00:45:10] Paul G Newton: Um, but you know, if you want a stepped up one instead of the cheap one, you can buy yourself. So these guys are out here. They're suffering because they're not getting paid a lot and generally there's not enough cops to cover the shifts. So they're always working extra and not getting, usually not getting paid overtime.

[00:45:29] Paul G Newton: Uh, cuz there's just, you know, there's five cops to cover a hundred square miles, so, you know, out in the counties That's true. Where I'm at, that that's correct. Yeah. So, you know, you really have to pay attention to these guys. But these guys, they get frustrated and upset at the job, and then they take it out on the people they pull over.

[00:45:49] Paul G Newton: And I, I, I, I know a, a form of, that's probably true with the new people in New in, in New York City, but it's so interesting that dichotomy between [00:46:00] this, you know, a good cop and a bad cop, and what makes a bad cop a bad cop.

[00:46:06] Robert Jestic: Yeah. And that's, Well there's, you know, there's, there's different levels here. I mean, when you are talking about, first off, you're talking about one of the hardest things to do is.

[00:46:15] Robert Jestic: You know, people forget that, and you've mentioned it a couple times, you have cops of people. Yeah. And, you know, they have their own issues at home with wives, with children, with financial situations. And now they come to work and they might don't go away. Lot of stress. But now you have to put those, leave those problems in the locker room and deal as a professional, which sometimes isn't the easiest thing in the world.

[00:46:42] Robert Jestic: You know, every, everybody has a bad day. Now, on the other hand, there's just quote unquote bad cops. They're, you know, they're the cops that you read about the, you know, the, uh, the, the, the buddy boys in Brooklyn, the, you know, the dirty [00:47:00] 30, you know, the ones that are actually. Taking drug money, running drug operations, you know, that's, that's correct.

[00:47:07] Robert Jestic: Those are just crooks. Those are just criminals that happen to be able to get into a, into a blue uniform.

[00:47:13] Paul G Newton: That's right. And they, you know, that mentality was there to begin with and, and it's really difficult to get to, to find a way to realistically and succinctly find a way to weed those guys out or find them and.

[00:47:31] Paul G Newton: uh, Youngstown, Ohio was really bad about that. They had, I mean, Youngstown's, if you, you might remember this, uh, what was the sheriff's name in the seventies? They tried him for, he took bribes from both mob families and yet the jury still said was innocent

[00:47:52] Paul G Newton: So, you know, and he was a sheriff. For crying out loud. Um, . Well it doesn't

[00:47:57] Andrea: help that like the media and [00:48:00] TV and stuff like portray it that way. They don't portray them well. It doesn't help when a

[00:48:04] Paul G Newton: guy like that either, but I mean, he just says, Oh yeah, that's true.

[00:48:08] Robert Jestic: Well,

[00:48:08] Andrea: like you listen to like crime shows, like forensic shows.

[00:48:11] Andrea: I like forensic shows. I wanted to, I almost finished my minor in criminal justice, but nursing school kind of got in the way so I never finished it. But I always would watch those shows and I used to be a coroner's assistant and I mainly just watched it just cuz it was fascinating to me. But it doesn't help when you listen to podcasts or crime shows and they show that cases got messed up because the cops messed up.

[00:48:31] Andrea: That doesn't really, like, they didn't collect evidence properly or they didn't, you know, so,

[00:48:36] Paul G Newton: so guys don't know what they're doing when you're talking about these small towns.

[00:48:39] Andrea: It is. Does it help the public or anyone to have a perception that they're still good people? When you have all that out there saying that people messed up.

[00:48:49] Paul G Newton: Yeah. Well, when it, you know, I, I was chief editor at an ABC affiliate for five years, and if it bleeds, it leads is still true today and [00:49:00] it will never not continue to be true. It's, you know, yellow journalism. Back in the 19 hundreds, early 19 hundreds, it resulted in a war. We, you know, Spanish American War was made up by Hearst and Pulitzer.

