Mike Hinrichs: Honoring a crime-buster
10 January 2015. By Andrew Newman
Mike Hinrichs
On Thursday January 9, 2015, colleagues, family and friends came together in honor of Detective 1st Grade Michael Hinrichs, the most decorated police officer in New York's history, in the Belle Harbor Yacht Club, Queens, New York. But for inexplicable reason, the city's Mayor Bill de Blasio and the police Commissioner William Bratton were missing at the roll call.
A young woman of color at the party spoke of her mother’s murder, when she was 12 years old and her sister at 11, and how for twenty years the crime went unsolved and no one was arrested. She said a mutual friend introduced her to Hinrichs twenty years after her mother’s murder; and that Hinrichs took the case and ran with it, and eventually located and arrested her mother’s murderer in Pennsylvania.
She spoke further about how no one seemed to care of the crime that tore her family and life apart; how it haunted her and she thought it would never be solved and that no one would be held accountable before she met Hinrichs. She said If only every person, every police officer could have that positive effect on another person, what a world it would be.
Hinrichs, like many city cops, is mostly known to his family, city cops and people he has helped during meritorious years in the police department. He earned all of medals in the streets of Brooklyn. His heroism and valor did not often make the pages of the New York City newspapers, the Internet, or social media. But people he removed from the streets of New York and who were saved as a result of removal from loss and serious harm, did.
Detective 1st grade is the highest rank a person can achieve in the rank of detectives in the NYPD. It is a coveted and extremely hard to achieve rank. It is not obtained by taking a test, but by personal work achievement. It is earned. Many people believe that if there were higher rank for a detective, Hinrichs could have attained it.
A couple of hundred people turned out for his retirement farewell party, instead of a bigger party expectation at the Waldorf Astoria by many in the NYPD.
Mike was called a 'gunman' early in his career. This in police terminology meant that nothing gave Hinrichs more pleasure than getting illegal guns and the people that used them off the streets. Being a 'gunman' meant that Mike was good at it, very good at it. With his usual partners of Chris Higgins and Richie Bergin, they led their team in the search of the underbelly of New York City, vacuuming dangerous weapons and people off the streets, before they could do much harm to city and the people. They did this hundreds of times. They often risked their lives in doing so. Mike and his partners did this out of their own volition. No one said, “go get guns, go get bad guys!” Hinrichs did it because he cared for the people of this city and he felt it was the best way he could serve the people of this city. Maybe as a result of his work a few less people would be robbed, shot, or murdered and families would be together and enjoy. As a result of Hinrichs' work, hundreds of illegal guns were taken off the streets.
In a farewell speech, retired Detective Kenneth Monahan, spoke how Hinrichs made unbelievable gun arrests. A gun arrest, he said, often typically took 15 hours to process. Then after a few hours break, he added, Hinrichs could be back and made yet an arrest on the next day. After another 15 to 20 hours processing that arrest, Mike would be back to work. Monahan said most people would have become zombies at this point. But instead, he said, Hinrichs went out and made another gun arrest.
"Gun arrests are hard to come by . They take hard work and effort. People don’t just walk or drive around saying “I have a gun. I’m a bad dude, arrest me." It takes a trained eye and skill to find the bad guys packing heat in the big city. Mr. Monahan finished his speech saying. Hinrichs came back to work on the fourth day and went looking for gunmen again. He pulled over a van and found a man inside with several hand guns.”
A gun arrest is one of the best arrest a police officer can make. A cop feels like he is making a difference if he takes a gun off the streets. Hinrichs was prolific at it. He saved lives and helped people for thirty years because he cared, and not because it was his job. In the course of doing so, he was in several gun battles with scums of the earth. He was shot on two separate occasions. His bulletproof vest once saved his life.
He is retiring due to a serious illness otherwise he’d still be out there for us. The Emerald Society Pipe Band saluted Hinrichs, and one officer - a sergeant assigned to Brooklyn South Homicide - said, "We are here among a room full of legends and the number one legend is standing right here. I learned more working with Mike for one day than I did working for twenty years in the Police Department.”
The reporter looked around the room as the Sergeant said this and saw the Higgins brothers and their dad, Billy, Richie Bergin, Mike Davitt, Pat Ednie, Tony Weaver, John Morris, Rich Aviles, Steve Litwin, and Marty Mullen and remember a couple of thousand guns and gunmen taken off the street because of them. The reporter remember that half of the aforementioned law enforcement officers are with bullet holes in their bodies to prove it. And all are virtually unknown to the people and the city they serve so well. I thought of police officers like Tony Mossimillo, Billy Gunn, Pat Rafferty, Bobby Parker, and Ray Cannon who all worked where Mike worked and had been killed by criminals with guns. It was like their ghosts were at the ceremony.
Hinrichs got his rounds of applause on this night, but the young lady of color with her strength, courage and conviction got the loudest applause of the night. The crowd applauded her, Hinrichs, her murdered mother and whoever had raised her and her sister to be the fine women they had become.
