Original subtitles

Subtitles by explosiveskull

I had, uh, more lights here.

I had, you know, makeup lights here.

I had spray bottles.

All different kind of makeup.

Uh, I had to go to work.

I had to go arrest prostitutes..

...and I hated the job.

I told myself, "Frank

"you're goin' on stage tonight.

"And, uh, the audience is out there

and, uh, you gotta really put this over."

I told myself I was an actor.

And, uh..

I just had to sell my role, you know.

I got my training

in the streets of New York

where I played many roles

from a doctor to a derelict.

And, how well I played those roles

my life depended on it.

Tell us about the real Serpico.

This is a story about a real American hero,

but it's not a happy story.

Only one man has successfully exposed the system

of cover-up and corruption in

New York's Police Department from the inside out.

His name, Frank Serpico.

Serpico made repeated pleas

to police and city officials

to investigate widespread corruption

in the police department.

Frank is an honorable man,

a dedicated man, a loner.

His decision is what prompted

Peter Maas to write the book

that inspired the movie.

The shattering impact of Serpico

He was forced to become an outsider

because he tried to live up

to an ideal of honest police work.

Like the movie "Serpico"

the real Frank Serpico was shot

in the face by a narcotics dealer.

The detective has bullet fragments

still in his skull.

For a time, some people suspected a set-up.

In 1972, Serpico exiled himself

and left the controversy and his country behind.

The bullet was never removed

because it, it shattered.

I got a piece in my jaw.

One piece came out my ear one day.

You know, I got a 9 millimeter piece

nudging my carotid artery.

I couldn't open a door

without being very cautious

if anybody was behind it.

These were all, uh,

after-effect of, uh,

of, uh, of what happened.

Alright.

Let's see if I can make it outta here.

See if my guy's here. There he is. Okay.

See that crow?

Uh, I'm gonna put food out for him.

I meet people today

and they say, "You were a cop?

How... how could you have been a cop?"

They think that cops only think one certain way.

In fact, even before I became a cop

I was a youth social worker.

Uh, police officers, to me

wasn't just locking up criminals...

it was keeping kids out of jail.

You know, it was a calling to me.

Both my grandfathers were coalminers.

My father's father, on his last paycheck

was stabbed and robbed of his payroll.

But he made it back to Italy

and he impregnated my grandmother

and then he died

Maybe in my mind, as a little kid

hearing that story was,

you know, "I'll catch that guy some day."

You go out there

looking for justice.

When Italian-Americans came to this country

they were not even considered

part of the white race.

At Ellis Island

there was a separate category for Southern Italians.

These immigrants, they're different from

the previous generations of Italians

who had come from Northern Italy.

They're illiterate. They have a different religion.

They'll never learn the English language.

They're practically Africans.

Once they got to America, what did they find?

There was someone who said

"I came to America, I found out

"A, the streets are not paved with gold.

"Uh, B, they're not paved at all.

And, C, I was supposed to pave them."

For someone like Serpico's parents

it must've been not just the cultural shock

but a kinda psychological trauma.

There were shoeshine booths up there.

And, uh, here was the counter and here was the workspace.

My father, he had canaries all up in there

and every time he'd turn the machines on, they would sing.

And, when the bird was born

sometimes the parents would abandon him

and my father would feed them.

He was a prisoner.

He was a POW.

And, uh, ahem, I guess you learn things

from human nature and

and this was his, his respite, you know.

He never heard of the word "zen"

but he was, uh, he was very zen.

I used to shine shoes in his store.

I remember, it was a sunny day like today

and I'm standing over here

and I see this big burly cop walks in.

And, uh, he walks up and he says, "Gimme a shine."

And I'm looking up at him like, "Wow.

I'm shining the shoes of the law."

I gave him the best shine I could, you know.

He steps down, turns around

and walks out the door.

He didn't pay me.

He didn't say thank you.

Although he had the shield of the law

he demeaned it by his actions.

The following week

my father looks and he sees him coming.

And he's waiting for him as he comes in the door.

"Good morning, Officer.

You want a shine?"

He said, "Yeah."

"Ten cents. Pay first."

The burly cop was never seen again.

What I learned, I learned from my parents.

My father said, "Never run when you're right."

Guy's a hell of a parker.

It feels different.

Well, I was much younger, then.

I lived here

all through the '50s.

My early, uh, teens.

America's society did succeed

in instilling in immigrants that

you have a larger public responsibility.

You know, to be educated, to vote, to participate.

But there's something else going on too.

On the one hand, you grow up

and you're told to respect authority.

But, if you listen to the adults

speaking at the adult table

there's always a kind of

skepticism about political power.

There are people with power

and there are people who have to bow down before power.

You have to be suspicious.

What happens when you go into these institutions

and you see that it's a racket?

When I got out of the service,

I went to Brooklyn College.

And what did I study? Police Science.

I would even come to school

with navy blue pants and a trench coat

because I wanted to play the part.

You know, they say if you play the part

you become the part, right?

When I became a cop

I wanted to be in the Youth Squad.

I went to one of the locations.

I saw the guys that I worked with.

And they say, "Hey, Mr. Serpico."

Cop says, "Where do you know this guy from?"

I said, "I was a social worker."

And he, with his club..

This is the

rehabilitation they understand.

That's the attitude.

There's some memory I'm trying to recall here.

I used to climb up that ladder

push the, uh, lid off.

Helped me a lot when I was a cop.

I went up a lotta those.

So, I'm workin' in uniform.

You know, I'd stop somebody

and the guy'd say, "Officer

"can you give me a break?

All I have in my wallet is $35."

The guy's gonna bribe me, you know.

Go back to the car.

The old guys that are supposed to be training you

they called them "hair bags."

I say, "This guy just offered me $35."

He says, "Get in the car. I'll take care of it."

He comes back with $35.

"Here, we split everything." I said "No.

I don't... I don't want that."

That was my first lesson,

the job is not on the level.

And it just got worse and worse

and it went bigger and bigger.

I used to live on these streets.

People couldn't find the West Village.

It wasn't on the numerical grid

that the rest of New York was on.

We came there because we didn't identify

somehow, with the rest of society

You were artists

or you were intellectuals

or you were gay.

This was no place for a police officer to live.

