The Black Cops Who Collected for the Mafia — Then Arrested Their Own Partners

0:01
they said every cop had a price
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the question was whether you'd live with yours
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Harlem in the early 1960s was a city within a city
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150,000 people
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packed into a few square miles of upper Manhattan
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brownstones and tenements
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churches on every corner
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jazz clubs that didn't close until sunrise
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and underneath it all a system that ran on cash
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not taxes not city budgets
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cash in envelopes passed under tables
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through car windows
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across bar counters in the middle of the afternoon
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this story draws from documented sources
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court records
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published investigations and first hand accounts
0:45
where facts are uncertain
0:46
we say so the money moved in a circle
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heroin came into the neighborhood
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through a handful of major distributors
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the distributors paid the street crews
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the street crews paid the cops
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the cops paid the sergeants
1:00
the sergeants paid the lieutenants
1:03
and somewhere above all of it
1:05
men in suits
1:05
took their percentage and never touched a thing
1:08
that was the system and the system needed cops
1:11
not just any cops it needed black cops
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officers who looked like the neighborhood
1:17
who knew the streets who could walk into a barbershop
1:20
or a pool hall without drawing stares
1:22
The New York City
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Police Department had been hiring black officers
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in larger numbers since the late 1940s
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by the early 60s precincts in Harlem
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the 2 8 the 2 5
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the 3 2 had significant numbers of black patrolmen
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and a growing handful of black detectives
1:41
most of these
1:42
men had joined the force for the same reasons
1:45
anyone did steady paycheck
1:48
city pension a chance to do something that mattered
1:51
what they found was something else entirely
1:54
the money appeared almost immediately
1:57
not in dramatic fashion not in some back alley hand off
2:01
it started with small gestures
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a store owner pressing a 10 dollar Bill into your hand
2:06
when you walked your beat
2:08
a bar owner leaving an envelope at the precinct
2:10
with your name on it
2:12
a numbers runner offering to buy your lunch
2:15
these were not bribes not exactly
2:17
they were introductions
2:19
the real money came later and it came with a choice
2:22
to understand that choice
2:24
you have to understand how the numbers racket worked
2:26
in Harlem the numbers game
2:29
sometimes called policy
2:31
was the largest illegal gambling operation in black
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America it was simple
2:36
you picked a three digit number
2:38
you placed a bet a nickel
2:40
a dime a quarter
2:41
if your number hit you got paid 600 to one
2:45
thousands of people played every day barbershops
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candy stores shoe shine stands
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they all had a numbers runner nearby
2:52
the operation generated millions of dollars a year
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and it had been running since the 1920s
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by the early 60s
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the numbers racket in Harlem was not run by Italians
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not primarily it was run by black operators
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men and women
3:08
who had built their own organizations over decades
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people like Bumpy Johnson
3:14
like Madam Stephanie Saint Clair
3:16
before him
3:17
like dozens of others whose names never made the papers
3:21
these operators needed one thing above all else
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Protection and that is where the cops came in
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a rookie patrolman
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assigned to a Harlem precinct in 1961 or 62
3:32
would typically hear about the arrangement
