The Police Are Still Out of Control. I Should Know. | By FRANK SERPICO

This article does a good job of showing why it is insane to let police internal affairs divisions investigate the crimes committed by police officers, using that logic why not let gang investigate themselves?

In the opening scene of the 1973 movie “Serpico,” I am shot in the face—or to be more accurate, the character of Frank Serpico, played by Al Pacino, is shot in the face. Even today it’s very difficult for me to watch those scenes, which depict in a very realistic and terrifying way what actually happened to me on Feb. 3, 1971. I had recently been transferred to the Narcotics division of the New York City Police Department, and we were moving in on a drug dealer on the fourth floor of a walk-up tenement in a Hispanic section of Brooklyn. The police officer backing me up instructed me (since I spoke Spanish) to just get the apartment door open “and leave the rest to us.”

One officer was standing to my left on the landing no more than eight feet away, with his gun drawn; the other officer was to my right rear on the stairwell, also with his gun drawn. When the door opened, I pushed my way in and snapped the chain. The suspect slammed the door closed on me, wedging in my head and right shoulder and arm. I couldn’t move, but I aimed my snub-nose Smith & Wesson revolver at the perp (the movie version unfortunately goes a little Hollywood here, and has Pacino struggling and failing to raise a much-larger 9-millimeter automatic). From behind me no help came. At that moment my anger got the better of me. I made the almost fatal mistake of taking my eye off the perp and screaming to the officer on my left: “What the hell you waiting for? Give me a hand!” I turned back to face a gun blast in my face. I had cocked my weapon and fired back at him almost in the same instant, probably as reflex action, striking him. (He was later captured.)

source

I think it is time for a change in the way dirty cops are handled.

a reply to: AlaskanDad

Who could we trust 100%?

All agencies, committees, and boards of inquiry can be bought off.

The police can be likened to the bike gangs they are supposed to be the antithesis of.....
Feudalism is not dead....We ARE the SERFS...............

originally posted by: xuenchen
a reply to: AlaskanDad

Who could we trust 100%?

All agencies, committees, and boards of inquiry can be bought off.

Sooo... What then? Don't even try? C'mon now.

a reply to: AlaskanDad

Here we go.

You, and Frank Serpico, are trying to compare police now to police 43 years ago.

Even Frank Serpico himself cannot paint with such a broad brush as you and most others here do.

Mr. Serpico says this:

all that no longer exists as systematically as it once did, though it certainly does in some places. Times have changed. It’s harder to be a venal cop these days.

So, the "expert" in police corruption himself says it is not as pervasive as it once was in 1971.

You must admit that you, and most others on this website, would make the argument that it is the same, if not worse. So, you hold Serpico up as an "expert" but fail to acknowledge this part of his appraisal of today's police.

Yep, sure, Frank Serpico even invokes Michael Brown and Ferguson, Missouri.

Officer Wilson may well have had cause to fire if Brown was attacking him, as some reports suggest, but it is also possible we will never know the full truth—whether, for example, it was really necessary for Wilson to shoot Brown at least six times, killing rather than just wounding him.

But after reading this little quote, it is clear Serpico still will not make a definitive statement about the event. Even he says Officer Wilson may be justified.

Serpico even goes on to comment about the "militarization" of today's police.

Mind you, I don’t want to say that police shouldn’t protect themselves and have access to the best equipment.

Yet again, he goes on to waffle on his statement.

Media, like politico, look to him as the messiah of police corruption and know they can go to him for a few quick, anti-police, words on the subject.

Frank Serpico is an expert on police corruption. Police corruption in the late 1960's and early 1970's. Police corruption in the NYPD. How exactly can Frank Serpico claim to know the level of corruption in every police department across the United States? Truthfully, he can't.

Even Frank Serpico claims there are "good" cops. But his reckless comparisons between police 43 years ago and police today victimizes those "good" cops because there are people who spin his words and don't know, or don't care, to see the difference between "good" and "bad" cops.

Frank Serpico is just trying to stay relevant. What is your excuse?

All of the external quotes came from the original politico article.

a reply to: areyouserious2010

I really do not appreciate your saying I have said things I have not, the two sentences I wrote do not claim any comparison with 43 years ago.

