QUEENS — Capt. Robert Ramos, who was recently appointed as commanding officer of 112th Precinct in Forest Hills, says the decision to become a police officer was obvious — it runs in the family.
His father, Anthony, was a sergeant in Brooklyn and two of his four brothers also became police officers — one, Tom, serves in Newburgh, New York, and the other, Rich, joined the NYPD at the same time as he did.
“My father kind of persuaded us towards that career and it was a great decision,” said Ramos, 49, who was born in East Flatbush, but raised in Rockland County, where he still lives.
He attended the Police Academy when he was 20, where he immediately realized that “this was something I wanted to do,” he said.
“The training was excellent,” said Ramos who after graduating from the Academy was assigned to the 23rd Precinct in East Harlem, where he worked for almost a decade, while his brother was assigned to work in The Bronx.
“I like the job, I like working with the community, I like working with the cops,” said Ramos who was tapped to become the commanding officer of the 112th Precinct in May, after the previous commander, Deputy Inspector Judith Harrison was reassigned to take over the 109th Precinct in Flushing.
Ramos said that in nearly three decades of working for the department, he's encountered many dangerous situations, including several instances where he was scuffling with criminals holding guns in their hands.
But he has never regretted his career choice. The opportunity to help other people always outweighed the risks that came with the job, which he said requires good communication and problem-solving skills. But police officers, he said, also need to be able to show sympathy and empathy to those they encounter.
He still remembers the arrest he and his colleagues made in Parkchester in the late 1980s, when they busted a man who robbed more than a dozen elderly women, after roughing them up.
“He didn’t have to do that,” he said, adding that he was happy to learn later that the man received a lengthy prison sentence.
Ramos also worked at the 43rd Precinct in The Bronx after being promoted to sergeant in 1997.
In 2001, he was promoted to lieutenant and got assigned to the 33rd Precinct in Washington Heights where he worked until 2007 as the special operations lieutenant, supervising a number of specialty units, including the domestic violence, street narcotics enforcement and community policing units.
After he was promoted again in 2007, this time to the rank of captain, he became the executive officer in the 69th Precinct in Brooklyn, and then went back to the 43rd Precinct in The Bronx before being reassigned to the 45th Precinct, also in The Bronx.
Before getting his new job in the 112th Precinct — his first assignment in Queens — Ramos, a diehard New York Yankees fan, also served as commanding officer the Yankee Stadium police detail for 4 years.
“That was a good detail,” he said. “It was different. It was a lot of fun.”
He was able to catch a glimpse of several games while juggling his numerous duties, but he has never had a chance to meet any of the players.
He jokes that he may get a better chance of meeting celebrities while working in the 112th Precinct, during the outdoor concert series at the Forest Hills Stadium.
He hopes that The Who, one of his favorite bands, will at some point return yet again to Queens, where they've played twice.
Ramos is also a family man who spends most of his weekends with his wife, watching their two teenage daughters play softball.
"Every weekend is some sort of tournament so we are going all over the place," said Ramos. "I love it. It's great."
But, he joked, sometimes work can be a welcome escape.
“I come to work to stay sane — I have two teenage girls in the house!"
While crime in the 112th Precinct is among the lowest in the city, Ramos said his goal is to address the issues that local residents care about most, such as dangerous traffic conditions along Queens Boulevard and trucks illegally parking along the Grand Central Parkway service road.
As he welcomes the new challenges, he said he already embraced his new job.
“I’ve been here for slightly over a month and it’s a great neighborhood,” he said. “It’s a community [where people] support us a lot and it’s a great place to work.”