Really, no place.

I knew he was a policeman when I moved in.

I don't know if he told us

but we knew.

We were like simple hippies.

So, we were supposed to be like

Capulets and Montagues or something.

But he must've been attracted

to the same things we were attracted to.

Individuality was very important.

And I think I gravitated toward him as a person

because I knew he had that.

I knew he was on our side.

It was a... a very independent view

of what a policeman could be.

He was the type of guy that I could click with.

You know, he was a Brooklyn guy, so was I.

He was interested in making collars and, uh, so was I.

And, uh, we got to be friends.

We had a vision of what policing was about.

It was kind of a little naive

but, nonetheless, you know, it's something good.

My generation of cops were different thinking

than a more stereotype image of a cop.

There's more, uh, serious things to do in policing

and not, uh, harass or arrest someone for a minor charge.

As I recall, Paco got what I was trying to do.

And I found out that he, uh, lived in The West Village

not too far from where I lived.

And we started our friendship from there.

You know, if you get a rapport going

and people trust you

the police could do, uh, good things.

We spoke the language,

we... we understood certain things

because you were raised up that way.

PEP was about community policing.

The difference in then and now

I wasn't a bully.

I was a police officer doin' a job.

Well, Frank's story is very deep

and hard to get to the bottom of.

He knew exactly what, uh, he thought

uh, police in a free society ought to be.

And, it gave him problems with h... his fellow officers.

The police from the old school

saw him as a traitor.

Not to face that is not to

really understand the whole story.

That is the story, in... in a way.

If you want an ethical society

you have to work at it all the time.

The most important and hardest place to have it

is among your enforcers.

And Frank, he immediately saw that

and tried to address it alone.

Which is a tough role..

...and we see where it, where it took him.

So now, there I was,

in the detective division.

I had a beard, I wore sandals

and I lived in Greenwich Village.

And, they were using me undercover.

We knew he was an undercover cop

He had some disguises

that we would occasionally see him in

There was something theatrical

about him in his profession

which I understood, being in... in theater arts.

He did it well.

I had to go to work.

I had to go arrest prostitutes

and I hated the job.

"Hello, you'll give me a good time?"

"Sure. What do ya like?"

"Uh, you know, what I like."

"What do you do, eh, something special?"

"Eh, how much is cost?"

"I don't have this kinda money, you know?"

"Yeah, that's the best you can do?"

"You didn't take your clothes off yet?"

"Uh, is, uh, police. You under arrest."

"Ha-ha, come on, let's get outta here, Shirley."

"Hey, you no go no place, eh?"

"Hey, what are you gonna do with that cigarette lighter?"

Boom! Into the mattress.

"Oh, Jesus!"

I was one of those undercover guys.

When you lie in life, and we've all lied

there's a stress to that

because you have to keep that lie up.

Well, now, we're asking you to

do lying at the ultimate.

You're gonna become a whole 'nother person.

You have to mimic the people

that you're trying to infiltrate.

Coming back to being who you

really are is difficult.

Most of the guys in the undercover

were married and had kids.

He was a single guy

living in Greenwich Village.

And maybe they sensed that... that

he was too much of a... a free-wheeler.

You know, he may wind up living with

these people that he's working with.

'Cause that does happen in undercover.

At the time, the department

was run mainly by the Irish Catholics.

And Frank was looked down upon.

All he wanted was to be a detective

and get the gold shield.

And, th... they figured, "If he wants it

we're not gonna give it to him."

The NYPD, at the time

was basically a club atmosphere.

The institution like Stepford Wives.

They want everybody to toe the same line

have the same opinions, do the same job.

They can control that cop.

But, there has to be room

for the innovator.

And Frank is probably

the most innovative individual

who's ever worn an NYPD uniform.

So, you're no longer

the go-along-to-get-along kinda guy.

That becomes

very uncomforting to the establishment.

One night, I had to use the bathroom.

And the lights go on.

And it's the, uh, inspector.

And he says,

"Serpico, what were you doing in the shithouse

in the dark with another man?"

I said, "What?"

And he says, "I couldn't stand you

"from the first day you walked in here

"with your long hair and your beard

and your sandals and livin' in Greenwich Village."

So, I knew what was gonna happen.

I'm gonna get flopped back into uniform.

I went out and I bought me a tape recorder.

It was the best in the market at that time.

Couple of days later my phone rang.

"Serpico?" "Yeah."

"You're back in uniform

effective Monday morning, 70th Precinct."

That was the real

causal factor in my whole life.

If that didn't happen, we wouldn't be here today.

If he had come in the squad

history would've treated him more gently.

He went back to uniform and then he ends up plainclothes.

That was not a good thing.

Now, I'm in uniform.

The captain calls me in.

The plainclothes exam is comin' up.

There's a new department director.

"From now on, nobody goes into the detective division

"unless you put in four years in plainclothes

"keep your nose clean, right into the bureau, gold shield.

I'll put you in for plainclothes school."

I said, "Captain, don't do me any favors.

Plainclothes, are you kidding me?"

He goes, "What?" I said, "What? You know what."

In the early 60s

the department wanted to beef up

the narcotics enforcement.

They brought all these plainclothesmen in.

But the problem with the plainclothes

a lot of them were on the pad.

How many inspectors did you pay off?

Well, I paid one.

How much?

Anywhere from $25 to $50, per week.

Have you personally seen police paid off like...

Yes, I've seen this. And you see it quite often.

Do you report that?

Who are you gonna report it to?

I was to give them 50% of everything that I sold.

Did you meet him every night?

Practically every night, yeah.

And you reported to him how much you had sold

and you gave him his cut?

Penny for penny.

The pad was an organized system of payoffs.

And it went right up to the top

to the highest levels of the department.

And higher. Who knows?

Corruption was rampant.

There were some guys that

did some bad things.

They took me in a hallway.

They took two bundles of stuff that I had

and a $150 I had.

And they let me go.

The cop took everything except my watch

which he gave to me back, and let me go.

They told me if they see me around again

they'd bust me.

But they, they never did.

Police officers, being exposed

to the large volume of drug traffic

in the community

sort of become immune to the fact that

they are dealing with, ha ha, living death

and some of them

may look upon this as a source of income.

