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  But I still want to pay. So we keep going back and forth like this, until the counterman, a short Greek guy, starts getting a little hot about it, like it’s a point of honor or something. He’s waving his arms and saying in a loud voice: Officer, for you, free! Finally he walks over to the far end of the counter and won’t even look at me.

  Now, as a cop, you’re always watching people, but when you’re in uniform you know that people are also watching you. As I’m standing there at the counter with that unwanted dollar bill in my hand, I can feel the eyes on my back, and I can imagine what the other customers are thinking.

  Half of them are probably thinking: Whaddaya, nuts? Take the free coffee already. And the other half are probably thinking: A cop who won’t take a free cup’a coffee? Gimme a break. What kind of scam is this cop running?

  It’s getting embarrassing. So finally I hold the dollar conspicuously up in the air and say, in what is probably a too-loud voice: I’m leaving the dollar on the counter! I slap the dollar on the counter, grab the coffee and the tea, and get out of there before the counterman can chase me down. I jump in the patrol car and we take off. And when I tell Ed what happened, about leaving the dollar on the counter, he starts laughing.

  Of course, the story gets around. The veterans, the old-timers, start saying things like, Hey, kid! Are you the one who paid a dollar for a ten-cent cup’a coffee? And then they laugh like crazy. Naturally I don’t tell them that it wasn’t just a cup of coffee, that I got a cup of tea as well. That would have only made them laugh harder.

  And they probably would have laughed harder still if they’d known that the incident at the coffee shop on Second Avenue—which I never went back to—wasn’t the only time I’d had trouble paying for hot tea or a sandwich while I was in uniform. It happened all the time—although in most cases, when I insisted on paying, the owner or cashier would eventually shrug and say: Okay, if that’s the way you want it.

  The fact is that in my entire career as a cop, I never took a meal or a cup of coffee—or tea—on the arm. Never.

  Maybe you’re wondering why.

  It’s not just because the Patrol Guide, the NYPD cop’s bible, prohibits accepting gratuities of any kind, free coffee and sandwiches included, and I’m afraid I’ll get caught. The Patrol Guide prohibits a lot of things, from wearing white socks with your uniform to using a blue-ink pen instead of a black-ink pen to write a parking ticket. The Patrol Guide is about four inches thick, and even the most conscientious, by-the-book cop in the Department probably can’t get through a shift without violating some obscure section of it. Besides, who’s going to turn you in? The restaurant owner who, without being asked, gives you the free coffee or the discounted meal in the first place? Or your partner? C’mon.

  And I don’t refuse to accept free meals because I really believe all those cautionary tales they told us in the Academy, about how taking even a single cup of coffee on the arm would inevitably put you on a slippery slope that will end up with you stealing wallets from DOAs (dead people) or ripping off drug dealers. I never thought a good cop turned into a bad cop because of a ten-cent cup of coffee.

  And it’s not because I’m some kind of naturally saintly guy. I never lack for things to talk to the priest about when I go to confession.

  No, the reason I turn down the free coffee is because I figured out early on that, except for the occasional argument with a cashier, it just makes the job easier. If I take a free sandwich, it makes it harder to say no if the coffee shop owner wants me to give him a break on double-parked delivery trucks, or if he wants me to drop what I’m doing and scatter some teenagers who are loitering in front of his shop. I might bounce the teenagers or give a break on the delivery truck anyway, but it won’t be because I think I owe the guy something. I’ll do it because it’s good police work—nothing more, nothing less.

  And when you do your job that way, the word gets around. Oh yeah, you’re the one who paid a dollar for a cup’a coffee. You develop a reputation among other cops as a straight shooter, a guy who follows the rules and puts in an honest shift—a straight eight. As long as they don’t suspect you of being a rat, other cops, even the less than honest ones, don’t hold being an honest cop against you. They figure, hey, that’s just the way he is.

  The point is that despite what some people may believe, in the NYPD being an honest cop doesn’t hurt you with other cops. In fact, a reputation for being a straight shooter protects you.

