I had become a regular at the same bar where the Mid Town NYPD drank. It was across the street from the YMCA where I periodically stayed in the early days of living in the city as I got established, and it had a pool table with good players. I began stopping by regularly after getting "wilded" walking down 8th Ave from Central Park*. Smelling the Daisy's one evening after chatting up a really interesting woman over Diner at 59th street pub, I was walking on clouds oblivious to everything when six punks came out of nowhere. Bang one to the Jaw and I went down, then I got kicked once or twice before they were run off by a couple of really astute officers who were following them around town so as to be there to intercede. After that I always bought a drink when I ran into an NYPD, and have said "Sir" ever since. They had saved my bacon big time.
I had gotten friendly with a midtown detective who was a competative pool player for me, and we began swapping stories. I think he enjoyed a civilian who could actually match him story for story, and when I threw in Cambodia, occasionally best him. Still his stories of coming on shift and "taking back the street" in the area directly surrounding the Garden gave me a run for my money. Especially when, during a return visit to the bar on a NY stopover, I ran into him and he began to talk about the investigation of that horrible arson incident in the Subway. He described the device in detail, and the horrible injuries it had caused. He was dumbfounded by the combination of high tech and cruelty. I think that aspect of it really shook him. "Why in God's name would someone do something like that" he said to me.
It took me a while to put the pieces together, but later I returned to the Bar with the Photo of Dettling holding the bat. My friend was not there that day, but soon every Cop in the Place went ballistic. I could feel thirty pairs of eyes through the back of my shirt. I had cops scrambling to follow me, when a little drunk and with a "hell with it" attitude I slipped outside for a joint with three obvious tails keeping an eye on me. They had all also heard the story, and they called their supervisors... I set a book of Photos on the bar and the off-duty bartender snapped it away and let me know in no uncertain terms I wasn't getting it back... I smiled and said "No problem that's your copy, that's why I came here". Their supervisor, or commissioner or some such, arrived on the scene, called due to the photo, looked carefully at the book and then with real respect, politely asked if he could keep it. Later I looked at the bartender and said "Did I get it where it needed to go" and he said "Yes". I think he comped me a whiskey at that point.
Understand the sequence. I befriend the Detective in 1990. The photo is snapped with Dettling two years later, but I don't have any idea what it is about in 1992 ("Burn Baby Burn"). The attack hasn't happened yet. My friend then later tells me the story near the time of the actual attack two years later around 1994/5. Back on the east Coast again, five years after that I get the photo from Michael Hren (before he disappeared) then realize it matches my friends story. Later still, I take it back to the bar where an involved detective goes ballistic at the first look of the hand carved wooden bat and gauze and "the crowd, or bar, goes wild :) )". In the subway attack the gauze was soaked in one chemical, then submerged in a bucket full of another chemical, when the bat is then removed and hits the air, it explodes in a spitting burning metal fireball... My friend had told me the kid had been permanently paralyzed by the attack.
It doesn't seem to make sense. It strains credibility past the breakpoint. Its beyond the outer limits. But if you doubt my version, go the bar and get your own, it will match.
...the bar was located in the middle of the block between 33 and 34, a block of two story buildings. A greek breakfast joint sat on the corner of 34, a shiny metal diner on the corner of 33, a parking lot after the diner and the ten story YMCA was directly across 8th Avenue (9th Avenue?). Anyone hurriedly investigating events due to the Ramsey issue should have no problem finding it, and no problem finding someone there, I suspect, who would recall it well. It was at the time of and tangentially related to flight 900. The story of the FC Pin left me seriously considering the features of the 900 incident. There is too much more to tell to get it done quickly, just trying to flush a few extras for the recently curious :)
* I suspect but can not really know that they were the ones later charged in the Central Park case, they were obviously well known to NYPD and would have been immediate suspects.
This is just one of the Paranormal Events surrounding
King Solomon's Gate
The first
Archaeological Proof of King Solomon's Life
Documentary Sources:Beyond the "Chi Rho" Photo, few Documentary sources exist for this story at the present time, altho I will be working to develop them. A trip to the NYC Bar should do it, assuming its still an NYPD Hangout. I suspect there may be an additional story in the Wilding Incident but it is only a suspicion, it occurred near the time of the Central Park Jogger. With Gate events you eventually learn to look under every Rock :)