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Francesco Vincent Serpico
Francesco Vincent Serpico was a real hero who showed that a protector of weaker sections of humanity is not allowed to violate someone’s wealth and property. If a person who is supposed to protect someone violates it his penalization should be multifold. Serpico is a retired officer of NYPD, who got fame after he testified against corruption in his department. This story became even more famous when a film named “Serpico” was released in which Al Pacino played the leading role. Frank Vincent stood up against corruption and bribery in the New York City police department. He refused to take any bribes and also prevented others from doing the same. He was hated and criticized in his department but he stuck to his principles. His persistence ultimately led an Article from the New York Times to stirred people up and form Knapp's commission to inspect the falling ethics of the New York Police department.
He believed that it is a policeman's responsibility to protect citizens of the country according to the laws of the country. He believed that some laws are specific to certain regions but values are and ethics are the same throughout the world. He ensures that the protection and carrying out of those values is the basic part of a policeman's job. His job in the Police department started in September 1959, when he joined NYPD as a probationary patrolman and later became a full patrolman. He also served in the Bureau of criminal identification and after that, he was appointed to work in Plainclothes, this was the place where he exposed a lot of corruption that was carried out in the Police department. Serpico served in Manhattan and Brooklyn to uncover widespread bribery and corruption cases. There he found many credible pieces of evidence of corruption and dishonesty, however, nothing materialized until he met another police officer named David Durk. Frank Serpico said, “A policeman’s first obligation is to be responsible to the needs of the community he serves. The problem is that the atmosphere does not yet exist in which an honest police officer can act without fear of ridicule or reprisal from fellow officers. We create an atmosphere in which the honest officer fears the dishonest officer and not the other way around” ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"OEnhgG83","properties":{"formattedCitation":"({\\i{}Frank Serpico | Americans Who Tell The Truth})","plainCitation":"(Frank Serpico | Americans Who Tell The Truth)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":106,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/cYhHNKoU/items/XHD3MYTI"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/cYhHNKoU/items/XHD3MYTI"],"itemData":{"id":106,"type":"webpage","title":"Frank Serpico | Americans Who Tell The Truth","URL":"https://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org/portraits/frank-serpico","accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",11,1]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Frank Serpico | Americans Who Tell The Truth). Serpico refused to take any monthly cashback and as a result of insecurities, his fellows feared that he would reveal their wrongdoings to some public forums. This strong sense of duty and moral code created a hostile and dangerous work environment for himself.
The main story that he contributed to came in April of the year 1970 when a New York Times story covers the corruption that was being carried out within the police. The city’s Mayor John V. Lindsay appointed a panel of five people to examine the stories of police corruption, the commission was named after its head, Whitman Knapp ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"RkKs0meo","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Petit)","plainCitation":"(Petit)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":109,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/cYhHNKoU/items/UC79VZYN"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/cYhHNKoU/items/UC79VZYN"],"itemData":{"id":109,"type":"article-journal","title":"What executives can learn from Frank Serpico","container-title":"Journal of Business Case Studies (JBCS)","page":"29-34","volume":"7","issue":"5","author":[{"family":"Petit","given":"Francis"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2011"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Petit). All these incidents meant that the hatred for him grew among his people. During a drug arrest attempt next year he was shot by a suspect during the incident. He bleeds plentifully but his comrades ignored him. Serpico was lucky that an elderly man who was living next to that apartment noticed him and called for an emergency. When the police car later arrived, they found out that he was a fellow police officer and then they transported him to a nearby hospital. This was later revealed that the accident was an alleged trap for him. He survived and give testimony regarding this event. Serpico was also later reluctantly awarded a Medal of Honor for this incident.
The Knapp commission presented its final report in December 1972. The commission gave some recommendations of the presence of an internal affair department that specifically deals with corruption issues ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"XzzmPaXi","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Petit)","plainCitation":"(Petit)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":109,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/cYhHNKoU/items/UC79VZYN"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/cYhHNKoU/items/UC79VZYN"],"itemData":{"id":109,"type":"article-journal","title":"What executives can learn from Frank Serpico","container-title":"Journal of Business Case Studies (JBCS)","page":"29-34","volume":"7","issue":"5","author":[{"family":"Petit","given":"Francis"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2011"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Petit). Knapp's commission also recommended that the accountability of commanders and officers should be increased as well. The betterment of the selection and recruitment process was also recommended.
Questions were raised about the environment in which the Serpico shooting happened. During the incident, the shooting took place when his accompanied officers didn’t follow him into the apartment where the suspect was supposed to be hiding. When Serpico realized that he turned back and that was the moment when he was shot in the face leaving him deaf in one of his ears. This scenario raised many questions about the authenticity of the incident that whether it was an actual incident or he was brought by his companions to get murdered. However, despite the seriousness of the accident no formal investigation was carried out.