Businessmen, gamblers and narcotics dealers

were paying the New York policemen

millions of dollars a year.

This was all run by the police department

and the plainclothesmen

which Frank ended up being in.

Everybody was paying bribes.

It had become part of the scene.

And that made it hard to fight.

Does anybody in the community trust the police?

I really don't know.

Put it this way, I don't know of any that do.

There's a lot of cops that, uh..

I think Paco even said this

they're afraid to be honest.

I mean, that's a bad system.

And you're afraid not to go along.

And, uh, that doesn't do well for society.

Look, they just shouldn't be able to do it with impunity.

For this precinct, cases reported, murder...

Everybody knew. Plainclothes was rotten through-and-through.

Serpico!

The captain says,

"Nobody can make you do what you don't wanna do."

And I thought, "Well, that's true."

We're down in a darkened cellar precinct.

Serpico.

And this officer in uniform.

He says "Serpico?" "Yup."

He hands me an envelope. I said, "What's this?"

He says, "It's from Jewish Max."

I open it up and

there's $300 in there.

And then, we're cruisin' around.

I say, "Hey, look-it over there,

there's some action over there."

"Yeah-yeah, don't worry about that.

You gotta respect the contract."

It means, he's on the books, he's payin' off.

And the guy's telling me, "You know, why don't you take the money?"

You know. And I says, "I don't need the money."

"Yeah, but, you know, we'd feel a lot better."

And I said, "What do I care what you feel?

You know, I like to sleep at night."

That's when I called up this guy

that I met in plainclothes school

who said he had the connections.

Durk.

Life Magazine asked me to do

an article about Sergeant Durk

a Jewish doctor's son from Amherst

who was on a crusade against corruption.

It was a fascinating setup.

The... the Jewish doctor's son from Amherst

and, uh, and Frank Serpico

who, who was really a street guy.

An Irish Catholic department and these two outsiders

and it didn't have room for either of them.

Frank and David Durk saw my article

on the front page of The Times about cooping.

"Cooping" is police sleeping on duty.

And so they called up

and Frank told this long, complicated story

with all these ranks of deputy inspector

and the assistant deputy inspector and so-and-so

and all this police slang.

And I just didn't understand it, you know.

But I thought it was interesting.

At some point, Durk comes to me and he says,

"Look, there's corruption all over the place."

He tells me about going to meet with

the deputy mayor, Jay Kriegel.

How he met with, I think, Arnold Fraiman.

Nobody's paying attention.

And so they gave up and said

"Oh, well, maybe we can get something

at "The Times.""

That's what we did.

Durk told me he has been working with

a "New York Times" reporter

because he's absolutely exasperated.

"Would you meet with this guy?"

And I said, "Well, wh... what for?"

He says, "Well, just to give him

"background information about, you know,

how Narcotics works."

So I said, "Alright."

So I met with David Burnham,

and I told him whatever I knew.

About 298, the first district..

But I really didn't know that much

because I just wanted to stay away from it.

You know, I... I had the feeling

that there was problems..

...and I just wanted to stay away from it.

But I knew it was coming

because Dave told me he was working on it.

Obviously, being a reporter

for "The New York Times"

it was gonna be an expose.

The editors were doubtful.

This makes a very sweeping charge

against the police, at a high level.

This was really a world that th... they had never

gone down before.

I eventually pulled a fast one

and told the mayor's press secretary

that we had this big investigation going.

A week later, Lindsay announced

that they're gonna form an in-house group

to, uh, investigate corruption.

An investigatory commission

filled with people who were beholden

to him, friends.

And this got laughed out of existence

almost immediately by "The New York Times"

and by everybody else.

Can't be in-house. They have to have outsiders.

We had to run the story.

So, now "The Times" piece is about to come out

and an official investigation is started.

Officer Serpico, thank you

for your testimony.

You've already testified

at least one time at this point.

Oh, yeah, and they knew about it.

That might've been a possibility.

Instead of putting me in Narcotics

undercover, the most dangerous job that there is.

Now I'm working in Narcotics.

My sergeant comes up to me

"Listen, Serpico. You don't pull the shit you pulled up there.

"That was chicken shit.

"We're talkin' about real money here.

"And with that, you don't fuck around.

Do I make myself clear?"

So, I come to work one day.

I'm sittin' in a car

with two other officers.

And one guy moves the rearview mirror

and he says,

"We heard you went to the grand jury

and didn't hold back nothin'."

I said, "Really? Where'd you hear that from?"

"We got our informants."

"The story's comin' out tonight in "The New York Times.""

And I thought, "Son of a bitch!"

And that's when I had to really watch

my facial expressions.

And the first chance I got, I called Burnham.

He said, "Yeah, the story's

comin' out tonight."

It is probably true that there isn't a city in the country

that doesn't have some form of problem with corruption.

What is your own philosophy on corruption

in relationship to the city government?

It's a constant battle.

You must wage that battle

every day and every night.

Uh, and the best possible way

I think to, uh, to wage that battle is by,

is by constant opening up of everything.

The worst thing of all is secrecy.

Don't move. Don't move! Get your hands up!

There was a police scandal every 20 years.

Which didn't mean that there was corruption every 20 years.

It means the corruption got exposed every 20 years.

Previous exposures of police corruption

had largely come from the outside.

They'd never come from within the department.

So, Serpico was absolutely exceptional.

He knew, literally, where the bodies were buried.

He could do a lot more damage

to this web of corruption than anyone had before.

Institutions evolve and devolve in a certain way

where corruption is absolutely unavoidable.

The question then becomes

how do those institutions deal with it.

Uh, and then how does the larger society deal with it.

The fact that he actually remained

in this position is one of the great

moral exemplars of our time.

When you find people that don't

identify with power, they're very special.

People like Frank Serpico

that are willing to put themselves at risk.

And, they're important not only

for what they tell us but also for the courage

that they model for the rest of us.

They remind you that you too, um,

you too can, can be honest

and can speak the truth, and can confront power.

The system has ways

of swallowing up these people.

Either you resign yourself

and you become cynical

or you speak out and the system destroys you.

How ya doin'?

Good.

We haven't seen each other in 50 years?

At least.

Were you in Plainclothes?

Just Narcotics.

