(A True Crime story from the Ocean Beach archives) ‘Night of the Ocean Beach Ninja’ ‘It was a dark and boring night’… in Ocean Beach, NY. Unless you’ve never been to Ocean Beach at night and on the back streets (behind the commercial district) than you know what dark is, however this was way past the Labor Day weekend, sometime in October when it’s considerably darker, pitch black, even in the middle of town. Joseph Loeffler was the town Sheriff, more in the Bonanza then the Gunsmoke mode, he even had a little Joe and Hoss (AJ) as sons. A crusty old courger if ever there was one (He drove M-4 Sherman tanks and M-18 Hellcat tank- destroyers, through Europe with Patton’s 3rd army during WWII), we were his deputies. Being the weekend there were only two of us, Jim Weik and myself on duty at the time, Jim was a rookie cutting his teeth on the beach (Jim went on to become an officer with the Suffolk County police departments 3rd precinct, Highway patrol, Special Patrol Bureau- Aviation section, where he now pilots helicopters). I worked some interesting places. As a draftee in the Vietnam War doing military police town patrol and undercover work, then onto New York State Correctional services as a ‘hack’ (prisoners term of endearment) for six years and now the Veterans Administration police which is my fulltime job, well before PTSD was treated (or even a concept-never mind part of the lexicon). We were left to our own devices when Rambo was having a bad day. There were a lot of bad days for the Vietnam veterans at Northport where they had no compunction at expressing their grievances in an untoward manner at the circumstances that life had presented them. No matter how much a vet acted out a portion of our heart bled for them. Finding myself at Ocean Beach was somewhat of a fluke. The VA police had offered the basic police officers course and 3 of us took them up on it getting off of work for six months to attend the police academy . This was considered extra training to acclimate us with the local police department functions, as we were fully qualified in our federal role. However since we were sponsored by a federal agency we would not receive a state police officers certificate, after a required one-week evaluation from a local department as the other attendees would receive upon graduation and completion of the evaluation phase. Hummm? That’s how I found myself at Ocean Beach, Hat in hand looking for a week’s work and evaluation thereof which turned into twenty years on a busman’s holiday. Well, I received the state certification the year before and was now a fully accredited and qualified Ocean Beach seasonal ‘Rent-A-Cop’ (another term of endearment). CJ’s was the only place open and it’s one outside light cast a soft warm glow reflecting in the street puddles after the storm. There were all of about six people, counting the bartender at CJ’s in town this night. A busy evening for this time of year if ever there was one. Suddenly at about 22 hundred hours (10 pm for civilians) the door to the police station opened and a soggy young man in his mid-twenties presented himself. He was unknown to either of us and upon eye contact had the look of a deer frozen in headlights. He blurted out his story in a soft but somewhat shaken voice…”I was just walking up Bayberry… when a Ninja jumped out of the tall bushes…and took two swipes at me with a sword!” Jimmy bust out laughing and runs into the back room? Whoa-Skippy, if I learned anything in life, it’s that even a schizophrenic’s word salad has a kernel of truth in it. This guy is shaken to the core and he doesn’t appear schizoid. “OK I’ll take your report sir, Jimmy get out there and look for the Ninja.” Off Jimmy went down Bayberry to hunt the mysterious sighting of the Ocean Beach Ninja as I took the police report. Twenty minutes passed the report was done and in hand. The complainant calmed down had departed. About 5 minutes more passed as the police radio crackled, it was Jimmy… ”He’s here…!” “Who?” “The Ninja” “Where?” “CJ’s, sword and all…having a beer with his mask down.” ‘Get his ass over here.” And so Jimmy schlepped the Ninja over to the police station from CJ’s, lending much currency to the complaints Ninja story which wasn’t an urban legend after all. After evaluating our ninja suspect, err…suspected-ninja (oh what the hell) and finding out that he wasn’t certified (but certifiable) in any of the martial arts nor had any color belts save the one that he had on and that he was the son of a local village, school employee. That no one was hurt, except for a few egos, the sword was impounded and a mental health follow-up was in order. The incident was duly noted on the police log and corresponding report, Mr. Ninja was released from custody with a court summons and a stern warning from us, the local Samurai’s ”Hey Jimbo, you thought that his complaint was funny What would have happened if it was you walking down Bayberry’s dark street and Mr. Ninja, not discerning that a cop was coming his way…jumped out of the bushes and took two swipes at you with his sword than running away. You would have been startled, maybe even drawn your gun as you’ve been trained to do probably popped off a round or two, missing the target in the dark under that kind of stress, than scouring the village for your Ninja, not finding him, now what do you do? Tell the chief? Is he going to laugh…I don’t think so.” There were no more sightings of Ninja’s that night nor alien abductions or Elvis sightings reported, thank goodness. Someone once asked me, “Why would you want to be a cop in Ocean Beach?” “Why would you want to be a cop anywhere else?”
Posted on: Wed, 07 Aug 2013 01:33:30 +0000
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