Published: March 21, 2007 09:59 pm      

NIAGARA FALLS: End of an era for police department

The dean of Falls cops calls it a career, as “Bobby” Gee heads to retirement

For veteran Falls Police Officer Robert “Bobby” Gee, Friday was a pretty good day.

Police Superintendent John Chella took him to breakfast while his partner and fellow range officer Tom Licata brought him a birthday cake from his favorite bakery. You see, Friday was his 60th birthday.

There was also a steady stream of people filing into the range to wish him well. Everyone from retired cops to rookie cops, from City Court staffers to the Public Safety Building maintenance man made their in to not only wish Gee a happy birthday, but to say goodbye.

After 36 years and 7 months on the beat, Gee was taking off his badge and hanging up his gunbelt for the final time.

“Gee, Gee, you can’t go Gee, you’re the king,” said maintenance man Ernie Bivins. “What are we gonna do without you Gee? You can’t go.”

Officer William Caso walked in and said, “Where is it?”

Gee turned and handed him a small envelope. Inside was his police badge, identified by its number, 1.

Caso walked out.

No turning back now, the badge will become part of retirement plaque he’ll receive at a party in his honor on Saturday night. Even his gear began disappearing before his final shift came to an end.

His daughter Marsha, also a Falls police officer, held up a pair of handcuffs.

“You’re not going to need these, are you,” she asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” Gee replied.

In an instant, Marsha was engraving her name on the cuffs and taking them to use on her gunbelt. Gee just smiled.

“You can take my (utility) bag if you want,” he said laughing.

It’s been quite a ride for the boy who grew up in the North End, graduated from Niagara Falls High School in 1965, went into the Navy and came home not wanting to be a cop, but a firefighter.

“My uncle was a battalion chief in the Falls fire department,” Gee said, “and I was a firefighter in the Navy. I did crash firefighting. I figured it would be natural to come on the (Falls) fire department.”

After four years of battling blazes involving crashing planes on an aircraft carrier, Gee was ready do a similar job in his hometown. There was just one catch.

“I went to City Hall and the Civil Service clerk tells me there’s no firefighter exam for two years,” Gee said. “But their was a police officer exam in three months.”

The clerk’s advice to Gee was to take the police officer exam, join that department and take the firefighter exam when it was available and transfer in. So that’s what Gee did.

He ended up tied for the highest score on the exam and quickly got a call from the city.

“I went to the police academy, got on the job and never took the firefighter exam,” he said. “I loved being a cop.”

The veteran of almost four decades on the job says the role of “policemen” has changed dramatically over the years. When he started on the job, hitting the street literally meant being on the street.

“You would have a beat, mostly a walking beat and you fended for yourself for eight hours,” Gee said. “You took care of the people on your beat and they took care of you.”

With all the talk these days about community policing, Gee says, that’s really what old-time cops did.

“There was a much larger rapport with the community (when he first started),” he said. “Sometimes people would call you at home if they needed help. The reason I have the rapport I have with the community is because I had a walking beat for four years.”

There is no denying that Gee is both well-known and well-liked in the community. Mention his name in the North or South ends and people invariably smile and tell you a story about meeting him on the street.

Bivins recalled Gee from his days as a youth in the Highland Avenue area.

“Gee, you and (retired Detective James) Lincoln, you were the good guys,” Bivins said. “I remember when you’d be out there (on patrol).”

Gee said even when he left his walking beat for a patrol car, he still tried to stay close to the community.

“I carried over (close contact) when I went to patrol,” he recalled. “I didn’t think twice about stopping at the hot dog cart on Highland and having a crowd gather. That’s how people get to know and trust you.”

Nowadays, Gee says, he tries to tell young officers to take that kind of time to learn the neighborhoods they are assigned to protect. He isn’t sure his message is being heard.

“Guys nowadays, they just drive by and don’t get out of the car,” he says with a shrug of his shoulders.

