Real Cops Who Stood Up To Corruption In Their Departments (And What Happened To Them)

Police officers have a bond like no other - both to each other and their communities.  Sometimes called the "thin blue line," officers are sworn to protect people against the horrible things of the world. But what happens when that bond is broken, and police officers aren't the ones stopping crime but creating it? Sadly, there are plenty of examples of cops who committed heinous crimes, and often the only reason these rogue cops are caught is thanks to whistleblowers in police departments. 

These whistleblower cops should be counted among the most honorable and noble police officers because of their dedication to justice. These anti-corruption cops were against the misdeeds of their fellow officers, and fought against the system when they saw something wrong. Some of them were hailed as heroes, while the others paid dire consequences. 

Officer Adrian Schoolcraft felt there was something wrong in his Brooklyn precinct, but he didn't know what to do about it. He decided to carry around a digital audio recorder at all times and capture as much evidence of what he believed was top-to-bottom corruption in the NYPD.

From June 1, 2008, to October 31, 2009, Schoolcraft recorded hundreds of hours of audio from within the precinct and out on the streets. His recordings revealed cops in his precinct were expected to meet quotas for stop-and-frisks and arrests or face punishment. Commanding officers instructed beat cops to neglect some robbery reports to manipulate crime statistics, and even intimidated crime victims who filed complaints.

Schoolcraft released the tapes to The Village Voice, which ran a series of damning articles. An investigation opened up that corroborating Schoolcraft's claims. On October 7, 2010, Schoolcraft was interviewed by the Quality Assistance Division for three hours about his allegations. Later that month, after he left work early because he felt sick, he was visited at home by precinct supervisors. He was thrown to the floor, handcuffed, and admitted to the psychiatric ward at Jamaica Hospital against his will.

Schoolcraft was forcibly held at the psych ward for six days. He returned home to find that officers had removed paperwork detailing his grievances against the NYPD's actions. Fortunately for Schoolcraft, the digital audio recorder that initially got him into hot water was running when he was cuffed and taken to the psych ward, proving he was coherent and rational and had refused medical assistance. Schoolcraft sued the city for $50 million for violating his civil rights and finally settled the case for $600,000 in 2015. Only four cops from his precinct received internal disciplinary charges - none were fired or arrested.

Francesco "Frank" Serpico was one of the original whistleblower cops in modern times. He joined the NYPD in September 1959. During his time in the police academy, Serpico said many of his fellow students complained about being off the streets during their time in school because they were missing out on illegal payoffs called "the nut."

Serpico began speaking about the corruption in the department, and he was reportedly told to "go along" with the other officers. He continued complaining, and was ostracized from the officers he worked with. Realizing he wasn't getting anywhere within the system, Serpico took his story of police corruption to the New York Times, which printed a story in 1970 detailing how corrupt cops were making more than $1 million a year from their shady dealings with drug dealers and gangsters. City Hall demanded an investigation. 

Serpico became even more hated in his department when he testified in June 1970 against fellow officers for taking bribes and receiving payoffs. During a drug arrest attempt in Brooklyn on February 3, 1971, Serpico faced an armed assailant and called for back-up, but the three officers conducting the raid with him failed to respond. The assailant shot Serpico in the face with a .22 pistol, the bullet lodging just below his eye.

Serpico's fellow officers left him to bleed out rather than call in a "Officer Down." After an elderly man who lived in the neighborhood called 911, Serpico made it to the hospital and recovered. He still experiences chronic pain from the bullet fragments lodged in his brain. Serpico received the Medal of Honor, the NYPD's highest honor, in May 1972, and retired from the force a month later. He moved to Europe and spent a decade in Switzerland and the Netherlands. His exploits with the NYPD inspired the Peter Maas book Serpico, and the 1973 film of the same name that earned Al Pacino an Oscar nomination.

Former Buffalo Police Officer Cariol Horne was a veteran with the department when she stopped one of her fellow police officers from brutalizing a handcuffed suspect. On November 1, 2006, Horne responded to a call of domestic abuse at the home of Neal Mack and found him in handcuffs for resisting arrest.

Horne and nine other officers dragged Mack from his home, at which point Horne claims the arresting officer, Gregory Kwiatkowski, began choking the handcuffed Mack. She told him to stop. Instead of standing down, Kwiatkowski flew into a rage and punched Horne so hard she had to have the bridge in her teeth replaced. Horne was fired and charged with obstruction of justice for interceding. She was two months shy of earning her pension.

