Word: graftings
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...public. Last week the most sordid story to date was told by the first witness at hearings held by the blue-ribbon Knapp Commission, which is investigating crime in the department. William Phillips, on the force for 14 years, explained how he and innumerable other cops had taken graft as casually as they had handed out parking tickets. Payoffs for criminal protection came as regularly as paychecks-and often amounted to a lot more. Far from working to cut down the city's grimly rising crime rate, the police have been helping it grow...
Telltale Integrity. This is the petty graft that is taken for granted, Phillips indicated. A cop who is greedy enough can go on to the big money to be made from gambling, prostitution and narcotics. The distinction that used to exist between "clean" and "dirty" graft has broken down; corrupt cops take what they can get and leave the moralizing to others. Depending on where he is stationed in the city, a plainclothesman can make from $400 to $1,500 a month for protecting the rackets. With luck he can make much more. Phillips told of three Queens plainclothesmen...
Within a few months, Phillips' 16-man Harlem unit was on the "pad" -that is, collecting graft*-from a variety of gambling operations. When a new man joined the unit, he was quickly scrutinized to see if he would fit in. "You can make a phone call and find out in five minutes who the individual is, what his habits are and whether or not he takes money," Phillips said. When a cop was transferred to a new post, the pad from his old station kept up for another two months. "Severance pay?" asked the investigating commission...
...Wall Street lawyer, was formed last May after public pressure forced Mayor John Lindsay to take action. At that time it had little more to go on than the testimony of an honest cop named Frank Serpico. To try to get some corroboration of Serpico's tales of graft, the commission employed the services of a shadowy electronics buff, Teddy Ratnoff, who is famed for his sophisticated bugging techniques...
...time when they need public respect more than ever. "If I made as much money as Phillips said," scoffed one detective, "I'd be living in a palatial estate in Westchester." Complained a subway cop: "Down here in the hole, how the hell can you take any graft? There's no freebies underground. But as far as the public is concerned, I'm just another crooked cop." One portion of the public was especially indignant. The Harlem numbers operators protested the fact that white policemen were taking so much money out of the community. They called...