[00:49:17] Paul G Newton: So, but we're at that point again now that the news both sides, liberal democrat doesn't make any difference. Republican conservative, it doesn't make any difference. We're at that point now, I've seen it from the inside. You know, the reason Trump was orange is because somebody screwed with the white balance on the camera.

[00:49:36] Paul G Newton: When it would come into our station. I told him, I said, Look, we've got to white balance this. And they're like, Why? Because Trump's not actually orange. They screwed at the white balance and you white balance it on a white card that's sitting in front of everything and he's not orange anymore. Wow, who knew?

[00:49:53] Paul G Newton: It doesn't make difference what the politics are. It's, it's, you know, let's be truthful. Let's not be [00:50:00] underhanded. Let's, let's tell the people what's true. I'm not commenting on politics. I'm not commenting on Trump's ability to lead or any of that other bs. I'm not there. What I'm saying is it was a damn lie.

[00:50:14] Paul G Newton: And, and we have to understand that when people say, cop all cops are evil. That's not true. It's a damn lie. What's your, what's your opinion on that? Um,

[00:50:29] Robert Jestic: yeah, I think you're right on the money with that. There's, uh, you know, everybody's got, I think that's one of the major problems today. Everybody's got their own narrative, their own slant on things.

[00:50:41] Robert Jestic: And so anything that occurs, everybody's trying to make it fit their own narrative. If, if the narrative is. You know, Orange Man bed, then everything that happens is going to be slanted towards Orange Man, bed orange. You know, if, if it's cops are bad, everything's slanted towards, [00:51:00] cops are bad. It's, uh, there's no in the middle anymore.

[00:51:03] Robert Jestic: And I think that's one of the big problems. You're either on one side, you're on the other side,

[00:51:08] Paul G Newton: Hillary's bad, don't look at she did this and that and the other. Yeah. Well, you know, the, the ironic thing is that Hillary ran classified documents out of a closet in a house. Trump ran classified documents out of Merlago.

[00:51:21] Paul G Newton: They're both guilty of the same damn thing. Yet. You hadn't heard about Hillary's, but you've heard about Trump's.

[00:51:28] Robert Jestic: Correct. They did both

[00:51:30] Paul G Newton: exactly the same damn thing, but we only hear about one side. Pisses me off

[00:51:36] Andrea: so bad. Well, about Trump being orange. I really didn't know about

[00:51:40] Paul G Newton: that. Yeah. Nobody knows. I'm, I was like, I'm, I made the editors, I said, You white balance Trump because the guy, there's only three or four people that are taking video of when he is doing these things cuz there's a pool of reporters.

[00:51:53] Paul G Newton: Yeah. We're really, we're, our news only comes from about 25 to 35 people when it comes to national news. [00:52:00] Makes sense. Because there's not enough money to send, Everybody has to send, they have to send 25, 35 people so they can cover all the shifts. Right. Yeah. And somebody there was pissed, didn't like him.

[00:52:10] Paul G Newton: And that's fair. I get it. But you're a reporter. That's not your job. , you know?

[00:52:15] Andrea: Yeah, I would, When you pointed that out, I was like, Oh. I was like, I just thought he had a bad self tan. I mean, I

[00:52:20] Robert Jestic: just

[00:52:21] Paul G Newton: know well, it, I knew it when I saw it because the, because this is

[00:52:25] Andrea: what I do. You have a trained eye for me.

[00:52:27] Andrea: He's a layman. I was like, that why? I thought he was just using self tan and somebody couldn't help him. I mean, I

[00:52:32] Paul G Newton: don't know. I don't care who you're voting for. It doesn't matter to me. But the truth is better than, than false. So one of the things that I asked you, uh, in the email that when we set this interview up was, uh, uh, I was interested in knowing the most heinous thing that you guys ever had to deal with, uh, in your career.

[00:52:54] Robert Jestic: Um, anything, Hmm. Most heinous.[00:53:00]

[00:53:04] Paul G Newton: Was there, you know, could transit. So, I mean, there's, it's like everything you can think of happens on the transit.

