New York’s Finest Answer a New Call : Organizations: Retired NYPD officers who moved to California have set up their own ‘10-13’ club to meet their social and emotional needs.

Theirs is an unspoken, unbreakable bond, a “blood brother” kinship nurtured 3,000 miles away on the streets of New York City.

For years, these four men--Joe Vanderhoff, Jerry Murphy, Frank Lamden and Jack Feehan--worked as New York City cops, patrolling some of most desolate and deadly neighborhoods in the Bronx, Manhattan and Brooklyn, handling everything from domestic violence and robberies to riots.

Then, when each retired from the New York City force and sought escape from the sweltering summers and freezing winters, the frenetic pace and the overwhelming blight, each moved West and resettled in Southern California to take on new jobs and start new lives.

“Living out here is like paradise, a Shangri-La,” said Murphy, 51, who served 22 years as a NYPD patrolman. “You know what? Every morning, I face Sacramento and kiss the ground.”

Despite his offhanded, jovial comment, Murphy, like the others, knows also that the memories of their days on the force can still haunt them--3,000 miles away.

Vanderhoff, 42, a patrolman who retired in 1980 after suffering line-of-duty injuries, put it this way: “All of us have seen enough blood and death and human suffering to last a lifetime. A lot of it never really leaves you.”

Which helps explain why these four Orange County men have become members of a highly specialized, little-known organization called the California 10-13 Club.

Indeed, in a society that seems to have a support group for virtually every conceivable cause, the California 10-13 Club is one of the most unusual yet: a group exclusively for retired officers of the New York City police force.

True, this 250-member club, whose members are mostly from San Diego, Orange and Los Angeles counties, has its social side--a time for rollicking, alumni-styled joking and remembering of good times.

But the club also serves a solemn role. Quietly and behind the scenes, the group acts as a support network for members in mental or physical distress, including those suffering traumas from having worked in one of the most harrowing of jobs.

This function of the club is written into the group’s name, “10-13,” which is the NYPD’s radio code for “officer needs assistance.”

“No matter who our guys are, no matter where they live,” Vanderhoff explained, “we answer their call for help--just as if we were still out there with them on the city streets.”

During all their years on the New York City force and their early years in Orange County, these four retired officers had never met.

“It’s not surprising when you think about it. I mean, New York is a big city, and we had 30,000 men on the force. And when you moved out here, the guys just seemed to vanish,” said Feehan, 58, who retired in 1972 as a sergeant after 18 years on the NYPD force.

Four years ago, Feehan and the others met when California 10-13 Club organizers, using a NYPD retiree roster, mailed club flyers throughout the state.

In fact, the biggest surprise for these police expatriates was the sizable numbers of retired officers found in California. Out of the 250 club members, 55 are in Orange County, 20 in Los Angeles County, 150 in San Diego County--the rest scattered as far as Northern California.

“I never thought there were that many out here,” said Lamden, 51, who spent 16 years as a NYPD patrolman. “You figure Florida, yeah, because that’s always been a New Yorker retiree colony. But not this far, not 3,000 miles away.”

Although the California 10-13 Club has grown steadily since 1986, particularly in San Diego and Orange counties, it is still overshadowed by the vastly larger memberships in New York State (10,000 members) and in Florida (6,000 members), where the first club was founded 12 years ago in the Palm Beach area.

“We’re still the only club network like this in the nation--one that is only for the retired members of a single city police department,” said California 10-13 Club president Norman Finkelstein, 47, of San Diego, a retired police lieutenant. (Prospective members can call him at (619) 232-1815; the next meeting is Sept. 9 at 10 a.m. in the El Toro Marine Corp Air Station officers club.).

The membership age range in California, typical of all the 10-13 clubs, is 40s to 80s. About a third work at other jobs, such as private attorneys--Finkelstein is one--as private or public investigators or as businessmen.

For example, Orange County member Feehan is a welfare-fraud investigator for Orange County. Murphy is a partner in a surveillance and legal services firm. Lamden is a private security guard. And Vanderhoff, who has worked as a federal Treasury investigator, is now studying law.

Like the other “10-13” clubs, the California group also serves as an advocate for improving retirement-benefit programs.

But it is as an emotional support group that the club has had its most poignant moments. The California contingent has provided 10-13 Club honor guards at funerals for members. It has assisted families of deceased members for things like housing relocation. It has kept in close touch with critically ill members, including those suffering from cancer, strokes or Alzheimer’s disease.

And there are the visits with members who have undergone major emotional disruptions that can be traced directly to the darkest memories from their time on the New York City beat.

“It’s no secret that this kind of mental stress can be devastating--the occupational hazard of just being a cop,” said Vanderhoff. “Our kind of job has resulted in one of the highest divorce, alcoholism and suicide rates of any field.”

“So we have (club members) who need one-on-one help--to be able to talk their problems out, to deal with them by sharing with other officers,” added Murphy.

Murphy remembers this kind of relentless stress all too well.

“You couldn’t escape it. It was all around you. The stabbings, the shootings, the bodies,” said Murphy. “But cops are like anyone else. After a while, all this takes its toll. You begin to hurt. You begin to bleed--mentally.”

Feehan depicted it this way: “You learned, emotionally, to try and throw up a protective wall. You tried to leave it when you got off your shift. But it became harder and harder to turn off. To really forget.

“I still have a lot of my old case notebooks,” he added. “But I never go through them. There’s too many bad memories in them--incidents that I want to put out of my mind.”

Vanderhoff still remembers with painfully vivid detail his involvement in four shoot-outs--especially the first one, after a taxi-garage holdup during which the dispatcher had been shot.

“We were chasing down the three guys. Each of them was armed. Then one of them stopped and fired right at me,” recalled Vanderhoff. “The bullet just grazed my head. It was that close. I fired back, killing him.”

For years, said Vanderhoff, “I had the feeling that I would never survive as a cop, that I would be killed in my 30s or 40s. I even had my cemetery plot all picked out--I was that sure. I never thought I would live long enough to retire.”

Today, 3,000 miles away, some of the memories of being police officers are now calmer, more personally rewarding for these California 10-13 Club members.

“I always felt we were doing something for the social good, for the whole community, despite all the digs some people have made about police. We had a real purpose,” said Lamden. “It was a feeling that stuck with you, a real sense of job satisfaction. It helped carry you through the bad days.”

For some, this sense of pride in being a cop showed in the job lineage. Vanderhoff wore the same shield (badge), No. 5348, that his paternal grandfather, Francis, also a NYPD patrolman, had worn.

Murphy’s two sons, Dennis, 27, and Timothy, 25, are on the New York City force, as well as Timothy’s wife, Anne Marie. And Dennis is wearing his father’s old shield, No. 8745.

Murphy’s feelings are mixed about this. “I was real proud of them because they picked my profession. It was reaffirmation for me and my profession--because I really loved that job,” he said.

At the same time, “I was furious when they told me they wanted to join the force,” Murphy said. “I had always wanted something better for them. Hell, I didn’t want them to go out on the streets . . . “

Such darker memories resurface whenever Murphy and the others read of a slain law enforcement officer.

This was the case last June , when Fullerton police officer Tommy De La Rosa, 43, an undercover narcotics agent, was shot to death in Downey in an ambush.

The funeral was attended by more than 5,000 fellow officers, including Murphy.

“Yeah, I wanted to be there,” said Murphy, who that day had proudly pinned his old NYPD No. 8745 to his dark civilian suit.

Quietly, Murphy added: “Sure, I had to be there--to represent the 10-13 Club guys. He was our blood brother, too.”