In the 1981 police drama, “Prince of the City,” both cops and criminals use plenty of four-letter words.
But the word both groups consider the most obscene is spelled is spelled with three letters: R-a-t.
The movie is based on the true-life story of former NYPD detective Robert Leuci (“Danny Ciello” in the film, and played by Treat Williams). It’s based on the best-selling nonfiction book, Prince of the City, by Robert Daley, a former deputy commissioner with NYPD.
Leuci/Ciello volunteers to work undercover against massive corruption among lawyers, bail bondsmen and even his fellow narcotics agents.
Along the way, the movie gives viewers numerous insights into not only how real-world cops work but how they see the world–and their role in it.
Robert Leuci (“Danny Ciello” in “Prince of the City”)
In its first scenes, “Prince” shows members of the elite Special Investigating Unit (SIU) preparing for a major raid on an apartment of Columbian drug-dealers.
Ciello, sitting in a restaurant, gets a tip on the Columbians from one of his informants. He then phones it in to his fellow officers. Together, they raid the apartment, assault the dealers, and confiscate their drugs and money.
The film makes it clear that even an elite detective squad can’t operate effectively without informants. And in narcotics cases, these are either addicts willing to sell out their suppliers or other drug-dealers willing to sell out their competitors.
For the cops, the payoff is information that leads to arrests. In the case of the SIU, that means big, headline-grabbing arrests.
Drug raid
With their superiors happy, the stree-level detectives are largely unsupervised–which is how they like it. Because most of them are doing a brisk business shaking down drug-dealers for their cash.
For their informants, the payoffs come in several forms, including:
- Allowing addicts to continue using illegal drugs.
- Supplying addicts with drugs, such as heroin.
- Allowing drug-dealers to continue doing business.
- Supplying drug-dealers with information about upcoming police raids on their locations.
All of these activities are strictly against the law. But to the men charged with enforcing anti-narcotics laws, this is the price to be paid for effective policing.
But not all police informants are criminals. Many of them work in highly technical industries–such as phone companies.
A “connection” such as this is truly prized. With it, a detective can illegally eavesdrop on the conversations of those he’s targeting.
He doesn’t have to go through the hassles of getting a court-approved wiretap. Assuming he has enough evidence to convince a judge to grant such a wiretap.
A top priority for any cop–especially a narcotics cop–is protecting the identities of his informants.
At the very least, exposing such identities could lead to embarrassment, unemployment, arrest and imprisonment. At worst, it could lead to the murder of those informants by enraged criminals.
But there is another reason for protecting the identity of informants: The cop who amasses a roster of prized informants is seen as someone special within the police department, by colleagues and superiors alike.
He knows “something” they do not. And that “something” allows him to make a lot of arrests–which, in turn, reflects well on the police department.
If those arrests end in convictions, his status within the department is further enhanced.
But while a cop is always on the lookout for informants against potential targets, that doesn’t prevent him from generally holding such people in contempt.
“Rats,” “finks,” “stool pigeons,” “canaries,” “informers”–these are among the more printable terms (for most media) cops use to describe those who betray the trust of others.
Such terms are never used by cops when speaking to their informants.
For cops, the most feared- and -hated part of every police department is its Internal Affairs Division (IAD). This is the unit charged with investigating allegations of illegal behavior by police.
For most cops, IAD represents the devil incarnate. Any officer who would be willing to “lock up” a “brother officer” is considered a traitor to the police brotherhood.
Even if that “brother officer” is engaging in behavior that completely violates his sworn oath “to protect and serve.”
In “Prince of the City,” Danny Ciello gives voice to just these feelings.
He’s preparing to betray the trust of his fellow narcotics officers by exposing the massive corruption among them. Yet he fiercely rejects the idea that he is a “rat.”
“A rat is when they catch you and make you an informer,” he tells his wife. “This is my game.”
Ciello has volunteered to obtain evidence of corruption; he’s not under some prosecutor’s thumb. That, to him, makes him different from a “rat.”
Of course, once Ciello’s cover is blown and his fellow cops learn what he has done, they will forever brand him a “rat,” the worst sort of turncoat.
