By Alex Robinson
As a high school dropout, Raymond Berke never thought he would be a cop, let alone an author.
The retired detective from the 109th Precinct in Flushing recently released “6 More Dead,” a book that chronicles some of Berke’s war stories while he was on the force.
“I wrote the stories in the book to give the reader a more realistic view of police and detective work,” said Berke. “Television detectives get a murder case and work on only that case. NYPD detectives are always working on many different cases at the same time and each new day brings new cases.”
Berke grew up in Woodhaven, near Forest Park, and never considered a career in law enforcement when he was younger. He dropped out of high school at 16 and later started working at a bank on Wall Street.
He got his GED at the age of 18, and then attended the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan, hoping to pursue a career in law.
Burke entered the police force at 1981 after his father had him take a civil service test.
He said he immediately fell in love with police work once he started. His first assignment was to the 73rd Precinct in Brownsville, Brooklyn, which was known for being an area with high levels of crime.
“When you get areas like that, cops become closer together because you have to protect each other,” he said.
He was then transferred to the 17th Precinct in Manhattan in 1987 and then to the 109th, which covers Flushing, Whitestone, College Point and Bay Terrace, in 1993.
Berke’s book chronicles the personalities and situations he encountered in his 20-year career and gives a rare glimpse into the often surreal life of a police officer in New York City.
In many of his cases, Berke said he always had the urge to know more about what happened to people. He would often refuse to close cases in order to fully understand what had occurred.
“You would find out stories why someone would take their own life and some of those stories were amazing. They were sad, but interesting,” he said. “I would come across these things and think nobody is going to believe this.”
The book contains many stories from his career, but is centered around his largest case: the College Point massacre.
The case involved the brutal murder of six people in 1995 in a College Point apartment and attracted widespread media coverage. Two of the victims were 15-year-old girls and one was a pregnant 17-year-old.
Ana Figueroa was the massacre’s lone survivor. She managed to escape the apartment to get help after the murderers had shot her in the face and cut her throat. Her testimony helped to convict Saul Angulo and Enrique Rodriguez in the murders, who were later handed life sentences.
Berke said walking into the scene of the crime was certainly the most harrowing thing he experienced on the force.
He and his colleagues would use humor to deal with some of the darkest episodes they would encounter.
“You have to find humor in things to get past the sadness of it all sometimes,” he said.
After the College Point massacre, Berke was transferred to an elite squad at the city Department of Investigations in 1996.
He later retired from the force in February 2001 and now works as a private investigator at his own firm, Woodard and Berke Investigations.
Reach reporter Alex Robinson by e-mail at arobinson@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4566.
