The police are normally supposed to protect the population and ensure order and justice, I’ve never done law, but it seems to me that’s pretty much the basic project. However, there are sometimes stories of abuse of power and corruption that taint quite badly the police institutions around the world and we invite you to see some examples, a kind of world tour of crooks if you want, it’s cheaper than a real world tour and safer.
1. The Baltimore Cops Case
We start with the big heavy and I recommend that you immediately watch the latest series by David Simon We own this city which perfectly tells this frightening story. In 2015, an elite unit set up by the Baltimore police aims to wage war on drugs and violent crime: the “Gun Trace Task Force”. At its head, Wayne Jenkins, a badass cop. Faced with the failure of their interventions, the group transforms itself into a criminal organization, robbing and attacking the inhabitants of Baltimore with the greatest impunity. A story that shows how the police get corrupt, dragging their entire hierarchy into the mud.
2. The Franck Serpico affair (New-York)
This scandal adapted to the cinema by Sydney Lumet (with one of the best roles of Al Pacino) shows how a police officer exposed the corruption that plagued the city of New York in the 70s. de-vins in order to be assigned to certain areas of the city in which they could patrol to collect percentages of the proceeds from dealers, bookmakers and other members of organized crime against some form of protection. The ripoux turned a blind eye to illegal activities in exchange for tickets and Serpico got into trouble to bring these crimes to light. During the trial he said “10% of the cops in New York are rotten, 10% are honest and the other 80% would like to say they are honest”.
3. The “River Cops” case in the 80s (Miami)
When 10% of the Miami city police find themselves fired or suspended for having participated in drug trafficking, we can say that we have a small scandal to manage. This is what happened in the 1980s when many police officers protected or turned a blind eye to the drug trades that had taken root in the city following the wave of Cuban immigration. Rackets, murders, drug possession, thefts and non-respect of civil rights, the affair of the River Cops came to light following a long investigation by showing how the abuse of powers by the police could cause significant damage on a city scale.
4. The “cocaine circle” case (Long Island)
Becoming a legend within the police can be a double-edged sword, either one is considered one of the best or one of the worst, which is the case of Michael Dowd who is still described today as ” a criminal in a policeman’s uniform. The gentleman played on two tables: he protected the bigwigs of organized crime in exchange for a small salary of $ 8,000 a week and stole drugs from other big dealers to resell them on Long Island. Dowd’s problem is that in addition to being too greedy he was not discreet: he bought four big houses, dressed in expensive suits and drove a beautiful Corvette. It was when we caught one of his crooked colleagues that he was thrown and caught before managing to flee to Nicaragua as he had planned.
5. Chicago’s Most Corrupt Cop Case
Joseph Miedzianowski was a police officer for 22 years, including several years as head of the organized crime and gang control unit. The problem is that besides his working hours he was also a drug kingpin in the city of Chicago, managing never to compromise his own traffic which he operated with the help of several other cops. ripoux. Beyond his drug trafficking, Joseph Miedzianowski supplied criminals with arms and ammunition and disclosed the identity of certain undercover police officers. A beautiful motherfucker.
6. The 52 kilos of cocaine from “36” (Paris)
36 quai des orfèvres is sometimes the scene of corruption cases such as the mysterious disappearance of a 52-kilo package of cocaine in 2014. After an investigation by the police, nearly nine people were indicted, including more than half were police officers from the notorious theft and trafficking police station. A nice case from home that recalls those of the most creepy French gangs.
7. “The Thirty Rotten”, the police station that becomes the capital of coke (New York)
The “dirty 30” affair scandalized the city of New York in the 90s and for good reason: the police were selling huge quantities of seized cocaine to dealers in the area. The operation was meticulous and very well organised: fake radio calls were made to justify the police moving to a place of exchange or a place of seizure that they did not enter into the reports in order to quickly resell the drugs. After two years of undercover investigation, another policeman brought the case to light and the culprits (who were high up in the hierarchy) were arrested.
8. The “Brooklyn 77th” affair (New York)
At one time in the 80s, this New York police station was the most rotten of all: a gang of police officers did not hesitate to raid to recover money at all costs. They searched the pockets of the dead, recovered objects from crime or burglary scenes and did not hesitate to rob certain places themselves, such as stores or criminal hideouts. When the affair broke out, 13 agents were arrested and 90 others relocated in order to clean up the police station, which was so plagued by corruption.
9. John Burge: “master of torture and false confessions” (Chicago)
With a high confession and arrest rate, John Burge was a respected cop, especially having served in the wars in Vietnam and South Korea. The problem is that it was quickly discovered that he used torture to extract confessions (especially false confessions), mainly about black people. Burns, violence, electrocution of the genitals… Everything was there for the poor people John Burge wanted to accuse. Several innocent people were sent to death row because of him and he only got three years in prison for all that, not very much paid.
10. “Mafia Cops” (New York)
Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa were cops with good results, which is generally appreciated when these results are not rigged and the cops in question are not in the pay of a mafia family. For years they worked together with the Lucchese family, leaking police plans ahead of time to get them to safety. They took part in various trafficking and crimes, so much so that during their trial they were attributed with more than eight murders, money laundering, drug dealing and also having cheated during the annual lottery evening of the police station. Clearly not soft ones.