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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."