From Publishers Weekly
A comprehensive and elegant history of the New York Police Department, this book, written by a journalist (Lardner) and a former cop (Reppetto), charts the department's development, from its origins as a collection of unorganized watchmen in the 1820s to its recent past. In crisp, anecdote-rich prose, Lardner (a New Yorker contributor) and Reppetto (now president of New York's Citizens Crime Commission) take readers on a chronological tourDthrough the years when the department reluctantly adopted firearms and uniforms and when police applicants depended on patronage, through wave after wave of anti-corruption ferment, and through years of controversy. Drawing on sources ranging from the memoir of George Washington Walling, a 19th-century officer who saw action during most of the era's flashpoints (including the 1849 Opera House Riot and the 1863 Draft Riots), to newspaper accounts and legislative committee reports, Lardner and Reppetto assess the potential for good and bad in the city and on its police force. Along the way, they recount colorful stories about early gangs like the Dead Rabbits and Five Pointers; they examine the conflict between the Metropolitan Police and the Municipals, an early rogue offshoot; and they address the department's pendulum-like swings between corruption and reform (which, they note, gets activated every 20 years by a major scandal). They also depict the Giuliani administration's 1990s' "Rediscovery of Crime" and recent controversies like the deaths of Amadou Diallo and Patrick Dorismond, both unarmed black men gunned to death by police officers. Arguing that the cop's lot has barely changed since the 1800s, the two authors assessDin a fair-minded wayDthe enduring relationship between a police force and their city. Their account is at once entertaining, historical and engaged with hard questions about the nature and politics of police workDa true accomplishment. 30 b&w illus. Author tour. (Aug.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Given the seemingly endless number of books about the NYPD, police brutality, and corruption, one might think it difficult to find a refreshingly new and in-depth approach to the nation's oldest police force. But this history accomplishes such a feat. Lardner, who has written on the NYPD for The New York Times Magazine, and Repetto, president of New York's Citizens Crime Commission, examine the long history of New York's police from the 1820s, before the city organized them into a formal department, until the near present. In 1820, there were no housing projects, violent gangs, gun-toting drug dealers, or media scrutiny. As time passed, the department mirrored the waves of immigrants that moved to the city, beginning with the Irish in the 1840s, the Italians and Jews in the 1890s, African Americans from the Southern states after World War I, and, most recently, the Puerto Ricans. People who criticize some of the NYPD's controversial actions today might be equally shocked by past actions, which included the common practice of accepting graft, brutality against criminals (with media support), bribery, riots, and competing city police forces, manipulated by politicians. Both entertaining and insightful, this excellent book is highly recommended for all libraries.Tim Delaney, Canisius Coll., BuffaloCopyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


John Timoney, The New York Observer
"Entertaining and witty."


The Wall Street Journal
"A fascinating ride-along with the largest and most influential police force in the country."


Alan Lupo, The Boston Globe
"NYPD is both enlightening and entertaining. It should be required reading."


From Booklist
The history of the NYPD, the largest, if not the oldest, U.S. municipal police force, may be more reflective of where city police forces have been and are going than many of us care to admit. In recounting the department's journey from its creation in 1845 to the notorious recent incidents involving Amadou Diallo and Abner Louima, the authors bring to life the history of U.S. policing, warts and all. This history and analysis of the NYPD makes much of the current contentiousness between police and citizens all too understandable. Lardner and Reppetto examine New York police practices from buying patrolmen's positions and promotions to protecting the interests of organized crime and Wall Street above concerns with ordinary street crime. However, the pattern of the NYPD, every 20 years or so of corruption followed by reform followed by corruption, makes for a telling backdrop for truly analyzing how modern urban citizens interact with an often alienating police system. Vernon Ford
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
"A fascinating ride-along with the largest and most influential police force in the country." --The Wall Street Journal

"Entertaining and witty." --John Timoney, The New York Observer

"NYPD is both enlightening and entertaining. It should be required reading." --Alan Lupo, The Boston Globe

"Neither indictment nor apologia, but bona fide history, thoroughly researched and engagingly written."--Business Week



Review
"A fascinating ride-along with the largest and most influential police force in the country." --The Wall Street Journal

"Entertaining and witty." --John Timoney, The New York Observer

"NYPD is both enlightening and entertaining. It should be required reading." --Alan Lupo, The Boston Globe

"Neither indictment nor apologia, but bona fide history, thoroughly researched and engagingly written."--Business Week



Review
"A fascinating ride-along with the largest and most influential police force in the country." --The Wall Street Journal

"Entertaining and witty." --John Timoney, The New York Observer

"NYPD is both enlightening and entertaining. It should be required reading." --Alan Lupo, The Boston Globe

"Neither indictment nor apologia, but bona fide history, thoroughly researched and engagingly written."--Business Week



Book Description
NYPD details episodes as fresh as the shootings of unarmed men that have triggered mass protests against Mayor Rudy Giuliani. It also tells of forgotten but no less compelling dramas such as the Becker-Rosenthal case, in which a police lieutenant went to the electric chair, and the death of Joe Petrosino, a New York City detective gunned down on the streets of Palermo, Sicily, after his cover was blown by the police commissioner.

James Lardner and Thomas Reppetto, who know the police world from the inside, throw today's headlines into vivid relief by taking us back more than 150 years through a succession of immigrant waves, long hot summers, and career-destroying crises and scandals. Fascinating as history, NYPD is also a telling look at the fears, the lore, the slang, the secrets, and the rituals of a chronically misunderstood profession.



About the Author
James Lardner, a writer for The New Yorker and The Atlantic Monthly, is the author of Crusader: The Hell-Raising Police Career of Detective David Durk.

Thomas Reppetto is a former Chicago commander of detectives and has been the president of New York City's Citizens Crime Commission for twenty years.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

NYPD details episodes as fresh as the shootings of unarmed men that have triggered mass protests against Mayor Rudy Giuliani. It also tells of forgotten but no less compelling dramas such as the Becker-Rosenthal case, in which a police lieutenant went to the electric chair, and the death of Joe Petrosino, a New York City detective gunned down on the streets of Palermo, Sicily, after his cover was blown by the police commissioner.

James Lardner and Thomas Reppetto, who know the police world from the inside, throw today's headlines into vivid relief by taking us back more than 150 years through a succession of immigrant waves, long hot summers, and career-destroying crises and scandals. Fascinating as history, NYPD is also a telling look at the fears, the lore, the slang, the secrets, and the rituals of a chronically misunderstood profession.

James Lardner, a writer for The New Yorker and The Atlantic Monthly, is the author of Crusader: The Hell-Raising Police Career of Detective David Durk. Thomas Reppetto is a former Chicago commander of detectives and has been the president of New York City's Citizens Crime Commission for twenty years.

"A fascinating ride-along with the largest and most influential police force in the country." (The Wall Street Journal)

"Entertaining and witty." (John Timoney, The New York Observer)

"NYPD is both enlightening and entertaining. It should be required reading." (Alan Lupo, The Boston Globe)