3:35
within his first few weeks
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sometimes from a partner sometimes from a sergeant
3:40
sometimes from a civilian who assumed he already knew
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the exact words varied
3:46
but the dynamic was always the same
3:49
no transcript survives these conversations
3:52
but we know they happened from later testimony
3:55
from grand jury records
3:57
from the accounts of men who eventually came forward
4:00
it might have gone something like this
4:02
a veteran officer eight years on the job
4:06
pulling a younger man aside after a shift
4:09
listen I'm going to tell you something
4:11
because nobody else will there's money out here
4:14
steady money and it's yours if you want it
4:17
the younger officer would hesitate
4:19
maybe ask what kind of money
4:21
the kind that doesn't show up on your pay stub
4:24
you got a wife kids
4:26
you know what a patrolman makes
4:27
this is how you make it work
4:29
what do I have to do nothing
4:32
that's the whole point you do nothing
4:34
you walk your beat
4:35
you look the other way when you're supposed to
4:37
and on Friday there's an envelope
4:39
that was the pitch and it was effective
4:42
because it wasn't asking you to do something terrible
4:46
it was asking you to do nothing at all
4:48
but doing nothing had a cost
4:50
the officers who took the money
4:52
and many sources suggest a significant majority did
4:55
though exact numbers are impossible to verify
4:58
entered a system with its own rules
5:01
its own hierarchy its own punishments
5:04
the pad that was the word for it
5:06
if you were on the pad you received regular payments
5:10
weekly or monthly
5:11
the amount depended on your rank and your usefulness
5:14
a patrolman on the pad in a Harlem precinct
5:17
might receive 50 to 100 dollars a month
5:20
in the early 60s that was real money
5:23
equivalent to several hundred dollars today
5:26
on top of a base salary that barely covered rent
5:29
a sergeant received more a detective more still
5:33
a lieutenant or captain
5:35
who controlled an entire precincts pad
5:38
could receive thousands per month
5:40
the money came from the numbers operators
5:43
from after hours clubs from drug dealers
5:46
who needed the police
5:47
to stay away from certain corners
5:49
at certain hours and eventually
5:52
increasingly from the heroin trade itself
5:56
this is where the moral arithmetic
5:57
started to break down
5:59
looking the other way on a numbers game was one thing
6:02
the numbers racket had deep roots in the community
6:06
many people viewed it as a neighborhood institution
6:09
not a crime the runners were neighbors
6:11
the operators were local businessmen
6:14
nobody got hurt heroin was different
6:17
heroin was destroying Harlem
6:19
by the mid 1960s addiction rates in Central Harlem
6:23
were among the highest in the country
6:25
young men were nodding off on stoops
6:28
mothers were losing sons
6:30
the neighborhood was eating itself from the inside
6:33
and the same cops who were supposed to protect it
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many of them were being paid to let it happen
6:39
but wait if these officers
6:41
knew what heroin was doing to their own community
6:44
why did they stay on the pad
6:46
the answer is more complicated than greed
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some officers will tell you
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and some did years later
6:53
in scattered interviews and testimonies
6:55
that the system felt inescapable
6:57
you took the money once then twice
7:00
then it was simply how things worked
7:03
refusing the money didn't stop the heroin
7:05
it just made you poor and suspicious
7:08
an officer who refused the pad was a threat
7:11
not because he might report it
7:13
though that was a fear
7:14
but because his refusal was an accusation
7:17
a silent judgment of every man around him
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there is a concept that some researchers describe
7:23
as institutional capture when the institution itself
7:26
becomes the mechanism of corruption
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individual resistance doesn't just fail
7:32
it becomes dangerous a cop who said no
7:35
might find himself assigned to the worst shifts
7:38
the worst posts
7:39
he might find that backup was slow to arrive
7:42
when he called for it
7:43
he might find that his locker had been searched
7:46
that his patrol car had been moved
7:48
small things constant things
7:51
the message was clear without anyone saying a word
7:54
not every officer accepted this
7:57
the story that most people know is Frank Serpico's
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the White Officer who refused the pad
8:03
reported corruption and nearly died for it
8:06
his story became a book
8:08
then a movie with Al Pacino in 1973
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Serpico's story is important
8:14
it is well documented it was courageous
8:17
but Serpico operated in a different precinct
8:20
a different world the corruption he faced was real
8:23
but it existed in a context
8:25
where the lines between police and community
8:28
were drawn differently in Harlem
8:30
a black officer faced something Serpico did not
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the community he was betraying