He waxes nostalgic about the Falls of the early 1970s. His first beat was East Falls Street.

“Falls Street was the premier beat,” he says proudly. “You had the hookers, the speakeasies, the restaurants. There were a lot people. There were fights and stabbings and shootings. (Because of the danger), you always worked with two guys on foot and two guys in cars 47 and 50.”

But as much as Gee liked the action on the streets, he had another passion too. He loved to shoot.

“When I first came on the job, I wanted to get as much practice (shooting) as I could,” he recalled. “So I’d come in and bring coffee for the range instructors to get extra time on the range.”

The passion and the practice paid off and Gee became the department’s range officer. From his years on the streets, Gee said he knew the knowing who to shoot and both when and when not to shoot could some day be the difference in a cop going home to his family at the end of his shift.

Fellow range officer Licata chimes in with a memory from his training with Gee.

“He used to say (to young officers he was training), somebody in this room, before they leave the job, will be involved in a violent shoot-out,” Licata said. “He just didn’t know it would be him.”

On Nov. 29, 2004, Gee and Officers Chuck Fink and Todd Faddoul came face to face to three violent gang members in the middle of a home invasion robbery on Pierce Avenue. The gangbangers ran out of the house, one of them, Jamar Mack, a 21-year-old member of the Bloods street gang from Buffalo, leveled a shotgun at the cops, firing twice and hitting Fink in his left shoulder and bullet-proof vest.

Gee returned the fire, hitting and killing Mack and wounded a second suspect with a bullet to his behind.

“You know, I remember my first instinct was I was mad that these guys were shooting at us,” Gee said, All the training, all the shooting in the police league, all of that prepared me. I had trained all my career for that day.”

After that, young officers, even veterans, paid closer attention to what Gee was telling them down on the range.

“It is one thing to talk it and another to live it,” Gee said. “You can talk the talk all day, but when you walk the walk, guys really listen.”

In addition to his time in patrol and on the range, Gee managed to cram in eight years in the Traffic Division doing accident investigations, riding a motorcycle and running radar. It was radar that lead him to encounter a priest from Niagara University who was traveling just a bit too fast on Lewiston Road one day.

“He said to me, ‘I’m a priest and I’m just staring work at Niagara University’,” Gee recalled. “I told him, ‘That’s all well and good father, but I’m a Lutheran.’ Without missing a beat he said to me, ‘Same God.’ and I said to him, ‘Have a nice day.’ ”

However, the light moments in the Traffic Division were offset with the grim reality of fatal accidents. A father and grandfather, Gee pauses and you can tell he’s remembering some of them.

“I had some bad fatality accidents,” he says slowly. “Some real bad ones and the worst part of the job was the accidents with kids. I would come on those nights and hug Marsha (his daughter who is now an officer). Any cop will tell you, accidents with kids are the worst.”

Starting this week, there won’t be any more bad memories made. To the contrary, Gee is looking to taking his retirement time and spending much of it with his two grandsons.

“I want to spend time with them,” he said. “Quality time, I want to get back to doing some hunting and take them with me. I want them to see the country and know what it’s like.”

He’ll still work a little, as chief of security for Family Dollar stores in the Falls. That will give his friends from the police force a chance to stay in touch by stopping by the stores.

“I’m going to miss the guys, I’m going to miss the camaraderie,” he said. “I totally lost interest in the fire department when I became a cop because I knew this was the place to be. We had that camaraderie and everybody looked after everybody else.”





The Bobby Gee Retirement Party

For folks who would like to say thanks and good luck, Bobby Gee’s family and friends will hold a retirement party in his honor on Saturday. Here are the details:

n WHAT: A retirement party for Bobby Gee

n WHERE: Antonio’s Restaurant at the Quality Inn, 7708 Niagara Falls Blvd.

n WHEN: Saturday, beginning at 6 p.m.

Tickets are $25 and are available by calling 286-4701 or 622-9496.