Capo

Soon after I made Sergeant, the precinct Commanding Officer took notice of my work ethic. He promoted me to the prestigious post of Anti crime Supervisor. In this capacity I would supervise two shifts of plainclothes officers who were assigned to address serious crimes; ie, Robbery, gun possession and burglary. Soon after I got this assignment I got a 10-2 (report to command) this was not usually good. What had I or one of my officers done? Well this was different as there was a contingent of Hasidic men talking to the boss. It seems that their mother had her purse snatched and some one had called her and said they had the purse. They thought this was a trap. Since I had grown the Anti crime beard, they wanted me to dress up black hat and long coat and recover the purse. Well we arranged for the exchange and everything went ok, as an elderly Puerto Rican family was the ones who had called. We got the purse and gave them a few bucks. All of a sudden, one of my Italian officers said, “Hey Capo, can we go now”. No sooner had he said that, the elderly mother, who was a Holocaust survivor snapped to attention and with her head bowed said, “German Nazi, where is he”. She was frozen as she had a flash back to Auschwitz, one of her sons told her, ”no mom he is the good Kapo, who takes care of the community. The name Capo stayed with me for the rest of my career.

In1986 I was transferred to the Brooklyn South Narcotics Division. About a year later one of my lieutenants in the 90th precinct was now a Deputy inspector and assigned to our unit. After about a month, he had a meeting and commented on our work performance. However, he then said he had a gripe in that he thought that the use of nicknames was unprofessional. Turning to me he said isn’t that right Sgt. Capo. Well all the bosses and investigators started to snicker and laugh. Again he looked at me and said what’s up, I respectfully said Sir, my name is Sgt. DeStefano not Sgt. Capo. He lowered his head and turned around and simply said carry on. He called me into his office and I had to explain how I became the Capo. He laughed and said all these years I thought you were Sgt Capo. 

###