NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Frank Serpico

Francisco Vincent Serpico (born April 14, 1936) is a retired New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer who is most famous for testifying against police corruption in 1971^[1]. The majority of Serpico's fame, however, came after the release of the 1973 film, Serpico, which starred Al Pacino in the lead role. is the 104th day of the year (105th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1936 (MCMXXXVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... For other meanings, see Brooklyn (disambiguation). ... Motto: (traditional) In God We Trust (official, 1956â€“present) Anthem: The Star-Spangled Banner Capital Washington, D.C. Largest city New York City Official language(s) None at the federal level; English de facto Government Federal Republic - President George W. Bush (R) - Vice President Dick Cheney (R) Independence - Declared - Recognized... is the 254th day of the year (255th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1959 (MCMLIX) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 166th day of the year (167th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1960 (MCMLX) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Police officers in South Australia A police officer (or policeman/policewoman) is a warranted worker of a police force. ... Year 1971 (MCMLXXI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the 1971 Gregorian calendar, known as the year of cyclohexanol. ... Gumshoe redirects here. ... The New York City Police Department Medal of Honor is the highest law enforcement medal of the New York City Police Department. ... is the 104th day of the year (105th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1936 (MCMXXXVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... NYPD redirects here. ... Police officers in South Australia A police officer (or policeman/policewoman) is a warranted worker of a police force. ... Police corruption is a specific form of police misconduct sometimes involving political corruption, and generally designed to gain a financial or political benefit for a police officer or officers in exchange for not pursuing, or selectively pursuing, an investigation or arrest. ... For other uses, see Serpico (disambiguation). ... Alfredo James Pacino (born April 25, 1940) is an Academy, Golden Globe, Tony, BAFTA, Emmy, and SAG award winning American actor who is best known for playing the roles of Tony Montana in the 1983 film Scarface and Michael Corleone in The Godfather Trilogy . ...

Early years

Serpico was born in Brooklyn as the youngest child of Italian immigrants from Marigliano, in the province of Naples, Campania. His parents were Vincenzo and Maria Giovanna Serpico. At the age of eighteen, he enlisted in the United States Army and spent two years in Korea. Later, he worked as a part-time private investigator and as a youth counselor while attending college.^[3] This article is about the borough of New York City. ... Marigliano is a town in the province of Naples, (Campania, Italy) located 25 km from Naples. ... The province of Naples (Italian: Provincia di Napoli) is a province in the Campania region of Italy. ... For other uses, see Campania (disambiguation). ... The United States Army is the largest and oldest branch of the armed forces of the United States. ... For Korea as a whole, see Korea. ... A part-time job carries less hours per week than a full-time job, and usually pays less than a full-time job. ... A private investigator, private detective, PI, or private eye, is a person who undertakes investigations, usually for a private citizen or some other entity not involved with a government or police organization. ... This page is a candidate for speedy deletion, because: Wikipedia is not a repository of links If you disagree with its speedy deletion, please explain why on its talk page or at Wikipedia:Speedy deletions. ...

NYPD career

In 1959, Frank Serpico joined the NYPD, where he was sworn in as a probationary patrolman on September 11 of that year. Serpico was commissioned as a patrolman for the New York City Police Department on March 5, 1960, a job he would have for twelve years. He was first assigned to patrol in the 81st precinct. He then worked for the Bureau of Criminal Identification (BCI) for two years doing jobs such as filing fingerprints.^[4] Serpico was later assigned to work plainclothes where he encountered widespread corruption.^[3] This article is about the day. ... Year 1960 (MCMLX) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... A precinct is a space enclosed by the walls or other boundaries of a particular place or building, or by an arbitrary and imaginary line drawn around it. ...

