NYPD Through The Looking Glass
A behind the scenes look into the New York City Police Department. Hosted by retired NYPD detective turned author Vic Ferrari.
To an outsider, the New York City Police Department is a mysterious well-oiled machine responsible for maintaining law and order in the world's greatest city while looking brilliant in blue. However, things are not always what they appear to be and may surprise you.
NYPD: Through the Looking Glass is filled with action, suspense and nonstop laughs! A must listen for cop buffs, true crime readers and anyone with a sense of humor!
NYPD Through The Looking Glass
NYC Fire Marshal Arrested
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A New York City fire marshal was arrested after he accidentally shot himself in the foot with an illegal gun. Fire FDNY headquarters Monday morning police sources say James Berenger, fifty-two years old, was on duty inside nine Metro Tech Center in downtown Brooklyn at the time of the incident around 7 40 AM. Sources tell News 12 that Berenger accidentally discharged the weapon and no one else was hurt. EMS took Behringer to New York Presbyterian Methodist Hospital, is he expected to recover. According to New York City law, New York City fire marshals are sworn as police officers and can carry firearms. It is unclear what led Berenger to be in possession of an illegal gun. He is charged with criminal possession possession of a weapon and failure to register the weapon. FDNY says the matter is under investigation. Here's the thing. If the gun is stolen, then yeah, he should be charged with a crime. I don't get this an illegal gun. If it's a ghost gun, then yeah, he's going to have a problem because it was invented. There's no serial number on it. But if it's just a gun that he purchased and it's not on his 10 card and he had it in his locker and he was going to go to the range, and sometimes guys aren't familiar with their guns. If it's a gun they just go use to shooting sometimes and he thought it was unloaded and he shot himself. But this is the world we're living in now. If this would have happened 20 years ago, there wouldn't have been a big investigation over this. And the fire department takes care of their own. Not that I think that this guy deserves to lose his job over this, but who knows? The world has changed. The career criminal who allegedly shot another man outside of Harlem, Delhi, before responding cops opened fire on him, was charged with attempted murder on Monday. Randy Negron, 32 years old, who was on parole after serving nine years in a state prison for the exact same offense, was charged three days after he allegedly pumped a twenty was charged three days after a twenty-two-year-old man with bullets on West 125th Street near Amsterdam Avenue on Friday evening. As Negron allegedly ambushed a man around 6 20 p.m., a pair of plane clues cops who happened to be driving by jumped out of their car and chased after him. Meanwhile, a second gunman, can't make this up, later identified as Yandrell Ortiz, 18 years old, darted into the middle of the intersection and fired at the fleeing Negrand. An NYPD cop who was at the scene and didn't want him to feel left out also opened fire. Negrand was shot once, but it remained unclear Monday if he was shot by his enemy by the police or his enemy combatant Ortiz. Ortiz was also arrested Monday and charged with attempted murder and assault. Negron was sent to prison in October 2016 and freed in 2025, and is on parole until 2029, according to New York State Department of Corrections. He has 11 prior arrests, including several others for violent felonies. The NYPD's forced investigation is probing the shooting. So they're looking at the cops that got involved in the gun battle. He has one previous arrest for allegedly robbing an 18-year-old man of his iPhone at gunpoint while hitting him in the forehead in Harlem last October, so he pistol whipped him. Another suspect pulled a knife on that same victim. Both Negron and his alleged target were taken to St. Luke's hospital where the accused gunman was listed in stable condition and the victim in serious but stable condition. Negron, who was hospitalized Monday, also faced raps for assaults and criminal possession of a weapon. His previous attempted murder conviction stemmed from a 2015 shooting in the same neighborhood in which he opened fire at several people. So you got two guys that are from the same hood. They've both been upstate. They've both been charged with shooting at people, robbing people, pistol whipping people, and you gotta love the New York State Parole Board, boys and girls, because they let him out again. Hopefully, the one guy that's on parole, parole put a detainer on him because you don't know with the Manhattan District Attorney's Office these days, they might let him out on little or no bail. A man convicted in the 2024 shooting death of a New York City police officer during a traffic stop will spend the rest of his life behind bars after a judge sentenced him Monday to 115 years to life in prison. During an emotional hearing in a Queen's courtroom packed with uniform NYPD officers and Officer Jonathan Diller's family, the judge said Guy Rivera most certainly will die in a prison cell. Good. Your sentence to me was determined the second you pulled that trigger, Judge Michael Aloise told Rivera. It took me five minutes to calculate the numbers. It's going to take you a lifetime to calculate the damage you cause. A jury found Rivera guilty earlier this month of aggravated manslaughter and other charges in Diller's killing, but acquitted the 36-year-old Queen's dirtbag of murder. The shooting happened on March 25, 2024, when Diller and other officers were on patrol in the far rockaway section of Queens. Police say officers were questioning the drive, and when Rivera was in the passenger seat, suddenly pulled out a gun and shot Diller. The bullet struck the officer