In New York city, people don’t often have to know the heroes. One can just be thankful knowing they are out there. Many people are thankful that Mike Hinrichs was out there for thirty years.
A young woman of color at the party spoke of her mother’s murder, when she was 12 years old and her sister at 11, and how for twenty years the crime went unsolved and no one was arrested. She said a mutual friend introduced her to Hinrichs twenty years after her mother’s murder; and that Hinrichs took the case and ran with it, and eventually located and arrested her mother’s murderer in Pennsylvania.
She spoke further about how no one seemed to care of the crime that tore her family and life apart; how it haunted her and she thought it would never be solved and that no one would be held accountable before she met Hinrichs. She said If only every person, every police officer could have that positive effect on another person, what a world it would be.
Hinrichs, like many city cops, is mostly known to his family, city cops and people he has helped during meritorious years in the police department. He earned all of medals in the streets of Brooklyn. His heroism and valor did not often make the pages of the New York City newspapers, the Internet, or social media. But people he removed from the streets of New York and who were saved as a result of removal from loss and serious harm, did.
Detective 1st grade is the highest rank a person can achieve in the rank of detectives in the NYPD. It is a coveted and extremely hard to achieve rank. It is not obtained by taking a test, but by personal work achievement. It is earned. Many people believe that if there were higher rank for a detective, Hinrichs could have attained it.
A couple of hundred people turned out for his retirement farewell party, instead of a bigger party expectation at the Waldorf Astoria by many in the NYPD.
Mike was called a 'gunman' early in his career. This in police terminology meant that nothing gave Hinrichs more pleasure than getting illegal guns and the people that used them off the streets. Being a 'gunman' meant that Mike was good at it, very good at it. With his usual partners of Chris Higgins and Richie Bergin, they led their team in the search of the underbelly of New York City, vacuuming dangerous weapons and people off the streets, before they could do much harm to city and the people. They did this hundreds of times. They often risked their lives in doing so. Mike and his partners did this out of their own volition. No one said, “go get guns, go get bad guys!” Hinrichs did it because he cared for the people of this city and he felt it was the best way he could serve the people of this city. Maybe as a result of his work a few less people would be robbed, shot, or murdered and families would be together and enjoy. As a result of Hinrichs' work, hundreds of illegal guns were taken off the streets.
In a farewell speech, retired Detective Kenneth Monahan, spoke how Hinrichs made unbelievable gun arrests. A gun arrest, he said, often typically took 15 hours to process. Then after a few hours break, he added, Hinrichs could be back and made yet an arrest on the next day. After another 15 to 20 hours processing that arrest, Mike would be back to work. Monahan said most people would have become zombies at this point. But instead, he said, Hinrichs went out and made another gun arrest.
"Gun arrests are hard to come by . They take hard work and effort. People don’t just walk or drive around saying “I have a gun. I’m a bad dude, arrest me." It takes a trained eye and skill to find the bad guys packing heat in the big city. Mr. Monahan finished his speech saying. Hinrichs came back to work on the fourth day and went looking for gunmen again. He pulled over a van and found a man inside with several hand guns.”
A gun arrest is one of the best arrest a police officer can make. A cop feels like he is making a difference if he takes a gun off the streets. Hinrichs was prolific at it. He saved lives and helped people for thirty years because he cared, and not because it was his job. In the course of doing so, he was in several gun battles with scums of the earth. He was shot on two separate occasions. His bulletproof vest once saved his life.
He is retiring due to a serious illness otherwise he’d still be out there for us. The Emerald Society Pipe Band saluted Hinrichs, and one officer - a sergeant assigned to Brooklyn South Homicide - said, "We are here among a room full of legends and the number one legend is standing right here. I learned more working with Mike for one day than I did working for twenty years in the Police Department.”
The reporter looked around the room as the Sergeant said this and saw the Higgins brothers and their dad, Billy, Richie Bergin, Mike Davitt, Pat Ednie, Tony Weaver, John Morris, Rich Aviles, Steve Litwin, and Marty Mullen and remember a couple of thousand guns and gunmen taken off the street because of them. The reporter remember that half of the aforementioned law enforcement officers are with bullet holes in their bodies to prove it. And all are virtually unknown to the people and the city they serve so well. I thought of police officers like Tony Mossimillo, Billy Gunn, Pat Rafferty, Bobby Parker, and Ray Cannon who all worked where Mike worked and had been killed by criminals with guns. It was like their ghosts were at the ceremony.
Hinrichs got his rounds of applause on this night, but the young lady of color with her strength, courage and conviction got the loudest applause of the night. The crowd applauded her, Hinrichs, her murdered mother and whoever had raised her and her sister to be the fine women they had become.
In New York city, people don’t often have to know the heroes. One can just be thankful knowing they are out there. Many people are thankful that Mike Hinrichs was out there for thirty years.
