I’ve reviewed a couple of movies in my life, and have done numerous reviews of live performances, ranging from Eric Clapton to Stephane Grappelli, but I haven’t done a book review since high school.
Until today. My good and long-time friend, Jim Phillips, who owns Phillips Publications, has penned “Camden: Four decades on the streets of America’s toughest city.”
When not publishing fascinating books, Phillips spent most of his police career as a tactical cop for the Camden police department. He retired in 2009.
His book is filled with vignettes of his nearly forty years on the street. Most he was involved with or personally knew about. Some have been passed down in the city or the department.
The book is fascinating and, even at a heavy 348 pages, is a great and fast read (mostly because it’s hard to put down.)
Another reason it’s easy to read is that Jim didn’t write his book in chronological order. Each chapter is a separate story and each could stand by itself, pretty much.
I think this is a great way to tell one’s tale — I’m writing a book and that’s how I started it back in 2013. Vignettes. I’m full of stories and colleagues would continually say, “You should write a book.” So, I am. And I’m doing it in this manner.
Among Jim’s tales is the one where he gets attacked by druggies and gets injured. At first, he figured his nose was broken, but he managed to get his attackers under arrest. By the time he was rushed to the hospital, Phillips realizes one of his attackers had laid the cop’s face open with a box cutter.
Phillips was first cop to sue an attacker and win — although winning a judgment against criminals doesn’t mean he collected much.
Phillips is not kind to some of his chiefs in the book, including the current leader of the county police force.
Jim said he’s heard rumors the chief has threatened discipline against anyone found with a copy of the book.
I can’t recall exactly how I met Jim back in the late 1980s, but we had some interesting times. He convinced me I should attend the Soldier of Fortune Magazine convention in Las Vegas in 1988 — I got two columns and a
feature story out of it.
I rode with him one night in Camden, with the photographer Allen Oliver. Every time Phillips would stop to briefly get out of his car, he’d stuff his spare pistol, a Sig P-226 9mm, between the seats — for me. He knew I could shoot and didn’t want to leave us unprotected in the patrol car.
Late in his shift, there came a call for an Uzi battle. He trounced on the gas and handed me his Sig. “I think you should hold on to this,” he said.
A week before the night I rode along, there had been an attempt to kill one of Camden’s drug lords. It failed.
During the night, the wounded drug lord called an ambulance because his leg wound was acting up. We pulled up to his house as the guy limped out on one crutch to the ambulance.
The photog asked, “Do we want a shot?” “Sure,” I replied.
Allen put the Nikon to his face and started snapping. It was as if someone had stuck a cattle prod in the drug lord’s wound. He jumped and swirled and, as he passed me, said in a gravelly whisper, “I’m gonna remember your
face.”
I asked Jim Phillips if that constituted a threat.
“I’d say so,” Jim answered.
My Closest Companion the next day bought me a pair of glasses with a fake nose and moustache attached.
“It’s a disguise,” she explained, “for the next time you have to go to Camden.”
I went to Camden to pick up my autographed copy of “Camden.”
I forgot all about the disguise.
(To purchase a copy of the book, contact Jim at Phillips Publications
Inc., P.O. Box 168, Williamstown, NJ 08094, 609-567-0695,
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
