Brian Lavin's legacy as a NYC housing cop - Newsday
At the height of the crack epidemic in New York City, surfer dude Brian Lavin got so good as a city housing cop that drug dealers took a break when he was on duty, former colleagues said.
He was affectionately nicknamed Sneaky by residents of the Fiorentino Plaza in Brooklyn's East New York, where he worked his foot beat by himself, said retired partner Bobby Schulman. He’d lean against the building to hear tips whispered through windows opened just a crack, he said. He’d monitor street deals with an eagle’s eye view from the roof and empty apartments, his family said. At night, older residents would sit in the courtyard only if Lavin was working, Schulman said.
"When he was around, everybody was safe. When he wasn’t there, it was like a hellhole," Schulman said.
Lavin died of a 9/11-related illness on April 6, almost 23 years after retiring as an NYPD detective sergeant in the 63rd Precinct, his family said. The Long Beach resident was 63.
When Lavin was reassigned to a plainclothes detail, Fiorentino Plaza residents gave him a party and a police service award, more meaningful to him than his 44 NYPD honors, including four commendations, family and friends said.
Retired NYPD colleague Frank Ciccone said people trusted him. "Brian understood the needs of the community and he was able to relay that to the people."
Lavin, who also worked in the 60th Precinct, spent the major part of his last year in the NYPD as a 9/11 responder. For months, he searched for the remains of people and evidence in the Ground Zero rubble taken to the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island.
"It was traumatic for him if he found pictures of their children," said his wife, Marilyn Lavin. "I know Brian had some post-traumatic stress disorder and some anxiety. But he dealt with it in his own way, with his family."
The time spent in the hellish landscape led to his throat and neck cancer, diagnosed in 2007, family members said.
Doctors took out his tonsils, removed part of his neck muscles and gave him radiation and chemotherapy, his wife said. The treatment left him with a weakened arm and the radiation caused scarring that eventually closed his esophagus; but for almost two decades, Lavin exercised and ate healthy to get stronger, she said.
The son of an NYPD officer, he got his first job as an ambulance driver as a teenager and later became an advanced emergency medical technician and volunteer for the Long Beach Fire Department, family members said. After he retired, he worked as a Hempstead Town bay constable and a medic on the beach in Long Beach, they said.
When he wasn’t surfing or working, Lavin used his souped-up van as a "man cave," where he listened to podcasts, pondered his faith and read, his family said.
He had put in a bed, two captain's chairs and a refrigerator for a comfortable rest outside Central Booking, where fellow officers would be nodding off in hard chairs waiting for their prisoners to be processed, retired colleagues said.
It was just one example of Lavin’s will and brains, family and friends said.
Once, when he fell off his bike and broke six ribs, he decided not to go to the hospital and make a big deal that would ruin the Fourth of July celebration for visiting relatives, said his sister, Patty Riely, of Ashton, Maryland.
Despite his cancer-weakened side, Superstorm Sandy in 2012 was no match for him; he swam through the streets of Long Beach to his parents’ house, his sister said. He then swam back to his home, which had no power.
" 'Let me just think and figure it out,' " he’d say often, his sister recalled. And "he would ... He was a force to contend with."
Besides his wife and sister, he is survived by a daughter, Sarah Lavin, of Long Beach.
A service was held April 14 at St. Mary of the Isle Roman Catholic Church in Long Beach, followed by burial at Queen of Peace Cemetery in Old Westbury.
At the height of the crack epidemic in New York City, surfer dude Brian Lavin got so good as a city housing cop that drug dealers took a break when he was on duty, former colleagues said.
He was affectionately nicknamed Sneaky by residents of the Fiorentino Plaza in Brooklyn's East New York, where he worked his foot beat by himself, said retired partner Bobby Schulman. He’d lean against the building to hear tips whispered through windows opened just a crack, he said. He’d monitor street deals with an eagle’s eye view from the roof and empty apartments, his family said. At night, older residents would sit in the courtyard only if Lavin was working, Schulman said.
"When he was around, everybody was safe. When he wasn’t there, it was like a hellhole," Schulman said.
Lavin died of a 9/11-related illness on April 6, almost 23 years after retiring as an NYPD detective sergeant in the 63rd Precinct, his family said. The Long Beach resident was 63.
When Lavin was reassigned to a plainclothes detail, Fiorentino Plaza residents gave him a party and a police service award, more meaningful to him than his 44 NYPD honors, including four commendations, family and friends said.
Retired NYPD colleague Frank Ciccone said people trusted him. "Brian understood the needs of the community and he was able to relay that to the people."
Lavin, who also worked in the 60th Precinct, spent the major part of his last year in the NYPD as a 9/11 responder. For months, he searched for the remains of people and evidence in the Ground Zero rubble taken to the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island.
"It was traumatic for him if he found pictures of their children," said his wife, Marilyn Lavin. "I know Brian had some post-traumatic stress disorder and some anxiety. But he dealt with it in his own way, with his family."
The time spent in the hellish landscape led to his throat and neck cancer, diagnosed in 2007, family members said.
Doctors took out his tonsils, removed part of his neck muscles and gave him radiation and chemotherapy, his wife said. The treatment left him with a weakened arm and the radiation caused scarring that eventually closed his esophagus; but for almost two decades, Lavin exercised and ate healthy to get stronger, she said.
The son of an NYPD officer, he got his first job as an ambulance driver as a teenager and later became an advanced emergency medical technician and volunteer for the Long Beach Fire Department, family members said. After he retired, he worked as a Hempstead Town bay constable and a medic on the beach in Long Beach, they said.
When he wasn’t surfing or working, Lavin used his souped-up van as a "man cave," where he listened to podcasts, pondered his faith and read, his family said.
He had put in a bed, two captain's chairs and a refrigerator for a comfortable rest outside Central Booking, where fellow officers would be nodding off in hard chairs waiting for their prisoners to be processed, retired colleagues said.
It was just one example of Lavin’s will and brains, family and friends said.
Once, when he fell off his bike and broke six ribs, he decided not to go to the hospital and make a big deal that would ruin the Fourth of July celebration for visiting relatives, said his sister, Patty Riely, of Ashton, Maryland.
Despite his cancer-weakened side, Superstorm Sandy in 2012 was no match for him; he swam through the streets of Long Beach to his parents’ house, his sister said. He then swam back to his home, which had no power.
" 'Let me just think and figure it out,' " he’d say often, his sister recalled. And "he would ... He was a force to contend with."
Besides his wife and sister, he is survived by a daughter, Sarah Lavin, of Long Beach.
A service was held April 14 at St. Mary of the Isle Roman Catholic Church in Long Beach, followed by burial at Queen of Peace Cemetery in Old Westbury.