below the bulletproof vest and mortally wounded him. Another officer then shot and wounded Rivera. You gotta love lawyers. Rivera's lawyer Jamel Johnson argued, as he did during the three-week trial, that Rivera was not a murderer because he did not intend to kill Diller. He maintained the gun accidentally discharged as officers, pulled a firearm out of Rivera's pocket. He pleaded with the judge not to issue a sensational sentence and complained that Rivera didn't receive a fair trial. Johnson said in a statement at courtroom uh hearing he intended to appeal his client's conviction. Of course he did. You know, thank God for this judge. And when you have moron jurors, which apparently this jury in Queens were morons, that they inquitted this guy of murder and only got him on the manslaughter charge, that the judge, thank God, with wisdom and common sense is the backstop and sentence this guy, and hopefully this guy will die in prison. But I guarantee you they will work on appeals. This guy will probably get out. I could see them overturning this sentence and him getting the maximum of whatever for the gun and um the manslaughter charge, but for now, it looks like he's going away for the rest of his life. But thank God for this judge. This story is uh down here in Florida. The ex-University of South Florida student accused of murdering his roommate and his pal still messing girlfriend allegedly asked Chat GPT about putting people in a dumpster, according to court documents. What happens if a human is put in a black garbage bag or thrown in a dumpster? Hersham, I'm gonna just try to pronounce his Ugaboog, Ugaboogoogie, 26 years old, allegedly asked the bot on April 13th, three days before Zamil Lyman and his girlfriend Nahita Bristie, both 27 years old, were last seen. The bot replied to Ugaboogie Boogie, it sounds dangerous before he said, how how would they find out, according to documents? So he's he's arguing with with ChatGPT. Ugga Boogie Boogie, who pursued a Bachelor of Science degree at management at the university between June 2021 and June 2023, continued to ask questions on April 19th, three days after Lyman and Bristy vanished, according to documents. Boogie Boogie faces two first-degree murder charges, who also allegedly asked the bot to define an endangered person. He was arrested Friday after cops swooped in on his Tampa home, responding to an unrelated domestic violence report, according to the Hillsborough County Police. He barricaded himself inside the property, refused to cooperate for over an hour. SWAT teams, teams, bomb disposal teams, crisis negotiators, the Salvation Army, and drone response team were response before Aboogie Boogie was arrested. A boogie boogie was wrapped in a blue towel when he surrendered to cops. He's already looking for uh an insanity defense. Lyman's body was found, this is sad, was found on the Howard Franklin Bridge, which spans from St. Petersburg to Tampa. But Bristy's remains still are missing, but he is presumed dead. His matter of death was classified as a homicide. Investigators say he suffered multiple sharp force injuries. This this is just a sad story. It's all it's been all over the news down here in Florida. I think the two victims were foreign exchange students. The news was quick to point out that this guy, a boogie boogie, was a citizen. I down here in Florida, there's um no privacy. They have what's called the sunshine law. So I looked at one of his arrest reports and uh it said he was born in WB, and then I looked up that country designation. It says the West Bank for whatever that's worth. So it it looks, I mean, I think he's going for an insanity offense, but I think he is nuts. I think they should lock him up and throw away the key. He should get the death penalty if he did this. It's just sad. These kids are, you know, living their lives down here going to school, and this piece of shit goes and murders the two of them. The suspected, speaking of pieces of shit, the suspected gunman in the shooting at the White House Correspondence Center was charged Monday in federal court with three counts, including attempting to assassinate the president. Allen, 31 years old of Tarrance, California, was charged with using a firearm during a crime of violence, transporting of a firearm in interstate commerce with intent to commit a felony, attempt to assassinate the president of the United States. Allen did not enter a pre-uh plea bargain on Monday. He will remain in federal detention to at least uh Thursday when his next court appearance detention hearing is at 11 a.m. in front of another magistrate judge in D.C. Federal prosecutors allege that Allen traveled across multiple state lines with firearms, which prosecutor Joyce Ballantyne identified as a 12-gauge pump shotgun and a 38 uh 38 semi-auto pistol, as well as three knives. Make no mistake, this was an attempted assassination of the president of the United States, with the defendant making it clear what his intent was, and that intent was to bring down as many high-ranking cabinet officials as he could. U.S. Attorney District of Columbia Janine Piero said in a news press conference on Monday. I know Judge Janine a little bit. I worked um two joint cases with the Westchester County District Attorney's Office. One case was, I've told these stories, one case was the cars getting shipped to China. Another was um a group of car thieves that were doing high-end burglaries up in Westchester County, but they were going into these mansions and stealing people's garages. In some cases, these houses were so big they were stripping the cars in the garage for their rims and major component parts in the people's garage. So she's no joke. She ruled that office with an iron fist. I think she's the right woman for the job. I I'd love to see her as the next um attorney general, but who knows? You know, it's it's crazy that, you know, when I saw that Trump was attending this White