P. O. Michael Dowd Case Study

NYPD 75th Precinct Scandal – P.O. Michael Dowd Case

As American history has shown us, with great power also comes great responsibility. The great power part has not been as much of a problem as the great responsibility has. And as history have shown us, many of those officers show great control and responsibility, but there are a small percentage of those officers who are corrupt.

The job of a law enforcement officer sometimes can be tough. Officer are sometimes plagued with situation that test their ability to enforce the law and maintain order. Police officers today face a constant battle to maintain higher ethical standards. This mission becomes tougher each day when one considers the importance of fighting terrorism, drugs, human trafficking,

For example, in his article “Fighting Police Corruption”, Krauss states, “The 911 call could hardly have been more routine. A man wearing a denim jacket and fatigue pants was reported to be selling drugs outside a housing project in southern Brooklyn. Two plainclothes officers responded to the call on a mild night last month, frisked the man and found $400 under the seat of his bicycle. But finding no drugs, the police let him go. The officers were unaware that they had just taken "a walk on the dark side": police talk for an Internal Affairs Bureau sting. The "drug dealer" was actually an undercover officer wired for sound, and the interchange was videotaped from a van parked a block away to see if the officers would rough up the supposed dealer or steal his money. These officers did neither”. Sting operations like this one are a central part of the Police Department 's efforts to overcome the damaging corruption scandals that engulfed the 75Th Precinct in NY between 1986 and

Dowd becomes a patrol cop in Brooklyn’s 75th Precinct, in East New York in 1983, and within a year, he formed a crew of cops that began robbing drug dealers. In 1986 known on the streets as ‘’Mike the Cop”, he began charging drug dealers as much as $8,000 for protection. And also, He began to participate in kidnapping of drug dealers and sold stolen drugs on Long Island. In 1988, NYPD Internal Affairs Sgt. Joe Trimbole began to investigate officer Dowd, but he didn’t receive enough support from the New York Police Department to prosecute him