Simply put I said:

This article does a good job of showing why it is insane to let police internal affairs divisions investigate the crimes committed by police officers, using that logic why not let gang investigate themselves?

Nothing you wrote changes my opinion on this situation, police should not be in charge of investigating each other.

edit on 26-10-2014 by AlaskanDad because: removed code from copy paste

a reply to: xuenchen

Who could we trust 100%?

This brings up a good point.

There is NO ONE that EVERYONE would trust 100%.

Unless you witnessed the event yourself, there is always room for mistrust in an investigation.

Even if a completely police non-affiliated review board was brought in, the second the review board cleared the officer of wrongdoing in an extremely controversial case there would be people who would cry corruption.

a reply to: areyouserious2010

I know who I would certainly think twice about trusting to police their own!

originally posted by: stirling
The police can be likened to the bike gangs they are supposed to be the antithesis of.....
Feudalism is not dead....We ARE the SERFS...............

"We" always have been.
Try not paying your property tax even if your family has lived on the land since pre-Revolutionary days...you'll see how much land you "own".

The Founding Fathers started collecting taxes even before the war was over and made sure no one could vote if they didn't own land for quite some time...
secret handshake might buy you a few months on the bill...

But the sheriff would come to throw you in the debtor's prison if it went much longer than that. Unless, you could grease the palm.

As far as im concerned, the NYPD are thugs for the most part. Always have been.

a reply to: AlaskanDad

I really do not appreciate your saying I have said things I have not, the two sentences I wrote do not claim any comparison with 43 years ago.

Get real. You wouldn't have invoked the Serpico article unless you thought his words had weight behind them. My response simply points out that even Serpico himself did not make a definitive statement about police corruption. Each and every time, he qualified his statement with a disclaimer before or after.

You can ignore what I wrote, but that does not make it disappear. You may not like what I wrote, but that does not change the validity of what I said.

Nothing you wrote changes my opinion on this situation, police should not be in charge of investigating each other.

Well my response is, yes there should be checks and balances to ensure a proper investigation is done but, it does not matter who investigates police to the audience you are speaking to. To many here, if the intended outcome (charging, convicting and lynching a police officer) is not achieved, there is corruption abound. Even if it is a completely non-police-affiliated review board that comes to the conclusion the police officer did nothing wrong, there must have been a corrupting influence somewhere along the line.

Once again you are making false statements about what I say, how does this add validity to your post?

a reply to: AlaskanDad

Once again you are making false statements about what I say, how does this add validity to your post?

So, you disagree with the statement made in the headline of your own thread?

So, you disagree with the statements and comparisons made in the article you sourced?

How would doing so add to the validity of your entire thread?

Simply accusing me of making false statements about what you say and not pointing out where I am wrong is certainly not adding any validity to your thread.

a reply to: areyouserious2010

I posted an interesting article and made a statement about what it brought to mind. I posted the article to see what other ATSers thought about it, not for you to make inferences and false claims to not only what I what I wrote but you go so far as to claim you know my thoughts...

...oh my goodness a mindreader here at ATS!

I have no problems with your stating your opinions or comments on the article, please quit lying about what I say and think!

a reply to: areyouserious2010

You, and Frank Serpico, are trying to compare police now to police 43 years ago.

He pretty much directly addressed that issue.

Every time I speak out on topics of police corruption and brutality, there are inevitably critics who say that I am out of touch and that I am old enough to be the grandfather of many of the cops who are currently on the force. But I’ve kept up the struggle, working with lamp lighters to provide them with encouragement and guidance...

He brings up 6 points at the end of the article, here's the little headline for each:

1. Strengthen the selection process and psychological screening process for police recruits.
2. Provide ongoing, examples-based training and simulations.
3. Require community involvement from police officers
4. Enforce the laws against everyone, including police officers.
5. Support the good guys.
6. Last but not least, police cannot police themselves.

Those 6 points are basically the point of the article. He goes into a bit more detail for each one but I didn't want a huge quote. I don't see how anyone could argue against those points and still maintain any credibility.

a reply to: AlaskanDad

PLEASE read the full post to see my complete feelings on this misunderstanding between us.

I posted an interesting article and made a statement about what it brought to mind.

Yes, and this is what you said.

