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This chapter presents the author's reflections on the accomplishments and impact, if any, of the Knapp Commission on the New York City Police Department, four decades after its creation. He argues that the Knapp Commission's contribution was to use the weapon of public exposure to help bring about the elimination of the general, pervasive climate of corruption that existed in the Department at that time. The findings of another commission in 1992, under the leadership of State Appellate Court Judge Milton Mollen, led to the reorganization and strengthening of the Internal Affairs Division. It was upgraded to bureau status, becoming the Internal Affairs Bureau (IAB), and was heavily staffed and supplied. The Mollen Commission made clear, as had Knapp, that strong, knowledgeable leadership—chiefly on the part of the police commissioner—was key to maintaining a corruption-free police department. Knapp largely disposed of the “grass eaters” while Mollen shaped the machinery to deal with the “meat eaters.” As long as Department leadership remains strong and vigilant, there should be no need for any more commissions.

This chapter details the early days of the Knapp Commission. In the summer of 1970, at a well-attended press conference at the New York headquarters of the National Press Club, Whit Knapp announced that the Commission had been funded and was ready to go. He stated that their purpose would be to identify whether there were systemic patterns of corruption in the New York City Police Department, and that the Commission would announce its findings in a final written report and perhaps in public hearings. However, the Commission as yet had no investigators, no equipment or office, no support staff, and no real idea of how, with a handful of people, they were going to investigate a 32,000-person police department.

This chapter details the widespread corruption in the New York City Police Department and how a young police officer named Frank Serpico and New York Times investigative reporter David Burnham helped expose it. Burnham's front-page article was published on April 25, 1970, based chiefly on the experiences of Serpico. It also suggested that Mayor John Lindsay had deliberately ignored the problem. Within days, police corruption became a hot topic all over the city. Rumblings were heard that Serpico's revelations might be, as Burnham suggested, only the tip of an iceberg that, among other things, could threaten Lindsay's national political hopes. Lindsay, aware that the article was coming out, moved to preempt it two days before it was published by appointing a committee to study the problem and make recommendations. After three weeks, the committee recommended an independent commission, made up of prestigious citizens, with its own investigators and staff. The remainder of the chapter describes the establishment of the commission headed by former prosecutor Whitman Knapp.

This chapter details the start of the Knapp Commission's public hearings on October 18, 1971, in the Grand Hall of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, in Midtown Manhattan. The room was overflowing with spectators and swarming with reporters. A long platform had been erected against the wall opposite the commissioners, in order to accommodate television cameras, but it became so crowded that it had to be extended. Whitman Knapp started the proceedings on a dignified, low-key note by giving a short opening talk on the purposes of the Commission. Chief counsel Michael Armstrong followed by delivering a specific outline of what they intended to show and the kinds of witnesses they intended to call. The remainder of the chapter focuses on the testimony of Bill Phillips.

This chapter describes the other witnesses during the Knapp Commission's public hearings. Among these is Edward Droge who testified about the everyday sort of graft that was participated in by almost everyone having a street job in the Department. While not nearly as spectacular as Phillips' testimony, Droge's story was perhaps even more relevant. Here was a “grass eater,” one of the 80 percent of the Department whom Frank Serpico had said “wished they were honest.” Other witnesses include Waverly Logan, the two young drug addicts Tank and Slim, agents Ralph Cipriani and Brian Bruh, and tow-truck operator George Burkert.

This chapter describes some of the setbacks faced by the Knapp Commission. Specifically, one incident involving the restaurant Gasner's, which was investigated for serving free meals to police officers; and another incident involving a genuine screw-up that was initiated by an informant who at first appeared to have promising information. The informant presented himself as being well plugged in to the gypsy hierarchy. He said he had become disaffected by the illegal behavior of his brethren, and by the organized conspiracy of protection afforded them by the police. However, the Commission later discovered the informant was using them in an attempt to unseat his rival.

This chapter describes event that occurred after the end of the Knapp Commission's public hearings. The Commission had to close shop, organize their files for presentation to various law enforcement authorities, and write a final report, which would detail what they had found, and what might be done about it. The Manhattan grand jury began investigating the Commission's own pivotal informant/undercover operative/witness/equipment supplier/technical advisor Teddy Ratnoff, who apparently absconded with the electronic equipment used in the hearings. Both Whit Knapp and chief counsel Michael Armstrong were called upon for a number of speaking engagements. There were interviews, speeches, television talk shows, articles, public debates, book offers, and even movie proposals.

The second chapter opens with the rationale behind commissions on inquiry in the aftermath of a police corruption scandal to expose the truth and provide recommendations to mitigate institutional corruption. The cases of the New York and New South Wales police forces are examined with the responses of the relevant commissions. The commissions stated that the police seniors attempted to blame ‘a few bad apples’ but the commissioners exposed that it was rather ‘a rotten orchard’ that pointed at systemic corruption and high forms of police solidarity that can evade dealing with embedded corruption. The ‘slippery slope’ analogy infers that police officers socialise milder grass-eating forms of corruption – such as accepting minor gratuities – to more severe meat-eating corruption such as engaging in vice areas within a self-perpetuating system in which all parties benefit in corrupt transactions. The chapter closes by analysing a range of cases that have trialled pay reform, rotation strategy and anti-corruption training initiatives to mitigate police corruption.

