New York's Finest

This is a story about the lives of six men from the ‘View’ who formed a pact, and vowed they all would become the finest amongst New York’s finest and survive to maintain the ‘circle of friends’ and the conflicts they endure when fighting crime involves their childhood friends.

It is these types of relationships that are deeply rooted and sometime unexplainable. They are more than just oxymoron expressions. They depicted the good and the bad, the hero and the villain, the cop and the criminal that are rarely acknowledged as acceptable in our society because they bash anomalies that emerged in childhood socialized relationships, and takes shape long before we separate into the virtuous and the questionable. Consequently, there is evidence that the way they unfold are intuitive and instinctive qualities developed in order to survive, growing up in these mean streets.

Little did they know that the brotherhood, the trust, the bond and strength of the ‘circle’ would be challenged and tested ‘big time’? And in a way, they never imagined. In a way, that could destroy their ‘brotherhood’, possibly forever, as reported by the investigative journalist, Linda Acevedo, from the New York Daily News. She also was the lead reporter charge with uncovering who actually killed the three bank executives during a bank robbery. The story is also staged during the rescue, recovery, and compensation stages of 9/11 serving to create a complex set of circumstances surrounding the ‘circle of friends’.

Ms. Acevedo maintained...

"The bank robbery and triple murders had to be planned for months in advanced, or perhaps even years, Ms. Acevedo would argue. This unknown suspect or suspects had to know that a meeting was planned and that all three of these victims had to be coming together at a designated time. That is, the same time the robbery was planned.

"Perhaps the robbery was planned as a cover up," she would also pose to her readers as a viable question.

The conflict experience throughout the story offers no comfort or envy for the officers faced with similar sets of circumstances. It has to place a tremendous burden on them, on a daily basis. Granted, they are law enforcement officers first. And upholding the law is supposed to be their motto, first and foremost.

But the reality is that a law enforcement officer in New York City, like in many of America’s cities, has to know how to ‘roll’. And knowing how to ‘roll’ could very well mean, managing your health and safety for at the very least, another day, or not taking another brother’s life, especially if you knew him and he grew up in the ‘View’.

-- Theodore Josiha Haig