Word: serpico
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1971-1971
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...major undertaking. The Knapp Commission, headed by Whitman Knapp, a prestigious Wall Street lawyer, was formed last May after public pressure forced Mayor John Lindsay to take action. At that time it had little more to go on than the testimony of an honest cop named Frank Serpico. To try to get some corroboration of Serpico's tales of graft, the commission employed the services of a shadowy electronics buff, Teddy Ratnoff, who is famed for his sophisticated bugging techniques...
...Lindsay administration was slow to react. Four years ago, Sergeant David Durk and Patrolman Frank Serpico went to city hall with names and dates on how cops were being paid off. Lindsay would not see them for fear of undermining his police commissioner, Howard Leary. An aide explained that the mayor was worried about the approaching hot summer and did not want to do anything to antagonize the police...
...desperation, Serpico, Durk and a group of other officers went to the New York Times last year to tell their story. The editors were impressed and decided to publish it. Once public pressure began to build up, the mayor appointed the Knapp Commission, which got its initial information from the men Lindsay refused to meet. The commission rapped Lindsay for being partly to blame for the corruption and charged that Leary, who resigned as commissioner last September, has a "lot to answer for in failing to provide leadership in the field...
Real Disguise. Serpico says he is unhappy as an informer. Born to Italian immigrant parents in the tough Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, he grew up in awe of the policeman on the beat. "There was something about those shiny buttons, the white gloves, even the gun, that we all admired," he says. After two years of college and a year as a social worker, he joined the force in 1959. But Serpico never joined the club. He rarely spent off-duty time with coworkers, would not enter the "us and them" clannishness that leads many police to view...
Though the impact of the commission's upcoming report has yet to be felt, Serpico has little hope that anything will really change. He was given a long-overdue and much-desired promotion to detective two weeks ago, but he is nonetheless thinking of quitting the force. Of the policemen charged as a result of his work, two have pleaded guilty to criminal offenses, and only one-a former partner-has been convicted so far. Few cops will speak to him any more, except for some of "the young guys, the hopefuls." Still recuperating, he cannot forget that while...