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

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

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Product Description

For years, the police commissioner and the mayor of New York City have duked it out for publicity, credit, and power. Some have translated their stardom into success after leaving office, while others have been hung out to dry. In the battle for control of the country’s most powerful police force, these high-status government officials have often chosen political expediency over public honesty. The result is a legacy of systemic corruption and cover-ups that is nothing less than shocking.

Respected journalist Leonard Levitt has covered the NYPD for New York Newsday, and the New York Post among other papers. His columns have made him persona non grata in police headquarters. In NYPD Confidential, he reveals everything he’s discovered throughout his decades-long career. With amazing details of backroom deals and larger-than-life powerbrokers, Levitt lays bare the backstabbing, power-grabs, and chaotic internal investigations that have run the NYPD’s reputation into the ground in the past—and the forces conspiring to do so once again.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #177290 in Books
  • Published on: 2009-07-21
  • Released on: 2009-07-21
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • 320 pages

Features

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. 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)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"This is a veteran reporter's inside story about the New York City Police Department. It's a fascinating read. I couldn't put it down. Leonard Levitt delves into the murky backroom deals of City Hall, and the missing pieces to the NYPD's corruption fall skillfully into place."
--Frank Serpico
 
"One thing you can be sure of: 35,000 New York cops always were the first to read Lenny Levitt's stories every time. It was true comedy to watch him, small and with a big pad, go down the hall in headquarters as top officials, brass jangling, egos scraping the ceiling, flew into their offices. Levitt's book also is depressing when he tells of an innocent being shot. Amadou Diallo was shot forty-one times by police in his Bronx doorway. The case was moved to Albany, where the only thing you could say about a cop was 'not guilty.' You will read every page of this book, as I did."
--Jimmy Breslin
 
"When you read about the political and personal agendas at the top of the NYPD, it makes you feel sorry for the honest copys who signed on to protect and serve."
--Bob Ingle, coauthor of The Soprano State
 
"Len Levitt's behind-the-scenes account of the NYPD is in the tradition of hard-hitting New York police reporters such as Jacob Riis and Lincoln Steffens. I find his work fascinating."
--Thomas Reppeto, former president of the Citizens Crime Commission of New York City, and coauthor of NYPD: A City and Its Police
 
"Eye-opening reporting on America’s largest and most powerful police force."
-- Kirkus Reviews
 
"Want to always feel in the know? Len Levitt's website is the place to go. Controversial, informative, insightful: he never hesitates to tackle an issue or render an opinion." --WILLIAM BRATTON, Chief of Police, LAPD, former Police Commissioner, NYPD
 
"Lenny Levitt is the Walter Winchell of the NYPD. Some love to read him. Some hate to read him. But everybody reads him." --JOHN MILLER, Assistant Director, FBI, former NYPD spokesman
 
"Love him or hate him, Len Levitt is required reading for many within the ranks of the NYPD, present and past." --Chief JOHN F. TIMONEY, Miami Police Department and former NYPD First Deputy Commissioner

About the Author

LEONARD LEVITT wrote the column, One Police Plaza for Newsday about the New York City police department from 1995 to 2005. He has also worked as a reporter for the Associated Press and the Detroit News, as a correspondent for Time, and as the investigations editor of the New York Post. His work has appeared in Harper’s, Esquire, and the New York Times Magazine. He received an Edgar Award for his nonfiction work Conviction.

Customer Reviews

NYPD Commissioners....3
I guess I expected more of a review of police corruption in the NYPD. Instead, Mr. Levitt discussed his relationship with the numerous police commissioners and the media.
Also included was their relationship with the mayor who made the appointment. It did touch on many of the corrupt officers, but not enough for me.

Rick, Las Vegas, Nevada5
Leonard Levitt's new book NYPD Confidential is a no holds barred look into the NYC Police Department and the corruption, collusion and relationships among mayors, mobsters and politicians. Noone is spared, not mayors,chiefs of police,politicians both local and national, district attorneys or mobsters.
Levitt names names and places and his sources are both named and unamed. Noone has yet denied or disputed any accusations made in this book.
As a NYC resident during the three decades covered in the book I can attest to the voluminous cases of police and political corruption reported so frequently in the daily newspapers. Levitt, however, goes much further into the details of what went on as well as shocking new allegations against people in power that the public was never aware of until now.
This is a very powerful book and I strongly suggest that any person that believes that power does not corrupt will surely change their minds after reading this book.

A sweeping history of every NYPD gaffe5
Not much good was ever done by the NYPD in this journalistic memoir. This recounts every scandal and shameful episode from the past 40 years, along with acerbic portraits of Guiliani and numerous police commissioners, most of whom are shown as egotistical, if not downright stupid. The author was buddies with a few of them and they get kid-glove treatment. You'll want to read this if you're a police or crime buff. It's pretty fascinating, if grim, stuff.