NYPD Confidential
Power and Corruption in the Country's Greatest Police Force
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
For years, the police commissioner and the mayor of New York City have duked it out for publicity, credit, and power. Some have translated their stardom into success after leaving office, while others have been hung out to dry. In the battle for control of the country's most powerful police force, these high-status government officials have often chosen political expediency over public honesty. The result is a legacy of systemic corruption and cover-ups that is nothing less than shocking.
Respected journalist Leonard Levitt has covered the NYPD for New York Newsday, and the New York Post among other papers. His columns have made him persona non grata in police headquarters. In NYPD Confidential, he reveals everything he's discovered throughout his decades-long career. With amazing details of backroom deals and larger-than-life powerbrokers, Levitt lays bare the backstabbing, power-grabs, and chaotic internal investigations that have run the NYPD's reputation into the ground in the past—and the forces conspiring to do so once again.
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When he covered the NYPD for Newsday, Levitt had access to all levels of the country's largest law enforcement agency, and now the Edgar winner (Conviction) catalogues dirty cops and departmental scandals. While he doesn't withhold credit where it's due (such as in the World Trade Center attacks), Levitt is most interested in the corrupt underbelly of America's largest police department. "acrificing truth for image while acting in secrecy" is the department's M.O., he says. Both the 1970s Knapp Commission corruption hearings and the Mollen Commission in the 1990s underscored that dirty cops weren't confined to the lower ranks the dishonesty reached all the way to the highest echelons. Examining some of the department's most notorious acts of violence e.g., the torturing of Abner Louima, the shooting death of the unarmed Amadou Diallo he has little praise for supposedly tough-on-crime mayor Giuliani. Some readers' eyes may cross at the sheer abundance of names and dates (a time line offers some help), but Levitt's account is an engrossing in-depth look at scandal inside the NYPD.