You didn't do Plainclothes.

- No. - Oh!

I went to Narcotics.

And then, I came in and I was part of the team.

Right.

The captain called us in the office

and said that you were coming.

"I'm gonna stick you with Frank."

And what was your reaction when...

"Why us?"

And what had you been hearing about him?

That he was a rat.

That you were squealing on cops taking money.

Oh. And that was bad?

Yes.

Well..

Nobody trusted you.

They couldn't figure out what you had

or what was behind it all.

I don't believe half of the bullshit they're saying.

But, you know, when you keep hearing the same things

yeah, I don't believe it, but, I'll watch what I'm doing.

Otherwise, say, "You don't have a wire on you?"

You know, half-joking, half-believing, he did.

But, you see, as a cop, heh, you have to trust

the people you're working with.

If you don't, you're in trouble.

There was this scene in the movie when I bought my..

...Browning 14-round, uh, handgun

and the guy says, "What are you expecting

an army or something?"

And I said, "No, just a division."

But, in a sense, it was an army.

It would've taken less to go up against

a machine gun nest

because there, I either make it or I don't.

But going against something

that is alive and still in existence..

...it cost me many a... a sleepless night.

What got me through was I believed

that I was on the side of right.

You know, you have some unscrupulous guys in the police department.

Serpico.

It was told that some of these guys had bodies.

So, if you was not liked

and... and you had a problem, you was in trouble,

they may take a little while longer to get to you and respond.

All the way through this thing I would occasionally get

calls from policemen, I presume..

...saying they were gonna kill me or they were gonna kill my children.

The first time it happened, I called Sid Cooper..

...who was a friend and..

I gotta watch out, I'll start crying.

He was a really great cop.

And I said, "Sid, what do I do?"

And he said, "Listen, kid,

"you never worry about the death threats you get.

You know, you worry about the ones you don't get."

Getting back..

...to the night in question..

This was my .38 Special.

We were supposed to meet at the 80th Precinct.

And I remember walkin' in that night

there was like this... cold

eerie feeling.

These cops, they somehow knew me.

"We're gonna make an arrest tonight.

We got an informant."

"You gotta get us in there."

So, we're sittin' there

and, uh, that's part of what you do, you observe.

But, how are you gonna do that

unless, uh, you know, you go in the building?

And they said, "Well, why don't you go up there

and, uh, see what you can do, you know?"

So, I have on an army jacket

and, you know, boots.

And I get into my role.

For five years, I was talking about police corruption,

and they all knew about it.

They knew about it all the way to the top.

And, all of a sudden, I find myself up here.

Somethin' told me, "Get outta here."

I was gonna take my gun, my shield and..

And, then, somethin' in my head said

"Nah, you can't do that. You took an oath."

And so I thought, "Well, let's get it over with."

These two officers were standing by.

One was here.

Had his revolver drawn.

And the other one was standing here.

We finally decided I was gonna make a buy here.

"Once you get the door open, leave the rest to us."

- And.. - Police officers!

I... I turned, like this, and hit the door

and I had up to here in the door.

And he was right behind the door.

I don't know how time works.

What the... are you waiting for?

Give me a hand.

Meanwhile, I got this guy covered.

And when I turn back..

You know, whoever expects that they're gonna die..

...and then all of a sudden, bang! It happens.

The first thing went through my mind was, "This is it?"

Something was looking down at my body..

...in a pool of blood.

I thought, "I wonder if the back of my head is missin'."

And then I thought, "Wow, no pain."

No pain.

It's the passage from the darkness to the light.

And then I heard voices calling my name.

And, I shouted

silently back.

"No. No, I'm not coming. I'm gonna live."

If I get angry enough, I'll live.

I heard jingling of some keys

coming up the stairs.

And I heard one cop say to the other guy..

"I think he's a narc."

So, they carried me down the stairs.

I couldn't even remember how many stairs we went down.

But we kept goin' down..

...and that was it.

And I said, for years...

at least I know there were two cops... that..

...you know, took me to the hospital.

And years later, an ex-cop wrote a book.

He was riding with this cop one day..

...and he said, "Turn here.

"You see that building? That's where Serpico was shot.

"I was one of the two cops that picked him up.

"If I knew it was Serpico

I woulda left him there to bleed to death."

We were all shocked..

...that he had been hurt so badly

and that it was possibly a setup.

My first thought was, "Oh my God," and then, "Who did it?"

Was it a cop who did it?

That was the great fear of everybody.

Serpico thought that the other cops had left him there to die.

That's what he expected. He knew he was an outsider.

He knew that no one was gonna help if he got in trouble.

Frank can't get into the apartment.

Someone comes running in.

Bang. Shoots Frank.

As it's happening..

...I'm sayin' to myself, "My partner's shot."

"What the hell am I doing here?"

You can think of a million things

in a matter of seconds.

The police arrive on the 10-13.

Frank is a bloody mess.

I'm tryin' to wipe the blood away and he wakes up

and says, "What're you trying to do, s... smother me?"

You know, he... he can joke at a time like this.

Well, I still wonder if it was really

uh, a setup or a coincidence.

And people think different ways.

Seemed like there was an unusual delay in getting him help.

When I got out of the hospital, the first thing I did

I went to Internal Affairs.

And I said I wanna see a copy of the record

of the night I got shot.

And they said, "It's confidential."

I said, "Good.

"I am conducting my own confidential investigation,

"and if you don't show me that fuckin' report right now

you're gonna hear about it tonight on national television."

And he brought it out

and it said, "signal 10-10."

That's a call put out by a civilian.

It was never a 10-13.

They never called a 10-13 when he was..

Yeah.

What does that make you think when you hear that?

Well, you know, like I said, you know, he made a lot of enemies.

No 10-13?

That could've been a typographical error.

Doesn't make sense at all.

Well, why would it be a.. Where was the 10-13?

Was the place loaded with cops?

A sector car responded.

One? One sector car.

Did you ever have any 10-13s called on ya?

- Yes. - Alright, so what happens?

- A lot of 'em came. Yeah. - Everybody comes.

So, you're a cop, and you get shot

and there's no 10-13.

How do you feel?

Bad. I just don't believe that.

No matter what the guy...

But, Cesare, that is a fact.

