THE SAME BLUE UNIFORM, AN UNSETTLING NEW TERRAIN

DETECTIVES Patrick Divers and Al McCoy of the Brooklyn North narcotics
squad used to spend their days running buy-and-bust drug operations in
Bushwick. But lately, they have been doing different tasks; far different,
like searching for body parts in debris from the World Trade Center at the
Fresh Kills landfill, and escorting office workers to their buildings at
ground zero.

"The job I had before Sept. 11 no longer exists," said Detective Divers as
he worked Monday night at another unfamiliar task, keeping watch along with
hundreds of other officers outside Yankee Stadium during a playoff game.

Like other New Yorkers since Sept. 11, the police have been working long
hours, with 12-hour shifts the norm until recently. Like others, they
suffer from stress after the attacks; Detective McCoy talks in his sleep
about buildings collapsing and Detective Divers hears echoes from his
police radio on that tragic day. But some officers say that, for them,
Sept. 11 has altered the very meaning of their jobs.

Officers may be professionally stoic, but today's elusive threats are of a
different order.

"Duty keeps them going, but it's exhausting," said Donald Rosenberg, a
clinical psychologist who has been counseling police officers since 1973.
"They have that added burden of being on the front line, only it's a line
they can't even see anymore."

Part of that burden comes from a jittery public. M.T.A. officers at Grand
Central Terminal joke about alarmed reports of "two men in Afghan clothing"
and "a Middle Eastern man copying something down from a train schedule."

"But even the ones we know are not necessarily suspicious, we take
seriously for the benefit of the public," said one officer, who asked not
to be identified. "We have to respond to everything."

Well, not everything. That officer drew the line at a report of an Arab man
on a subway platform selling cinnamon sticks.

Oddly, another problem is sheer boredom. Officers stationed on subway
stations at the entrance to underwater tunnels have one simple instruction:
make sure no one enters. "There's nothing to do," said one officer,
assigned that lonely task at the Clark Street station in Brooklyn Heights.
"Sometimes you just walk around, check for anything."

Public attitudes toward the police have also shifted sharply. After
Monday's Yankee game, jubilant fans spilling out of the stadium chanted
"N.Y.P.D." to the rhythm of "Let's Go Yankees!" One burly man slapped an
even burlier officer on the shoulder and said softly: "Good job. I love you."

Police were split on how long the goodwill would last. "I've been a cop for
eight years," said Detective Kevin Branzetti, who works in western Harlem,
"and up until 30 days ago I've been spit on more times than I've been
thanked." Others thought some of the new respect would endure.

Even as police work edges back to normal, differences emerge. On Wednesday,
the Brooklyn North narcotics unit was back for its first full-team drug
operation since Sept. 11. They made arrests that morning and, by early
afternoon, Detective McCoy said, "It feels good to get back to work, to get
into the swing of things."

But Detective Luis Flores pointed out some abnormalities. The officers
coordinated their operation in front of a firehouse that had lost several
men. One suspect, surprised to see them after their long absence, asked,
"Don't you guys have something better to do at the World Trade Center?"

They soon will, as they are called back to ground zero or to another
12-hour shift at Fresh Kills. The landfill project, said Sgt. Thomas Nolan,
could last a year. "While everyone else is getting back to normalcy," he
said, "for cops it's not going to be back to normalcy for a long time."

Still, humor can peek through. On Monday at Yankee Stadium, a fan asked
Detectives Divers and McCoy if it was safe to go into the ballpark. "The
only thing you have to worry about," one of them replied, "is Clemens's
hamstring."