8:36
it was his own
8:37
the barber shop where the numbers runner worked
8:39
was the same barber shop
8:41
where his father got his hair cut
8:43
the block where the heroin dealer operated
8:46
was the same block where his mother went to church
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the kid nodding off on the stoop
8:51
might have been the son of someone he grew up with
8:54
the corruption was not abstract
8:56
it was personal among the men who tried to fight it
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and there were several
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though their stories are far less famous than Serpico's
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the details follow a pattern
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a black officer usually a few years into his career
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begins to feel the weight of what he's part of
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he sees the heroin he sees what it does
9:16
he sees the money in his pocket
9:18
and knows where it came from
9:19
he makes a decision
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the decision is almost never dramatic
9:24
it does not happen in a single moment of revelation
9:27
it happens slowly
9:28
a growing disgust that becomes impossible to swallow
9:32
according to accounts
9:33
documented in various published investigations
9:36
of the era including material
9:39
that would eventually feed into the nap commission
9:42
of 1970 to 72
9:45
some black officers attempted to report corruption
9:48
through internal channels
9:50
the process looked something like this
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the officer would request a meeting
9:55
with internal affairs in the 1960s
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this division was known formally
10:01
as the Civilian Complaint Review Board
10:03
or through the department's internal
10:06
investigative apparatus the exact pathway varied
10:10
but what happened in these meetings
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was remarkably consistent
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we don't have transcripts
10:16
of these specific conversations
10:18
but the dynamic is documented in multiple sources
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from nap commission testimony
10:23
to published accounts by officers
10:25
who went through the process
10:27
the conversation reconstructed from these accounts
10:30
often unfolded like this
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an officer sits across from a desk
10:35
an internal affairs investigator
10:38
usually white usually a lieutenant or higher
10:41
opens a folder so you wanna make a complaint
10:45
I want to report what's happening in my precinct
10:48
what specifically regular payments from numbers
10:52
operators weekly
10:54
it goes up the chain patrol to sergeants
10:56
to the lieutenant a pause
10:59
the investigator writes something down
11:01
then looks up you have proof
11:04
I have names I have dates
11:07
I can tell you which bars
11:08
which store owners that's not proof
11:11
that's allegations do you have recordings
11:13
documents photographs
11:16
no but I can
11:17
let me explain something without physical evidence
11:21
this is your word against theirs
11:24
and theirs is a lot of people
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the investigator closes the folder
11:29
we'll look into it they rarely did
11:32
this was the trap and it had teeth
11:35
the officer had now identified himself
11:37
as someone willing to talk
11:39
his name was in a file somewhere
11:41
and the department at that time
11:43
in that era was not structured to protect him
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within weeks the officers around him would know
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not because internal affairs told them directly
11:52
but because the department leaked
11:54
it always leaked a word here
11:57
a glance there and suddenly
11:59
the officer who made the complaint was standing alone
12:02
the retaliation was subtle at first
12:04
different shift assignments
12:06
a new partner someone he didn't know
12:09
someone who watched him too closely
12:11
his arrest reports questioned more aggressively
12:14
his overtime denied then less subtle
12:17
one account and this is drawn from published testimony
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though the specific officer's name is not always clear
12:24
in the public record
12:25
describes a black officer who reported corruption
12:29
and found himself transferred to a precinct
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in a neighborhood where he knew no one
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he was assigned to foot patrol alone
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in an area where officers normally worked in pairs
12:40
the message didn't need to be spoken
12:42
but there was another side to this story
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because not every cop who collected for the mob
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did it reluctantly
12:49
some officers were active participants
12:51
enthusiastic ones they didn't just look the other way
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they organized the pad they expanded it