Serpico's career as a plainclothes police officer working in Brooklyn and the Bronx to expose vice racketeering was short-lived, however, because he consistently avoided taking part in the corruption. Serpico risked his own safety to expose those who did.^[3] In 1967, he reported "credible evidence of widespread, systematic police corruption".^{[citation needed]} However, bureaucracy slowed down his efforts,^[2] until he connected with another cop, David Durk, who helped him in his anti-corruption efforts. Serpico believed that his fellow partners knew about secret meetings that took place with police investigators and with no place left to go Serpico contributed to an April 25, 1970, New York Times front-page story on wide-spread corruption in the New York City Police Department.^[2] This forced Mayor John V. Lindsay to take action by appointing a five-member panel to investigate police corruption. This panel ultimately became the Knapp Commission, named for its chairman, Whitman Knapp. Organized crime is crime carried out systematically by formal criminal organizations. ... is the 115th day of the year (116th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1970 (MCMLXX) was a common year starting on Thursday (link shows full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ... John Vliet Lindsay (November 24, 1921–December 19, 2000) was an American politician who served as a Congressman (1959-1966) and mayor of New York City (1966-1973). ... The Knapp Commission (officially known as the Commission to Investigate Alleged Police Corruption) stemmed from a five member panel initially formed in April 1970 by Mayor John V. Lindsay to investigate corruption within the New York City Police Department. ... Judge Whitman Knapp Percy Whitman Knapp (born February 24, 1909 in New York, NY, died June 14, 2004 in New York, NY) was a federal judge who led a far-reaching investigation into corruption in the New York City Police Department from 1970 to 1972. ...

Questionable shooting and public interest

Serpico was shot during a drug bust on February 3, 1971, at 10:42 pm, during a stakeout at 778 Driggs Avenue, in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. Four cops from Brooklyn North had received a tip that a drug deal was going down. It seemed like a routine heroin bust. Panamanian motor vessel Gatun during the largest cocaine bust in United States Coast Guard history (20 tons), off the coast of Panama. ... A bust can be one of: Bust (sculpture), a sculpture depicting a persons chest, shoulders, and head, usually supported by a stand. ... is the 34th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1971 (MCMLXXI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the 1971 Gregorian calendar, known as the year of cyclohexanol. ... Williamsburg is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, bordering Greenpoint, Bed-Stuy, and Bushwick. ... This article is about the borough of New York City. ...

The two officers Gary Roteman and Arthur Cesare stayed in a car out front; the third Paul Halley was standing in front of the apartment building. Serpico got out of the car, climbed up the fire escape, watched from the roof, went out the fire escape door, walked down the steps, watched the heroin buy, listened to the password and then followed the two kids out.^[5]

The police jumped out at the two kids, one of whom had two bags of heroin. Halley stayed in the car with the two kids with the heroin when Roteman told Serpico to make a fake drug buy to get the door open for the rest of them, because he spoke Spanish. Three officers went up the steps to the third-floor landing. Serpico knocked on the door with his other hand inside his jacket on his .38. The door opened a few inches, the chain still on. Serpico pushed and the chain snapped. It was enough for him to wedge part of his body in but the dealers on the other side were trying to close it. Serpico called out to his partners who did not come to help him.^[5]

Serpico was shot in the face at point blank range with a .22 LR handgun. The bullet penetrated his cheek just below the eye and lodged at the top of his jaw; he lost balance, fell to the floor, and began to bleed profusely. Serpico's colleagues failed to place a "10-13," a dispatch to police headquarters indicating that an officer has been shot.^[5] Instead, Serpico was saved by an elderly Hispanic man who lived in an apartment adjacent to the one being used by the suspects; the man called emergency services and reported that a man had been shot, and then stayed with Serpico to help keep him alive until an ambulance arrived.^[5] A police squad car arrived prior to the ambulance, however, and the officers, unaware of the bloodied Serpico's identity, took him to Greenpoint Hospital. Point-blank range is the distance between a gun and a target such that it requires minimal effort in aiming it, in particular no allowance needs to be made for the effects of gravity, target movement or wind in aiming the projectile. ... (Redirected from . ...

