Joseph Walsh

Connecticut Post -- April 28, 2002

WHEN JOE WALSH DIED, SO DID A PART OF BRIDGEPORT

by Mike Daly

Dawn was breaking pink over the red brick bunkers of Father Panik Village and a Bridgeport patrol car prowled slowly along Martin Luther King Drive, known in Bridgeport in those notorious days, 1983, simply as "The Drive."

At 5:30 a.m., even Father Panik Village could seem peaceful, the shattered glass scattered about and the graffiti less ominous in the soft light of a June morning.

The two officers in Green 38 had just left the nearby corner of Arctic Street and Noble Avenue where other cops and an ambulance tended to a guy who'd been shot by one of three men who'd fled in a car into Father Panik.

Being a law and order guy myself, I'd normally have hoped the cops caught the guys. But sitting in the back seat of Green 38 that morning, as a reporter with about a half-hour left on this shift, I really hoped the confrontation with the guys in the car occurred some other day.

After all, I was to be the best man at a friend's wedding later that morning. I rationalized the knot in my stomach by the thought of how bitterly disappointed he'd have been if something went wrong in a shootout.

Earlier that week, it had seemed like a good idea to spend a Friday night-Saturday morning shift in a Bridgeport patrol car. It was an unusual Friday night, because all of Bridgeport's patrol cars were operated from midnight to noon by sergeants on up so as to free 278 patrolmen and detectives to take a Civil Service sergeant's exam on Saturday.

Driving Green 38 was Lt. John Formichella, then a 52-year-old 25-year veteran of the department. His partner was Police Supt. Joseph A. Walsh, then 67. It turned out it was a good idea, because between the stories -- Walsh and Formichella had one for every block -- the evening offered a glimpse of the aggravation and danger cops confront every night.

A sampling:

12:15 a.m. -- Green 38 responds to a report of a burglary in progress at an apartment building on Central Avenue. After talking with an agitated woman who made the call, Walsh and Formichella go out through a basement door to an alley behind the building. At the far end of the darkened alley a figure appears. There's a frozen split-second until everyone realizes it's another cop from a second car that responded.

1:27 a.m. -- The radio says go to Livingston Place where someone has hurled a rock through a house window. Green 38 arrives in about three minutes. "Where have you been?" an annoyed woman asks. She tells a tale of a daughter, a boyfriend, threats, harassment and so on.

2:15 a.m. -- Green 38 cruises on Huntington Turnpike. "Slow down," Walsh tells Formichella, who eases back. "Pull over," Walsh says. The car moves to the shoulder. Walsh rolls the window down. "Slower, he says." "Stop," he says. The car is now stopped in front of Walsh's house."

"Will ya look at that lawn," Walsh says.

The lawn, naturally, reminds him of a story. During the hot 1960s, he says people threatened him and his family. At the time he had a little lawn sign that read "Walsh."

"It became the standing story that each night before I went to bed I'd take the sign and stick in on the lawn of the old lady next door."

The rest of the night was a fitful series of long, quiet periods and sudden eruptions of action. Livingston Place exploded later, a boyfriend returning with a baseball bat and a gun. Noses were broken and two men were arrested.

Green 38 responded to an awful car crash on Huntington Turnpike, just a few blocks from Walsh's house. They shagged some johns off Middle Street downtown and bantered on the East Side with a young woman in hot pink toreador pants and some friends coming out of an after-hours club.

They never found the guys in Father Panik and I made it to the wedding. I met the groom, John Gilmore, a former reporter here, outside the church and we repaired to the nearby Bon Ton Lounge and Grill on Bridgeport's West Side for a celebratory pre-ceremony toast.

A fight broke out in the bar when a disgruntled patron -- not a part of the wedding party -- hurled a beer glass at the bartender. The patron left, as did the bartender, and there was some discussion that one or both might return with guns.

Gilmore and I sought sanctuary at St. Peter's Church. No gunfire interrupted the ceremony Those were different days indeed.

Joe Walsh died last Sunday at age 86. He had his friends and his detractors. None would disagree that a part of Bridgeport left with him.