Up Against the Cops

Last February, Plainclothes Patrolman Frank Serpico and two other New York City policemen knocked at the door of a suspected Brooklyn heroin pusher. When the door opened a crack, Serpico shouldered his way in only to be met by a .22-cal. pistol slug crashing into his face. Somehow he survived, although there are still bullet fragments in his head, causing dizziness and permanent deafness in his left ear. Almost as painful is the suspicion that he, and perhaps his partners, may well have been set up for the shooting by other policemen. For Serpico, 35, has been waging a lonely, four-year war against the routine and endemic corruption that he and others claim is rife in the New York City police department.

His efforts are now sending shock waves through the ranks of New York's finest. An independent five-man panel known as the Knapp Commission, formed as a direct result of information provided by Serpico, is due to report its findings next month. Insiders say that the commission will charge that 60% of New York policemen are on the take. Among certain elite units of plainclothesmen and detectives that are responsible for investigating such areas as gambling and narcotics, the report is expected to say, the corruption rate is between 99% and 100%. Serpico, as a matter of fact, was one of the tiny minority that was untainted.

On his first day in a Bronx gambling squad, he was taken by his partner to meet a known gambler, was handed an envelope and told "to go buy yourself a hat.'' Astonished, Serpico handed back the envelope, said he didn't need a hat, and walked out. Later he was told such gifts were standard, a "fringe benefit." The bribes amounted to $800 a month per man, he says, and rose to $1,200 for commanding officers. At first he tried to ignore the blatant payoffs. "But every day," he recalls, "they just tried to bring me into it more and more."

Unaffordable Scandal. The first time Serpico reported the bribery to a superior, he was warned that although charges could be brought, "by the time it's all over, they'll find you floating face down in the East River." Ultimately, though, Serpico did provide evidence leading to charges against at least 20 cops. In one instance, he gathered evidence against two policemen who were shaking down his brother, a grocer, for a weekly $2 bribe to forestall harassment with petty citations. The two cops were dismissed from the force but were acquitted on subsequent criminal charges.

Convinced that the whole system needed cleaning up, Serpico began carrying extra guns for protection and a concealed tape recorder to gather evidence. Whenever he reported his findings, he was promised cooperation by various superiors. But nothing happened. Eventually. Serpico decided to take his evidence directly to the office of Mayor John Lindsay. Even there he was put off. He recalls that one administrator dismissed him as a "psycho," while Aide Jay Kriegel told him, "We can't afford a scandal now. We expect a long hot summer and we don't want to antagonize the police."

Disillusioned, fearful for his life but still determined, Serpico and three other policemen, including an inspector, went to the New York Times more than a year ago and talked into a tape recorder for eight hours. After learning of the upcoming story, Mayor Lindsay quickly announced the formation of an investigation team that ultimately became the Knapp Commission. With some of Serpico's information and volumes of its own, the commission has since compiled a picture of department-wide police corruption. In one reported scandal, two commission investigators came upon a group of officers in uniform brazenly stealing cartons of meat from a packing plant. Though the investigators called the precinct twice, no patrolman was sent to the scene. As a result of that incident, the precinct commander was transferred and 22 others, including two lieutenants and 11 sergeants, were disciplined.

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 all non-cops with some distrust. He invested eight years getting a B.A. in sociology at City College of New York night school and moved to a Greenwich Village bachelor pad with a distinctly hippie tone and a menagerie of pets, including a sheepdog. After he became a plainclothesman he sprouted a beard. His fellow cops kidded him about his disguise, and Serpico smiled along with them. But he began to wonder: "Maybe it isn't a disguise; maybe it's really me."

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 he was in the hospital, his get-well cards included one reading "Better luck next time, you scumbag." Another said: "Too bad you didn't get your brains blown out, you rat bastard." Says Serpico sadly: "Cops are afraid to be honest, the system is so corrupt."

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