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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It from WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. There's a true crime podcast where the criminals are law enforcement, and it takes place right here. The late 1980s in New York City was a time of turmoil. The flood of crack cocaine had increased violent crime in communities, especially Black and brown ones, already neglected by the city in the '70s. The violence was fueled mostly by turf wars and competition created by the vast amounts of money one could earn by making, trafficking, or selling drugs. The allure of that fast cash, for many, was hard to ignore.

Even those who had sworn to fight crime found the prospect of easy money tantalizing. In particular, a precinct in Harlem, which was called a banana republic by investigators and dubbed the Dirty 30 by others. Officers abused their authority by robbing drug dealers of their cash and drugs, only to sell the goods back to the dealers for a profit. Their flagrant disregard for the law and for keeping the neighborhood safe, and the investigation that took them down is the focus of a new 10-part documentary-style podcast from Odyssey Productions. It's called The Set, and it's hosted by award-winning podcast and documentary filmmaker Zak Levitt. Zak joins me now to discuss. Hi, Zak.

Zak Levitt: Hi, Alison. Thanks so much for having me.

Alison Stewart: Hey, listeners. Were you in New York City during this era? Did you live in the Dirty 30 district or experience or witness any of the behavior? Do you remember this story? If so, share your experiences with us. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. You can join us on air with a phone call, or you can text to us on that line as well, or you can reach out on social media. The number's 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC.

Would you set the stage for us? What was going on culturally, economically, and politically in New York at the time that this podcast is covering?

Zak Levitt: Yes. The thrust of this show takes place in the early '90s. 1990 in particular was the most violent year in the history of New York City. Murders, violent crimes are off the charts. Of course, this was in the heart of the crack epidemic, which had swept through New York like a storm. New York and LA hit terribly hard. West Harlem, which is where the 30th Precinct of New York City is located, had really been taken over by the drug trade. It virtually became an open-air drug market.

People could come from the Tri-State area, over the George Washington Bridge from New Jersey, come from Connecticut, and buy cocaine in bulk or crack without getting out of their cars. The city had all but forgotten about this neighborhood. Crime was rampant of course, and money was everywhere, so the temptation for police officers was there. It was nothing for them to pull over a car on a routine traffic stop and find $100,000 in cash in the trunk.

When you have this confluence of crime, the city ignoring the neighborhood, and the temptation, you can imagine what could happen in that scenario. On top of that, you had a culture at the time in the police department of looking the other way. There had been a major police corruption scandal in the late '80s, and the police department did not want any more bad press. They were avoiding bad press and they wanted to keep their jobs, so they would get corruption allegations and simply not investigate them any further.

The cops on the beat know this. They know that there's not going to be any repercussions if they do anything. Not only that, the culture of the 30th precinct at the time was to look the other way as well. You had supervisors who were not holding themselves or anybody else accountable, and in some cases were actually participating in the corruption. What would happen when you see your supervisor doing that, of course it's going to make it a lot easier for you to do that.

I also want to mention one important piece of this, which was the police were-- The supervisors had so much pressure to make arrests stick by the higher-ups, by the mayor, that they were telling the policemen on patrol, "Make arrests stick. Make them stick." The culture was-- they called it, "If he had it, he had it." In other words, the drugs may not have been his, the guns may not have been his, but if they were near him, you're going to arrest him. Maybe you have to tell a little white lie on the arrest report and further that lie in court to make the arrest stick, but that's perjury. Once you commit perjury, it's a slippery slope to then maybe taking a couple of bucks, putting it in your pocket after that.

Alison Stewart: Yes. That was really interesting in the podcast, how some officers got ensnared. There were some who were truly corrupt, and then some who got ensnared by breaking a rule, or being encouraged to break a rule, and then the other officer would be like, "Well, I got you now. You're in my pocket."

Zak Levitt: Right. Absolutely. I mentioned that culture. The culture was also, "Hey, I got something on you." You said the arrest happened in the vestibule of a building, well, it really happened on the street, or vice versa. For some reason, you put that on the arrest report. Well, technically, to the letter of the law that's a lie. If I know you did that, well, I'm going to put that in my back pocket. Then all of a sudden you have police officers who really aren't interested in engaging in corruption, but people are telling them, "Hey. I have something on you, and you better not be a rat."

Of course, the elephant in the room is the blue wall of silence. All of the pressures pushing up against them to remain silent. Becoming a rat is the worst possible thing that could happen in the police department, and they wanted to avoid that at all costs. It was either look the other way or participate. It was a very difficult choice. It should be noted that these police officers weren't coming onto the job looking to be corrupt. I don't think any of them were, but the culture at the time and the lack of accountability and supervision very easily turned them that way.

Alison Stewart: Let's take a call. Joe is calling from Rockland County. Joe is not his real name because Joe has some inside information about this story. Joe, thank you for calling in.

Joe: It's interesting that you're talking about not being a rat. I was there. It was the early '80s though. I remember it was very early in the '80s, and a rookie cop, just transferred from my training unit. I got tested a couple of times. There was one time going up on a job, but some other cops were going up in the elevator, and they pushed me in the corner of the elevator and they started feeling me up. "What are you doing?" They wanted to see if I was wearing a wire. They just were testing me.

Then there was another incident where a good friend of a relative of mine who was a detective, used to be his partner - you're not going to believe this - was sitting in the courtyard of the precinct on the parking lot. He takes out his gun and he puts it to my head and starts pulling the trigger. Obviously, there was no bullets or I wouldn't be sitting here. It went click, click, click, click, click, and I grabbed my pants and-- This was all about, "Well, now what am I going to do?" Am I going to say something to somebody? Well, I didn't say anything to anybody.