  Which is why I can also say that during my entire time as an NYPD police officer, with the exception of a cop taking an occasional free cup of coffee or a discounted meal, I never once personally witnessed an NYPD cop engaging in an act of financial corruption.

  That may not sound believable. After all, I came on the job just after the Commission to Investigate Alleged Police Corruption—better known as the Knapp Commission—had held hearings and released its final report. After hearing testimony from honest cops like Frank Serpico, later portrayed by Al Pacino in the popular film, and from dishonest cops who’d gotten caught, among others, the commission concluded that corruption was “an extensive, Department-wide phenomenon,” ranging from cops shaking down tow-truck drivers and prostitutes to cops selling drugs. According to the commission, corruption in the NYPD was rampant and systemic.

  So how can I not see it? Am I blind? Or just stupid?

  I’m neither. What you have to understand is that especially after Knapp, when the anticorruption heat was on, no bad cop with half a brain is going to rifle a cash register after a burglary call or roll a well-dressed drunk at a bus stop in front of you unless he’s absolutely certain you’re a corrupt cop, too. If you have a reputation as an honest cop, he would no more steal money in front of you than he would steal money in front of the police commissioner himself.

  And your reputation will follow you. Even in a Department with thirty or forty thousand cops (the number varies) there’s always somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody who knows you. Calls will be made and the word will get around—and if you’re an honest cop, the bad cops will leave you alone.

  So yeah, I was the cop who paid a dollar for a ten-cent cup of coffee—and a tea. If I hadn’t paid, if I had accepted that free cup of coffee, it wouldn’t have been any big earthshaking deal.

  But that wasn’t the kind of cop I wanted to be.

  * * *

  Story Three. It’s 1978, a couple weeks before Christmas, and after a twenty-month layoff caused by the city’s 1975 financial crisis—more on that later—and another stint at the Seven-Three, I’m back in Manhattan Traffic Area, assigned to the Scooter Task Force. On the Task Force we ride around in two-wheel Lambrettas or three-wheel Cushmans, mostly handling traffic and security and crowd control for special events—demonstrations, parades, VIP visits, and so on—but also taking other radio jobs as well. It’s a good assignment for me. The hours are regular, and since I’ve just gotten married, and have been studying for the sergeant’s test, that’s important.

  True, it’s not as exciting as being in the Seven-Three. Positive side? In 1978 Manhattan South still has its share of crime, but you generally don’t have piss-bags raining down on you from the rooftops.

  On this particular day there’s a demonstration scheduled at City Hall by tow-truck drivers, who are mad about something—in New York, somebody’s always demonstrating about something—so I’m at the corner of Church and Dey Streets, on Scooter No. 3830, getting ready to divert traffic away from the demonstration area. Then at exactly 9:10 a.m.—the timing is important here—a cab pulls up next to me.

  Hey, Officer, the cabbie says, a fare left her briefcase in the backseat. She was gone before I saw it. What should I do?

  The Patrol Guide has the answer. It has the answer to almost every conceivable circumstance, including “found property” in the back of a yellow cab. I radio my patrol sergeant that I’ve got some found property and then I take the briefcase out of the backseat—it’s nothing fancy, just a plain hard-le
ather briefcase—and put it on the trunk of the cab. I take out my memo book and start writing down the t/p/o—time, place, occurrence—and the cabbie’s pedigree: name, address, phone number, medallion number, and so on. The briefcase isn’t locked, so we open it together and look inside. There’s not much, just a single credit card and some business papers that have a woman’s name, address, and phone number on them. I inventory it all in my memo book, and I give the cabbie a receipt with my name and badge number. While I’m doing this the sergeant shows up, and I tell him what happened and he “scratches”—signs—my memo book with his name and the date and time: 12/13/78, 9:20 a.m.

  The cabbie leaves, and I’ve still got the briefcase. I don’t want to carry it around with me in the scooter, so I ask the sergeant if I can take it over to the First Precinct house and voucher it. He’s says okay, but be back by ten a.m.

