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Most of the time, the squad's knowledge of crack-house operations was the product of tipster information. "And you have to protect those informants," says Blondie. "It's really your No. 1 obligation. You have defense attorneys demanding that you identify them. But if you give up an informant, chances are he's dead by nightfall."
At the "end of the day," says Schoolboy, "given how we lied on the probable cause, I'd say that almost all of our [2,233] arrests were bad. On the other hand, if we did everything by the book, crime would be up. Stealing the money was bad. No excuse for that, and none for the beatings either, especially when you have someone in cuffs. But frankly, I'm proud of the arrests. It may sound crazy, but what we did was kind of noble, I think. I mean, cops everywhere keep being told they're in a war. You're told to win it. You're never told to win it by the book, because those telling you to win it know it can't be won that way."
Of the 2,000 or so bad arrests made by Five Squad over the six years between 1984 and 1991, only 160 have been reversed. "And each one has been like pulling teeth," says Bradley Bridge, the Philadelphia public defender reviewing the files. An assistant district attorney, speaking not for attribution, sounds like Blondie as he defends the foot dragging: "It's pretty much true that all of those arrested were indeed bad guys, and no one is real eager to let them out on technicalities." The other reason for going slow is financial. To date, Philadelphia has paid out almost $5 million in wrongful-arrest settlements stemming from Five Squad's activities (Colbert settled for only $25,000). "There's simply no real appetite for going full blast on this stuff," says the district attorney.
From the time Colbert was terrorized in February 1991, it took prosecutors four years just to indict Blondie & Co. for their illegal activities, and it was more than another year before they were sentenced to prison on April 15, 1996. "No matter the substance of complaints against cops," says McGuire, "if it's only the victim's word against the cop's, it's a hard road to travel, and it always takes too much time." For the city and federal prosecutors considering Colbert's complaint, getting Ryan to "rat out" proved easy. "If Ryan had held fast, they couldn't have got us," says Blondie. "He was always a weak sister." The pressure on Ryan was great. He "faced the prospect of being convicted by the credible testimony of a completely innocent citizen," as the government said in its sentencing memorandum. Ryan caved, and the FBI fitted him with a wire in October and November 1994. Blondie, no fool, had grown wary of Ryan, and he made no incriminating statements on tape. But he knew the Colbert incident would topple him, and when he was approached by the FBI directly, Blondie caved too. "I miscalculated," he says ruefully. "The other stuff was just our word against druggies', but I hoped to win points by cooperating. I thought maybe I could get away with a light term or maybe even probation--13 years never seemed possible."