An Interview With Former Cop Frank Serpico, the Famous NYPD Whistleblower
Perhaps more than for any police officer outside of the realm of fiction, NYPD Medal of Honor winner Frank Serpico’s name is synonymous with honest cop. Rivetingly portrayed on screen by Al Pacino, Serpico is most famous for blowing the whistle on police corruption in the late ’60s and early ’70s—an act of valor that compelled Mayor John V. Lindsay to appoint the landmark Knapp Commission to investigate the NYPD. Though the film concludes with a postscript stating that Serpico retired from the force after recovering from a gunshot wound to the face sustained in the line of duty and subsequently moved to Switzerland, Detective Serpico returned to the United States in 1980. Today Serpico, 76, continues to speak out against police corruption and brutality, lecturing to students at universities and police academies and serving as a mentor to officers in situations similar to the one he endured on the force. City & State Editor Morgan Pehme met with Serpico at a farmers’ market down the road from the wood cabin the legendary cop built with his own hands on the rural 50-acre plot of land on which he now lives in Columbia County.