Serpico was deafened in his left ear by the gunshot, which severed an auditory nerve, and has suffered chronic pain from fragments lodged in his brain. Although he was visited the day after the shooting by Mayor John V. Lindsay and Police Commissioner Patrick V. Murphy, while he lay recovering in bed from his wounds, the police department harassed him with hourly bed checks. He survived, and ultimately testified in front of the Knapp Commission. John Vliet Lindsay (November 24, 1921–December 19, 2000) was an American politician who served as a Congressman (1959-1966) and mayor of New York City (1966-1973). ...

The circumstances surrounding Serpico's shooting quickly came into question. Serpico, who was armed and holding a .38 snub-nose during the drug raid, had only been shot after briefly turning away from the suspect when he realized that the two officers who had accompanied him to the scene were not following him into the apartment, bringing into question if Serpico had actually been brought to the apartment by his colleagues to be executed. Colt Cobra . ...

On May 3, 1971, New York Metro Magazine published an article about Serpico titled "Portrait Of An Honest Cop". On May 10, 1971, Serpico testified at the departmental trial of an NYPD lieutenant who was accused of taking bribes from gamblers. On May 14, 1971, Serpico was given a gold shield by the police commissioner and promoted to detective. is the 123rd day of the year (124th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1971 (MCMLXXI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the 1971 Gregorian calendar, known as the year of cyclohexanol. ... is the 130th day of the year (131st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1971 (MCMLXXI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the 1971 Gregorian calendar, known as the year of cyclohexanol. ... May 14 is the 134th day of the year (135th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1971 (MCMLXXI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the 1971 Gregorian calendar, known as the year of cyclohexanol. ...

Testimony in front of the Knapp Commission

In October, and again in December 1971, Serpico testified before the Knapp Commission:^[5] Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... The Knapp Commission (officially known as the Commission to Investigate Alleged Police Corruption) stemmed from a five member panel initially formed in April 1970 by Mayor John V. Lindsay to investigate corruption within the New York City Police Department. ...

Frank Serpico was the first police officer in the history of the New York police department to step forward to report and subsequently testify openly about widespread, systemic corruption payoffs amounting to millions of dollars.^[6]

Retirement

One month after receiving the New York City Police Department's highest honor, the Medal of Honor, Frank Serpico retired on June 15, 1972. He went to Europe to recuperate and spent almost a decade there, living, traveling and studying. When it was decided to make the movie about his life called Serpico, Al Pacino invited Serpico to stay with him at a house that Pacino had rented in Montauk, New York. When Pacino asked why he did it, Serpico replied:^[7] The New York City Police Department Medal of Honor is the highest law enforcement medal of the New York City Police Department. ... is the 166th day of the year (167th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see Serpico (disambiguation). ... Alfredo James Pacino (born April 25, 1940) is an Academy, Golden Globe, Tony, BAFTA, Emmy, and SAG award winning American actor who is best known for playing the roles of Tony Montana in the 1983 film Scarface and Michael Corleone in The Godfather Trilogy . ... Montauk is a hamlet (and census-designated place) in Suffolk County, New York on the South Shore of Long Island. ... This article is about the state. ...

He returned to New York City quietly in 1980. He currently resides in the mountains of New York State, studying and lecturing on occasion to students at universities and police academies and sharing experiences with police officers who are currently going through similar experiences. He still speaks out against police corruption and brutality. Serpico has studied various cultures and speaks a number of languages. He has also studied animal and human behavior, alternative medicine, music, art, literature and philosophy among other disciplines. He continues to speak out against both the weakening of civil liberties and corrupt practices in law enforcement, such as the alleged cover-up following the Amadou Diallo shooting in 1999.^[8] Year 1980 (MCMLXXX) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link displays the 1980 Gregorian calendar). ... January 31 1919: David Kirkwood on the ground after being struck by batons of the Glasgow police Police brutality is a term used to describe the excessive use of physical force, assault, verbal attacks, and threats by police officers and other law enforcement officers. ... Civil liberties is the name given to freedoms that protect the individual from government. ... Amadou Diallo Amadou Bailo Diallo (September 2, 1975 â€“ February 4, 1999) was a 23-year-old immigrant to the United States from Guinea, who was shot and killed on February 4, 1999, by four New York City Police Department plain-clothed officers; Sean Carroll, Richard Murphy, Edward McMellon and Kenneth...

