Word: knapp
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...over the past several months, stories of police corruption in New York City have leaked out to the 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...
Take Action. To get Phillips to talk so freely was a major undertaking. The Knapp Commission, headed by Whitman Knapp, a prestigious 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...
...Your article about the New York City Police Department [Sept. 13] states that "the [Knapp] commission rapped [Mayor] Lindsay for being partly to blame for the corruption...
...WHITMAN KNAPP Chairman...
...desperation, Serpico, Durk and a group of other officers went to the New York Times last year to tell their story. The editors were impressed and decided to publish it. Once public pressure began to build up, the mayor appointed the Knapp Commission, which got its initial information from the men Lindsay refused to meet. The commission rapped Lindsay for being partly to blame for the corruption and charged that Leary, who resigned as commissioner last September, has a "lot to answer for in failing to provide leadership in the field...