  No problem. I drive over to the precinct, and the DO—the desk officer, a lieutenant—enters my name and the date and time in the Interrupted Patrol Log, which records why I’m off my post. The lieutenant checks the briefcase contents and hands me the voucher, which I put in my memo book. I go over to a typewriter and start pecking out the found property report, in carbon-paper quadruplicate. Then I call the phone number on the business papers and reach the woman who lost the briefcase. I tell her where she can pick up her briefcase, and what was in it when I opened it, and she agrees that there were just some papers and the one credit card. She’s grateful—the papers aren’t valuable, but they are important—and she keeps thanking me. No problem, ma’am, all part of the job. I hang up, log out at the desk, and I’m back on my post at 9:50.

  And then I don’t give the incident even a second thought until just after Christmas, when I’m at roll call and the sergeant hands me a letter ordering me to report to the Manhattan South Field Internal Affairs Unit the following week, and to bring my memo book for December 13.

  Internal Affairs. The cops who go after other cops.

  Before the Knapp Commission, most police corruption and misconduct allegations were handled—or, some would charge, not handled—by precinct or borough commanders. After Knapp, the Department created the Internal Affairs Division, with a central office on Poplar Street in Brooklyn, and Field Internal Affairs Units stationed in every borough command. In the late 1970s there are about a hundred cops assigned full-time to Internal Affairs and another two hundred to the borough FIAUs.

  And with the possible exception of their mothers and their wives, everybody hates them.

  Sure, most cops acknowledge the need for some kind of internal anticorruption effort. As Knapp made clear, the old system obviously hadn’t worked. But that doesn’t mean that you have to actually like the IAD guys—and even the most honest and by-the-book cops don’t.

  The IAD guys have a terrible reputation among the cop rank and file. As far as most cops are concerned, other cops go into IAD for only three reasons: one, they’re cowards or shirkers who are too afraid or too lazy to work on the street; two, they’re rats who got jammed up by their own corruption or misconduct and agreed to work for IAD and rat out other cops to save their own skins; or three, they’re zealots who simply get a sick and twisted pleasure out of persecuting cops.

  It might not have been so bad if IAD also had a reputation for rooting out serious corruption and misconduct. But it doesn’t. In the rank-and-file view, IAD seems more interested in busting cops for administrative violations—not wearing their hats when they get out of a patrol car, calling in sick so they can go to their daughter’s dance recital, that sort of thing—than in spending the time and effort to go after really bad cops.

  Of course, the stereotype of IAD guys isn’t accurate in every individual case. Some cops went into IAD so they could get the necessary investigative experience to qualify for a detective’s gold shield, and IAD was one of the few avenues open to them. Some guys went into IAD because they honestly wanted to help rid the Department of bad cops.

  Still, the stereotype is accurate often enough that it is the stereotype. The regular cops are us, and IAD is them. They’re the “rat squad,” and nobody wants anything to do with them.

  But even as cops despise the IAD guys, they also fear them. Cops figure that even if they’re innocent, the IAD guys can always find something. So a summons from Internal Affairs isn’t something to be taken lightly. For a good cop it’s a source of concern; for a cop with problems, it’s a source of mortal dread.

  They never tell you what you’re being called in for, what the allegation is. But the date of the memo book pages they order you to bring can give you a hint. So I go back and look at my memo book for December 13. There weren’t any really unusual incidents, no arguments with a citizen that could have generated a complaint, no use of force, no complicated reports that I might have screwed up.

  The only thing that stands out on that day is that briefcase in the back of the taxi.

  I know I’d done everything by the book, and then some. But who knows? Maybe the woman changed her mind and decided that there had been some cash in the briefcase that was missing. Maybe the cabbie had used the credit card to make a quick purchase before he turned it in to me, and when the woman got the card statement she filed a complaint. It doesn’t seem likely, but it’s possible.

  Still, I have everything documented, so I’m not worried—or at least not too worried. Per SOP (standard operating procedure), I call my PBA rep and tell him I’ve been summoned, and he says he’ll meet me there.

  So the next week at the appointed time I show up at the Manhattan South FIAU offices, which are on an upstairs floor at the 17th Precinct. I meet my PBA rep outside, and I ask him what’s going on, why have I been called in? He shrugs and says, I dunno, something about a Christmas tree.

