It sounds like a tale from the darkest days of New York Police Department corruption. As the New York Post reported on Wednesday, “A retired NYPD vice detective put his know-how to bad use – allegedly masterminding a prostitution and gambling ring that got him and seven active cops arrested.”
Those officers have now been charged with various offenses. Moreover, there’s no question that this is a major scandal for the NYPD. According to the New York Post, 30 officers and 40 civilians are persons of interest in the investigation. Still, as odd as it reads, this is also a story of good policing. After all, it isn’t federal law enforcement but rather fellow NYPD officers who are responsible for defeating this multi-million dollar conspiracy involving prostitution, corrupt payoffs, and other criminal enterprises. Specifically, it is the officers of the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau who are the heroes here. Because it is they who had the skill, patience, and dedication to their badges to bring justice to those who betrayed their oaths.
As NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill noted, “The people of this department are rightly held to the highest standard, and should they fail to meet it, the penalty will be swift and severe.”
O’Neill is right, but his words would mean nothing without the men and women of IAB.
That said, the highly professional bureau isn’t one for those faint of heart or looking to make friends. Like many police departments across the nation, the NYPD continues to have a silent code of not “ratting” or testifying against fellow officers. That code motivates some officers to treat their colleagues in IAB with inherent mistrust.
For police officers — those who interact everyday with the worse of humanity — it takes rare courage and moral conviction to choose IAB. After all, IAB is an assignment that comes without the unquestioning camaraderie that defines relations between police officers in other bureaus and patrol units. When a patrol officer meets another homicide detective for the first time, for example, there’s a natural kinship of “blue meets blue.” But when a narcotics detective meets an IAB detective, it’s “blue meets caveated-blue.” And while it’s true that internal affairs officers are primarily unpopular with other officers for their bureaucratic procedures and not for their work per se, those procedures are proven in their investigative value.
It wasn’t always this way. The Knapp Commission’s 1972 report identified major flaws with policing across the NYPD, including in the internal affairs division. But in 2018, NYPD-IAB is one of the very finest in the nation. And without that quality, the officers charged this week may well have continued with their accused betrayal. And many other officers wouldn’t feel the trust to come forward and report corruption in confidence that their testimony will be protected from the corrupt.
It is a tale of policing, both good and bad.
