The Turnaround: How America's Top Cop Reversed the Crime Epidemic (46 page)

The Academy was upgraded, but no one in professional policing has been able to change the police officer's developmental pattern from idealist to realist to cynic. It's an age-old problem that many people think may not be correctable. I don't believe that; they said the same thing about crime. Julian said to me, “You did the easy things, you let cops fight crime. That's what they want to do. What cops don't like to do is deal with the community. Now, get them to respect people. That would be an even greater challenge.” I stepped up to that challenge. I went after the culture to make the NYPD a more proactive police force and a more respectful one.

The department has a long tradition of teaching professionalism, but a checkered history of corruption and brutality. One of the reasons is that many cops did not trust the department. The honest cops are born or raised honest; others appear honest out of fear of being caught. But fear is ephemeral. Only cops with internal constraints and respect for the community, the department, or themselves will make the right choice under pressure when no one is looking.

We had a great advantage when we spoke and when we taught. The cops were listening. We demonstrated early on that we would support them when they were right and that we would lead them toward unprecedented achievements. When we then warned them against brutality and corruption, they listened out of respect and trust, not just fear. They believed in us and, by extension, believed in the professional principles that were always the guiding force behind our crime-control strategies. We had the first departmentwide opportunity to change the culture, to develop in police officers the internal constraints that would have them make the right decisions not out of the fragile fear of being caught, but out of deep respect for themselves and the NYPD.

Two words every cop should learn are “explanation” and “apology.” If an officer is not in an emergency situation, he or she should always explain an action before taking it. The public is infinitely more likely to go along with an officer if they understand what he or she is doing and why. And if he or she has done something wrong, an officer should apologize. “Why should I apologize? I'm a police officer, I acted legally and had the
right to do what I did. The fact that I had the wrong guy is not my problem.” I am a firm believer in putting myself in someone else's shoes. I asked the cops to think if they or a close family member had been the guy who had mistakenly been run in, how they would feel, and how they would react. It certainly would have been a problem then. If the cop showed the average citizen the human respect of acknowledging an error, that citizen and everyone he or she talked to about the incident would carry more respect for that officer. This is one way to build trust and communication between cops and the community they serve.

The police can't take back the streets that were effectively depoliced for twenty years without being assertive. However, if they are heavy-handed, if they don't get the consensus of the community, if they don't get the leadership and supervision of their own command staff that is so essential, then there is the potential for an explosion like that in Los Angeles. That black kid in District 3 in Mattapan would be a lot less likely to hate cops if a cop hadn't verbally abused and intimidated him for trying to walk down the sidewalk.

The 30 is a precinct that went native.

The 30 Precinct runs from 133rd to 155th streets, between Bradhurst Avenue and the Hudson River in Harlem. When crack hit New York in the eighties, it hit that neighborhood particularly hard. The homicide rate soared and the 30 became one of the city's most dangerous precincts. Over time, a number of the cops started busting drug dealers so they could steal their money and resell their drugs. As the investigations by the Mollen Commission, Manhattan district attorney, and the U.S. attorney had conclusively shown, from 1986 to 1994 officers there systematically robbed drug dealers of drugs and money, beat up suspects, engaged in drug trafficking, extortion, assault, evidence tampering, perjury, civilrights violations, and income-tax evasion. They didn't just steal from routine busts, they actively searched out known drug spots to rob them. There were ninety officers assigned to patrol the precinct; thirty-three were believed to be involved, including two sergeants. After my appointment, I aggressively encouraged the three investigative groups to bring their work to closure. Finally, after two years, there were going to be widespread arrests.

Dean Esserman told me, “This is a battleship coming broadside on you, and it's about to ram you. New York expects corruption scandals, the press
gets involved in the bloodlust, they love it.” He advised me to go to ground zero when the time came and be at the precinct when they made the arrests. Miller encouraged this line of thinking. It would be a way of ensuring that we were not seen as just being acted upon, but that Internal Affairs and the commissioner's office had been integral players in the investigation. It also allowed me to send some very strong symbolic messages, not only to the public and the media but, more important, to the cops. We ensured that members of the NYPD who were assigned to the arrest team—which was also made up of federal agents, Mollen Commission investigators, and personnel assigned to the U.S. attorney's office—were clearly identifiable, by either their New York City Police uniforms or windbreakers clearly marked “NYPD.” All the media footage would show that we were locking up our own.

We were going to arrest what became known as the “Dirty Thirty” that night. Miller got calls from police reporters all day. “We hear it's going down tonight.” It appeared that someone from within District Attorney Robert Morgenthau's office was calling newspaper editors and telling them, in essence, “A big case is going down in the NYPD, a product of our long and intensive work, so make room for it in your papers.” The editors, in turn, were calling their police reporters, notifying them, “There's a big bust going to happen tonight.” Because it had been known for some time that the 30 was the subject of investigation, it was not difficult for them to identify the likely precinct. Judge Mollen was also apparently getting calls from the editors indicating that the case was going down, and did he have any comment. Mollen was understandably perturbed to have media control of his long-term investigation slipping from his grasp.

