A dozen reasons why Montreal cop Terry Gagné - who learned Yiddish and dressed as a woman - became a local legend

  Chronic dizziness forced Terry Gagné (1932-2000) into retirement in 1981 at age 49 but in his three decades of duty he built a larger-than-life legacy that endures.
   Gagné, who was Irish with a French name, started as a Canadian Pacific Railway security officer in 1952 before switching to the Outremont squad and then impressing a new set of colleagues when that force merged with the Montreal Urban Community squad in the early 1970s

Here are a dozen reasons why he stood out

1 - Bombs   Gagné was the man local cops called when they needed someone to march out of bed in his pajamas to dismantle a bomb. Not knowing what he was doing didn't stop him for tackling explosives.  "I can't put two flashlight batteries in properly. When you didn't know what you were doing, you pulled wires. You were so psyched up it didn't matter anyways."

2- Yiddish Local rabbis admired Gagné from a young age when he'd shovel their stairs and were  further impressed when he learned enough Yiddish to soothe anxious residents, including many elderly women."You have to treat every old woman like she was your own mother. You have to have a heart," he said.
 
 3- Bars Spent much time in bars cultivating informants. "Guys would knock on his door at 1 a.m for a beer and he'd drink with the guy and come in the morning with some information on a theft."

4- Work-ethic "If they pay you $26,000 you give them $35,000 worth."  Gagné's intensity irritated some union officials but colleagues loved him.  "He's a great man," his longtime partner and future Montreal police chief Jacques Duchesneau told reporter David Sherman for a 1981 newspaper profile.

5- Record Gagné and Duchesneau together cleared 106 cases in a week, a record. Those arrests included a crafty 72-year-old lock picker named The Dean.

6- Frugality Gagné's inner-ear condition was deemed not-work-related so he was put on leave and his $500 salary was bumped down to $140-a-week, barely enough for his wife and four kids. Nonetheless he'd spend his days helping cops through his special green phone that rang 10 times a day.

7- Priests Gagné was off duty eating a pizza in an Outremont restaurant when a thief dressed as a priest knocked over a nearby bank. After a scuffle,  the thief put a gun to Gagné's head and pulled the trigger. It misfired. The robber carjacked a truck and fled. Gagné took over another vehicle and chased the thief to Park and St. Joseph and apprehended the crook and recovered the bank's $50,000. The episode left him with nightmares of having a 9 mm automatic pressed against his skull.

8-Tattoo "He who trusts in himself is God. He who trusts in a woman is a fool," it read.

9-Beatdown As a cop he was once beaten repeatedly, once by soldiers which put him in hospital with bruises for 17 days. The soldiers were fined $40.

10- Cross-dressing Gagné once wandered around dressed as a woman, including full makeup, in an attempt to lure and arrest a man beating and robbing old women.

11- Family Gagné put family second. "I blew it. And I'd blow it again if I get the chance because I have a wonderful woman running the show. We made a deal - police work first."  The clan went on a single vacation but cut it short after seeing a suspect on the beach in Maine. The whole family hauled the criminal home.One Christmas the family got a gift-wrapped dead rat. Another time two men went into his son's schoolyard and kicked his six year old son Terry Jr. unconscious. Gagné was only told about it three years later.

 12  Pockets Gagné had a unique eye for recognizing a thief and could instantly see if someone was carrying a gun judging by the droop of a pistol in a pocket. After being sidelined from the force he taught at university and volunteered with local youth, an effort that led to about 50 young people joining the Montreal police.