When asked a few innocuous questions about…
By Jennifer Warren
Capt. John Essig, the newly appointed chief of the 112th Precinct, covering Forest Hills and Rego Park, spent years as a plainclothes detective and is not entirely comfortable with drawing attention to himself.
When asked a few innocuous questions about his favorite films and weekend reading during a recent interview, the 42-year-old captain, a quiet man with a graying crew cut and a trimmed mustache, revealed a strong propensity to blush.
“How would you like it if someone started asking you all these questions?” he said with a smile, after making a small concession: His favorite flick is “Saving Private Ryan.”
His boyish blush, however, belies a rough history on the beats of Brooklyn, where Essig spent his last 20 years on the force.
Beginning in 1982 as a rookie in Bedford Stuyvesant’s 79th Precinct, Essig went from the usual burglary and theft cases to Brooklyn’s larger drug scams that originated in Washington Heights and Jackson Heights. Most recently, Essig headed up an undercover decoy operation for livery cab cases in Flatbush.
One case he retold from those scruffier days — when he didn’t have to worry about shaving and his wardrobe was less than its current state of prim — was about a thwarted livery cab attack.
Waiting on the corner one night, Essig and his partner saw a man, with two friends nearby on the street, repeatedly trying to hail a cab.
“We sat on them for half an hour. What struck us is no livery would stop for them.” The cabs kept passing by until one stopped. The three men all piled into the cab. Essig and his partner followed in their car. Driving behind them, they saw the men take a knife to the driver’s throat. “We immediately ran up on the car,” he said.
The cabbies, much like police, generally know who are the troublemakers, he said. “They’re smart survivalists,” he said, and the drivers have developed a skill he tries to impart to his men.
“I tell them not to be afraid to go out and talk to people. See what kind of reaction you get. If people are up to no good, they’ll give you a mixed answer.”
While Forest Hills and Rego Park may not offer the drama of Essig’s Brooklyn days, he was happy to leave his drug and livery busts behind, he said. The 112th Precinct with its many units and community interaction offer him a range of challenges that were not available to him before.
“You feel like you’re more involved. All those things that you knew could work — now you’re the person making the decisions,” he said.
Reach reporter Jennifer Warren by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 155.