This chapter details the run up to the public hearings set to begin on October 18, 1971. One fundamental decision the Commission had to make concerned the scope of the hearings. How much of the mass of material they had collected should be presented in the public session, and how much should be left to be treated in their final report. Phillips would be their lead-off witness. Interspersed with undercover tapes and films, his testimony would dramatically present the life and times of a true “meat eater.” He would be supplemented by the testimony of a typical “grass eater,” Ed Droge. Then the Commission would lay out the various aspects of what they had found that leant themselves to public presentation: the operations concerning Tank and Slim; George Burkert and the tow-truck payoffs; Waverly Logan; gamblers, hotel operators, and some others. In the days before the hearings opened, the Commission received more and more inquiries from reporters. It became apparent that they would receive quite heavy TV and radio coverage. Then, on the eve of the first day, Channel 13, the local public television station, decided to cover the hearing, live, gavel to gavel.

This chapter details the setbacks faced by the Knapp Commission. At the end of June 1971, the Commission came to the point where, just as they were hitting full stride, their jury-rigged operation was about to come apart. Their funds were just about exhausted, without any prospect of replenishment from the City, and on July 1 they would lose most of their personnel. The agents who were on loan from the various federal agencies had more than overstayed their leaves of absence. The commitments of their supervisory attorneys were over, and all of them were about to return, or already had returned, to private pursuits. Another thing ending as of July 1, 1971, was the Commission's power to issue subpoenas and administer oaths. The City Council had reluctantly extended these powers for six months at the end of 1970. It was perfectly clear that a further extension would be impossible, at least not without the Commission making full disclosure to the City Council of what they were doing.

This chapter presents the author's account of how the Commission dealt with the challenges of investigating corruption at the New York City Police Department. Their efforts included reaching out to academics for knowledge about corruption; identifying the dead ends into which various allegations of corruption had been shunted, including files, memoranda, and correspondence showing that the Department was not really interested in pursuing allegations of corruption; adopting techniques used by the advertising agencies in order to stir up “business,” such as circulating a survey among a representative sample of the public to determine people thought of their police department; and using their subpoena power to compel anyone who refused to talk to do so—under oath and in secret executive session.

One of the most vital technical needs of any investigative outfit is electronic eavesdropping equipment. The Knapp Commission had no use for telephone wiretaps or hidden “bugs” because, not being a law enforcement agency, they could not legally employ them. Under federal and New York State law as it was then, only a law enforcement officer, with a warrant, could plant a listening device on a phone, or in a room, if no one taking part in the conversation knew the device was there. The law, however, allowed the Commission to equip its agents with concealed recorders or transmitters to record conversations in which they personally took part. This chapter describes the role of a character named Teddy Ratnoff in the Commission's investigation. Ratnoff supplied the surveillance equipment they needed. He also brought to their attention a madam named Xaviera Hollander and her dealings with police.

This chapter describes an incident in the early morning of January 24, 1971, in the West Greenwich Village section of Manhattan, when Knapp agents Jim Donovan and Frank Nemic witnessed police officers loading large packages of meat into their patrol cars. The packages came from a warehouse with the sign “Great Plains Packing Company, Inc” Nemic quickly went to a nearby phone booth to call the 6th Precinct station house, six blocks away. Without identifying himself, Nemic gave full details of the robbery, including the patrol car numbers and the number of officers involved. The desk officer purported to take the information down and said that he “would notify the sergeant.” But the officers who showed up after Nemic's call simply joined their colleagues in loading packages into their own patrol cars. News stories about the robbery forced the Department to investigate the incident. However, lacking the identity of the phantom telephone informant, the investigation stalled. The Commission also held its own nonpublic hearing on the robbery; all of the officers who were questioned lied under oath. With the testimony of Nemic and Donovan, the robbery investigation was pressed to a successful conclusion, and eight police officers were ultimately convicted for perjuring themselves in the grand jury and in the Commission's hearings. Other officers were disciplined.

This chapter details the Commission's recommendation of the establishment of a Special Prosecutor's Office for the criminal justice system in New York City to monitor the district attorneys in their anti-corruption efforts and, when necessary, to conduct its own investigations. They suggested that the governor select, and the attorney general appoint, a special prosecutor with jurisdiction throughout the City of New York over matters involving the whole criminal justice system. The remainder of the chapter describes Governor Nelson Rockefeller's appointment of Maurice Nadjari as the first Special Prosecutor, and the disastrous results that followed; the appointment of author as interim Special Prosecutor, and eventual appointment of John Keenan as special prosecutor.

This chapter details how Commission asset Bill Phillips went from one corrupt situation to another, generating films and tapes. These include an operation that lasted for about three months, where Phillips targeted two plainclothes units to the east and south of Central Park. The Third Division covered lower Midtown Manhattan, stretching from Central Park South to 14th Street. The Fourth Division stretched east and south of the park. Approaching two Third Division cops he knew, Fanelli and Laviano, Phillips inquired about getting protection for what he said was a big floating crap game that a supposed friend of his proposed to establish in locations throughout both the Third and the Fourth Divisions. The details of the arrangements were set up in taped conversations between Phillips and the “inner circle” of the Third and Fourth Division plainclothesmen. These were the “heavy hitters,” whose skill in the business of taking bribes merited their leadership positions.