(2 of 2)
In 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."
Murphy was named commissioner eleven months ago to clean up the mess. He has the credentials for the job. After serving on the force in New York City, he became police chief of Syracuse, then director of public safety in Washington, D.C., and most recently police commissioner in Detroit. Looking more like a college professor than a cop, he has a B.A. in social studies and a master's degree in public administration. For all his experience and training, he is appalled by the extent of the corruption. "There has been a total breakdown of discipline," he says. "When I was a cop in New York, narcotics payments were anathema. Oh, you'd hear talk of it in the locker room, but it was scorned." Today, many cops are just as willing to take "dirty" money from drugs as they are to receive "clean" payoffs from gambling. While gambling shakedowns bring the police an estimated $7,000,000 to $12 million a year, according to joint state legislative committee estimates, narcotics operations are many times as profitable. "The temptation for cops in narcotics these days is terrific," says Murphy. "The money is everywhere. Fortunes are being made. It's not just the Mob that is involved now. Everyone is in it."
He is particularly worried about the younger men on the force. "Within the department there is a real generation gap. Many younger men don't have the respect for the job that the older men raised in the Depression had. To them the job is simply a way to make a buck." In a society given to self-indulgence, where everybody seems to be demanding something for nothing, the underpaid police ($12,350 after ten years) are asking, "Why not me?" Murphy's job is to answer that question. Somehow he must convince the police, of all people, that crime does not pay.