In his testification to the Knapp commission Serpico stated that he hopes that no one in the police department will have to go through the difficulties, hardships, anxiety and above all frustration that he had to face. He further stated that in the past five years because of his work against corruption he was made to feel that he has put extra pressure and unwanted work on his superiors. He considered the lack of atmosphere to be honest and dutiful is yet to be established within the police department. There is a lack of confidence among people in their fellow officers that whether they will corporate with them even if some of them may want to expose corruption. He focuses on the formation of creating an independent commission that is free and independent of any influence like the Knapp commission ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"ggBqmJew","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(\\uc0\\u8220{}Excerpts From the Testimony by Serpico\\uc0\\u8221{})","plainCitation":"(“Excerpts From the Testimony by Serpico”)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":108,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/cYhHNKoU/items/WSK6K2I8"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/cYhHNKoU/items/WSK6K2I8"],"itemData":{"id":108,"type":"article-newspaper","title":"Excerpts From the Testimony by Serpico","container-title":"The New York Times","section":"Archives","source":"NYTimes.com","abstract":"excerpts from Detective Serpico's testimony before Knapp Comm; illus","URL":"https://www.nytimes.com/1971/12/15/archives/excerpts-from-the-testimony-by-serpico.html","ISSN":"0362-4331","language":"en-US","issued":{"date-parts":[["1971",12,15]]},"accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",11,1]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (“Excerpts From the Testimony by Serpico”). Serpico was among the very few people at that time that came forward and testified against a systematic corruption that was accounting for millions of dollars at the time. Though he left a huge impact on the New York Police Department and due to his efforts, the department was greatly changed. The members of the Knapp commission later revealed that the efforts of Serpico changed the attitude of many police officers against the systematic corruption that was taking place in the police department.
Chelsea Manning
Chelsea Elizabeth Manning who was serving in Iraq in the U.S Army had access to classified information when she was deployed in Iraq in 2009. The classified information which she found as disturbing was and troubling was passed on to WikiLeaks. Elizabeth was later arrested for this action when they were reported by one hacker friend. Elizabeth's name was initially Bradley Manning which she later changed to Chelsea Manning. Manning was accused of theft and spying illegally but was never found guilty of helping or aiding any enemy. Based on these allegations Chelsea Manning was sentenced in prison for 35 years in Kansas. In prison, she continually took her hormone treatment. In 2017, Barack Obama who was the President of the United States at that time ended Manning’s remaining imprisonment and she was freed from prison in May of that year.
Bradly Manning during her time in Iraq in the U.S. Army as an Intelligence analyst found hundreds and thousands of confidential documents to WikiLeaks. This incident occurred when she was working at a forward operating Base Hammer in Iraq, which was located near the country’s Iranian border. The information was varied a lot which included both documents and Videos. Some of the videos involved the killing of unarmed civilians. Manning initially contacted the New York Times and Washington post but after she got no response from them, she turned her attention towards Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks. The information that she gathered in her time at the base included both conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, assessment reports and evaluation of Guantanamo prisoners and Private cables and leaks from the state department. She passed on this classified information when she was in Maryland. The information was not a single or two pages but it accounted for hundreds and thousands of documents. The first video that WikiLeaks released was of a helicopter crew shooting at unarmed civilians, releases of such documents and videos continued to release throughout the year. When Manning returned to Iraq, she faced several behavioral issues and faced many disciplinary actions as a result. She once attacked an officer for which she was demoted and was warned that she will be discharged from her duties. Manning then contacted a hacker named Adrian Lamo online using a screen name “bradass87”. She also informed Adrian about the leaks, on receiving such news he informed the state Defense department about the News and this led to the arrest of Chelsea Manning in May 2010 ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"L9rVxI98","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(\\uc0\\u8220{}PFC Manning\\uc0\\u8217{}s Statement Redacted.Pdf\\uc0\\u8221{})","plainCitation":"(“PFC Manning’s Statement Redacted.Pdf”)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":110,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/cYhHNKoU/items/Y5T3624Q"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/cYhHNKoU/items/Y5T3624Q"],"itemData":{"id":110,"type":"webpage","title":"PFC Manning's Statement Redacted.pdf","container-title":"Google Docs","URL":"https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_zC44SBaZPoQmJUYURBUnBycUk/edit?usp=embed_facebook","accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",11,1]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (“PFC Manning’s Statement Redacted”). The documents which she leaked Wikileaks included video Granai airstrike in Afghanistan, a video from helicopter strikes in Iraq and as many as 25,000 consular cables that she uploaded on the Wikileaks drop box.
Controversial Imprisonment
Manning’s first imprisonment was in Kuwait where it was noted that she became suicidal. She was then moved to the United States at the Marine base in Virginia. There she was imprisoned in solitary confinement and was not allowed to leave her windowless cell for 23 hours a day ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"6dmj0mAh","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Shetterly)","plainCitation":"(Shetterly)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":115,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/cYhHNKoU/items/QNPB8B5F"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/cYhHNKoU/items/QNPB8B5F"],"itemData":{"id":115,"type":"article-journal","title":"Portrait of Chelsea Manning","container-title":"QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking","page":"1-4","volume":"1","issue":"1","author":[{"family":"Shetterly","given":"Robert"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2014"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Shetterly). However, because of the involved suicide risks, she was continuously watched over. She was also sometimes kept naked in her cell and was not even allowed to have a pillow or sheet so that there isn’t any possible chance of suicide. Her conditions in the cell didn't improve even after her psychiatrist said that she is no longer in any danger to harm herself. When her conditions were leaked in the media, human rights activists started campaigning for her and she was transferred to Kansas. In Kansas, she was allowed to have a windowed cell and later in her case the judge giving her a sentencing credit ruled that her imprisonment was pointlessly harsh.
