"This is like the police using Gestapo tactics, acting like cowboys," said Lyne Mosby, 55, a painter from Queens.

"These are Gestapo tactics," he said.

"No more Gestapo tactics?"

Take your Gestapo tactics somewhere else, Mr. Bruce.

You don't know our police, their Gestapo tactics.

The cattlemen accused him of using "Gestapo tactics," and some of the men said the situation nearly ended in a shootout.

"It's nothing but Gestapo tactics," said M. Goldstein, who said he works for the city and refused to give his first name.

If I tell people you used Gestapo tactics in the middle of the night. . . . Crime?

Leonore Russo, a grandmotherly woman from the neighborhood, chimed in, "They're using Gestapo tactics."