FRANK SPEECH VIP ACCESS MOVIE

Until now all my communications have been about whistleblowers and corruption and how the whistleblower almost always becomes the victim. I’m in touch with police all over the country and the world. This is a window of opportunity to have some police officers finally see that, hey, we have inherited the sins of our brothers and it behooves us now to do something about it. What is happening now is also a manifestation of that corruption. It’s been there since the beginning of policing, when police officers had to buy their jobs. Then as now, Serpico says, police departments have proved incapable of investigating themselves, and district attorneys typically look the other way, fearful of offending the politically powerful police unions.įoreign Policy: Were you surprised by the reaction to George Floyd’s killing?įrank Serpico: The fuel has been pooling for decades-the Floyd thing was the spark that ignited it. And Serpico says Americans are still fighting the same fundamental problem today that he struggled with as a young cop who refused to take bribes in New York during the 1960s and early ’70s: a near-total lack of accountability over abuses.

Now 84, Serpico lives quietly outside Albany, New York, but he remains vocal in speeches, articles, and activist campaigns pushing for police reform.

FRANK SPEECH VIP ACCESS MOVIE

In 1971, Serpico was awarded the Medal of Honor, the New York City Police Department’s highest award for bravery in action, and he is still ranked among the American Film Institute’ s all-time movie heroes. The award-winning film told the true-life story of the New York City detective’s efforts to expose corruption and abuse inside the police department. Nearly half a century ago, Frank Serpico became a household name in the United States-and in many countries around the world-after he was portrayed by Al Pacino in the classic 1973 movie Serpico. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Now, with Congress and state and local legislators finally confronting the problem of accountability and abuse by proposing new legislation, Serpico says there may be hope at last-but there’s a long way to go. Serpico notes that there is a tragic continuum here: Much as police abuses today are being exposed only by citizen bystanders with cell phones, his only recourse 50 years ago was to go to the New York Times after he discovered that the NYPD was incapable of investigating itself and the city government wouldn’t act.

Many experts said that had it not been for the video, the officer, Derek Chauvin-who was later fired and charged with second-degree murder-would likely still be on the Minneapolis police force. In recent weeks, that problem exploded into worldwide furor once again after a white Minneapolis police officer was videoed casually suffocating a handcuffed black man, George Floyd, to death. Then as now, Serpico says, police departments have proved incapable of investigating themselves, and district attorneys typically look the other way, fearful of offending the politically powerful police unions.

Frank Serpico attends a film screening at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City on Dec.

Frank speech vip access