Earl, You Make Me Mellow – Saluting Retired Sergeant Earl Mellow

There’s mountain ranges to like about Police Chief Roderick Porter. He salutes folks who put on the uniform then and now.

As the chief notes on the PD Facebook page: “Retired Sergeant Earl Mellow Sr. is the latest one of this year’s BPD legends honorees, stopped by to visit and pick up his identification. He shared some incredible detective investigation stories from his service years, 1964-1988. Thank you for your dedication and service, Earl!”

Well, here’s my story that also has the added benefit of being true.

This old brain, once young, isn’t so polluted with damaged cells to recall the sources of my journalism youth. (I’m open to second opinions, of course.)

Entranced by the guys and dolls of Bridgeport, I was fortunate to walk into the newsroom of the Bridgeport Post-Telegram – predecessor of the Connecticut Post – in 1976, 17 years old, the passage way navigated by my high school guidance counselor Charlotte Rosen who, thankfully, negotiated an internship for me.

Talk about lamb to slaughter.

I hadn’t a clue.

Typical those days I started at the obituary desk, the phones a constant harangue. No cell phones, no computers, no internet. No nothin.’ Just an Underwood typewriter with hunt-and-peck survival. (I don’t know home row key typing.)

A hard phone line, a terrified kid and his wits. Those days I prevailed upon the toughest insider I knew, Police Inspector Anthony “Tony” Fabrizi, as cops go he was Promethean, rapier-shaped with steely eyes that could cut off your cashews, if you were on his bad side. Tuff Tony? Yeah, he was all of that and more.

Back then Joe Walsh was top cop. Tony was de facto next in line. I knew him as a kid, he was friends with my family. I relied on him so much that many thought I was his nephew. Uncle Tony? I had no problem with that. It was street cred Italian stuff.

Fact was and still is, he’s the late uncle of former Mayor John Fabrizi.

I was terrified to ask Tony Fabrizi anything for fear of the answer. He had an engaging side but I also witnessed the tough Tony side. One day, nearly 50 years ago, I ask, (gulp) I’m new to this journalism thing, can you introduce me to the ladies of the night because I’m intrigued about surviving in that lifestyle. They walk Middle Street every night (the red light district) awaiting White suburban johns in front of the post office. One way or another you gotta deliver, right?

He beckoned me to his office on Congress Street.

Okay, you want to interview prostitutes for an inside story?

Yeah, I’ve never met one.

Fabrizi summons Earl Mellow, a cordial detective assigned to Fabrizi who supervised vice.

(Now, back in the day when I worked it the Bridgeport PD was a White men’s world with just a handful of Black and Brown cops. In the late 1970s it was Ted Meekins, Earl Mellow and a few others.)

Earl, he’s writing a story about the lifestyle of prostitutes. Introduce him to them.

Which ones?

You figured it out!

What if they say no?

Tell them they will do so on my good will!

Fabrizi’s words emblazoned my brain. “My good will.”

I had never heard that declaration in such a way.

Translation: give this kid interviews and they keep doing business without major interruption.

So I got to know Earl Mellow that day and many days after. He was always accommodating, accessible, showing me about his life working the streets. And he introduced me to several women who lived that life, all circumspect.

I don’t need to know your name. I just seek information.

They all looked at Earl Mellow.

Why? they asked, the publicity meant nothing to them. What’s in it for me?

Earl replied: it’s the price of doing business.