I've interviewed Randy Jurgensen (seen in the above photo), a legendary
New York City detective, actor, film maker and author of Circle of Six: The True Story of New York's Most Notorious Cop Killer and the Cop Who Risked Everything to Catch Him, and I've read his interesting and informative book.
So I was most interested in reading his piece in the New York Daily News on the unsolved murder of an NYPD officer, the subject of Circle of Six.
Forty-six years ago today, an
NYPD cop named Phillip Cardillo (seen in the below photo) was gunned down inside a Nation of Islam mosque
in Harlem. No one ever served a day in jail for the crime. And for 46 years,
the NYPD has been withholding evidence in his murder case from the public. It’s
time they come clean.
I’m not the only one leveling
that charge. Decades ago, a special prosecutor found that there had been “a
concerted and orchestrated effort” by members of the NYPD to impede the
Cardillo murder investigation, including withholding a secret report on the
case — the so-called Blue Book — from the department’s own investigators.
In March, the watchdog group
Judicial Watch sued the NYPD in a New York courtroom for failing to produce
records in the case. The NYPD won’t release investigative files, a promised
report and an audio tape, preposterously claiming an investigation is still
“active and ongoing.”
Why would the NYPD cover up
evidence in a cop killing?
It pains me to criticize law
enforcement. I’ve been a loyal member of the NYPD, active and retired, for
almost 60 years. I was a pretty good detective. I helped send five cop- killers
to jail — a record, I think. But it’s the one that got away that haunts me.
The climate in the early
1970s, when this terrible crime happened, was awful. Terrorists with groups
like the Black Liberation Army, the FALN, the Weather Underground and the Black
Panthers were killing cops and bombing civilians. Illegal drugs and murders
were through the roof.
The day Cardillo was gunned
down, on April 14, 1972, I was at the mosque where it happened . Cardillo and
his partner had responded to an emergency “10-13” call. A 10-13 is every cop’s
worst nightmare: officer in distress. The 10-13 caller said he was “Detective
Thomas” and he was trapped on the second floor of an address that turned out to
be the mosque.
It turned out “Detective
Thomas” was a fake.
You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:
You can purchase Randy Jurgensen's Circle of Six via the below link:
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