12:58
they reached out to new operators
13:00
and offered Protection
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they treated their territory like a franchise
13:04
the exact words are lost
13:06
but the meetings are documented
13:09
and the outcomes tell us plenty
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a detective
13:12
call him a collector because that's what he was
13:15
would sit down with a numbers operator or a bar owner
13:19
the conversation was business
13:21
here's how this works you're paying 60 a week right now
13:25
that covers patrol
13:26
you want detectives off your back too
13:28
that's another forty that's 100 a week
13:31
that's more than my rent
13:33
your rent doesn't keep you out of jail
13:35
what if I just pay the 60
13:38
then patrol looks the other way
13:40
but the next time
13:41
a detective walks in and finds your back room
13:44
that's on you a pause
13:46
the operator reaches for his wallet
13:49
smart man these weren't rogue officers acting alone
13:53
this was a system a pricing structure
13:57
a business with tiers of service
13:59
and consequences for non payment
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what makes this story different
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from the standard corruption narrative
14:05
is what happened when the collectors
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started collecting for the wrong people
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through the late 1950s and into the 60s
14:13
the Italian mob specifically the Genovese family
14:16
and to a lesser extent the Lucchese family
14:19
had been pushing into Harlem's numbers racket
14:22
their method was simple
14:24
they didn't replace the black operators
14:26
they taxed them a percentage of the take paid weekly
14:30
in exchange for allowing the operation to continue
14:33
and they used the same cops
14:36
the officers
14:36
who had been collecting from black numbers operators
14:39
were now collecting for Italian organized crime
14:42
the envelopes came from the same places
14:45
but a portion now went uptown to people
14:48
the cops never met
14:49
some officers understood this immediately
14:52
others Learned it gradually
14:53
a few claimed
14:54
they never knew who the money ultimately reached
14:57
but the effect was the same
14:59
black cops in a black neighborhood were now
15:03
whether they knew it or not
15:05
functioning as collection agents for the Italian Mafia
15:08
this is where the story gets personal
15:10
there are many versions of what happened next
15:13
different names different blocks
15:15
but the details repeat an officer
15:18
let's say he's been on the pad for three years
15:20
he's a patrolman he's got a family
15:23
two kids his wife works part time at a hospital
15:26
the pad money makes the difference between scraping by
15:29
and something that feels almost like comfort
15:32
then a kid dies not violently
15:34
not from a shooting from an overdose
15:37
a teenager maybe 15 or sixteen
15:40
found in a hallway needle still in his arm
15:43
the officer knows the kid
15:45
maybe not well but he recognizes the face
15:48
he's seen him around the neighborhood
15:50
and he knows he has to know
15:51
that the heroin that killed this boy
15:53
came through a supply chain
15:55
that he helped protect not directly
15:58
not deliberately but
15:59
the money in his pocket
16:01
is connected to the powder in that needle
16:03
by a chain of transactions that he chose not to see
16:06
does he stop does he walk into internal affairs again
16:10
most didn't but some did
16:12
The nap commission
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which began its investigation in 1970
16:16
would eventually expose systematic corruption
16:19
across the New York City Police Department
16:22
its findings were devastating
16:24
the commission documented what it called grass eaters
16:28
officers who passively accepted payoffs and meat eaters
16:32
officers
16:33
who aggressively sought out and demanded bribes
16:36
most officers the commission found
16:38
were grass eaters they took what was offered
16:42
they didn't seek it out
16:43
they told themselves it was harmless
16:45
the meat eaters were fewer in number
16:48
but far more damaging they set prices
16:51
they enforced payment
16:53
they punished operators who didn't comply
16:55
in Harlem
16:56
the line between the two categories was especially thin
17:00
but the nap commission almost didn't happen
17:03
and
17:03
that part of the story goes through a police officer
17:06
named David Dirk Dirk was a white detective
17:09
he was Sirpico's closest ally
17:12
the man who helped Sirpico
17:13
navigate the department's indifference
17:15
and eventually reach The New York Times
17:18
but before the times published its Exposé in 1970
17:22
Dirk had spent years trying to get someone
17:25
anyone to listen
17:26
he went to his commanders
17:28
they listened politely and did nothing
17:31
he went to the mayor's office
17:32
they referred him to the department
17:34
he went to prosecutors
17:36
they said they needed more evidence
17:38
the circle was closed
17:40
everyone had a reason to do nothing
17:42
and every reason sounded reasonable
17:44
what finally broke it open was not courage alone
17:48
it was journalism David Burnham
17:50
a reporter at The New York Times
17:52