Yeah but, what you have to understand is after the incident,

I completely forgot about it.

I know that. You said that.

But I'm sayin', put yourself

in the other guy's position.

He's a cop, he gets shot, and there's no 10-13.

And he knows that people don't particularly like him.

Well, this.. You know, as a policeman,

you run into so many things.

After 20 years, it's just another incident.

But you felt like that even about a fellow officer?

Eh, I know it's a silly thing to say, but, yeah

you just accept it.

Anybody that has a badge..

I don't care what you think of somebody.

You... you gotta be there for them.

To have somebody not be there for ya,

it's gotta be the emptiest feeling in the world.

And to... to sit here as a cop, and see that

and to think that somebody didn't help..

...it hurts.

It's not right.

It's not right.

Because all you have is each other on that street.

Okay, he gets shot in the head

and "New York Magazine" calls me up and says,

"Serpico's been shot. Go do an article on him."

So I spent a good deal of time with Frank

preparing that article.

And he was certainly a fascinating person.

I went to this pad he had in Greenwich Village

which was jammed with all kinds of things.

An enormous sheepdog

an aquarium, et cetera.

We used to walk out on to the pier

and he had all these guns.

All these guns. At least two guns, and maybe more.

And he was very winning and, uh, attractive.

Every description that he made

turned out to be correct, for one thing, and was vividly done.

Everything he said was quotable and fascinating.

You have to forgive a writer

who falls in love with subjects

who provide him with terrific material.

And Frank did that.

So, I write the article. The picture on the cover

is an X-ray picture of Frank's skull

with a bullet in it.

Looking back, it's almost amusing.

Not to Frank, it wasn't.

They would put signs up on the door.

Yeah.

When he was convalescing.

It was.. It.. That was shocking.

We were shocked that the police turned against him

so... uniformly.

Didn't make sense to me at that time.

And there was no protection.

That was the other thing.

Where was the protection for him, from that?

There was nothing. He was just alone there.

I remember layin' there in that bed.

Man, I had off-the-scale migraine.

I had fragments in my head, of lead.

And I'm laying in bed..

You know, and my head is.. It feels like it's gonna burst.

And, I remembered when I was doin' combat training..

We had to crawl

and they were firing live rounds over our head.

And, I got a piece of sand in my eye.

And it was driving me crazy.

I couldn't get it out.

And they... they said, "Stay down! Stay down!"

"How do I... how am I gonna get this out of my head?

It's... it's in my head."

And the phone kept ringin'.

The police department kept callin' me.

"Serpico, this is a bed check.

You gotta answer the phone."

Get this outta my head. It's in my head.

You know, just kept harassing, harassing me.

They were just tormenting me.

Those were five torturous years.

It's mental torture in the same way

somebody ending up in a prisoner of war camp was tortured..

...because what they're forced to believe

is that what they know is not the truth.

There's nothing more frustrating in the world to tell somebody

the sky is blue and then have the establishment say,

"No, that's green"

and look at you like you're crazy.

Frank Serpico is similar to a guy who goes to war.

A lot of these soldiers are traumatized

because they were in untenable positions.

His nervous system is stuck.

And he's just playing a tape

that he's not gonna get out of because it's frozen

in time and space.

Back in World War I, we called it "shell-shocked."

When you go through what Frank Serpico's gone through..

It's not only when it's goin' on

it's when triggers bring him back

to that original experience.

When you have an experience, you know it happened.

When you have a traumatic experience

you think it's happening.

One day, after I got shot..

...one of my neighbors intercepts me and he says

"Paco, Paco, don't go home."

He said, "They're waiting for ya."

"Who's waiting?"

"Couple of shady-looking characters parked across the street.

They've been there all mornin'."

So, I go around the block

and I come this way, and I have my gun.

And..

"Who's there?"

"Police. Open up."

"Let me see your ID."

I had a tape recorder. And I got my 9 millimeter.

"What do you want?"

"You trust anybody?"

"No."

"Is that thing runnin'?"

"Is your mouth runnin'?"

"Turn it off!"

"As long as your mouth's runnin', it's runnin'."

"Call Chief Cooper right away!"

I called Chief Cooper and he says, "Where the hell you been?"

We just got it on the wire.

They got another hit out for ya."

I said, "Take these pricks outta here.

I don't want 'em."

How long was it after you were shot

while this was all going on?

It was going on all along.

Even, even when I went into court to testify.

These hearings are going to present some of the evidence

that the department has a serious corruption problem..

...which must be characterized as extensive.

The Knapp Commission was a specific response

to a citywide scandal.

Corruption was something that everybody

kind of assumed existed but nobody wanted to admit.

We're saddened and troubled

and deeply hurt

when, uh, the wrongdoing of some of us

is exposed.

I believe that it involves a small number of, uh, people.

The police brass didn't want to admit it.

The politicians didn't want to antagonize the police brass.

The cops kept saying, "Well, there a couple

"of rotten apples in the barrel

but this department is fine."

- What is he doing? - He's under arrest.

And what Frank came out publically

to observe was that at least in his barrel..

...all the apples were bad.

He triggered an investigation

that indicated this might be true

in the department as a whole

and our job was to find out, was it?

Uh, he started it all.

But Frank didn't wanna testify.

He was convinced that we were gonna sandbag him.

He hired Ramsey Clark, the former attorney general

to represent him.

We spent the night before, here, in the apartment.

He had several pistols stashed around.

And, finally, we decided it's time to go.

He was sure walkin' too close to the building.

We slinked down to 7th Avenue

and, uh, dropped down into the subway.

He was very nervous on the subway.

But, you know, if you got shot

in your face like that, uh..

...he's got reason to be nervous.

And probably some pretty powerful interests

were worried about what he was gonna say. You know?

Anybody that knew him knew

he was gonna say exactly what he thought.

He warmed up and..

...his testimony was, uh..

...pure Serpico.

Through my appearance here today,

I hope that police officers in the future

will not experience the same frustration and anxiety

that I was subjected to for the past five years

at the hands of my superiors

because of my attempt to report corruption.

The problem is that the atmosphere

does not yet exist

in which an honest police officer

can act without fear of ridicule or reprisal

from fellow officers.

See, that was the one thing I have against you.