This article does a good job of showing why it is insane to let police internal affairs divisions investigate the crimes committed by police officers, using that logic why not let gang investigate themselves?

That was the first sentence of your post.

That was not some benign statement. Unless I am completely misunderstanding what you tried to say, it sounds like you are claiming this article is evidence of why it is "insane" to allow police internal affairs to investigate crimes committed by police officers.

I challenged that by saying the article contains tales of NYPD misconduct 40 years ago. Then I went on to say even the author of the very article you cited admits that the sort of misconduct showcased in the article is not as pervasive as it was back then.

Please do not take it personally. Maybe I am misunderstanding what you are trying to say. I feel that when one makes a statement such as this,

This article does a good job of showing why it is insane to let police internal affairs divisions investigate the crimes committed by police officers, using that logic why not let gang investigate themselves?

,
and then cites an article as evidence supporting his or her statement, he or she has taken a pretty clear position on the subject at hand. If this was not your intention, I apologize and retract any statements that were my assumptions on your intent.

If this is the case, I am curious if you would care to elaborate on your position?

a reply to: Pimpish

We can agree on those points.

The title of the thread and article is The Police are Still Out of Control. I Should Know. By Frank Serpico.

My argument was that Frank Serpico has experience with one police department over 40 years ago. My argument also was that Frank Serpico himself admitted that the kind of police corruption he experienced is not as pervasive as it once was. I believe this is due to the improvements made to police departments over those 40 years by following the six points that you enumerated.

So, if Frank Serpico himself admitted that the kind of police corruption he experienced is not as pervasive as it once was, how are the police still out of control?

Should the title of the article not be The Police Still Need Improvement But Have Come A Long Way Since 40 Years Ago. I Should Know. By Frank Serpico.?

The title just smacks of sensationalism. A cheap grab at one's attention by making people think the police today are just as bad as the police 40 years ago.

Not to say the author of the thread, AlaskanDad, intended this sensationalism. Or intended a cheap grab at one's attention because he did not choose the title of the article.

a reply to: areyouserious2010

I feel that when one makes a statement such as this,


This article does a good job of showing why it is insane to let police internal affairs divisions investigate the crimes committed by police officers, using that logic why not let gang investigate themselves?

,
and then cites an article as evidence supporting his or her statement, he or she has taken a pretty clear position on the subject at hand. If this was not your intention, I apologize and retract any statements that were my assumptions on your intent.

This article does a good job of showing

opinion


The article contains evidence or The article is clearly evidence would be stating the article as evidence.

As for your claim I'm citing the article, I say not I gave a very opinionated introduction to an internet article, with an equally opinionated closing line.

assumptions

There is an old saying about Assume!

a reply to: AlaskanDad

Probably the most telling part of this article, IMO:

Today the combination of an excess of deadly force and near-total lack of accountability is more dangerous than ever: Most cops today can pull out their weapons and fire without fear that anything will happen to them, even if they shoot someone wrongfully. All a police officer has to say is that he believes his life was in danger, and he’s typically absolved. What do you think that does to their psychology as they patrol the streets—this sense of invulnerability? The famous old saying still applies: Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. (And we still don’t know how many of these incidents occur each year; even though Congress enacted the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act 20 years ago, requiring the Justice Department to produce an annual report on “the use of excessive force by law enforcement officers,” the reports were never issued.)

Read more: www.politico.com...

So to me, the real question is how do we fix it? We have cop haters, cop apologists and not much in the middle. So how do we fix the system, how do we fix the crooked cops and how do we restore the trust? I don't have the answers. But I wish I did.

a reply to: AlaskanDad

Total transparency is the answer. They find it much harder to game the system when there is audio and video of everything. Full public access to internal investigations. The public must consent to policing practices and have a reasonable belief the people handling evidence are impartial. Bottom line.

LEO's and their unions fight all these transparency measures. They are authoritarians with a list of entitlements that would make your blood boil.

They fight for additional super constitutional rights. They mock victims. They steal assets. They have no strict reporting of rule violations, complaints & shootings.

You have to defund them and start over. It's a criminal mafia. They can't and shouldn't be trusted with the chain of evidence. There will never be justice and peace while these criminals roam the streets.