cover image NYPD Confidential: Power and Corruption in the Country's Greatest Police Force

NYPD Confidential: Power and Corruption in the Country's Greatest Police Force

Leonard Levitt, . . St. Martin's/Dunne, $25.95 (304pp) ISBN 978-0-312-38032-8

When he covered the NYPD for Newsday , Levitt had access to all levels of the country's largest law enforcement agency, and now the Edgar winner (Conviction ) catalogues dirty cops and departmental scandals. While he doesn't withhold credit where it's due (such as in the World Trade Center attacks), Levitt is most interested in the corrupt underbelly of America's largest police department. “[S]acrificing truth for image while acting in secrecy” is the department's M.O., he says. Both the 1970s Knapp Commission corruption hearings and the Mollen Commission in the 1990s underscored that dirty cops weren't confined to the lower ranks—the dishonesty reached all the way to the highest echelons. Examining some of the department's most notorious acts of violence—e.g., the torturing of Abner Louima, the shooting death of the unarmed Amadou Diallo—he has little praise for supposedly tough-on-crime mayor Giuliani. Some readers' eyes may cross at the sheer abundance of names and dates (a time line offers some help), but Levitt's account is an engrossing in-depth look at scandal inside the NYPD. (July)