Granted there are fewer of them every year, but some cops like their jobs so much they postpone retirement as long as possible. Others put in their papers exactly at the toll of 20 and, by their own admission, need quite some time to adjust to civilian life. Then there’s Vinny Krill, a veteran instructor at the Rodman’s Neck range. When his time came, he put in his papers, had his retirement dinner — and while still counting off his terminal leave, changed his mind!

“If I get through a week without somebody saying he wants his money back for the dinner,” he laughs, “it’s a good week.”

Why the change of heart? “I just like it up here too much. You have a real opportunity not just to say, ‘Do it this way, do it that way,’ but to affect the caliber of cop in the city.”

That’s caliber literally. Aside from teaching, Krill’s duties since being assigned to the range in April 1989 have included presiding over the gun shop, conducting inventories of and ordering ammunition, and contributing to general research and development. That’s a long way for the 48-year-old South Bronx native from the neighborhood movie houses and living room TV sets that initially attracted him to police work. “What can I say? Lots of cops had brothers and fathers and uncles in the Department, but I didn’t. I really got into it through the movies and TV shows. The cops you saw on the screen seemed to be helping people, and that was for me.”

Krill’s move to the range followed seven years in the streets of the Bronx in the 1980s, most prominently at the 40 Pct. both on patrol and with anti-crime. “Call it odd, call it lucky,” he says, “but I never had to use my gun and I was never shot at. But you picked up plenty of knowledge about guns, anyway. Every day was a new lesson.”

Some lessons ended up as part of NYPD firearms regulations, and Krill won’t be leading protests against them any time soon. “You get guys objecting to the ban on unauthorized holsters, for instance. They like clipping them inside their pants. But there’s a reason that’s dangerous. The clip can get worn. You can pull your weapon and end up pulling out the holster with it. That may just add up to seconds on the clock, but it could mean the difference between life and death. Holsters should be attached to belt loops, over and out.”

According to Krill, though, even unauthorized inside holsters are a model of sophistication compared to some things he saw in his time at the 40. “You had some old-timers, you couldn’t teach them anything. They’d been doing it their way for years and they were going to keep doing it until they retired. There was one guy in particular. Know where he held his weapon? In a paper bag! Know where he kept the bag? In his back pocket!”

If that seems like ancient history now, Krill wants to keep it that way. “The biggest difference you’ve had in service firearms over the years is in more ammo capacity and in the speed and ease of reloading. But that also makes for more of a sense of responsibility in the police officer. He and she have to know what they are doing, no shortcuts.”

Are there signs within Academy classes of who is more likely to seek a shortcut?

Krill hesitates, concerned about propagating stereotypes. Then: “Let’s say there are a couple of things that no longer surprise me when it comes to guns. Women, for example, usually turn out to be easier to teach because they don’t have this big machismo thing going in. They’re here to learn, not to worry about their image. And by the same token, guys with military experience can sometimes be tougher. On the one hand, they’ve got a leg up on the recruits in off the street. But that could also mean they’ve picked up bad habits or have more of that macho self-image. You can end up spending almost as much time untraining somebody like that as training him.”

Something else that has ceased to surprise Krill after so many years in the classroom and on the ranges is the mental dread so many recruits bring to weaponry training. “Obviously, it’s not there as a problem with people who have military experience, but there’s an actual fear of firearms. The psychological adjustment requires constant adjustment, by the teacher as much as the student. The good teacher simply can’t afford to forget that what these people are thinking is, ‘Oh, here for the first time in my life I have something in my hand that can kill or seriously hurt a person.’ If you don’t realize that’s what’s going through his head, you shouldn’t be teaching him anything.”

Which is not to say that all of the recruit’s range problems are mental. “Physical coordination,” smiles Krill, “isn’t something that was handed out to everybody in equal shares. That’s why we have the Trigger Pull test. You have to learn what to do with all your fingers, not just the one on the trigger, and some people — not many, but some — can’t get the hang of it.”

There’s also no denying that both the mental and physical problems get magnified when it comes to bigger weapons than the service Glock. “If there’s one piece that intimidates everybody the first time we take it out, it’s the shotgun. Maybe everybody’s seen too many of those movies where you fire it and end up flying across the room. The trouble is, something like that can really happen if you don’t fire a shotgun properly. It has a heavy recoil and you know what? It can hurt!”

Ask Krill the number one problem with weaponry within the NYPD. and he doesn’t have to think twice. “Maintenance, no doubt. You can get mechanical things here and there, but over and over again, you end up going back to the failure to clean and lubricate the firearm. One of the more common problems, for example, is when the magazine spring gets compressed. Well, most of that would be avoided if you stripped the magazine when you weren’t using the gun. But too many cops just think about quitting time and whatever they’ve got planned and leave their weapon with the magazine filled. They haven’t invented the spring yet that’s going to bear that weight 24 hours a day forever.”

If he could change one thing at the range?

“So much of it seems to come down to money. We really need more state-of-the-art equipment, especially in the classroom. But whenever you ask for this or that, the way some smaller police force somewhere else has it, all you hear is something about the budget not allowing it. You don’t like to get melodramatic, but you can’t budget lives.”

Krill is aware that his many years at Rodman’s Neck have promoted him from a mere veteran to a venerable presence. “Guys come back here for re-qualification,” he says, “and it’s always the same thing — ‘You still here?’ But that’s okay. There are times, honestly, when I’m tempted to think of myself as a teacher more than a cop. But then I think of the people who pushed me when I was coming through in the early years — guys like Frank DiMario and Bill Stagnitta and Gene Maloney — and I don’t think I ever stopped thinking of them as cops.”

Now a resident of Orange County, Krill spends a lot of his free time hunting and cycle racing. There’s also the small business of a family that includes a 21-year-old daughter and two teenage boys. “The youngest, he’s 16, he’s been making noises about wanting to be a cop,” Krill says. “Me? I discourage him. The pay alone is reason. But then I just want him to be happy whatever he does. I’ve been happy for 23 years. Why you going to discourage other people from finding it their own way?”
— Donald Dewey