The Cops So Crooked They Left NYPD Whistleblower Frank Serpico To Die After He Was Shot In The Head
Bettmann/Getty ImagesFrank Serpico wasn’t a typical NYPD cop, and he didn’t fit in with others in his precinct.
Frank Serpico was not a corrupt cop, but it seemed like everyone around him was.
As a kid in the 1940s, Francesco Vincent Serpico idolized the NYPD officers he saw patrolling his neighborhood in Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn. After a tour in Korea with the Army, at 23, he joined the New York Police Department in 1959, hoping to be the kind of cop he’d always admired.
As an adult, Frank Serpico was charismatic and flamboyant, interested in art, ballet, and the orchestra. In other words, he was nothing like the other cops in Brooklyn’s 81st Precinct on the eastern edge of his old neighborhood where he was assigned.
They didn’t particularly care for his cheery, go-getter attitude — Serpico even made arrests when off-duty or in other cops’ territory — and his unpopularity only increased when he refused to partake in the corrupt practices of his colleagues.
They were taking bribes from gamblers, thugs, and drug dealers. And by 1967, Serpico had enough. He complained to higher-ups in city government, willingly giving up the names of places and officers alike. No one cared.
The NYPD had an unspoken rule — we don’t report each other. The Mafia had a similar idea that they called omertà — a wall of silence.
Frank Serpico confided in the only person who would listen, a fellow officer and former law school student named David Durk. The two men took their information to The New York Times.
It made front-page news, and City Hall finally launched an investigation.
Serpico testified at a public hearing in 1970 about what he saw in the NYPD alongside evidence uncovered during the investigation. He and Durk also pressured Mayor John Lindsay to form the Knapp Commission, hoping to sniff out further corruption in the force.
To the public, Serpico was an advocate for a better police force. To his fellow cops, he was a rat. But rather than fire him outright, the NYPD transferred him to the narcotics division.
Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty ImagesFrank Serpico, pictured here on Nov. 6, 2002, still has shrapnel in his head from the gunshot and is deaf in his right ear.
Then, in 1971, he was brought along to an arrest in a Latino neighborhood because he could speak Spanish. Once inside the apartment building, his backup officers told him to get the door open and “leave the rest” to them.
Instead, the door slammed on his shoulder and head, leaving him wedged halfway inside. He called out for help, but no one came to his aid. When he looked up, he had just enough time to see into the barrel of a gun. Then, the person on the other end pulled the trigger. His backup officers fled the scene. They didn’t even bother radioing in the code for an officer down.
Thankfully, an elderly tenant found Serpico bleeding out and called 911. A single patrol car responded. But Serpico would later learn that the officer who arrived allegedly told his colleagues, “If I knew it was Serpico, I would have left him there to bleed to death,” according to The New York Daily News.
Serpico had read that cops who break the unspoken code of silence often find themselves without help in emergencies. It turned out that his reading had proven true.
His time in the NYPD and the incident that saw him get shot in the face were later adapted into the film Serpico with Al Pacino in the starring role. And even though the real Frank Serpico was a consultant on the film, he’s said it’s still difficult for him to watch the movie.
In May 1972, the NYPD gave Frank Serpico the Medal of Honor, the department’s highest award for bravery in action, but he considered it to be an empty gesture, telling The New York Times, “They handed it to me over the counter… like a pack of cigarettes.” He retired from the force the following month.
It wasn’t until Feb. 3, 2022, that he even received a proper certificate with a personally inscribed medal — in the mail. To this day, he still has shrapnel in his head.
“They took the job I loved most,” he said. “I just wanted to be a cop, and they took it away from me.”