Court Martial:
In June of 2010, Manning was additionally charged with accusations of aiding the enemy as the information she leaked was accessible to Al-Qaeda. She pleaded that her actions were not meant to harm anyone rather it was directed to encourage positive debate but she was pleaded guilty of leaking and sharing classified information. She was then ordered to serve court Martial while she continued to plead guilty. In July of that year, she was found guilty of more than 20 offenses which included theft, computer hacking, sharing classified information and espionage ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"8Y3N7LFZ","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Morris III and Nakayama)","plainCitation":"(Morris III and Nakayama)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":114,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/cYhHNKoU/items/2VDBUJXJ"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/cYhHNKoU/items/2VDBUJXJ"],"itemData":{"id":114,"type":"article-journal","title":"Leaking Chelsea Manning","container-title":"QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking","page":"vii-viii","volume":"1","issue":"1","author":[{"family":"Morris III","given":"Charles E."},{"family":"Nakayama","given":"Thomas K."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2014"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Morris III and Nakayama). However, she was freed from the acquisition of aiding the enemy.
Sentence:
On August 21, 2013, the court announced its decision and she was sentenced to 35 years in prison. She was forced to forfeit all of her pay and was sentenced to a reduction in rank and was condemnable discharged. Even after her punishment, the debate over her punishment continued that whether she was a whistleblower who wanted to share the harsh truth to the world or was a criminal who shared dangerous and classified intelligence that was important to the state of America. In the year 2014 Manning was recognized appealed in the court to be recognized as Chelsea Elizabeth Manning instead of Bradley Manning. The army made sure that hormone therapy is available to her in the prison however, some restrictions were still imposed on her. During her time in prison, she was continuously harassed in the form of threatening of moving her to solitary confinement for violating prison rules. These remarks by the prison administration were declared as harassing by her attorneys. Her lawyers filed a case against the 35 years punishment stating that not a single whistleblower was punished so harshly in the entire history of the United States. The also claimed her imprisonment as the most unjust treatment in the justice system of America’s military.
She later attempted suicide as a result of which she was hospitalized, she faced solitary confinement as a result of her suicide attempt. However, in solitary confinement, she attempted suicide again. Manning was released from prison almost thirty years before her original sentence is up. The reason for this was the commutation by Obama in January 2017. She also pleaded for leniency from the president writing in an article that she was asking the life outside the cells as a person having the right of freedom with which she was born with. Manning shared her story of gender identity and political affairs through a series of columns and articles that she wrote for The Guardian. She also appeared on Vague magazine after her release from prison, which stated that "Guess this is what freedom looks like". She wrote an article named "Moving On" in which she described the change in her identity, in which she informed people about her identity that she is no longer Bradley Manning but now she is Chelsea Manning ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"aYuLIUK2","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Manning)","plainCitation":"(Manning)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":112,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/cYhHNKoU/items/HSFSFUB5"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/cYhHNKoU/items/HSFSFUB5"],"itemData":{"id":112,"type":"webpage","title":"Moving On","container-title":"Medium","abstract":"Reflecting on my identity","URL":"https://medium.com/@xychelsea/moving-on-c78c37079aa6","language":"en","author":[{"family":"Manning","given":"Chelsea"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2016",7,28]]},"accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",11,1]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Manning).
Work Cited
ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"uncited":[],"omitted":[],"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY “Excerpts From the Testimony by Serpico.” The New York Times, 15 Dec. 1971. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/1971/12/15/archives/excerpts-from-the-testimony-by-serpico.html.
Frank Serpico | Americans Who Tell The Truth. https://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org/portraits/frank-serpico. Accessed 1 Nov. 2019.
Manning, Chelsea. “Moving On.” Medium, 28 July 2016, https://medium.com/@xychelsea/moving-on-c78c37079aa6.
Morris III, Charles E., and Thomas K. Nakayama. “Leaking Chelsea Manning.” QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, vol. 1, no. 1, 2014, pp. vii–viii.
Petit, Francis. “What Executives Can Learn from Frank Serpico.” Journal of Business Case Studies (JBCS), vol. 7, no. 5, 2011, pp. 29–34.
“PFC Manning’s Statement Redacted” Google Docs, https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_zC44SBaZPoQmJUYURBUnBycUk/edit?usp=embed_facebook. Accessed 1 Nov. 2019.
Shetterly, Robert. “Portrait of Chelsea Manning.” QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, vol. 1, no. 1, 2014, pp. 1–4.