You exposed corruption

but only cops got hurt.

I was talkin' about the system.

It went all the way up to the top.

That's why I didn't wanna wear a wire.

I didn't wanna get the guys I was workin' with.

The only problem I have..

...with Frank is

if he wanted to do it, great.

I wouldn't do it.

You wanna do it, get the bosses

because without their okay, it will not happen.

Now, how do you lock up a boss?

How do you go after these guys?

I don't know. I didn't even try.

Yeah.

Was any, uh, suggestion made

that you carry an electronic device yourself

in investigating th... uh, the corruption?

Yes.

And what was your reaction to the suggestion?

If I personally wore a wire..

...the only information I could get

was on a patrolman level

and I was not interested

in just locking up patrolmen,

that I wanted to, uh, take it to a much higher level

where the problem lied.

And who was present at the meeting?

Myself, Detective Durk, and Commissioner Fraiman.

To the best of your recollection,

what, uh, was said?

I again in... informed the commissioner

of all the facts that I had related

to the other people.

And what was Commissioner Fraiman's reaction?

He said, "Well, uh, what do you want me to do about it?"

We came to the conclusion that the police department

and its top brass and the mayor had not..

...acted on... on Frank's information..

...and that they should have.

The events tell the story.

You had Arnie Fraiman..

...an appointee of John Lindsay.

You had Jay Kriegel.

The former Commissioner Leary,

an appointee of Lindsay.

They all sat on their hands.

So, this corruption is very, very

complex and deep in the... in the city.

Mr. Armstrong, do you come away

from this hearing believing that the majority

of the plainclothesmen in this city are corrupt?

Testing, one, two, three.

What kind of affect do you think

the Knapp Commission Report

is having on your fellow officers?

Uh, the morale has gone, uh, down very much.

We feel pretty low.

If they did

the job that they intended to do,

to root out corrupt policemen

every honest policeman would stand up

and take their hat off to 'em.

But they didn't do that.

They got on television and they used

a big wide brush and they painted everybody.

Everybody.

The reaction to the Knapp Commission was ferocious.

There was a lotta hostility.

I don't think anybody likes people

looking into whether they're corrupt or not.

And if you have an organization

that's a quasi-military organization

that is used to feeling in danger,

perhaps the feelings are gonna be stronger.

We felt it. Would a police officer? Yeah, sure.

Police corruption cannot exist..

...unless it is at least tolerated

at higher levels in the department.

Merely uncovering widespread patterns of corruption

will not resolve the problem.

Basic changes in attitude and approach are vital.

The policeman's first obligation is to be

responsive to the needs of the community he serves.

Frank testified before the Knapp Commission..

...and he became famous.

Very, very... very famous.

I first learned of Frank Serpico

from colleagues of my husband's.

Uh, he began telling us about this fantastic cop

in the Bronx who was spilling the beans

on all these bad guys.

Peter Maas introduced me to Frank

and it was astounding how real he was.

It wasn't newspaper hype.

The first thing we did was arrange for the book.

It came to me, and I said

"We have to get this book."

There was a deep human story here

about this very interesting person.

My own experience is

many people feel this

but they feel they're alone.

I thought to myself, "Oh, my God.

Everybody should read this."

You didn't just print it for today and tomorrow.

You printed it for all time.

I knew about Serpico

'cause I read about him in the paper

and then I read the book.

First of all, I thought it was a terrific story.

There hasn't been that many stories made

about Italians like that

'cause he was such a rebel.

The story really must be the star

number one in any movie.

Another example is "Serpico."

I read, uh, ten page from, uh, new book Peter Maas.

I decide to do it.

Serpico.

There were over a hundred parts

over a hundred locations.

Not a whole lotta money.

And it's ostensibly a period picture..

...in New York.

I think we shot it in 37 days.

Al worked every day.

It was such an active physical film

and also, the things that he was going through.

The bad guys and the good guys

wanted Serpico.

They were gonna light him up.

You know, the biggest thieves in the world.

I was a teenager.

I went to see it a bunch of times

because I was interested in movies

and I loved Al Pacino.

He was a hippie, cop, undercover.

It was a very like, mythical figure..

...in the movie.

It had a big influence on me.

I went and I got my ear pierced.

And then my mother, she said

"Did you pierce your ear?" and I said, "Yeah."

Then she like, took the frying pan, bam!

I was under the influence of Serpico.

Where's my coat?

Well, do you see a black leather jacket

like the one Pacino wore in "Serpico?"

'Cause if you don't, you owe me $379.

No, I'm not gonna testify.

You'll have complete protection.

Yeah, I've heard that one before

I gotta put a dime in the meter.

Sit down, Frank.

I'm ready to blow my whistle here.

Now, you gonna listen to this tape, or not?

No, I am not.

You're one of them, huh? A crooked cop!

And here's the bad news.

I don't need your fuckin' status report, Serpico.

- Serpico. - Serpico.

- Serpico. - You ever see "Serpico?"

"Serpico"

nominated for best performance

by an actor this year

Al Pacino for "Serpico."

You need people with integrity.

Those kind of people inspire you.

When you're 15-16 years old

and you say, wow, this guy is, like

he really, he went the distance.

And he was a renegade and he was a rebel

and he was Al Pacino and he was

the real Frank Serpico.

Playing a real character that exists

y... you're never gonna be them.

When I played Frank Serpico

I'm not the way Frank Serpico really is.

But at the same time,

I've been inspired by

watching his movements

and... and he's made me feel

like sometimes you look in the mirror

and you think you're gonna see another person.

So, one day, we go

and they're doin' this scene.

Where they flush this black man's

face in the toilet.

And I go, what? Why the.. I say, "Cut!"

"Who said that?"

"I did."

"What're you doin'?"

"What am I doin'? What are you doin'?"

"I'm making a movie here!"

I said, "I don't remember that scene."

You been jerkin' me around, heh?

He said, "Well, it happened in my life."

"Oh. Well.

"If you're makin' a movie about your life,

"put it in there.

But leave it the hell out of mine!"

Where's the money?

Sidney liked to do movies the way he wanted to.

And all of a sudden, somebody says "Cut."

And it isn't Sidney.

We always made it a rule.

You've seen the script, and there's really

nothing you can help us with at this point.

