NYPD whistleblower Frank Serpico, more than a half-century after taking a bullet to the face in a Brooklyn drug raid gone bad, wants prosecutors to take a fresh look at the shooting.
The 87-year-old ex-cop told the Daily News he was still seeking definitive answers about exactly what happened inside a narrow apartment building hallway on the night of Feb. 3, 1971.
“For years, I didn’t want to believe I was set up,” said Serpico, who feels differently now. “That’s one. And two, I thought ‘How are you going to prove it?’ I want to clear the record for history, what Frank Serpico did and the price he had to pay.”
His attorney Peter Gleason sent an email and fax last month to Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez asking the prosecutor to re-investigate Serpico’s on-duty shooting.
“Many works of fiction have attempted to memorialize that evening in February 1971, yet the reality of Serpico being set up by his NYPD colleagues to permanently silence him has never been investigated,” he wrote.
“The public narrative on this tragedy is filled with fantasy.”
A spokesman for the prosecutor said his office had “received the letter and are reviewing the request.”
A Gleason fax was also sent directly to departing NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell, requesting Serpico’s police employment file — including all medical and personnel records.
A department spokesman responded only that the NYPD “will review the letter once we receive it.”
Gleason, in his message to the DA, cited “NYPD internal documents that defy logic and appear to be concocted in furtherance of discrediting Serpico” without providing details.
Serpico remains particularly outraged by assorted books written across the decades about his career and the case, complaining of inaccuracies and outright lies.
And a particularly aggravating factor remains the lack of a 10-13 call for an officer needing assistance from fellow officers after the shooting, he said.
“I’m bothered by other people telling my story,” he said. “They’re distorting the facts ... There was no 10-13 call, bottom line. That speaks volumes.”
Serpico, long at odds with the NYPD and ostracized by fellow officers for decades, received his long-awaited NYPD Medal of Honor in February 2022 thanks to Mayor Adams.
Oscar-winning actor Al Pacino won a Golden Globe Award for playing the former officer in a 1973 movie.
The gunshot to the face came nine months before Serpico’s appearance before the Knapp Commission probe of police corruption, where he exposed the NYPD’s sins before nearly a dozen television cameras.
By then, Serpico was already the target of death threats and widely scorned by his NYPD colleagues.
“If people had taken heed of what Frank Serpico brought to light, numerous corruption scandals over the years might never have happened,” said Gleason. “For better or worse, the NYPD created this situation and never investigated.”
Serpico, a longtime resident of upstate Stuyvesant, N.Y., has also taken his case to Twitter, where he boasts more than 10,000 followers. But he realizes time is growing short for answers in the shooting that forever altered the course of his life.
“I am 87 years old, and I want to go to the grave with the peace of mind that everything was done to determine the cause of me being shot that night,” he said. “I want my records, I want to see my files.
“This has been with me for over 50 years. The old story is walk a mile in my shoes. I don’t want vengeance or retribution. I want the truth. I expect no less in a country like America.”
Serpico, oddly enough, holds no grudge against the man who shot him point-blank on a winter’s evening.
“I have nothing against him,” he said. “He was doing what crooks do.”
