1971 October 22

“A Civil Liberties Disaster” – New York Civil Liberties Union Attacks Procedures in Police Corruption Probe

 

A major police corruption scandal erupted in New York City in 1970, prompting an independent investigation of corruption in the NYPD by the Knapp Commission. On this day, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) condemned procedures used by the Knapp Commission in its investigation, charging that many violated civil liberties and the rights of police officers.

The violations included trial by public exposure (similar to anti-Communist witch hunts by HUAC), warrantless electronic surveillance, entrapment, and use of inherently unreliable informant testimony.

The corruption scandal is widely known by the name of one police officer who exposed corruption, Frank Serpico, but in fact corruption in the NYPD was very broad and Frank Serpico was not the only person to blow the whistle on the problem.

After Frank Serpico became known as a whistleblower, he was shot and wounded in a drug raid. Many people believed that other offices set him up in retaliation for going public with information about corruption in the department. The allegations were never proven, however.

Despite the NYCLU’s position on this case, the police frequently attacked the ACLU and its state affiliates because it supported constitutional limits on police powers, its challenges to police brutality, and its support for citizen oversight of the police. See the attacks on July 25, 1961 (accusing the ACLU of “subversive activities”) and October 13, 1970 (blaming the ACLU for the rise in crime).

On October 25, 1981, the ACLU published a handbook on The Rights of Police Officers. In the 1980s and beyond, however, police unions aggressively negotiated union contract provisions that were impediments to holding officers accountable for misconduct. The provisions included required delays in when an officer could be questioned by supervisors, the right of officers to purge their disciplinary files in some contracts, and requirements that officers be disciplined with a certain number of days after the incident in question (which led some some internal investigations being dismissed). As a result, police unions and their contracts became one of the major obstacles to holding police officers accountable for their actions.

Read: Knapp Commission, The Knapp Commission Report on Police Corruption (1972)

Read the book: Peter Maas, Serpico (1973)

See the movie: Serpico (1973)

Outdated, but still useful: Gilda Brancato and Elliot E. Polebaum, The Rights of Police Officers (1981)

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