Detective Sergeant Johnny Moynihan: Cop & Coach

Here are a few fast facts about NYPD Detective Sergeant John Timothy “Johnny” Moynihan.

This past January, he began his 40th year of service. When he entered the Police Academy in 1986, Ed Koch was Mayor, Benjamin Ward was Police Commissioner, and the city tallied 1,384 murders for the year just past, an anomalously low number for the era, and one that would soon skyrocket.

Moynihan grew up in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx. He is a first-generation American, with seven siblings, including his brother Patrick, an NYPD Lieutenant. Numerous other relatives are also cops.

Both his parents are from Ireland, his mother from Galway; his father, from Kerry. They owned a bar called the Aqueduct on Fordham Road, while His Uncle Mickey was an Gaelic football player, whose exploits were often reported in the Irish Advocate newspaper. Moynihan’s education was thoroughly Catholic: Visitation grammar school, then Mount Saint Michael Academy high school, which has a strong NYPD tradition. Following his six months in the Police Academy, Moynihan continued his training with six months in NSU (Neighborhood Stabilization Unit) 5, covering four Upper Manhattan precincts.

“Most of the time we were assigned to the 34th Precinct, because it was very busy up there,” Moynihan recalled. It was during this time that Moynihan first met a young 34th Precinct Patrolman named Michael (Mike) Buczek, with the two becoming close friends when Moynihan was permanently assigned to the 34th Precinct.

Crime was on the rise. A 1987 article from The New York Times titled “Murders Soar in 21 Precincts,” delved into the neighborhood’s struggles: “The 34th Precinct in the Washington Heights section . . . where street dealing in crack has been pervasive, had the most murders of any precinct last year, 72, compared with 48 in 1985.”

Tragedy struck Moynihan’s precinct on October 18, 1988. Two NYPD officers were killed in the line of duty in two separate incidents, both in Manhattan. In the first, 26-year-old narcotics officer Christopher Hoban was shot to death during an undercover buy and bust operation. Around three hours later, Patrolman Michael Buczek was fatally shot by a drug dealer.

The subsequent dual funeral was the largest in NYPD history. Devastating as this event was, it was an opportunity for both families to preserve their sons’ ideals.

The Hobans sponsor a September running race in Bay Ridge that raises scholarship money for the children of police officers at Christopher’s alma mater, Xaverian High School.

The Buczeks, meanwhile, founded the Michael Buczek Little League in Washington Heights, a brilliant idea in a community full of baseball fanatics. Michael’s friend and colleague Johnny Moynihan stepped forward to run the league.

This was no small gesture. Moynihan was a young, full-time cop. The little league’s time commitment alone would be immense, while the pay was precisely zero. He would be a volunteer in the purest sense of the word. Moynihan did it—with the Buczeks’ stalwart support—because it was the right thing do: to give local kids and their families a safe and meaningful world away from the predatory drug trade that had filled so many lives with pain.

“Ninety-nine percent of the people up there are great, hardworking, honest people that want the same things everyone wants: a safe area for their children and parents and a better life for their families,” Moynihan said.

Year after year, decade after decade, Coach Moynihan, was there for the kids of Washington Heights. It wasn’t planned, but over time, the Buczek Little League became a de facto NYPD Hispanic officers recruitment center. Even as Moynihan’s career took him out of the 34th Precinct and, since 2011, to the Joint Terrorism Task Force, he returned to the ballfield on Fort George Avenue. By the mid-2010s, when the Little League started getting some media attention, 35 kids had become NYPD officers; today that number is over 50.

The only thing that could stop the Little League happened in early March 2020, when COVID hit.

Later that same month, the virus almost stopped Moynihan himself. With stubborn Irish resolve, the love of his wife, Aixa, and son, John, and the prayers of many friends, Moynihan recovered.

With Moynihan’s boy—himself a former Buczek Little Leaguer—about to graduate Albertus Magnus High School, Johnny the cop hopes to revive the league in 2026, and continue to exemplify its motto: “Building Major League Citizens One Game at a Time.”