NYPD Officer John Madigan

Nightwatcher? I don’t like ‘im. Not one bit. Yeah, he’s doin’ a lot to scare some o’ the low-life scum in this city straight. More than a lotta other vigilantes we’ve seen. An’ I can’t say that ain’t a good thing. But I don’t buy inta that bleedin’ heart crap that what he’s doin’ is justice.

Why? Hah! Why, he asks… What? D’ya think I’m all butthurt that he’s doin’ my job fer me? Is that it? It ain’t. Workin’ on the force as long as I have boy, you get to learnin’ that you can’t do it all yerself. Enforcin’ the law ain’t no one-man show, ya know. But ya gotta do things right. Or the law can’t work. And that’s what pisses me off about punks like the Nightwatcher. He don’t give a flyin’ fuck about crap like due process. D’ya know how hard it is to get a conviction when he leaves a bunch o’ scum danglin’ by their ankles?

Oh yeah, ya get all these morons who cry he’s leavin’ the crooks gift-wrapped for the cops. “Ain’t that so sweet of ‘im.” But that’s the damn problem! Take the case we had the other night. We find a whole gang of thugs danglin’ from a fire-escape, all neatly chained together along with half a dozen bags full o’ cash. Two blocks away there’s a bank vault with the side blown out of it. Seems fuckin’ obvious, don’t it? But we got no way of linking the crooks with the crime when we take ‘em down and into custody, see?

Even if it ever gets to court, the first thing the defence says is their “clients” were just walking down the street when some friggin’ lunatic grabs ‘em, ties ‘em up and frames them for some crime they didn’t commit just fer shits and giggles. And then the prosecution has gotta disprove that. And how the hell can they, eh? Without a trail of evidence, without some sorta tangible proof the cops had any right to actually suspect the fuckin’ crooks when they were left so kindly fer us to collect, they get away scot free. Or worse yet, with chargin’ us cops for wrongful arrest!

See, the ones the Nightwatcher manages to scare straight, they’re the low-level scum. Kids just muckin’ about, or small time hoods turnin’ ta crime outta desperation, or whatever. But gettin’ collared by the law usually does the same job for those ones. You don’t see ‘em comin’ back into the lock-up time after time.

But the serious crims, the ones that do this shit fer more than a livin’; they do it for fun… Murderin’ and rapin’ and fuckin’ people up. A bit of a rough up and a scare don’t do shit to stop them. If anythin’, it makes ‘em worse. Puts their back up, see. Gives ‘em somethin’ to prove.

The best place fer those scum, well the best place fer ‘em is six foot deep. But until the death penalty is back on the books in this state, the next best thing is to put ‘em behind bars. For as long as friggin’ possible. They won’t ever reform, that’s a load of pure bullshit. But keep ‘em off the streets, away from the good folk. And give ‘em as much chance as possible to do each other in, while they’re stewin’ in the pen.

And every time some punk vigilante like the Nightwatcher leaves one o’ those bastards danglin’ fer us, it makes puttin’ them away for keeps that much fuckin’ harder. Yeah, we always keep ‘em in the lock-up overnight “for their protection”. In other words, to give us a bit of time to scrape together whatever evidence we can to hold ‘em longer. And 24 hours often ain’t enough time fer that. ‘specially when you’re chasing down evidence for half a dozen different “offerings” from the Nightwatcher, on top of all the other crap us cops have to deal with. We do have our own cases to work on as well, ya know. It’s not like we just sit around twiddlin’ our thumbs waitin’ for some damn punk to do all our work fer us.

But 24 hours is the most we get, tops. And every time we have to let one o’ those bastards walk free is another opportunity they c'n wail “police harassment” to the jury when we do get ‘em into court fer somethin’. If it happens often enough, they get to knowin’ they can get away with murder. Fuckin’ literally. Shits me to tears, that does.

Nah, I have no friggin’ idea who the Nightwatcher is. I’da booked ‘im by now if I did. Yeah, I’ve seen ‘im in action a coupla times. Damn punk breaks just as many laws as those he’s chasin’ down a lotta o’ the time. Side-walks are fer walkin’. I don’t care how friggin’ “cool” his bike looks, that don’t give ‘im no special rights. This is the real world, not some fuckin’ comic book where wearin’ a damn mask an’ some black body armour is the same as carryin’ a badge.

And I reckon the Nightwatcher’s gotta be some kinda sicko. From what I’ve heard from the few punks who have seen his skin, it sounds like he paints himself green, or somethin’. Most o’ them punks carry on about ‘im being some sorta alien. Heh, bullshit.

But we had one kid who was dead-set the Nightwatcher was a turtle, and just wouldn’t shut up about it. Yeah, a fuckin’ turtle! We ended up having to put ‘im in solitary for his own good. Most street punks don’t like being accused of havin’ the shit beat outta them by some slow friggin’ pet reptile, see.

I don’t care who or what the fuck he is. If I get a clear shot at ‘im, I’m gonna take it. Kill him? What?! I’m no damn killer, boy! But if I c’n kneecap ‘im. Fuck up his leg enough to put a stop to all that fancy-pants dancin’ on rooftops shit the Nightwatcher pulls, I’ll consider that a damn good days’ work.