The E-Files: FROM TUNNEL RATS TO CITY STREETS

EMRU ROLLS INTO ESU

 

Formed in the fall of 1977, the New York City Transit Police Emergency Medical Rescue Unit had by the spring of 1995 formed its own unique history in the annals of New York City policing. Proven, well trained, and well equipped to respond to the wide array of emergencies that can befall the Big Apple’s transit system, it was a unit to celebrate. Its members representing the very best TPD had to offer.

Then came this very month 28 years ago when just after midnight on April 2, 1995, the New York City Transit Police would consolidate into the NYPD. For those already working underground as transit cops, not much would change in terms of where they’d be working. The uniforms and procedures different, their beat at least would remain the same. Not so however for the “nurses with guns” of the EMRU. 

Required to report to Floyd Bennett Field after their department had merged, the members of Transit Rescue weren’t entirely unfamiliar with ESU’s famed Specialized Training School. After all, all members of the unit had to go through some version of the school to get to EMRU. 

“I didn’t believe it. I thought it was garbage!” Said one member to me when I asked what the date of April 2, 1995, meant to him. Garbage it was not, but the dawn of a new era it sure was! Already well versed in most aspects of technical rescue via the training the Transit Police’s federal accreditation allowed them access to as well as the Specialized Training School, what they knew how to do wasn’t the question. It was how they, like every other cop that’d come over in the merge would adjust. The proving grounds: the quarters of most ESU trucks, where some of the finest cops around worked and would intently observe their new colleagues.

Recalls Transit Rescue cop turned E-Man John Busching, who was assigned to Truck 7 upon the consolidation, recalled in a podcast interview with yours truly: “The opportunities that the city and Emergency Service presented to us, would’ve never come anywhere close if we had stayed just the Transit Police. Being in Emergency Service, you were it”. Busching further added: “It wasn’t that they didn’t like Transit cops, it was that they wanted you to prove yourself.” He did and went on to serve 11 years in ESU before retiring as a highly regarded Emergency Service Detective in 2006. 

Recalled Franco Berarducci: “I was having a great time in Transit Rescue, I would’ve been happy staying in Transit Rescue, but I wouldn’t have minded going to the NYPD either.” Such was the attitude of all the men and women of EMRU, either way, they were still going to be ready to help wherever and whenever they were called upon. Thrown into the deep end of the pool unlike their counterparts in the Housing Police Emergency Rescue Unit who’d had a nine-month head start courtesy of being absorbed by and working on loan to the NYPD Emergency Service Unit, Transit EMRU’s learning curve was going to be quick and full throttle. 

The year 1995, the 65th year of ESU, marked a distinct turning point for the unit and the department as a whole. For ESU, now larger than ever upon the merge and acquisition of the rescue units of both the TPD and HAPD, had a busy year ahead. From the 50th anniversary of the United Nations General Assembly that September, followed by a visit of the Pope in October and playoff duty at Yankee Stadium as the Bronx Bombers returned to the playoffs for the first time since 1981, there was barely enough time to catch your breath! Nevertheless, EMRU did. As men like Busching, Berarducci, Ocasio, Ken Schnetzler and many more carved their own legacy in ESU. Proving themselves invaluable to their new unit while keeping the same helpful principles of their old one.

It’s been nearly 30 years but as time has gone on, the decision to merge while nerve racking in the moment, proved to be a revelation for ESU, paving the way for arguably it’s greatest era of 1995–2001. The tunnel rats made good and both the NYPD and the city as a whole, was better for having had them.