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."