published a front page story on April 25th, 1970
17:57
the story detailed systematic police corruption
18:00
it named no individual sources
18:03
but it forced the city to act
18:05
Mayor John Lindsay created the nap commission
18:09
and the hearings that followed
18:10
would change the department
18:12
but here's what the nap commission didn't fully address
18:15
what the Sirpico story didn't fully capture
18:18
what the headlines largely missed
18:20
the specific experience of black officers in Harlem
18:24
the commission's hearings focused heavily on narcotics
18:26
corruption and plainclothes units
18:29
they heard from white officers
18:31
they heard from Serpico
18:33
they documented the system in clinical detail
18:36
what they spent less time on
18:38
was the particular bind that black officers faced
18:41
the double burden the community pressure
18:44
the racial dynamics within the department itself
18:47
a black officer in a Harlem precinct in the 1960s
18:51
was caught between forces
18:52
that no white officer had to navigate
18:55
from one side the department
18:57
which was overwhelmingly white in its leadership
19:00
expected obedience and silence
19:03
the blue wall from the other side
19:05
the community
19:06
which was black and increasingly desperate
19:09
expected Protection real Protection
19:12
not the performance of policing
19:14
while the neighborhood was being poisoned
19:17
and from below the pad
19:19
which offered the only financial stability
19:22
many of these officers had ever known
19:24
some officers found a third path
19:27
not heroism not corruption
19:29
something in between they stayed on the pad
19:32
but they limited what they would tolerate
19:35
they took money from numbers operators
19:37
but refused to cover for heroin dealers
19:40
they made distinctions
19:41
that might seem meaningless on paper
19:43
but felt like survival in practice
19:46
one account
19:47
and this is drawn from a composite of several
19:49
published sources not
19:51
a single verified individual describes an officer
19:55
who accepted weekly payments from a numbers bank
19:58
but personally arrested two drug dealers on his beat
20:01
in the same year his sergeant pulled him aside
20:05
what are you doing my job
20:08
your job is what I tell you
20:10
your job is you want to arrest people
20:13
arrest the right people
20:15
those dealers had a 15 year old running bags for them
20:19
a long silence
20:21
you're going to have a problem if you keep this up
20:24
I already have a problem Sarge
20:26
this man and there were others like him
20:29
existed in a space
20:30
that doesn't fit neatly into the corruption narrative
20:33
he was dirty
20:35
and he was in his own way trying to draw a line
20:39
whether that line meant anything
20:41
that's a different question
20:42
by 1971 the nap commission hearings were in full swing
20:47
the star witness was not Serpico
20:49
it was a detective named William Phillips
20:52
who testified in extraordinary detail
20:54
about payments he had received and made
20:57
Philips described the pad
20:59
with the precision of a bookkeeper names amounts
21:02
dates routes
21:04
his testimony was devastating
21:06
but it was also limited Philips was a white detective
21:10
who operated primarily
21:11
in Midtown and downtown precincts
21:13
the Harlem experience the racial dimension
21:17
the community impact
21:18
the particular agony of black officers
21:21
received less spotlight some black officers did testify
21:26
their accounts
21:27
scattered across thousands of pages of commission
21:29
transcripts describe a world that the public
21:32
narrative has largely forgotten
21:35
one officer his name appears in the published record
21:38
though his testimony received little media attention
21:41
at the time described the moment
21:43
he realized what the pad actually meant
21:46
the exact words are lost
21:48
but the testimony is documented
21:50
and the outcome tells us plenty
21:53
he had been on the pad for two years
21:55
numbers money
21:56
nothing heavy then his collector
21:58
the detective who organized payments
22:01
told him the arrangement was changing
22:03
new people new terms
22:05
your share stays the same
22:06
but the source is different
22:08
different how you don't need to know how
22:11
you just need to know it's handled
22:13
I want to know who I'm working for
22:16
you're working for the same people
22:18
you've always been working for yourself
22:21
the officer later testified that he understood
22:23
in that moment
22:24
that the money was no longer coming from local numbers
22:27
operators it was coming through channels
22:30
connected to narcotics distribution
22:32
and those channels LED ultimately to organized crime
22:36
families he would never meet
22:38
he stayed on the pad for another six months
22:40
then he stopped he didn't go to internal affairs
22:44
he didn't call a reporter
22:45
he simply stopped collecting
22:47
stopped accepting and waited to see what would happen
22:51
what happened was nothing
22:52
and that was almost worse
22:54
because it meant he was replaceable
22:57
the system didn't need him
22:59
it didn't even notice when he left
23:01
the aftermath of the nap commission was sweeping
23:03
on paper new oversight structures
23:07
new internal affairs procedures
23:09
the creation of special prosecutors
23:12
mandatory integrity tests
23:14
random corruption probes the department changed
