Police and Bribes

By D.L. Williams

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Chances are you’re going to write about a dirty cop if you are penning mystery or thriller stories. Graft is, heartbreakingly, an ugly reality of police work, and it certainly merits attention from mystery and thriller writers. We write conflict, after all, and there are few things more controversial than a cop willing to take a bribe. 

In my honest and broad experience, corrupt cops are in the significant minority. Most officers are conscientious, ethical people who do good work, but some cops are worse than a suspicious rectal polyp. Taking dishonest officers to task through your writing is one way to fight against corruption, so I encourage you to dive in. Let’s talk about it.

When I was twelve years old, I secretly borrowed a book off my father’s shelf. The story I chose was entitled Serpico, a decidedly R-rated book, not intended for juvenile audiences. Dad didn’t realize for years I’d read that book. Alas, it changed my life.

Serpico is the story of a real police officer by the name of Francesco Vincent Serpico who worked in New York City during the 1960s and ‘70s. NYPD was awash in corruption during that period, and Serpico rose to fame by his refusal to ever take a bribe or even a free meal at a diner. His colleagues distrusted him because he wouldn’t play along, and this led to him being set up for murder by fellow officers. He survived, through the bullet that blasted his skull hastened the end of his career.

I was mesmerized, and I admired Serpico’s courage so much I decided before turning the last page that I would one day be an honest cop. He is the reason I went into police work, and I hope I’ve done honor to his legacy. 

I don’t know a single officer on the job for more than a few months who hasn’t been offered some type of bribe. This is anathema to the honorable spirit of professional policing, but the offers do come. Over the years I’ve been offered piles of money, sex, concert tickets, and cars. On one occasion, a fellow I’d arrested for driving while intoxicated offered me a villa complete with a maid and lovely garden in Mexico, my name free and clear on the title, if I’d let him out of my squad car and let him walk home. 

Turned out he had plenty of money to do that, and he really did own a little house on some acreage south of the border. It was his sixth arrest for DWI. The judge had told him he’d go to prison if he ever got caught driving drunk again the last time he was in trouble. He was terrified of going to the actual “big house,” and I think he would have gnawed through the inside of my squad car if he thought he could escape custody. I’ve occasionally wondered about that little house, but I never considered taking him up on the offer. 

The first time I was ever offered a bribe was during the traffic stop of a middle-aged Hispanic man driving an old pickup truck. I can’t recall why I stopped him, but I have a vivid memory of him holding a $100 bill in his left hand as I approached the driver’s side. The message was clear: take the money and leave me alone. 

I’d venture to guess that one-hundred-dollar bill was about the only money he had in the world, probably his payment for days of labor. He was shaking in fear, and I felt sad that he believed his first action upon being stopped should be to bribe an officer. How pitiful that a laborer just trying to feed his family was so panicked about being pulled over by a cop that he offered me his grocery money. I gave him a warning and sent him on his way. 

Two weeks later, a patrol officer working in an adjacent town just north of where I’d pulled over that laborer was arrested for taking a bribe. The State Police had gotten wind that he was shaking down Mexican workers for cash, so they set up a sting with Hispanic officers dressed like farm workers driving battered pickup trucks. The crooked officer took the bait and went to jail. Fantastic! 

Which makes me wonder if that fellow I stopped had already heard about the corrupt officer working that area and assumed I was in on it. Corrupt officers harm us. They make good officers look bad in the eyes of the very people who need their help most of all. 

Sex is also offered more often than you might imagine. I lost count of the number of times a woman (and every so often a man) suggested coyly, “Is there anything I can do [to avoid arrest or citation]? Some were even more overt, casually offering variations of sex if I would let them go. 

For the record, no. 

Temptation is always lurking around the next traffic stop, and I’m not so naïve that I don’t realize some officers cave. I can simultaneously understand why and scorn them for it. Lust and greed are listed among the deadly sins for a reason, and weakness exists even among the toughest out there. 

Corruption in police circles tends to start on the low end of the sinister spectrum. Maybe it’s taking the offer of free food at a restaurant or accepting access to a private hunting lease for the weekend in exchange for letting a speeding motorist off with a warning. 

You could say, “No big deal,” but it is. Those freebies are like a gateway drug, and at some point, the officer who took one “hit” will rationalize doing it again. 

Humans must be the best animal on the planet for rationalizing acts we know to be wrong. We can talk ourselves out of going to the gym two weeks after the newest round of New Year’s resolutions. We can justify that second piece of cake or that “just one more” drink. One of the things we’re best at legitimizing is taking something that doesn’t belong to us.

This is especially true when someone is in financial straits. Those credit card bills keep mounting, the mortgage and car payments are overdue, your kid had to go to the ER last month, and the after-insurance invoice is a whopper. Desperation is the destroyer of ethics, especially when it comes to money.

Corruption among police officers is analogous to the dynamics of white-collar fraud. Those cases always involve three elements: Access, trust, and an ability to rationalize a deed unworthy of that trust. A hedge fund manager who embezzles from his clients has access to the funds, the trust of his clients, and an ethical platform built on dry sand. 

The same holds true for officers who take bribes. They have access to a person who can provide something they need or want such as cash, sex, or entry into a lifestyle they only imagined before. They have the general trust of the public and supervisors. And, if they have turned to the proverbial dark side, they’re able to justify their actions so they don’t feel like the dirty cop they’ve become. 

Cops aren’t paid what they’re worth relative to exposure to danger, the job requirement that they make critical decisions for strangers based on inadequate information, the hate they endure on a daily basis, and all the PTSD-inducing moments they experience over the course of a career. Here’s the thing; they know they’re not paid what they’re worth, and this starts to chafe souls after a while. It’s a great career, and I am so glad I was able to do it, but I never believed my fellow officers and I were being paid for the true value of our work. 

This sense of being undervalued creates a danger zone; cops grind their teeth and lose sleep over bills, all while knowing they’ll suit up and jump back into a societal fire for which society will never truly appreciate them. It gnaws on some officers, bending their morality until they can no longer remember that they swore to protect and serve the public, and that they vowed to do so in an honorable fashion. 

Think of all the emotions you would experience if you were driven to shoplift. Shame comes to mind, but so does the thrill of being naughty. Add to that a sense of indignation: “They should have hired more security guards…added more surveillance cameras…not placed something so valuable right by the exit doors. Shame on them.” 

It’s the embezzlement triad all over again: Access (not enough security precautions and a thing of value placed where it can easily be stolen), the basic trust every store operator must have for customers, and rationalization of the act (e.g., “That company is so big, they factor in petty theft to their bottom line.”) 

Writers shouldn’t defend corrupt officers, but knowing how and why such bad acts occur should be part of your creative palette. Perhaps your dirty cop wasn’t always corrupt. Showing your readers how and why he came to take bribes is an extraordinary tool in character building. We all talk about not creating one-dimensional characters. Here is an opportunity to create more dimensions and, thus, more compelling personalities. 

Dirty cops have betrayed the badge and no longer belong in the ranks. Ethics and honor are everything in a profession where a big chunk of the job is confronting others who have lost their ethical way. Such officers are hurting, and they’ve bent to the pressure. I get it, but I will never abide a fellow officer succumbing to temptation. Having sworn officers simultaneously taking bribes and arresting people for doing unscrupulous acts is untenable. So, write about police corruption, making sure you offer your readers characters who are flawed, multi-dimensional, and deliciously bad. Onward.