LEGEND: Detective Mike Cleary walks the beat Friday and gets the latest news (above) in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn, on his last day after two decades working the neighborhood where he grew up.
LEGEND: Detective Mike Cleary walks the beat Friday and gets the latest news (inset) in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn, on his last day after two decades working the neighborhood where he grew up. (Paul Martinka; Mike Cleary)
Brooklyn Detective Mike Cleary has walked his beat longer than some of his co-workers have been alive — and on Friday, the veteran took his final tour.
Known as the “Sheriff of Windsor Terrace,” the 50-year-old Cleary retired after 22 years on foot-patrol duty in the 72nd Precinct.
His last day involved a familiar stop: at Greenwood Deli for a cup of black coffee, a buttered roll and a bite of intelligence.
“We’re like his dispatch,” said owner Albert Sahlani, 47, who routinely takes messages from locals for the veteran cop.
“[Everyone says], ‘I’ve got to see Mike, I’ve got to talk to Mike,’ ” he added.
Cleary was born and raised in the area he was later charged with protecting.
“It’s a good neighborhood to live and grow up in, to raise a family in,” he told The Post in a walk-along during his last shift.
“You walk the beat, you get to know the people in the area, you build a lot of trust.”
Cleary gathers information as he walks, stopping at local businesses and offices to hear what’s going on.
“A lot of times when I go into the store, they say, ‘So and so left a message for you, here’s the number,’ ” Cleary said about Greenwood Deli.
“They’ll have information, complain about graffiti, complain that someone broke into a car. They’ll say, ‘I saw some guy riding up and down the block on a bicycle,’ ” he said.
He’s even picked up some Arabic to better talk to Sahlani.
“He lives here,” the deli owner said. “We’re going to lose a good man.”
When the former Immaculate Heart of Mary altar boy walks past row houses, residents drop their snow shovels to tell Cleary about a suspicious person they saw the other night or maybe a barking dog that’s been driving them crazy.
“You just feel safe when he’s around,” said Yolanda Treyman, 53, a local business owner.
In schools, children clamor to touch his vest, waving and yelling, “Hi, Mike!”
“I know everyone’s back yards from running around as a kid,” he said.
He joined the NYPD in 1985 and started out in Harlem’s 28th Precinct — and nearly lost his life after just five years on the job.
In August 1990, Cleary and his partner were chasing a suspect down Seventh Avenue near 111th Street when the thug pointed a Mac-10 submachine gun at him and pulled the trigger — but the safety was on and he failed to shoot the cops.
“I wouldn’t be standing here now,” Cleary said.
He returned to Windsor Terrace the following year, in 1991 — the heyday of community-based policing.
“Mike was the perfect beat cop — he was perfect for it,” said Andy McGoey, 67, a retired NYPD sergeant. “People trusted him. He’d bring a kid home to his parents, rather than lock him up.”
Instead of arresting juveniles for graffiti, Cleary would make them wash their tags off with hot water and write two-page essays about what they did wrong.
He once even brought a local teacher’s daughter home after catching her drinking in a park with some other kids.
The mother, Rosemary Sheehan, who teaches kindergarten at PS 154, later gave her daughter a picture of the cop for her birthday — complete with two raised fingers pointing at the girl and a look that said, “I’m watching you!”
Cleary often adjusted his tours to chase crime trends and make good collars, whether for car break-ins or burglaries.
Just recently, when a thief was snatching tires and rims around 4 a.m., Cleary told his captain he would like to begin his tours before dawn.
“It’s true dedication,” said 72nd Precinct Capt. James Grant. “He’s an exceptional guy.”