House correspondence dinner, I was like, what is he doing? Like, there's there's nobody there that likes you. Why would you even I don't think he went his first four years? I mean, it's an annual thing. I know he didn't go last year. I mean, he kind of put himself in harm's way going to this thing. And, you know. And then, you know what's funny? After this attempted assassination, people had the cameras rolling and people are taking selfies, their phones. Did you see some of these reporters were stealing bottles of wine off the table and bottles of champagne? It's just Washington is a big country club, folks, and we're not invited to it. So a lot of you are probably thinking either, hey, I had a stroke, have Alzheimer's, or lost my mind because I just went right to the stories and I didn't do my introduction. I didn't promote my books. There's a reason for that. Yesterday I taped an episode with Matt Cox. He's got a huge podcast on YouTube. It's called Inside TrueCrime. He's got he gets a lot of great guests. I've been on his show before a couple of years ago. I reached out to him. I wanted a boost for my books and my profile. So I reached out to him. He was nice enough to book me on a show. I went out to his studio yesterday and recorded a two-hour interview. And he was nice enough to share some advice with me about what he thought I was doing wrong or what I needed help with to grow my podcast. And one of the things he explained to me was, and I'll share this with you if you're thinking of starting a podcast, he says, just get right to the point. He says, regular loyal subscribers like Peter Carmichael and Craig Benz and Cars of Queens and Mr. Dunn, and there's so many of you guys that hit me up all the time, and I really appreciate your con your comments and everything. He goes, they're going to stay with you. He goes, now what you should be doing is getting new subscribers that are going to watch the content. And it's true, we live, we live in a time where people just have, including myself now. I have a shorter attention span with computers and everything else. He says, just get to the point. So I'm interviewing on Thursday. The episode will be up either late Thursday night or first thing Friday morning if all goes well. I'm interviewing former NYPD legend Peter Pranzo. He's written a great book, Knights of Harlem. He was a uh 2-6 precinct guy. He worked in the 3-2. He's been in a bunch of gun battles. He worked in the NYPD's elite street crime unit. So he's got a lot of stories. So I'm going to explain to him. Listen, and you probably watch my podcast and you see that I do an introduction and tell our listeners a little something about yourself. It makes more sense for me just to get to the point and get to a really good story to kind of set the hook for new listeners. They're like, hey, you know, this is interesting as opposed to them scrolling five minutes and going, you know what, I don't got time for this guy. Another thing you're going to start noticing, and this guy shared with me yesterday, uh, my thumbnails, and those of you who don't know, it's basically the artwork that goes with the episode. So you're like, oh, you know, like one episode I had uh a Chicago police car because I was interviewing a Chicago cop. He he kind of explained to me that, you know, you really shouldn't be doing that. What you should do is have a photo of you, your guest, and what the episode is about. Keep it simple, stupid. And I'm gonna try that. You know, maybe it works, maybe it doesn't work, maybe it works for him, but maybe it doesn't. So for those of you that watch my episode, you know, it's just gonna be a little different, but I'm gonna give it a shot. I mean, it's worked for him. I'm the guy that was in, you got to see this guy's setup. I mean, I broadcast live out of a back bedroom in my house. This guy is renting commercial commercial space, uh, second story of a building. He's got all this uh soundproofing that he built himself, which was amazing. Um he's got a like a videographer guy in there with him, and they've got a counter to see how long the episode is going. It was really impressive. And it was funny because I said, Well, how many episodes do you tape a week? And he told me he taped six episodes a week. And I was like, Holy shit, well, you're you're all in with this. And he his next guest was coming right as I was leaving. And he said, Yeah, goes, this guy's served time in a California state prison. He was a big-time brawler. There's more to the story, I don't really remember it. But as I was leaving, this guy came through the door. He looked like Hulk Hogan. I mean, the guy was huge, nice guy. He said hello as I was walking out the door, but big bald-headed guy with a thick mustache. I'm like, you're not afraid to be in a room with this guy, but you know, different set of circumstances. So for those of you that watch the show, just bear with me. I'm just trying to tweak a couple of things. Also, if you notice the chair is higher, I don't look like a midget. I think I fixed this chair. There's been a couple of times I'm sitting in this chair high and I just start going down in the middle of the episode. So hopefully the chair works. But anyway, I'll have another episode out on Thursday. As always, I'd like to thank everyone for tuning in, especially my listeners in the Bronx. Louisville, Kentucky, Kansas City, Missouri, Biloxi, Mississippi, and Dublin, Ireland. If you worked in law enforcement or had an interesting criminal background, please drop me a note on Twitter, Instagram at Vic Ferrari. If you're watching on YouTube, please hit the like, subscribe, and hype buttons. And if you enjoy the content, please check out my Amazon author page. Just type in my name, Vic, Ferrari Like the Car, where you can preview all my NYPD books for free, including NYPD Behind the Blue Wall of Silence. Thanks again, everyone, and I'll see you hopefully later this week. Take care.