Scamfluencers - Listen Now - Empire City: The Untold Origin Story of the NYPD

Episode Date: September 10, 2024

At a time when we’re debating where policing is going, we’re going to tell you where the police came from. Guided by Peabody award-winning host Chenjerai Kumanyika, Empire City will provide the first accessible narrative history of the American police and its place in popular culture. Who are the police? And why were police departments created in the first place? To find answers, we’re going to tell the origin story of the largest police force in the world: The NYPD. We begin in the late 1800’s at a moment when the entire police force was on trial. It’s the biggest corruption scandal in the history of the NYPD, and it all plays out like a high stakes courtroom drama. What follows is the action-packed account of how the NYPD got to this point and what happened next. It involves Black abolitionists fighting slave patrols in the courts of Gotham; two rival police forces duking it out for power at City Hall; the origins of the true crime genre; and how the NYPD spread their tactics worldwide.Listen to Empire City wherever you get your podcasts: Wondery.fm/Empire_City.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

No other police department has more global brand awareness than the NYPD. From iconic images of 9-11 to sought-after tourist souvenirs, the boys in blue would seem to go hand-in-hand with New York City itself. But underneath all the iconic imagery and tales of heroism lies a dark and secret history, one that you've likely never heard before. From Peabody and award-winning host, Chenjirai Kumanyika, Empire City takes you back to the 1800s to a New York City overrun with deadly riots and brawls.

A time when Black New Yorkers are being kidnapped off the city streets and sold into slavery in the South. But their loved ones can't call for cops' help because it turns out the kidnappers are the cops. With the fate of American policing on the ballot this fall, find out how the NYPD transformed into the most powerful police force the world has ever seen. From Wondery and Crooked Media with Push Black, this is Empire City. I'm about to play a clip from Empire City. Follow Empire City on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm playing in a Central Park sandbox with my four-year-old daughter when I see a police

officer approaching the edge of the playground and my body instinctively stiffens. Something comes over me and I start wondering, and Yola, may I ask you a question. What do you think the police do? They keep people safe. I mean that is what the police say their job is. But when I hear her say it, I start to panic. How did that story, that the police keep us safe, become the story that so many people believe?

I need to know the real reasons why New York's first professional police department started. Tracking down the early history of the NYPD is kind of overwhelming. Where do you even start? Thank you for calling the New York City Police Museum. The museum is currently closed. Where do you even start? Thank you for calling the New York City Police Museum. The museum is currently closed. The New York City Police Museum seem like an obvious first stop. A quick visit to the website tells you they're dedicated to preserving the history of the New York City Police Department,

the world's largest and most famous police service. Yeah, that's what I'm looking for. Yeah, that's what I'm looking for. Since the museum is closed, we cannot accept memorabilia donations or respond to requests for information. Thank you. Well, that turned out to be a dead end. But I'd still like to find someone who worked inside that museum, who could at least give me a sense of what clues might have been in there about the NYPD's beginning. So I started calling people connected to the

museum. Being a good journalist, it's kind of like being a salesman. Every time one door closes on you, you just tell yourself, no problem, I'm just one more phone call away from success. And I thought I was getting closer to learning what the museum might have taught me about the history when I found the phone number for the office of Howard Safer. He's a former NYPD commissioner who helped get the museum off the ground. Hi, I'm looking to speak with Howard Sophia. My name is Chinjirai and I'm, yeah, my name is Chin Eye and I'm yeah my name is Ginger Eye. Okay hold on one moment.

Howard's unavailable. So I couldn't talk to Howard either but I wasn't giving up. Eventually my producer Sam found someone else who was even better qualified to give us some real tea on how the police museum dealt with the NYPD's history. So I'm Edward T. O'Donnell. O'Donnell is a historian who curated exhibits for the police museum back in 1999. I got a call from Mrs. Howard Safer, wife of the chief of police in New York City, to see if I would have a meeting to talk about the police museum.

The police commissioner's wife was also the head of the New York Police Museum's board. And when she got it on the phone, she told him, We've got the space, we've got the stuff, but we don't have a historian. So Ed agreed to help. I don't think I'll ever have a stranger assignment. Ed says that at first, the police museum was open to the public, but it wasn't much of a museum. It was basically a room in the police academy full of historical junk. So there was literally like a display case full of handcuffs, a display case full of nightsticks, a wall covered in old helmets. And so they

were historical, but there was no interpretation. It was just like cool police stuff organized by category. But there were plans to turn it into something bigger and grander. They got, you know, a ton of money, private money, to really make it go big time. Hired a first-class architectural firm to build the museum, and then, like, halfway through, architectural firm actually said, how are we gonna tell the story?

And that's when Ed got involved. When he showed up, the first thing that made him raise an eyebrow was the staff. Most museums have positions like curators, archivists, and docents, but the police museum was run by police, regular NYPD. Either way, Ed got to work. He started writing up the plan to organize the police museum, to tell the truth about the history. But most of the public never got to see what Ed wrote. They wanted me to write about the New York City Police Department, but without using the words

violence or corruption, which is effectively impossible. They were serious about this, so serious that the museum's director, an active NYPD sergeant, would personally edit Ed O'Donnell's work. I saved the document because he just struck entire pages, just lines right through, lines right through, and then he rewrites sentences where I would say, this officer was indicted for corruption or what have you, and just would say this officer was let go. Maybe I'm naive, but that kind of direct censorship surprised me. It was a very interesting experience, and a good example of, you know, they're trying to do public history but with a real institutional agenda. When the museum finally relaunched in 2000, there was a big gala to celebrate.

Opening night was amazing, you know, got to meet the many members of the cast of Law and Order. They were all there, it was a very glitzy event. But about six months later, the museum director got caught up in a corruption scandal. The New York Times and the Daily News reported that one of the police sergeants was using the museum to accept gifts of luxury cars and office space that went against police regulations.

And by the way, this was the same sergeant who wouldn't let Ed use the word corruption when writing about the NYPD. He and the other officers were promptly reassigned. For the past eight years, the museum's website has read, the museum is currently closed. Please check back for updates. So it's clear I'm not getting in there.

But Ed told me that when he was researching for the museum, he learned a lot from old newspapers. And that turned out to be amazing advice. It turns out that newspapers have more to teach us about New York's first professional police department than you might think. Because they didn't just report on it. The newspaper played a key role in defining what police would do and shaping what we're told about the police for the next 180 years.

From Wondry and Crooked Media, I'm Chinjirai Kumanika, and this is Empire City. I'm Chinjirah Kumanika, and this is Empire City. Listen to Empire City early and ad-free right now by joining Wendry Plus in the Wendry app or on Apple podcasts.