Memories of Miami Vice1

By ROBERT FETNER

The Miami Drug Warsof the eighties was an exciting time where the drug cartels ruled and cocaine was king. These are some of my personal stories from the streets of Miami. Stories of what it was like to be a cop on the street and an undercover detective for the Miami Police Department.

• Language: English
• Publisher: ROBERT FETNER
• Release date: Aug 14, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386743095

ROBERT FETNER

Robert Fetner is a former Investigator with the City of Miami Police Department.He holds a black belt in Taekwondo and was a self defense instructor for the police department. He is also a certified acupuncturist. He has written several books. His books include An American Gaucho, John Shane Wolf Bounty Hunter, John Shane Wolf Buck's Revenge

Book preview

Introduction

After writing three fiction books, I thought, why not write a nonfiction book about my own life experiences? It’s a whole lot easier to write about something you know and have experienced than to write a story you’ve made up.

Few people have experienced the things I did while growing up. Living overseas in Puerto Rico, St. Croix, Panama and Venezuela, I learned Spanish as a second language. Instead of baseball or football, I learned martial arts before it became popular. I used to walk around Panama at sixteen with a pair of nunchucks before anyone around me even knew what they were. In high school I was part of a unique fraternity of martial artists from the Tang Soo Do school. After Bruce Lee’s movies came out, we gained instant respect, and nobody messed with us, which was great. Anytime someone would start something with one of us, we’d flash a few kicks in the air and they’d want no part.

I remember walking down the hall at high school and being stopped by one of the basketball players and his friend.

So, you think that karate shit is a big deal? he asked, testing me. He was black and easily a foot taller than me. I threw an inside-outside kick that swept pass his nose by an inch and grinned. He looked at me, nodded, and walked away.

Martial arts training was different then. We learned old school in old army barracks with cement floors. My instructor had learned in Osan, Korea while serving in the Air Force, in the same place where Chuck Norris had learned. Back then, it was a small community, and everyone could be traced to their teacher. Chuck Norris’s teacher was Jae Chul Shin. Master Shin’s senior student was Chun Sik Kim who was my instructor's teacher.

Discipline and respect were strictly enforced. If we forgot to bow, we could find ourselves doing push-ups for the rest of class. Touch the floor when doing splits and we’d feel the shinai or bamboo fencing sword crack against our back.

One time, Master Kim flew in from Korea to oversee some belt testing. One of the students had failed to show the proper respect. Kim made our instructor get in front of the class and bend over. Then Kim smacked him on the ass with the shinai in front of the students since disrespect by a student falls back on the instructor. We paid hell for that once Kim left.

Ellis, my instructor, had a deadly side kick. He was one of the few foreigners to actually win a championship tournament in Korea. Every once in a while, he would decide to spar with the advanced students. Everyone was scared to death of getting picked, because we knew we would be getting our ass kicked; and I mean really getting it kicked.

One of these times, he chose his most senior student, Raffa, who was a really good fighter. They went at it and Ellis pinned him to the wall and started wailing on him. Raffa made the mistake of covering up and not fighting back. All of a sudden, Ellis's hand shot between Raffa’s legs and Ellis grabbed Raffa’s balls. Raffa jerked and squealed and fell to the floor. You could have heard a pin drop. All the students were sitting on the floor watching the fight with wide-eyed looks on their faces. I remember secretly praying that he wouldn’t pick me next.

Ellis turned to look at the class. Do you know why I did that? No one said a word; we were all recovering from shock. Because he stopped fighting and covered up. You never stop fighting.

My early martial arts training probably helped shape my character a great deal later in life. After Panama, my father sent me to boarding school in Georgia where I finished high school. I attended college a while, got married at nineteen to a Korean girl, divorced a year later then moved to Miami.

Chapter 1: Becoming a Cop

I moved  to Miami to get out of Atlanta. After a bad divorce, I wanted a fresh start. My family had moved to Miami, so it sounded like the place to go. As soon as I arrived, however, the family was transferred to New Orleans so I stayed behind. I worked as a mechanic in a bicycle shop for a while. Later, I worked at the famous gun store, Tamiami Gun Shop. This shop was one of the premium gun shops in the whole country at that time, and was featured in the Peter Benchley movie, The Island.  While there, I had also applied to an ad in the paper for the Miami Police Department. I took their preliminary psychological test and passed, but heard nothing back immediately, so I continued at Tamiami. I taught Karate on the side as an assistant instructor at a Korean school. Assistant Chief of Police, Mike Cosgrove, and Lieutenant Green were two of my students.

Six months or so had gone by and I'd completely forgotten about the test I’d taken for the police department. Then one morning I awoke to banging on my apartment door.

Who is it? I asked, still half asleep.

Police department, voices replied.

