Background
In the aftermath of a drug bust gone wrong, veteran NYPD cop Frank Serpico awoke on his back in a pool of blood.
He was alone in the apartment, aside from the elderly man sitting by his side, reassuring him in Hispanic-accented English.
Serpico had arrived with two colleagues. But, he later learned, both left the scene after he’d been shot. Neither called an ambulance or made a “10-13” (officer down) dispatch to police headquarters.
If it weren’t for the man at his side, an elderly neighbor of the bust’s targets, Serpico would be dead.
Now, more than fifty years later, he walks with a limp, is deaf in one ear, and carries the fragments of a bullet lodged near his brain.
Meanwhile, the officers who abandoned him wore medals. However, it was Serpico who went on to become a legend.
Early Life
While he was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Serpico’s parents were both first-generation immigrants from Naples, Italy.
When he was 13 years old, Serpico’s mother took him back to her homeland to visit her father, his sole surviving grandparent, in Italy. It was on this trip that Serpico also met his uncle, a member of the Italian parliamentary police carabinieri.
Awed by the dignity with which the Italian law enforcers carried themselves, the respect they received from the community, and, of course, his uncle’s Beretta sidearm, the young Serpico decided that he, too, wanted to become a police officer when he grew up.
Even then, Serpico wasn’t oblivious to the reality of “bad cops.” Growing up in midcentury New York City, he was exposed to incidents of police brutality, racial bias, and corruption on a daily basis.
But thanks to his uncle’s example, he’d also seen what cops could be at their best: respected, self-controlled, and, most of all, honorable.
And while that may not have been the reality of the NYPD in the 1950s, perhaps he and other “good cops” could reform the city cops’ practices in the future.
It was a dream that drove Serpico to join the NYPD in 1959, following a two-year term as a US infantryman stationed in South Korea and the completion of his Bachelor’s degree.
Corruption in the NYPD
From the early days of the mafia to the drug rings of the 70s and 80s to contemporary incidents of police brutality, accounts of corruption in the NYPD are nothing new.
But at the time when Serpico first enlisted, it was far more widespread–and far more secretive.
His first brush with corruption came mere months after Serpico enlisted. After a shift working as a patrolman, a superior in the force handed him an envelope full of cash–his share of money obtained through police collaboration with drug traffickers.
Initially, Serpico just refused the money. But when the offers kept coming–and the pressure to accept it kept growing–he went to the mayor’s department of investigation to report the practice.
It was there that he was told he had two choices: take the cash and forget about it, or end up face-down in the East River.
Despite the threat, Serpico kept chasing leads, desperately trying to draw some kind of attention–and justice–to the dirty cops surrounding him. Nothing seemed to work.
The Blue Wall of Silence
His attempts to expose corruption had already made Serpico an unpopular figure in the force.
But everything changed in April 1970, when, in an act of desperation, Serpico gave up on using internal channels and went to the New York Times. The story made the front page.
Immediately, Serpico found his colleagues turning against him–a policy known as the “Blue Wall of Silence.” Much like the Mafia’s omerta, the Blue Wall is a subculture that demands absolute loyalty between cops–to the extent of obfuscating any attempts to uncover other police officers’ wrongdoings.
“Speak out,” Serpico once explained, “and you’re no longer ‘one of us.’ You’re ‘one of them.’”
Shooting and Testimony
On February 3, 1971, the day of the near-fatal drug bust, Serpico was accompanied by two colleagues.
They instructed Serpico to get the apartment door open; after that, they claimed, they would handle the rest.
The plan made sense to Serpico; the suspects were Hispanic, and he was the only Spanish-speaking officer on the scene. So, unaware of his colleagues’ looming betrayal, he convinced the occupants to open the door, pushed his way in, and snapped the chain.
It was then that everything went wrong.
The suspect slammed the door shut, wedging Serpico’s body half-in and half-out. The enraged Serpico called for help from his colleagues, who were passively standing by; suddenly the suspect took advantage of his momentary distraction and shot him in the face with a .22 LR pistol.
The two other officers left Serpico to bleed out on the floor as they chased down the perp.
No calls for help were made until the neighbor discovered Serpico’s unconscious body, bleeding from a gunshot wound to his cheek.
Some good came of the incident (and the New York Times article that preceded it) an investigative panel known as the Knapp Commission was formed to root out corrupt cops and bring them to justice.
But Serpico’s life would never be the same.
Aftermath
In May 1972, Serpico received the NYPD’s highest honor, the Medal of Honor.
“They never even had a ceremony for me,” he later reported to the New York Times. “They handed it to me over the counter… like a pack of cigarettes.”
Finding himself ostracized by his colleagues–and permanently disabled by the injuries he’d sustained–Serpico retired from the force a mere month later.
But he refuses to be silenced.
Even today, Serpico is a vocal advocate for police reform. He speaks up against police corruption and provides counseling and resources to law enforcement professionals who seek to expose abuses of power in their own departments.
While corruption in the NYPD and other police forces around the US has yet to be eradicated entirely, it is far less prevalent than it was 50 years ago.
And, perhaps through the brave work of Serpico and others like him, someday things will change for the better.
Cords, Sarah. “It’s Been Fifty Years since Frank Serpico Exposed New York’s Dirty Cops.” The Progressive Magazine, 15 Oct. 2021, progressive.org/latest/fifty-years-since-frank-serpico-exposed-new-york-cords-211015/.
Frank Serpico.” Wikipedia, 18 July 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Serpico.
Serpico. Directed by Lumet Sidney, Paramount Pictures, 5 Dec. 1973.
Serpico, Frank. “Biography.” The Official Frank Serpico Website, 2004, web.archive.org/web/20071012021742/www.frankserpico.com/bio.html. Accessed 12 Oct. 2012.
Serpico, Frank. “The Police Are Still out of Control.” Politico Magazine, 23 Oct. 2014, www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/10/the-police-are-still-out-of-control-112160/.
