Sick takedown

COVID-19 in late March. Through most of April, he was quarantined inside his home office, talking to his pregnant wife, Marissa, and 2-year-old son, Gabriel, over FaceTime, even though they were just down the hall from him.

Even though the 19-year NYPD veteran suffered a fever and felt like he had a 75-pound weight on his chest, Joel knew he couldn’t take a break, because criminals don’t.

“We knew that the bad guys weren’t staying home,” he said. “But as much as [the pandemic] was weighing on our minds it was weighing on their minds.”

As a result, the suspects took a whole new series of precautions.

“They would do buys with masks on and would wear gloves,” Joel said. Some of the gun sellers even wiped down and sprayed each firearm with Lysol after the undercover cops touched them to stop the spread, he remembered.

“They were very comfortable with our people,” Joel joked. “At one point, one of our undercovers sprayed a seller with Lysol when they were in the car together, but he just said, ‘I understand. It’s all good.’ ”

Joel’s investigation finally bore fruit late last month, when he and members of the NYPD’s gun violence suppression unit took down four suspects who were bringing guns up to the city from Virginia and sending them to the Ravenwood Houses in Astoria, Queens.

Nearly two dozen deadly weapons, along with high-capacity magazines and ammunition, were taken off the streets after the 10-month probe. After he was cleared to go back to work, Joel found himself back in uniform, working protests in the city over the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer in late May.

“Dave lived this case. He never missed a beat, even when he got COVID,” said Inspector Brian Gill, the commanding officer of the NYPD firearms suppression section. “He kept everyone in the loop, even briefing the Queens DA’s office while assigned to the protests. The guy is aces.”

It’s a good thing for the people of New York that Joel decided not to take the coronavirus sitting down.

“A lot of us take personal pride in our work,” he said. “Plus every gun we take off the streets could have been in someone’s hand and used to shoot a civilian, a cop or a little kid.”

His work is more important even now, as the city sees a 76% jump in shootings across the five boroughs.

“The more cases we do and the more successful we are, the fewer people get hurt,” Joel said.