Shit! Then my mind started racing, wondering, Holy shit, what did I do? I opened the door and two detectives stood there flashing their badges.

Are you Robert Fetner?

Immediately I start thinking I’d been mistakenly accused of something.

Yes, I'm Robert Fetner.

One of the detectives handed me a package. Follow the instructions and go to all the preliminary tests. If you pass everything, you'll be in the police academy in two weeks.

They left me standing there, dumbfounded.

The tests were pretty basic. A physical agility test to make sure I was somewhat fit. An actual physical exam with a doctor and a lie detector test. I passed everything, so I was scheduled for BLE 55 or Basic Law Enforcement 55, a class at the Miami Dade Police Academy. I was issued a few uniforms which consisted of dark blue pants, a light blue shirt with City of Miami patches on the arms and a patch that said Police Trainee. I also received a utility belt, some handcuffs, black patent leather shoes and a baton.

I was pretty excited but had no idea what to expect.

Academy lasted nine months. Recruits were paid just like at a normal job. The academy was actually part of the North Campus of Miami Dade Community College. Training was five days a week to become one of Miami’s finest.

Academy started Monday, so I had the weekend to relax.

Chapter 2: The Academy

I reported to the room noted on my entrance card, an empty classroom like at any school. Other recruits showed up. I think there were around twenty-six of us originally. Two females in an otherwise male class. Pretty diversified mix of white, Latino and black. We all stood around joking and socializing waiting for an instructor or someone in charge to show up.

Things were going great till the door slammed open and a cop who looked like a Marine drill sergeant yelled, Attention!

We all scrambled into some kind of rough line like a bunch of frightened chickens. The first cop was accompanied by two other cops, our TAs or Training Advisors, the fancy name for instructors. Their job was to weed out the weak, stupid or lazy and see that the rest of us completed the training up to the City of Miami’s standards.

The fun was just beginning.

You call that a line? Get your motherfucking asses in line! As we somewhat formed a line, the TAs pounced on us.

Tuck in that uniform!

Did you sleep in that uniform?

Who taught you to shave?

Why do you smell like shit?

I want that hair cut by tomorrow!

Mustache... who the fuck told you that you can have a mustache?

It went on and on as each TA took turns standing in our faces yelling at us trying to get a reaction. Needless to say, all of us were pretty freaked out. This was not the warm welcome to the Police Academy we’d been expecting.

As they worked their way down the line they soon found a victim. The TA like a drill sergeant got in one of the recruits’ faces, the brim of his hat touching the recruit’s forehead and started yelling at him. Well, this got to him and the recruit’s eyes teared up, so the TA moved in for the kill.

Is that a fucking tear in your eyes? Are you going to cry Trainee? Come over here and look at this—we got us a crybaby!

The other two TAs rushed over and got in this guy’s face and started yelling and berating him while the rest of us stood at attention completely freaked out. That guy broke down and the TAs stormed out of there and told us to report to our next class.

As quick as they had arrived, they left. We all stood there realizing this was not going to be a fucking picnic. That trainee was gone in a couple days; he was not cut out for police work.

Basically, the training is set up similar to military training at boot camp. We would take classes on law, psychology, and police procedures and took exams which we had to pass or get kicked out. We also received training in firearms, self-defense and arrest techniques, CPR, swimming, and defensive driving.

At the same time, we were getting in shape during morning runs or PT, countless push-ups and whatever else the TAs could come up with to fuck with us.

On our morning runs we would call out in cadence different songs that our platoon leader came up with to entertain and unify the group.

I don't know what I been told, he’d yell out.

We’d repeat, I don't know what I been told.

Dade County PD wear panty hose.

Dade County PD wear panty hose.

Your left, your left, your left right left.

Down the road we went.

Sound off 1, 2, 3, 4.

Everyone had to make it. If one of us dropped out, the others had to go back and help him out. They wanted us to be a unit and didn’t want any lone superstars. If one of us fucked up, then the rest of us got punished.

In the beginning, one or two in the group would drop out, but slowly we developed as a unit and soon everyone was making it. We got in shape and ran as a unit like a well-oiled machine.

After the morning runs we’d hit the showers then head to class. Classes were like any other college classes except for the subjects. We studied law, psychology, and police procedures. The classes were often boring, but we had to pass or get the boot. It was a weird experience after someone flunked a course and the TAs came in to tell them to get their stuff and follow them out, never to be seen again, while the rest of us silently sat at our desks watching them leave.

Then there were the daily inspections. Uniforms had to be impeccable, shoes spotless and the stupid brass belt buckles we were issued had to shine like gold. The inspections were just another way for them to fuck with our heads. No matter what, they would find fault with something and get in our faces. Usually the punishment was push-ups.

Needless to say, the academy was not much fun. The few things I did enjoy were the firearms training, the self-defense class and the defensive driving course.