Frank Serpico

Francesco Vincent "Frank" Serpico is an American retired detective with the New York City Police Department (NYPD), best known for whistleblowing on police corruption. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Serpico was a plainclothes officer working in Brooklyn, the Bronx and Manhattan to expose vice racketeering. In 1967, he reported credible evidence of widespread corruption in the NYPD, to no effect. In 1970 he contributed to a front-page story in The New York Times on the department's corruption, which drew national attention to the problem. Mayor John Lindsay appointed a five-member panel to investigate accusations of corruption, which became the Knapp Commission.