By Stephen Witt
It’s brings the excitement of a movie, but it’s not scripted and anything can wind up happening. That’s how 60th Precinct commanding officer Inspector Robert Johnsen described officers Jason Maggiore and William Montemarano, who took a gun off the street and earned “Cop of the Month” citations for December. “These are the officers that normally work overnight. When everybody is sleeping, they’re out there from midnight to eight in the morning. And we need people like that because as you know, crime happens 24/7. It puts a demand on them and it puts a demand on their families,” said Johnsen. “They do those hours because there is crime occurring on these midnight hours. In the month of December, these two officers were able to take a gun off the streets of Coney Island,” he added. The incident unfolded, according to Maggiore, when the two were called to respond to a disorderly group in a deli at 2900 Stillwell Avenue. Upon arriving at the scene, most of those who were acting disorderly had taken off, except for one man continuing to act up. “We just talked to him and he wanted to play a lotto machine,” recalled Montemarano. “So I said play your lotto and get out.” Montemarano said the man hurled a racial epithet at a fellow police officer while reaching in and out of his pocket. At this point, the officers asked for and received identification from the suspect and found a few outstanding summonses warrants. Upon searching the man, the two cops found a loaded .22-calber gun in his front jacket pocket. “It’s one of those arrests you never forget as a police officer. You come on this job for excitement and when you take a gun off the street there’s no greater excitement,” said Johnsen. “In the old Wild West movies when you see Wyatt Earp and marshals go into saloons and take the six-shooter off of somebody, it was exciting then and they made movies about it,” he added. Johnsen said that same excitement of taking guns off the streets exists today. “There is an element of danger with it, though. There’s no scripts. These things are unscripted and can go in any given direction at any given time,” said Johnsen. Both Maggiore and Montemarano grew up in Brooklyn and have been partners for the past seven years. Maggiore is an eight-and-a-half-year veteran and Montemarano has been with the NYPD for 13 years. It was the first “Cop of the Month” citation for both.