It might be small consolation for Horne, but her actions were vindicated when Kwiatkowski was forced to retire from the police department for choking an officer and for an off-duty scuffle with another office. In May 2014, Kwiatowski was indicted for violating the civil rights of several black teen suspects.

When a former Bogota, NJ, city council member called police, she was hoping they would assist her emotionally-disturbed son. Instead, they tackled the boy - who never threatened the officers and did not have a weapon - punched him in the head and continued to beat him until 20-year veteran Officer Roberta Tasca stepped in to stop them. The boy's mother later commended Officer Tasca saying: "I appreciate you protecting him when the other officers attacked him. I can't figure out what I would have done without you on the scene."

Rather than start an investigation into the excessive violence, which was caught on dash cam and in photos taken by the boy's mother, the Bogota Police Department suspended Tasca and told her to turn in her weapon. No charges were ever filed against the offending officers and Tasca told a local news station she was fired for doing the right thing. Tasca was the first female officer to work at the Bogota Police Department, and the "first and only gay female" officer, which she believes factored in her firing.

Tosca filed a federal lawsuit for wrongful termination and won the case. The presiding superior court judge invalidated her firing, ruling that the then-mayor and then-councilman who had decided her fate had conflicts of interest and should have been recused from disciplinary matters regarding Tasca's termination and ordered that she be reinstated and given back pay.

Scott Germond wanted nothing more in life than to serve and protect. He worked for the Chenango County Corrections Division and then landed his dream job with the Norwich Police Department (NPD) in 2014. As soon as he started at the NPD, Germond was asked by a commanding officer to help him get another officer fired. Germond wouldn't do it and suddenly he did not "fit the norm" and became the target of harassment from his fellow officers.

When Germond reported the misconduct within the department to the city, things really started to heat up. One of the accused officers got "violently confrontational" and another threatened to burn down Germond's house and kill him. The commanding officer who asked Germond to get another officer fired was relieved of duty, but the harassment continued and even worsened.

When fellow officers told Germond they would not back him up in dangerous situations on the job, he was diagnosed with PTSD and took a medical leave. "I took an oath to protect and serve the public," Germond said in June 2016. "I’m not going to uphold the 'blue line' when people are doing things they shouldn’t. My ethics are better than that."

Beginning in the early 2000s, suspicions arose that members of the Chicago Police Department's (CPD) Second District were shaking down drug dealers and pocketing the cash. Officers Shannon Spalding and Daniel Echeverria went undercover in a joint CPD and FBI investigation to find evidence of the claims.

In February 2012, tactical unit Sgt. Ronald Watts and tactical team officer Kallat Mohamed were arrested after being videotaped taking money from a drug dealer, who was actually an undercover informant. The department called the case closed, despite rumors more than a half dozen other cops were involved in illegal activity - including two unsolved homicides.

The investigation was stopped after the arrest of Watts and Mohamed. In an interview with NBC 5, Spalding said she was told the investigation was "too big" and included too many high-ranking officers. Spalding and Echeverria were ostracized and intimidated after their role in the undercover investigation was intentionally leaked within the department. "My life, my safety my freedom was threatened," Spalding said. "I was subjected to daily harassment."

The two officers filed a civil rights lawsuit against the CPD and a third officer stepped forward to corroborate their claims. Spalding and Echeverria were given dead-end assignments and supervisors instructed other officers in their unit to ignore their calls for backup. A sergeant was heard saying Spalding "better wear her bulletproof vest" or she might "go home in a casket." In November 2016, the city of Chicago settled the with Spalding and Echeverria, awarding them $2 million.

Before Baltimore became synonymous with police brutality in the wake of the death of Freddie Gray in 2015, one officer attempted to blow the whistle on police misconduct and paid the price for it. Baltimore Police Department officer Joseph Crystal reported a fellow officer for beating a suspect while in custody and he was harassed for being a "rat" and eventually forced out of the department.

Crystal was working a drug arrest in October 2011 where a suspect threw away what his fellow officers believed were drugs. They pursued the man and later found them hiding in the home of an officer's girlfriend. According to Crystal, the suspect, while still handcuffed, was taken out of the police wagon and back into the house where he was found, at which point an off-duty officer proceeded to beat the man.

Crystal did what any honorable officer would do and reported the misconduct. After cooperating with prosecutors, Crystal became the target of harassment by his fellow officers, who called him "rat" and even left a dead rat on his car.

Feeling the Baltimore Police Department had become a hostile workplace environment, Crystal quit the force and filed a $5 million lawsuit contending that "nothing has come of the investigation into what the department did and allowed to continue to happen to plaintiff for whistleblowing police misconduct." The city eventually settled with Crystal for $42,000, a paltry sum in light of the stress he was subjected to and the loss of his career and reputation.

Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Donna "Jane" Watts was patrolling a section of her highway on October 11th, 2011, when she was passed by a Miami Police Department cruiser traveling at an alarming speed without its emergency lights or siren. When the cruiser continued to weave through traffic at nearly 120 miles an hour, she attempted to pull the driver over. Rather than finding a car thief on a joy ride, Trooper Watts found the driver to be Miami Police Officer Fausto Lopez.

Officer Lopez was defensive initially, but attempted to apologize when Trooper Watts put handcuffs on him. On the dashcam footage of the incident, Trooper Watts can be heard telling Officer Lopez that she is tired of Miami PD driving recklessly. Officer Lopez was charged with misdemeanor reckless driving, but the trouble was only beginning.

Soon after the incident, Trooper Watts was subjected to a constant stream of "gang-like harassment," from threatening phone calls to police cruisers idling outside of her house. She filled a public records request and discovered her person information had been accessed more than 200 times from officers in 25 different jurisdictions. The gang of stalkers turned out to be corrupt police officers who were angry that Watts arrested an officer.

In 2014, Watts's attorney filed a lawsuit that listed privacy grievances against 100 officers, as well as 200 unidentified violators from different governmental agencies. The lawsuit brought to light many off-duty police officers speeding in South Florida, and earned the South Florida Sun Sentinel a Pulitzer Prize for its investigation into the matter. In 2016, the Broward County Sheriff's Office settled the lawsuit with Trooper Watts, who continues to work for the Florida Highway Patrol as a traffic homicide investigator.

Shanna Lopez wanted to be a cop since she was four years old. She worked hard, studied hard, and even sacrificed her marriage for the job, only to find out as a rookie cop with the Dallas Police Department (DPD) that the law was being trampled by the very officers sworn to uphold it.

In Dallas, male cops are not allowed to search female suspects, so she was often called to assist one of four male cops known as "old heads" who typically searched sex workers. The old heads were abusive to the sex workers, and Lopez said she "became tired, angry, and eventually numb to the daily verbal abuse I heard directed at the women." Lopez also learned they would use the county database to pull up the names and addresses of known sex workers and write them tickets without having witnessed any infractions. When she mentioned the practice to one of her supervisors, he told her that it was illegal, but did not pursue the matter.

Her supervisor apparently did make inquiries, however, because she was immediately ostracized for "talking s***" about "illegal arrests and other activities." She completed her training and received a commendation, but two days later she was placed on administrative leave. Shortly thereafter, she was told her supervisors did not have faith in her and she was effectively fired.

After she left the DPD, several other cops came forward to speak out about the old heads and their bogus tickets, falsification of evidence, and abuse of suspects. In March 2007, three of the four old heads Lopez had mentioned to her supervisor were reportedly being investigated for misconduct. In 2015, one of the old heads, Senior Cpl. David Kattner, was arrested for sexually assaulting a sex worker, which Lopez said seemed like a "natural progression" for him. With much of her earlier statements now corroborated, Lopez was allowed to reapply to the DPD if she agreed she wouldn't sue the department for firing her. She did so and was denied admittance to the DPD.

Racial profiling is a controversial (and illegal) practice used by some law enforcement officers throughout the country. One of the biggest methods police use to racially profile is through stop-and-frisks, where civilians can be temporarily detained and questioned without probable cause. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), racial profiling is rampant in Florida. So when Officer Jose Rosado observed the practice first hand at his own Miami Gardens Police Department (MGPD), he decided to blow the whistle on the department and he was fired for speaking out.

Rosado had worked for the MGPD for seven years before he was terminated in June 2015. While working on the Crime Suppression Team (CST), Rosado claims the team conducted "countless" stop-and-frisks without "the reasonable articulable suspicion and/or probable cause required" and that he was ordered to conduct those illegal activities himself. Believing he was protected by the Whistleblower Protection Act, Rosado sent a disclosure documenting the policies of the CST and of his supervisor, Major Anthony Chapman. Just over one year later, Rosado was fired.

Believing his firing was retaliation for speaking out, Rosado filed a lawsuit against the city for violating the Whistleblower Protection Act by firing him. In his affidavit, Rosado claimed Major Chapman told the department that "all crimes in the city were being committed by black males ages 15 to 30" and that the MGPD "needed to stop all such males." He further claimed Major Chapman told officers to perform a version of stop-and-frisks called "field contacts" of "black males even if they were in front of their house."

As of May 2017, the lawsuit is still ongoing.