  Huh? What? A Christmas tree?

  Now I’m really confused.

  Two Internal Affairs guys in suits and ties are waiting for us. One of them is a regular police officer, a young guy who’s the case officer, the other an older IAD sergeant. They aren’t smiling, and they don’t shake our hands. They usher us into a small, windowless, bare-walled room with a plain wood table and some chairs. It’s exactly the sort of room in which squad detectives interview suspects—except in this room the suspects are cops. In police jargon it’s called a “GO” room—“gee-oh”—an outdated but still used reference to General Order 15, the old NYPD regulation concerning administrative disciplinary hearings.

  On the table there’s one of those old reel-to-reel tape recorders, and when the PBA rep and I sit down the IAD guys turn on the tape, identify themselves, state the date and time, and then tell me to state my name and shield number. Then they inform me that this is an official administrative hearing under PG Section 118-19, and they read me what’s known as my Garrity rights.

  “Garrity” was a 1960s Supreme Court case that grew out of a police ticket-fixing investigation in New Jersey. Basically it held that a public employee can be ordered to give a statement in an administrative disciplinary hearing and can be fired if he refuses to answer or lies. But it also held that since it’s a compelled statement, made under threat of termination, under the Fifth Amendment anything the employee says cannot be used against him in a criminal proceeding.

  Do you understand your rights, Officer Campisi? the IAD guy asks me. Are you satisfied with your representation? Are you ready to answer questions?

  I tell them I am.

  Officer Campisi, he says, were you on duty with the Manhattan Traffic Area Scooter Task Force on December 13 at approximately 9:30 a.m.?

  Yes.

  What was your scooter number?

  Three-eight-three-oh.

  Officer Campisi, the IAD guy says, were you aware of a Christmas tree lot situated at the corner of Greenwich and Seventh Avenue?

  Well, I know the intersection, I say. But I didn’t know there was a Christmas tree lot there.

  And then comes the money ball.

  Officer Campisi, the IAD guy says, at approx
imately 9:30 a.m. on December 13, 1978, did you drive your NYPD scooter number three-eight-three-oh onto the Christmas tree lot at Greenwich and Seventh and intentionally remove from the premises without paying for it one approximately six-foot-tall noble fir Christmas tree?

  The question is so unexpected, so out of left field, that it takes me a moment to answer.

  Absolutely not!

  Later I get the story. It seems that a citizen had filed a complaint alleging that an NYPD cop on a Department scooter had driven onto the lot, hoisted a Christmas tree onto the back of his scooter, and taken off. The only description he had was that the suspect was wearing a blue NYPD uniform and that the number on the scooter started with three-eight; the last two digits had been obscured by the branches of the Christmas tree. So Internal Affairs is calling in every scooter cop with a three-eight scooter series number who had been in the area—about a dozen of us—under suspicion of having stolen the Christmas tree.

  Well, if it had happened the way the complainant said it did—maybe it did, maybe it didn’t—it was a pretty stupid thing for a cop to do. Maybe the cop thought it was just a prank, something to show the boys back at the precinct—Hey, look, I got us a Christmas tree for the lounge! But what it was was petit larceny, and if that same cop had seen someone else do it he would have collared him for theft. It was the sort of thing that made cops look bad, so if it happened, I halfway hoped that IAD would catch the guy.

  But I want these IAD guys to understand that it wasn’t me.

  I wasn’t anywhere near Greenwich and Seventh, I tell them. And I certainly didn’t steal a Christmas tree.

  Can you prove that, Officer Campisi? they say.

  Yes, in fact, I can. So I show them my memo book, with the notes on the found briefcase and the patrol sergeant’s scratch by the time and date. I tell them about the DO’s time and date entry in the precinct’s Interrupted Patrol Log, and about the call to the briefcase owner, and the sergeant seeing me back on post. It’s all there in my memo book. Unless I’m in two places at once, there’s no way I could have been stealing a Christmas tree at the corner of Greenwich and Seventh at 9:30 a.m.