"Well, if you're makin' a movie

about your life put it in there."

We have to now let the actors do their work.

"But leave it the hell out of mine!"

You... you can stay, but you can't stay here.

So they asked Frank to leave

and they never wanted him back.

I was working with John Avildsen.

Very few people know

John Avildsen was the director

who was first to be directing the movie.

He came with Norman Wexler.

We worked on the script together.

It was a beautiful day.

I mean, we had snow.

And I remember he just finished a script

and we just go, "Wow. Wow, that's it!"

You know, and, uh, John had on a shearling coat

and a big beard and he rolls down the mountain

and he's all covered with snow

and he, he stands up and he says, "Ah!

"I haven't felt this good

since I was 14 years old!"

And Norman Wexler looked at us like we were crazy

'cause I followed him down.

Well, one day, my wall phone rings..

...and it's John, and he says

"Frank, are you sitting down?"

I said, "What?"

And he said, "They let me go."

I said, "What?"

I think he was disappointed that Avildsen

didn't get to direct it

because Avildsen had such a passion about it.

And Frank liked him so much.

John Avildsen wanted me to play myself.

You know, and I said, "What, are you crazy?"

I said, "I'm not an actor."

He says, "Just think of it.

You'll be an eccentric."

I said, "I already am an eccentric."

I said, "I'm not an actor.

I'm... I'm... I'm the real thing."

He was Frank Serpico

and then he became Frank Serpico

that Al Pacino portrayed.

And that had to be lived up to.

And that becomes another stressor

because when you walk into a room,

everybody saw your life.

He's hung his hat on identifying himself

as Frank Serpico,

the guy who exposed corruption.

But he's trapped then by that.

Frank Serpico is not that guy.

That's something that he did

but that's not really who he is.

And that will continue to plague him.

You see..

...once I'd left the police department,

I just..

Believe me never gave anything..

...about the old days a thought.

I mean, you did write a chapter about Frank

in your book.

It's hard for me to imagine that you never

thought about this particular incident

especially 'cause Frank had the movie and the book

and then became, like, this kind of icon.

When I saw the movie..

...I got angry

'cause it gave the impression

that he got shot and we just sat there

and did nothin'.

I think Peter Maas..

...was tryin' to use the shooting

as a... um..

In other words, people were out to get you

and they finally succeeded

and one had nothing to do with the other.

Uh, how do you feel?

My, uh, idea was to show

the overall picture.

You know, I'm in the hospital

and there was a uniformed cop

who wanted to visit me

and the cop who was supposed to be guarding me

says, "Don't go in there. He's no good."

This is not Narcotics

or the guys I'm workin' with.

This is the whole system.

They must've felt guilty of doin' somethin'

otherwise they wouldn't have been so challenged

by what this one guy was doin'.

That's possible.

You know any... anything is possible.

Mm.

Ramsey?

What the hell's goin' on here?

What is this, some kind of a setup or somethin'?

Paco!

Hey, you got older. What happened to ya?

Oh, me? I haven't got a gray hair on my head.

You've gotten taller.

Yeah, I've been, uh, stretching, uh..

...sleepin' on the ground.

You've gotten shorter. That's what it is.

Yeah. I'm afraid that's true.

- Closer to the ground. - Is Rhonda here?

Wanted to see ya. No, she left about 11:00.

- Oh. - She waited to see ya.

You recognize this guy?

Do you think they did an accurate, uh?

What's it say, here?

"A police officer's first obligation

"is to be responsible to the needs

of the community he serves."

You know that guy?

Nobody knows that guy.

The man that came to my aide when I was shot

he was a civilian.

He was the guy that called the police.

The cops didn't call 'em.

I'm lying there, bleeding to death

and... some civilian called.

They can't isolate themselves

because if they do, it's gonna be a police state.

And, uh, police have to understand that. They..

You can't have a free society any other way. Can you?

No. And they keep saying, us against them.

You know, and we can't have that.

There's only us.

The reality is that

the story that came out on top..

...was not that of... power

or institutions but, uh, the truth.

The story that came out on top is Paco's story..

...'cause that's what everybody believes.

"Ramsey, who stood at my side

with love, admiration and respect."

"Paco Francisco..

"...Serpico."

I always admired Frank for what he did.

He exposed a system that I was very much against

but I never would've done what he did

because most of us just went along.

Everybody knew there was a lot of corruption

in the police department.

That was part of the reason why everybody

distrusted police.

To see him as somebody fighting that..

...I was very proud to be his neighbor

at... at that point.

I'm a big fan of his.

If there was more people like him

it'd be a different world.

I've taken guns and knives out of people's hands..

...but I didn't have the courage

or I wouldn't have the courage to do what he did.

Unfortunately, you know, he's been vilified

and he'll always probably will be vilified

as a, what you call, a rat.

You know, so, he really wasn't a rat

because rats are people who give up other people.

He was never a... an... an informer.

He was a, uh..

I'm trying to find the right word.

He was an exposer.

He does look, in retrospect

like something out of a Western movie.

He's like, "The Man With No Name"

or something like that.

But, of course, that wasn't his idea at all.

He just saw corruption going on around him

and... and took a stand.

I think it's crucial to reclaim

the parts of our past that we don't know about.

The taking back of stories

that's very important.

And especially from people that

at the time, some people consider them heroes

and some people demonize them.

People have to see other people

that have taken actions that made change

in order to understand how to make change themselves.

I think this is maybe the most important aspect

of Serpico's story.

It's a extraordinarily powerful

moral beacon.

You say to yourself, you know, "What can I do?

You know, uh, one person?"

But occasionally, every once in a while

someone like a Serpico shows up

and... and reminds us.

I told myself, eh..

"Frank, you're goin' on stage tonight."

I told myself I was an actor.

"Of all the days, that was the one

"an age of reason could have begun.

"Well, force has not prevailed!

"And think if he had recanted.

"It would have been as if night had fallen again

"just after the sun rose.

"But everything has been changed today.

"So much is gained

"when only one person stands up..

...and says no."

But he disappeared very quickly after that.

I think he told us he was going.

I actually think he may have said

"I'm gonna go away."

You know, "I can't stay here anymore."