23:17
that is not in dispute
23:19
the specific mechanisms of the pad
23:22
the weekly envelopes
23:23
the precinct level collection systems
23:26
were largely dismantled by the mid 1970s
23:29
but the question that lingered
23:31
the question that several officers raised
23:33
in the years that followed
23:35
was whether the system had truly been broken
23:37
or merely rearranged
23:39
the numbers racket declined not because of policing
23:43
because of the New York State Lottery
23:45
which launched in 1967 the state had
23:49
in effect legalized what the numbers
23:51
runners had been doing for decades
23:53
and taken the profits the heroin trade did not decline
23:57
it adapted new suppliers
23:59
new routes new arrangements with new officers
24:03
and the fundamental dynamic
24:05
the one that trapped black officers
24:07
between badge and community
24:09
between duty and survival
24:11
did not disappear it took new forms
24:14
there's a moment in the nap commission transcripts
24:17
and this has been cited by several researchers
24:20
though interpretations vary
24:22
where a commissioner asks a question
24:24
that cuts to the center of everything
24:26
the question paraphrased from the public record
24:30
was essentially this
24:31
how does a good man become a corrupt cop
24:34
the officer's answer again
24:36
paraphrased from published accounts of the testimony
24:39
was that no one becomes corrupt
24:41
you just stop noticing when you cross the line
24:44
because the line moves every day
24:47
it moves a little
24:48
and one day you look around and the line is behind you
24:51
and you can't remember when you crossed it
24:54
that answer stayed in the record
24:56
it did not make the headlines
24:58
what happened to the men who collected
25:00
the ones who stayed on the pad
25:02
until the commission forced them out
25:04
some retired quietly pensions intact
25:07
no charges some were indicted
25:10
a handful went to prison
25:11
most received suspended sentences or probation
25:15
some and this is the part that stings
25:17
went on to have long careers in law enforcement
25:20
promoted decorated
25:22
their years on the pad
25:24
buried in files that no one opened
25:26
and some left the department entirely
25:29
walked away started new careers
25:32
never spoke about it again
25:34
there is no single ending to this story
25:36
because there was no single story
25:39
there were hundreds of men
25:40
making hundreds of decisions
25:42
in a system designed to make every decision
25:45
feel like the only option
25:47
the honest ones
25:48
the ones who refused the pad from the beginning
25:51
or who walked away
25:52
before the commission forced the issue
25:54
they deserve a different kind of recognition
25:57
not as heroes the word gets used too loosely
26:01
but as people who chose a harder path
26:03
when an easier one was right there
26:05
in an envelope on the counter
26:07
with their name on it some of them paid for that choice
26:10
with careers that went nowhere
26:12
passed over for promotion
26:14
given dead end assignments
26:16
treated as outsiders in their own precincts
26:19
a few have spoken publicly in the decades since
26:23
their accounts
26:24
published in oral histories and local journalism
26:27
describe a loneliness that is difficult to convey
26:31
the loneliness of being right
26:32
in a room full of people who needed you to be wrong
26:36
but wait if the system was dismantled
26:39
if the nap commission did its work
26:41
why does this story still matter
26:43
because the pattern didn't die
26:45
it changed shape in the 1980s
26:48
the crack epidemic created new fortunes
26:50
and new temptations in the 1990s
26:54
the Mollen Commission yes
26:55
another commission
26:57
investigated a new generation of corrupt officers
27:00
different drugs different neighborhoods
27:03
same dynamic officers taking money
27:06
officers looking the other way
27:07
officers caught between the institution
27:10
and the community and black officers
27:12
once again facing the particular burden
27:15
of policing
27:16
neighborhoods that look like the ones they grew up in
27:19
The Mullin Commission's findings
27:21
published in 1994 echoed the nap commission's findings
27:25
almost exactly 22 years apart
27:28
the same conclusions some patterns don't break
27:31
they bend they wait
27:33
they come back wearing different clothes
27:35
this story doesn't have a clean ending
27:38
it doesn't have a hero who wins
27:40
it doesn't have a villain who loses
27:42
it has something harder
27:43
it has ordinary men making choices
27:46
in a system that was built to make the wrong choice
27:49
feel like the only choice
27:51
some of them collected for the mob
27:53
and arrested their own partners
27:55
when the spotlight finally came
27:57
some collected for the mob and never stopped
28:00
some refused to collect and paid the price in silence
28:03
none of them not one
28:05
had the luxury of a simple decision
28:07
the badge was on the counter
28:09
the envelope was right beside it
28:11
and every Friday the choice came back
28:14
if this story made you think about systems
28:17
about choices
28:18
about the distance between right and wrong
28:21
consider subscribing
28:22
there are more stories like this one
28:25
stories that don't have easy answers
28:27
because the best stories never do

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