[00:53:13] Robert Jestic: Okay. Somebody hit by a train. Oh gosh. Did they do it on purpose? Was it suicide? Yeah, most of them are. I, I, I was involved with several and I was involved in both variations of somebody pushed and, Okay, there's three variations actually.

[00:53:29] Robert Jestic: Crime, somebody pushed suicide and then just accidental. Yeah. Uh oh. There was accidental. And there's, um, I'll tell you one accidental one that, uh, and with the witnesses to this, it, to me it was chilling. The way the witness depicted this, there was a, uh, it was in, um, Midtown Manhattan, Lexington Avenue stop.

[00:53:52] Robert Jestic: And it's. , it's a set up where it's an island platform. So you've got trains coming in on either [00:54:00] side of this one island platform. And you have also, there was construction going on, so it was already a fairly narrow platform, but some of the construction had made it even worse. And now, and plus where you had escalators going up naturally the escalator is right in the middle of the platform.

[00:54:21] Robert Jestic: So you only had maybe on either side of that if you wanted to continue walking down the platform. You only had maybe like 12 inches of, of platform and grief during the morning rush hour when trains are coming, people going down the stairs. And especially when the, when the trains that are coming into Manhattan, were letting out.

[00:54:40] Robert Jestic: That's the first stop in Manhattan. So you have a mob of people getting off and all heading for that escalator. So you had this one the way it turned out. You had this one man. Who was trying to get down the platform, not to the escalator. And he wanted to cross over the platform [00:55:00] and pass the escalator on the side that the queens bound trains would've been coming in.

[00:55:05] Robert Jestic: And as he was weeding his way through the mob of people trying to get to the escalator, he got finally to the edge. And there's, there was a iron gate there that you could, if you wanted to, needed to close the escalator off. Yeah, you could pull that gate. But it was retracted against the, the side. But it's there.

[00:55:27] Robert Jestic: And it's an iron thing. He, he, this is coming from a witness, he made his way through and he went, you know how you would like grab onto something to sort of swing around it? You grab and you sort of swing your way around. So he was coming out from this mob of people and he reached for that one of the.

[00:55:46] Robert Jestic: Railings in the gate in order to just to sort of swing around and continue down the platform, and according to the witness. He just reached and he missed. Oh. And when he missed his momentum was [00:56:00] still carrying him towards the edge of the platform. And he said, the look of panic on this guy's face when he realized he had missed and he couldn't stop himself.

[00:56:12] Robert Jestic: And he, and it happened to be of course, a train just coming in and he just couldn't stop himself and went right down onto the, onto the tracks. And, uh, that was that. Oh, but that's just your accident. I, you know, there were times where people jumped, there were times when people were pushed. That's why I always say people are nuts.

[00:56:33] Robert Jestic: Who, who stand by the edge of the platform when a train's coming in. You know, you don't know who's coming up behind you. I always find, put myself right up against a, a a, a a, a steel pillar, you know? Yeah. Where nobody would get behind me.

[00:56:48] Paul G Newton: So, and you know, curious, is it true that there's a whole subset of tunnels underneath this New York City subway?

[00:56:57] Paul G Newton: Yes. That's crazy. It [00:57:00] doesn't collapse. Fear of collapse?

[00:57:04] Robert Jestic: No. There's all kinds of, when you're saying, uh, subset of tunnels, there's one area in particular, but that's just under Grand Central, where you have many different levels. You have, you know, used to be, there was underground colonies of people living there.

[00:57:16] Robert Jestic: Under the actual subway itself, there are different tunnels, some that were used in the past and aren't used. Some that, that were. Started to be constructed and then stopped. So it's not like there's like underneath everything, there's, there's something, but there are these areas that, you know, there are dead stations that, you know, you'd be surprised there's a door at a station that you think it's just like a, a supply closet and you open it up and it leads to an actual station that's, that's, that's dead, that hasn't been used in years.

[00:57:48] Robert Jestic: And uh, there's, there's a lot of that around. Yeah. Wow.

[00:57:52] Paul G Newton: I, you know, that's fascinating. And because who knows what you'd find there that would make a good TV show actually. Well just

[00:57:59] Robert Jestic: like [00:58:00] preserve

[00:58:00] Andrea: it, it's history. .