He provides support for "individuals who seek truth and justice even in the face of great personal risk". He calls them "lamp lighters", a term he prefers to the more common "whistleblowers", because it evokes memories of the historic ride in which Paul Revere made a great deal of noise and caused the lanterns to be lit. A lamplighter, historically, was an employee of a town who lit gas streetlights, generally by means of a wick on a long pole. ... Poster in support of whistleblower legislation A whistleblower is an employee, former employee, or member of an organization, especially a business or government agency, who reports misconduct to people or entities that have the power and presumed willingness to take corrective action. ... For the song by the Beastie Boys, see Paul Revere (song). ...

Marriages

Serpico married four times. In 1957, he married Mary Ann Wheeler before becoming a police officer, but they were divorced in 1962. In 1963, Serpico married Leslie Lane, whom he met in college, but she divorced him in 1965 and moved to Texas to marry someone else. In 1966, Serpico married Laurie Young but they divorced in 1969. Serpico married his most recent wife, Marianne from Holland, in 1973; she died of cancer in 1980.^[5]

Has one son, Alexander Serpico, born March 15th, 1980.

Serpico in media

Serpico, a biography by Peter Maas, sold over 3 million copies. It was adapted for the screenplay of the 1973 film titled Serpico, which was directed by Sidney Lumet and starred Al Pacino in the title role. In 1976 David Birney starred as Serpico in a TV-movie called The Deadly Game, broadcast on NBC. This led to a short-lived Serpico TV series the following fall on the same network. Also, in the book Torpedo Juice by Tim Dorsey there is a character with the nickname Serpico. Peter Maas (1929 June 27â€“2001 August 23) is a well-known journalist and biographer of the story of Frank Serpico, an NYPD officer living in a time of great police corruption. ... For other uses, see Serpico (disambiguation). ... Portrait of Sidney Lumet, May 7, 1939. ... Alfredo James Pacino (born April 25, 1940) is an Academy, Golden Globe, Tony, BAFTA, Emmy, and SAG award winning American actor who is best known for playing the roles of Tony Montana in the 1983 film Scarface and Michael Corleone in The Godfather Trilogy . ... As Senator Letant in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. ... A television movie (also TV movie, TV-movie, made-for-TV movie, etc. ... This article is about the television network. ... Tim Dorsey (born 1961) is an American novelist. ...

Biography

Filmography

External links

References

^ Clyde Haberman. "Serpico Steps Out of the Shadows to Testify", The New York Times, September 24, 1997. Retrieved on 2007-10-25.
^ ^a ^b ^c Serpico Testifies. New York Magazine (2007). Retrieved on 2007-10-25.
^ ^a ^b ^c Frank Serpico biography. frankserpico.com (2007). Retrieved on 2007-10-24.
^ Cops have their say. intergate.com (2007). Retrieved on 2007-10-25.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Kathleen F. Phalen (Jan./Feb. 2001). Frank Serpico: The fate that gnaws at him. Gadfly. Retrieved on 2007-10-25.
^ David Burnham. "Graft Paid to Police Here Said to Run Into Millions", The New York Times, April 25, 1970.
^ Kathir Vel. "Bringing the lamplighter to the limelight", rayman.kathirvel.com, November 06, 2005. Retrieved on 2007-10-25.
^ Peg Tyre. "Serpico resurrects his decades—old criticism of NYPD", CNN, September 23, 1997. Retrieved on 2007-10-25.

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