In the 1970’s, Frank Serpico, a detective at the time, chose to speak out and report the corruption he saw within the NYPD. This corruption consisted of pocketing cash/drugs and accepting bribes.
Frank was living out his lifelong dream of becoming who he respected most: a cop. He was a rather honest man who believed that his job was to uphold the law and protect the public. So when he saw the corruption happening, he knew something wasn’t right. So he documented what he saw.
The reports
Serpico first reported his findings to higher authorities in 1967. They first set his reports aside. They told him to seek psychological help, and his superiors began to see him as a problem.
Frank saw that his reports were ignored, so he took to the news in hopes of getting the public’s attention. He took his evidence straight to the New York Times, where they put the report on the front page.
Serpico also connected with another cop named David Durk, who helped him with his efforts. Frank also had secret meetings with top investigators. However, when his colleagues found out, he received backlash as a result. Some of his co-workers tried to bribe him to keep quiet and/or say he lied about what he saw.
After Mayor John Lindsey read the article, he established the Knapp Commission. The Knapp Commission was a five-member board created to investigate the corruption.
The Tragic Shooting of an Honest Cop
February 1971, Frank had been working in the narcotics sector. During this time, he had gone into an apartment in Brooklyn to assist with a drug bust. He had received the task to knock on the suspect’s door and make a confrontation. Once the door opened, Frank had shoved his way into the apartment, where he was then shot in the head by a pistol. Many say Serpico was “Left for dead” by his fellow officers in retaliation, as they failed to call for backup. A man who had lived in the building at the time found Frank on the floor, bleeding out, and called for help. This man had saved Serpico’s life.
“In 1971, Serpico was shot in the face by a heroin dealer in Brooklyn. The other officers with him failed to call for assistance – in retaliation for Serpico’s spilling the beans on the force in 1971,” says the Oldie magazine.
After months of bed rest, Serpico had recovered. The officer who drove Frank to the hospital stated, “If I knew it was him, I would have left him there to bleed to death.” It was also later revealed that his accompanying officers had stayed behind. This brought many to the question, “Did they bring Frank here to get him killed on purpose?” While it was never investigated manys still believe it was intentional.
As a police officer, Serpico exposed the bribery, leading to significant backlash. Later, during a narcotics operation, he was shot in the face, and his colleagues failed to call for backup. Josh Bell reported these events in an article for the ACLU.
Although Frank had survived the shooting, Frank did suffer some detrimental injuries. By now, the Knapp commission was investigating the reports. Frank was still receiving harassment from the police department during his recovery. This harassment consisted of verbal abuse and hourly disruptive bed checks.
“Serpico was deafened in his left ear by the gunshot, which severed an auditory nerve, and has suffered chronic pain from fragments lodged in his brain. Although he was visited the day after the shooting by Mayor John V. Lindsay and Police Commissioner Patrick V. Murphy, while he lay recovering in bed from his wounds, the police department harassed him with hourly bed checks. He survived, and ultimately testified in front of the Knapp Commission,” reports an article by Saint Francis Preparatory School.
The testimony
Once recovered, Serpico had testified in front of the Knapp commission, stating, “Through my appearance here today… I hope that police officers in the future will not experience the same frustration and anxiety that I was subjected to for the past five years at the hands of my superiors because of my attempt to report corruption…We create an atmosphere in which the honest officer fears the dishonest officer, and not the other way around.”
While he did not exactly win against the reports, he did receive an Honor medal a month before retiring from the NYPD. Yet, in 2022, 50 years later, he received the offical certificate for the Medal of Honor from the NYPD.
Retirement
In 1972, 16 months after Frank recovered, he decided to retire from the NYPD. He then decided to live and travel abroad in Europe to heal and escape the backlash.
Hoping to start a new life, he married a 29-year-old woman named Marianne, who later died of cancer. Because of this, Frank had struggled with long-term depression. Later on, he returned to New York, where he lives a quiet, private life. While in New York, he continued to speak out against police corruption.
We, the public, rarely hear about police corruption. They prefer to keep quiet to maintain public interest. Frank chose to include the public; for that, he gained recognition and appreciation. Corruption is not always the same in every case. It ranges from bribery to abuse of power. It’s like a sickness running through our government. Serpico did his duty as a cop to protect and serve the public. He did what he knew was right.
Frank is still alive today and remains in Stuyvesant, NY, where he enjoys studying human and animal behavior. He lives a private life in the comfort of his own cabin. Serpico continues to be recognized throughout history for being the first cop in the United States to step forward and testify about the widespread corruption.