[00:58:02] Robert Jestic: Oh yeah, yeah. Well, they do have the, the most famous one that's preserved and, and in some way is if, and there's been some TV shows on this.

[00:58:10] Robert Jestic: If, um, the old city hall station, when the subway just opened up in the, what was it? The very late 18 hundreds, early 19 hundreds. But the station, city hall has been long closed. But now where the Lexington Avenue line, the number six train, which is local, where that terminates, it ends at Brooklyn Bridge and then it makes this big loop around and starts coming up, going the other way, going north again.

[00:58:33] Robert Jestic: But when it makes that turn, it passes by what was the old city hall station. And it's like in a, uh, a time capsule. There you, if you're on there, you pass through it and the platform is there. All of the, um, the ceramic tile work is there, The chandelier works. Are there still? There was talk. You know, 20 or 30 years ago that they were going to try to make some type of [00:59:00] restaurant out of it and put, put glass, uh, in front of where the trains turned, but it just didn't, didn't work out.

[00:59:06] Robert Jestic: But that's still there. Ev every now and then the transit museum runs tours of that station, but they still keep that intact. I would,

[00:59:14] Paul G Newton: if I ever have to make a film in New York City that that's period piece, I'm gonna go see if I can get that. I

[00:59:22] Robert Jestic: wanna go

[00:59:22] Andrea: to the tour. That'd be fun and fascinating. I like history.

[00:59:25] Andrea: I,

[00:59:25] Robert Jestic: Cause

[00:59:25] Paul G Newton: there's nobody there. You don't have to worry about pedestrians. You don't have to worry about blocking off. You'll have to pay whatever fees that they charge, which are exorbitant and crazy. But, uh, you know, it, it's there. It's, it's a period set. Yes. And, and the movie company comes in and as far as the aesthetics are concerned, we come in and we make it look even better because we want it to look better.

[00:59:47] Paul G Newton: Wow. That's true. Right? So, Right. It's a win-win for everybody. It looks better when we're done. We don't actually do any heavy construction because it would cost too much. We only want it to look good. We [01:00:00] don't care if it holds up when it's truth, you know? Truth is truth. But that would be a good sounds. I like, I don't have to look that up.

[01:00:09] Paul G Newton: That's nice. Well, uh, it's, my voice is so bad today. So now you've got, have you won, you, you've, I see a picture here of you with some folks and at your, I guess it was your book signing or your premier of your book.

[01:00:28] Robert Jestic: Yeah. That would've been a book signing. Yes. Yeah.

[01:00:30] Paul G Newton: And, um, so your books are available on Amazon?

[01:00:36] Paul G Newton: Correct. And can you buy 'em from your website? What's your website?

[01:00:40] Robert Jestic: My website is robert brian author.com.

[01:00:44] Paul G Newton: Robert brian author.com. Brian spelled

[01:00:48] Robert Jestic: b r y a n

[01:00:50] Paul G Newton: b r y a n. There's, Okay, cool. Um, and if somebody needed to contact you about something, they can get to get ahold of you through that website, correct?

[01:00:59] Paul G Newton: [01:01:00] Correct. All right. Um, so we look for, I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to get a hands on one of these books and read

[01:01:06] Robert Jestic: it. Me

[01:01:07] Andrea: too. I'm, I want to, I'm interested.

[01:01:08] Robert Jestic: I am very

[01:01:09] Paul G Newton: interested. We'll, uh, we'll get ahold of 'em and we'll read 'em and maybe we can follow up with you one day and say, ask you some questions about your characters.

[01:01:16] Paul G Newton: That sounds good. Yeah. Uh, I appreciate you being on, We have an event that we're going to, so we're under time strained. Normally. We just talk and talk and talk and talk to the guest is, you know, completely deflated and tired and wants us kill us . But today we're, you're gonna have to cut it off here, just a minute.