We visited Paco, as his friends call him

earlier this month during a gray and chilly week

at his farm in northern Holland.

The past is the past. I just think it's a pity

that I didn't feel then like I feel now.

If you see a policeman takin' a payoff

all you have to say is, "Hey, you're under arrest."

And not feel, "Well, I'm gonna be the outsider now

and, uh, nobody is, uh, going to accept me."

Um, you become a prisoner of yourself.

That's, uh, that's how I felt I was then.

I was, uh, my own, uh, I was a prisoner of myself.

For almost ten years, the real Serpico

has had to compete with the images,

the burden of living with a myth.

The exile's life is relatively empty.

Friends are few and far away.

In their place, Serpico has made a meticulous routine

of housekeeping and animal husbandry.

He says it works.

There's nothing wrong with being by yourself

if you're at peace

because then you're at peace

with your whole environment

with the whole universe

and, you're not lonely.

One day, I heard a scream.

Some little girl

had fallen in the canal.

I got her out.

And a crowd started forming.

And I thought, "Gotta get out of here.

The cops are comin'."

Next morning, two detectives come to my door..

And I said, "Shit."

Alright, here goes Holland.

They drive me to headquarters

and they take me up, up, up

to the commissioner's office.

And we walk in and he snaps to

and he comes forward and he puts out his hand

then he says..

And I look on his desk

and there's a copy of "Serpico."

And he asks me to autograph it for him.

And he said, "I'd like to show your movie

to all the brass."

I go there, they show the movie, and I said

"Well, gentlemen, ladies, what'd you think?"

"I can't believe that a police officer would do such a thing."

And I says, "That's good.

"But it's also bad..

...because if you don't believe it.."

I said, "Gentlemen, it will happen."

And a year later, my phone rings..

...he says, "You were right.

It happened."

There was a big scandal..

Narcotics.

Frank Serpico's life is full of ironies.

He gave his career and much of his body

to an ideal of serving his New York community.

Now he lives cut-off from his American past

ever the man outside.

People don't know who Serpico was

and they still don't.

Uh, and for a time, I didn't.

And now I know who I am

I know what I am.

And, uh, anti-corruption label, uh..

Then people think, "Ah, call Serpico.

Dial the Lone Ranger."

That's all part of that fantasy

where you call up the good guy

and he takes care of everything.

Take care of it yourself.

I thought, "I can't keep fighting this."

"That's not what I became

a police officer for."

I remember even the chief sayin'

"What're you gonna do with the rest of your life?"

It's like there's no life

after the New York City Police Department.

I said, "What am I gonna do?

I'm gonna live."

I had just come back from Europe

and I called John up.

And he said, "Hey, I'm building a house in Sagaponack

and, uh, why don't you go hang out there?"

And the next thing I know

I sort of became the chief cook

and bottle washer.

Inside this innocent-looking house..

...strange things..

...are going on.

He'd been hanging around Sag Harbor

I'd met him when I was 19.

I really knew very little about him

when I first met him.

Really kind of fell in love with him

for the first time we spent together.

You know, there's some kind of

deep-rooted humanity there.

We had a lotta fun.

Paco can make

going to buy groceries kinda fun.

I'm sure glad we got this on tape, folks. Keep it up.

John had all this camera stuff around

and, uh, we were always doin' costumes.

Now get to the personal stuff.

In Italy, the country where I come from

there was a farmer and his son

who wanted to make a lot of money.

And so he says, "Come to America"

but he's get a job as a shoeshine boy.

You make hay while the sun shines.

You understand?

So now I'm trying to get my life together here.

He did not leave

a broken man.

He embraced life.

Now, were there certain voids in his life?

Everybody has voids in their life.

But I don't think you're gonna get a much more colorful

elaborate or sensational life

than Frank Serpico.

It got to a point where it felt like he needed his own house.

And he had this land up in upstate New York.

And... so, we went up there

in the camper.

We camped on the land and we kind of went

"Okay, that looks like a good place over there."

He built his cabin in the woods.

If you wanna lose the present

then live in the past.

But this moment

is gonna be gone forever.

Tonight, they're paid to protect and serve.

But these cops were breaking and entering

shaking down dealers, and doing drugs.

They're the new breed of corrupt cop

brazenly defying the law

and the top brass.

You're under arrest.

And the cop who blew the whistle

20 years ago, tonight, Frank Serpico

breaks his long silence

outraged, that little has changed.

Get on the ground! Get on the ground!

This police brutality thing's

coming more and more into the news today.

And we will have Daryl Gates, former chief

of police of Los Angeles, and Frank Serpico

who's the, uh, the Serpico.

I hope that police officers in the future

will not experience the same frustration

and anxiety that I was subjected to..

More than a quarter century later

Frank Serpico was still reading

from the same page.

Certainly, uh, that force which is reasonable and necessary

can be used and it's part of doing the job...

We're talkin' about a bathroom here.

Why do you need excessive force in a bathroom?

- Let's get real. - Serpico, you're... you..

You got a loud mouth, Serpico.

- Would you just listen for a moment? - At least it's honest!

This was part of my opening statement

over 25 years ago.

Unfortunately that hope was never realized.

Back then there was widely tolerated

systemic corruption.

It'd be a shame if somebody gave the impression

that that was the case today.

We have to light the lamps

that shed the light on corruption, injustice

and abuse of power.

Move! Move! Move!

"Never has there been a greater need

"for lamplighters than today.

"We must hold our lawmakers accountable

"or democracy and freedom of speech in America

will soon become extinct."

From the vantage point of more than 40 years

observing the police, Serpico says

"There's still a long way to go."

Some officers think

"I am the law."

No, you're not the law.

You are sworn to enforce that law

on all, equally.

Nothing has changed.

The abuse has been switched around.

But, the abuse of power is still there.

This has sort of been my healing place.

This is what I call my Zendo.

See anything look familiar here?

That's the bottom of a nightstick.

Nice sound, huh?

I remember bein' invited to a program

where cops were honored from all over the country.

I got invited to be a presenter.

I said, "Congratulations.

Uh, you got the nation's ten top cop award."

When I went to shake their hands

each one of 'em gave me a big hug.

And they each whispered

something in my ear.

And what they whispered was..

"I gotta talk to ya."

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