My team and I discussed what my role should be. There were three significant heavyweights—Mollen, Morgenthau, and U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White—and we were newcomers. Even though the crimes predated my arrival, the headlines would read, “NYPD Corruption Scandal!” and in the public's mind it would appear that it was happening on my watch. Internal Affairs said they were going to arrest a dozen cops that night. Two of them were working, so those arrests were to happen in the station house at the eleven-thirty roll call.

Arresting a cop is a very unpredictable business. Miller had seen cops pull guns on investigators. He had seen cops pull guns on themselves and blow their brains out. He said, “I don't think we want the commissioner walking into the three-oh while some cop eats his gun for a late dinner and splatters his brains all over the desk sergeant's blotter with TV cameras
outside.” He asked Greg Longworth, head of my security detail, for his recommendations.

Longworth said, “We'll have the commissioner in the area. We'll effect the arrest, and when we know it's secure he'll come in, be briefed by the investigators, and he can take their badges right off their uniforms and put them in his pocket, if that's what he feels should be done.”

Miller circled the precinct at around ten that night and the area was quiet. Ninety minutes later, there were TV satellite trucks and reporters and lights and the whole media circus except guys selling cotton candy.

I had the privilege of seeing the cops in handcuffs. I was disgusted. The idea of police officers selling drugs is repugnant to me, as it should be to any cop. The head of the arrest team handed the officers’ shields to me.

I went back to the precinct and addressed the morning roll call. I said, “It is unfortunate that in this command for the last number of months many officers who wear that shield that you all so proudly pinned on your chests when you took the oath of office decided to use that shield for purposes other than those for which it was intended, specifically to protect and serve. Many chose to use it to rob, to steal, to beat, to violate the law. They have now been arrested, and many of them are going to go to jail for a long time.

“We are committed to ensuring that the New York City Police Department is one that can be trusted, is one that the public can feel comfortable will serve and protect….

“We're going to have difficult weeks ahead, those of you who did not violate the trust, those of you who have been working under very difficult circumstances up here, knowing some of what was going on. I've been disappointed, being quite frank, that more did not come forward. There are any number of ways that you could have let us know of the frustrations and the problems….

“This department will work very, very aggressively to seek those out from our ranks who should not be here. It is unfortunate that there are still people in this precinct who should not be here. We know who you are, you know who you are. We're probably not going to get all of you—that's unfortunate—but there are some of you that we can and will be able to get.”

Prior to the press conference at the office of the U.S. attorney, there was heated debate between representatives of Judge Mollen and District Attorney Morgenthau as to the wording of the press release. The enmity between the judge and the district attorney had broken out into the open.
Mary Jo White attempted to do what she could to mollify both sides, and ultimately a press release was created that satisfied both men. However, at the press conference Mollen and Morgenthau both tried to put their own spin on their respective offices’ roles in the investigation. It was pretty awkward. Timoney and Maple were beside themselves, like kids in the back of math class, trying not to laugh. Timoney, who was always candid about his frustration with prosecutors, said, “This is incredible. We have ‘testi-lying’ for cops? They're all lying to the press, this is ‘press-ti-lying’!”

After the press conference at the U.S. attorney's office, I brought over four hundred police commanders, every NYPD captain and above, into the auditorium at headquarters. I walked in, opened my folder and tossed the shields of all twelve arrested officers on a table.

“These shields will never be worn by a New York cop again,” I said. “They are tarnished. I am retiring these numbers so no cop will ever have to wear a disgraced number again.”

I addressed the problem of rogue officers and rampant corruption through a policy of inclusion that brought my precinct commanders into the game. The precinct commander was the person I trusted not to go native. I needed him or her and their counterparts in the special units such as narcotics and detectives to work with the community and the criminal-justice system and to lead, control, supervise, and discipline the officers under them. They had not really been included by previous administrations in the fight against corruption. Their involvement would be essential in mine. To that end, early in my administration, I organized a two-day retreat at Wave Hill estate, a beautiful city-owned complex of buildings and gardens overlooking the Hudson River, fifteen minutes north of Manhattan in Riverdale. The function was funded by the Police Foundation, and I invited all borough commanders, super chiefs, deputy police commissioners, and unit heads—the top seventy-five people in the organization. I wanted everyone exposed to the basic theories by which I was planning to run the department. I suspected for some chiefs this would be the first time they'd heard them. I also brought a number of outsiders, including Frank Hartman from the John F. Kennedy School of Government, my close friend and confidant Bob Johnson, and members of the Police Foundation.

I began by stating my goals: a 10 percent reduction in crime in the first year. “These are the bars you have to clear,” I told them. “These are my expectations.” Eyes rolled. Jaws dropped. This was the end of March, I had been commissioner for less than three months and I was asking for the moon. To many in that room 10 percent did not seem obtainable. It had
never been done. In fact, to my knowledge no commissioner had even set a number before. In policing, you don't set crime reduction goals. My strategic intent was to set a seemingly impossible goal and then achieve it. Bob Johnson referred to them as “stretch goals,” a common practice in the private business sector.

I also made it clear that the NYPD now had a policy of inclusion. I was going to trust the precinct commanders, to empower them, while using Compstat to manage and monitor their progress. I mandated that they be briefed on all aspects of their command, including sensitive cases being run in their precincts by Internal Affairs. In some respects, it was as if the CIA had marched into the State Department and said, “You have to know what's going on in our confidential operations, and we are going to brief you.”