[01:01:33] Paul G Newton: I really appreciate you being here with us and

[01:01:36] Andrea: Yes, so much thank you for answering our questions and I'm really interested in your book. I'm kind of fascinated. I like to, I guess for me, you know, I have so many stories with nursing, but it's kind of nice to hear, um, your stories. I mean, cuz like you can kind of relate to real life things that you've been through and impacted in your career.

[01:01:53] Andrea: I can kind of relate to that. So I'm definitely gonna get your book for sure.

[01:01:56] Robert Jestic: Absolutely. So my pleasure. I appreciate you having me. [01:02:00] Is there anything you

[01:02:01] Paul G Newton: wanna leave us with, uh, any, anything you wanna tell us about before we go?

[01:02:06] Robert Jestic: Um, No, I just, uh, it was my pleasure here and I, my hope. Right. Yeah. I hope people would give my books a look.

[01:02:15] Robert Jestic: Absolutely.

[01:02:16] Paul G Newton: I appreciate it. Now next time we're, we're, we've run a couple podcasts now that we've, we've got a couple under our belts, so we're about two weeks ahead at this point right now. Yes. Two weeks, right? Yeah, that's about right. So we're gonna work on, I'm gonna take a little extra time to see if I can find somebody local who we can interview about craziness.

[01:02:36] Paul G Newton: I would really like to talk to somebody. Um, uh, the, the sheriff of Madison County. That'd be interesting. That's a dangerous topic cuz those cats will come out and find you and you know, like murder you cuz they're , they're the sheriff of Madison County was a big deal when he died and everybody, they thought he was a drug guy.

[01:02:54] Paul G Newton: Yeah.

[01:02:55] Andrea: There's some controversy on

[01:02:56] Paul G Newton: that. Corrupt the other half is like, no, he's not a drug guy. [01:03:00] But Fabu the guy that, that fought with Eisenhower over blacks in the high school. That's his county. Yeah, because it, The hotel, the Faba hotel. Yeah. I mean, that's his county. That's where he is from. So it's, it's an interesting place, but I don't know if we can get that or not.

[01:03:16] Paul G Newton: I'm gonna work on that, but we're also gonna be working on some other, other things. Um, what, what if you got planned for us, Andrea? I

[01:03:25] Andrea: don't know. I, I'm interested in the interesting forensics, maka kind of stuff, but I was kind of curious after one of our podcasts about obviously mailing of the body parts.

[01:03:36] Andrea: Exactly. Um, Death practices. Mortuary practices. Yeah. I've

[01:03:41] Paul G Newton: been work. We tried to get some people on, but man, those mortuary guys are so damn boring.

[01:03:46] Andrea: Well turn at the century. Death practices of having to have like the bell ring the bell in case, you know, just, I don't know. I'm, I'm trying to find some interesting people.

[01:03:53] Andrea: Paul seems to have better luck than that.

[01:03:54] Paul G Newton: I, I can't find anybody. A, a mortuary, mortuary person. They used to don't [01:04:00] wanna do it. They're afraid that they're going to cause issues with their clients. I think.

[01:04:06] Andrea: That's interesting statement, but

[01:04:08] Robert Jestic: okay.

[01:04:08] Paul G Newton: Yeah, , it's like there's no refunds for this. It's already done.

[01:04:14] Paul G Newton: you can't get a refund. No

[01:04:18] Andrea: people in the hospital are super busy, so I don't really wanna interview them cuz we're still kind of recovering from

[01:04:23] Paul G Newton: co Well I don't think you should interview anybody inside your own network. No, no I think we should we, if you wanna interview, you need to go to competing hospital, interview them.

[01:04:31] Andrea: Uh, yeah, the hospital may have issues with me talking to someone who's on the other side

[01:04:36] Paul G Newton: of the fence. But if we're not talking about anything hospital related, we're just talking about like coronary issues or something like that. You

[01:04:43] Andrea: know? It's kind of boring though. I would like it cuz I'm a nurse and I love that stuff and I think it's interesting.

[01:04:47] Andrea: But you know, I'm

[01:04:48] Paul G Newton: different. I appreciate you guys listening and I guess we're done. I would say.

[01:04:54] Andrea: Bye bye.[01:05:00]