General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThis guy died a couple weeks ago and no one noticed. That's a shame.
Genuine hero from my youth in NYC. Manning and Ellsberg had/have guts to take on the US military. But frankly, going up against the corruption of the entire NYPD ... plus the NYC political establishment ... was probably even more hazardous to one's health.
He did it anyway.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/nyregion/david-durk-detective-who-exposed-police-corruption-dies-at-77.html?_r=0
David Durk, a New York police detective who with Officer Frank Serpico shattered the infamous blue wall of silence to expose widespread corruption in the citys Police Department in the 1960s and 70s, died on Tuesday at his home in Putnam County, N.Y. He was 77.
The cause was cardiac arrest, his wife, Arlene, said. He had been treated for mesothelioma for the past two years, she said.
An Amherst College graduate who studied law at Columbia University, Mr. Durk joined the Police Department in 1963. He imagined a life of public service, as he put it rosily years later, to help an old lady walk the streets safely and a storekeeper make a living without keeping a shotgun under his cash register.
But what he found was a culture of corruption: of officers and superiors taking payoffs from gamblers, drug dealers, merchants and mobsters for protection and information, like the names of informers they wanted to kill; of officers stealing and dealing drugs, riding shotgun for pushers and intimidating witnesses.
In precinct after precinct, Mr. Durk found cash pads lists of payoffs from gamblers with shares for officers, sergeants and higher-ups. And behind the corruption, he discovered, was a litany of unwritten rules amounting to a pervasive acceptance of the wrongdoing, even among those not on the take a code of silence, called the blue wall, which was corroding morale.
(more at link)
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Thank you for posting important information about his life and the sad news about his passing, Smarmie Dufus.
NYPD was so corrupt, it was systemic. While many good officers have given their lives in the line of duty and today fill the ranks, I am saddened to see how one particular officer who rose to the top post-September 11 was so connected to the nation's Get-Out-of-Jail Free Class.
Kaleva
(36,314 posts)Historic NY
(37,451 posts)RIP Sgt Durk
secondvariety
(1,245 posts)KT2000
(20,584 posts)I wondered at the time if there are any more like him.
I have huge respect for those few who break the special interest walls whether it is the blue wall (police), white wall (doctors) or any powerful racket that serves itself illegally.
Smarmie Doofus
(14,498 posts)It's hard enough for most of us to stand up alone against conventional wisdom/morality on relatively minor issues, so that when people like Durk put ... not only their careers, not only their livelihoods.... bit also their *lives* at stake it is something to take notice of and to CONTEMPLATE.
Not many of us have that kind of integrity; and if we do , still fewer of us have that kind of GUTS.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)blackspade
(10,056 posts)Things certainly haven't changed except that now the badge criminals have assault weapons and body armor.
bluestate10
(10,942 posts)Hissyspit
(45,788 posts)his character in the movie was the one played by Tony Roberts:
Smarmie Doofus
(14,498 posts)I'm not sure what that was about, but apparently Durk's name was fictionalized to something else in the Serpico book. Perhaps a difference of opinion re. sequence of events, etc. Or possibly a personal falling out.
A book written from Durk's POV came later.
Here: http://www.amazon.com/Crusader-Hell-Raising-Police-Career-Detective/dp/product-description/0394576489
Kennah
(14,276 posts)niyad
(113,413 posts)Kennah
(14,276 posts)saidsimplesimon
(7,888 posts)without such personal sacrifice. Not everyone enjoys the protection of the media and law enforcement. I don't think Watergate would have been exposed, if the "boys" had not sworn a vow of silence.
Zorra
(27,670 posts)October
(3,363 posts)Amazing story.
I watch Treme, on HBO, and part of the storyline is similar to the Serpico story -- except that it takes place in New Orleans (post-Katrina).
Thank you for posting.
xxqqqzme
(14,887 posts)the destruction of unions, gutting of pensions and declining/stagnant earnings is paving the way for corruption to once again be the rule not exception.
Much respect to Mr Durk. Thank you.
Smarmie Doofus
(14,498 posts)I keep telling people that in education teachers MUST have unions if they are going to be effective advocates for kids against the predations of the public school systems. The same principle holds true for police ( obviously) and other occupations.
Not everyone is a Durk or Serpico. Or Ellsberg. Or Manning.
They need job protection: specifically due process protection against arbitrary dismissal.
People have to eat. They have to feed their families. That imperative always trumps free speech and "doing the right thing".