The movie ends with Ciello now teaching surveillance classes at the NYPD Academy. A student asks: “Are you the Detective Ciello?”
“I’m Detective Ciello.”
“I don’t think I have anything to learn from you.”
For viewers seeking to learn the workings–and mindsets–of real-world police agencies, “Prince of the City” has a great many lessons to teach.
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“LINCOLN”: ISSUES PAST AND PRESENT
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on December 3, 2014 at 11:26 pmSteven Spielberg’s Lincoln is more than a mesmerizing history lesson.
It’s a timely reminder that racism and repression are not confined to any one period or political party.
At the heart of the film: Abraham Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis) wants to win ratification of what will be the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
An amendment that will forever ban slavery.
True, Lincoln, in 1862, had issued the Emancipation Proclamation. This–in theory–freed slaves held in the Confederate states that were in rebellion against the United States Government.
(In reality, Confederate states had no intention of complying with any procolmation issued by Lincoln.)
But Lincoln regards this as a temporary wartime measure.
He fears that, once the war is over, the Supreme Court may rule the Proclamation unconstitutional. This might allow Southerners to continue practicing slavery, even after losing the war.
To prevent this, Congress must pass an anti-slavery amendment.
But winning Congressional passage of such an amendment won’t be easy.
The Senate had ratified its passage in 1864. But the amendment must secure approval from the House of Representatives to become law.
And the House is filled with men–there are no women menmbers during the 19th century–who seethe with hostility.
Some are hostile to Lincoln personally. One of them dubs him a Negroid dictator: “Abraham Africanus.” Another accuses him of shifting his positions for the sake of expediency.
Other members–white men all–are hostile to the idea of “equality between the races.”
To them, ending slavery means opening the door to interracial marriage–especially marriage between black men and white women. Perhaps even worse, it means possibly giving blacks–or women–the right to vote.
In fact, the possibility that blacks might win voting rights arises early in the movie. Lincoln is speaking to a couple of black Union soldiers, and one of them is unafraid to voice his discontent.
He’s upset that black soldiers are paid less than white ones–and that they’re led only by white officers.
He says that, in time, maybe this will change. Maybe, in 100 years, he guesses, blacks will get the right to vote.
(To the shame of all Americans, that’s how long it will eventually take. Not until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 will blacks be guaranteed legal protection against discriminatory voting practices.)
To understand the Congressional debate over the Thirteenth Amendment, it’s necessary to remember this: In Lincoln’s time, the Republicans were the party ofprogressives.
The party was founded on an anti-slavery platform. Its members were thus reviled as “Black Republicans.”
And until the 1960s, the South was solidly Democratic. Democrats were the ones defending the status quo–slavery–and opposing freed blacks in the South of Reconstruction and long afterward.
In short, in the 18th century, Democrats in the South acted as Republicans do now.
The South went Republican only after a Democratic President–Lyndon B. Johnson–rammed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through Congress.
Watching this re-enactment of the 1865 debate in Lincoln is like watching a rerun of the 2012 Presidential campaign. The same mentalities are at work:
During the 2012 Presidential race, the Republicans tried to bar those likely to vote for President Barack Obama from getting into the voting booth. But their bogus “voter ID” restrictions were struck down in courts across the nation.
Listening to those opposing the amendment, one is reminded of Mitt Romney’s infamous comments about the “47%: “
“Well, there are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what….
“Who are dependent upon government, who believe that–-that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they’re entitled to healthcare, to food, to housing, to you name it.
“But that’s-–it’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them.”
In the end, however, it is Abraham Lincoln who has the final word. Through diplomacy and backroom dealings (trading political offices for votes) he wins passage of the anti-slavery amendment.
The movie closes with a historically-correct tribute to Lincoln’s generosity toward those who opposed him–in Congress and on the battlefield.
It occurs during Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address: “With malice toward none, with charity for all….To bind up the nation’s wounds. To care for him who shall have bourne the battle and for his widow and his orphan….”
This ending presents a vivid philosophical contrast with Romney’s sore-loser comments: “The president’s campaign, if you will, focused on giving targeted groups a big gift.”
Watching Lincoln, you realize how incredibly lucky we were as a nation to have had such leadership when it was most needed. And how desperately we need it now.
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