I didn't see a lot of the stuff that was going on because I was a rookie there. Fortunately, thank God, I got a transfer out of there before this whole thing went down. When I saw all these guys getting paraded in the news, I knew every one of them. I was a rookie cop. I didn't have a steady partner, so I worked with every one of them. I want to say one thing, though. This is very, very important. The morale in the police department when I got there was horrible. You got to remember that in 1975 they laid off 5,000 cops. Some of them were brought back.

Even guys that got their job back hated their job and thought they were done wrong because of the layoffs. Because of that, everybody had a terrible attitude and morale was zero. This is why they may have done what they did because their morale was terrible.

Alison Stewart: Joe, thank you so much for calling in. Zak, I'd love to get your feedback on what you heard from Joe.

Zak Levitt: First of all, sorry for what you had to go through. I can't imagine being put in that position. I'm sure you were not the only one, unfortunately. Remember this. It all came to a head during this time, right? In the mid to late '80s, early '90s, obviously crack driving all of this. The police department didn't know how to respond. Mayor Koch put more narcotics officers on the street. Mayor Dinkins put 5,000 more officers on the street. Nothing really helped. Of course, that created a whole host of other problems, but yes, the morale was terrible at the time. I think when you're caught in a situation like that, there's really no good answer.

I spoke to several other whistleblowers who didn't participate in this podcast for fear of retribution. They had their careers and lives made miserable by speaking out. Of course, Barry Brown, who did speak in the podcast and is a major part of the story - you could say the star of the story in some ways - did speak to me. I was driven by understanding how he was able to do what he did and get out and make a life for himself. Because there really is no good answer, and Joe really hammers that point home.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Zak Levitt. He is the host of The Set, a new podcast about the corruption in the 30th Precinct in the New York Police Department in the late '80s and early '90s. Our phone number is 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. If you were in New York during this time, did you live in the Dirty 30's district or experience any of their behaviors? Do you remember this story? If so, we want to hear your experiences. We're going to get to a few calls and have more questions for Zak Levitt after a quick break. This is All Of It.

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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Zak Levitt is my guest. He is the host of the podcast The Set. Zak, I said there's 10 episodes, so we can't get into huge detail, but if you would give one example for our listeners of the kind of corruption so people can understand what was going on.

Zak Levitt: The corruption that was going on in the crack era in the 30th Precinct was really unique for the methods in which they were receiving the money that they would find. In one case, which really blew my mind, they called it booming doors. What they would do is they would get a tip. The police officers would get a tip that there's a drug spot in a building that may have money or guns or drugs. They would go and they would knock down the door without a search warrant. Obviously, that's illegal search and seizure. They're violating the Fourth Amendment.

They would knock down the door, they would boom the door, and anything inside, they would charge whoever they found inside with possession of those things. They might take a little bit of it. They might charge him for the drugs but take the guns, or charge him for a part of the drugs and take the rest of the drugs. One other thing that also blew my mind was they called them key jobs. This was pre-stop and frisk, but that's what they were doing. They would round people up on a corner in Harlem and they would check for their keys. They were looking for expensive keys, keys to expensive locksets because that meant that they were protecting something valuable.

They would go up to the roof of the building, up the fire escape, and then into the building and go on what's called a vertical. They would just go down floor by floor checking the key to every lock. They would eventually find the apartment that they would be able to open with that key and do the same thing: charge the people inside with whatever they found and keep some of it.

Alison Stewart: Let's take some calls. Gail is calling in from Harlem. Hi, Gail. Thank you for calling All Of It. You are on the air.

Gail: Thank you. I lived in Harlem during that time, and it was exactly the way you all describe it. I've never had it corroborated before. It was an open-air drug market. You couldn't walk down the street without somebody offering, "You want this? You want that?" At that time, Harlem was all Black. Cars really did drive in from New Jersey with these white families with their kids in the back. Drive-by drug purchase.

What you guys are missing is how unsafe it was for us as residents. If we knew someone was doing drugs, or there was shooting or something going on on the fifth floor in apartment 655A, we'd tell the cops. The cops would knock on that door and say, "The lady in 3B says you guys are dealing drugs here." They put our lives in danger. You learned that you could not trust the cops. The cops were not trying to protect the neighborhood from drugs. They were trying to let the drug dealers know who they couldn't trust in the neighborhood to report on them. We had a family building. It was just an impossible scenario.

If you parked your car in front of your building and you were sitting in your car, the cops would harass you. They would ask, "What are you here for? What are you here for? You have drugs? You have drugs?" It was just absolutely exactly as you have described.

Alison Stewart: Gail, thank you for calling in. Let's talk to Michael from Manhattan. Hi, Michael. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Michael: Hi. How are you? Good morning, or good afternoon.

Alison Stewart: Good afternoon.

Michael: I was just wondering-- I remember reading a story. Unfortunately, it was about a childhood friend who had gone on the job in the '80s and learned about it at the time when the Dirty 30 was hitting the papers about him being involved with beating an undercover officer. They had set up an apartment in the 30th Precinct. The undercovers had set up apartments as if they were dealing drugs, and he was caught on camera. They had cameras in the hallways. Do you recall this story at all?

Zak Levitt: Yes. The DA's office, the Manhattan DA's Office, Robert Morgenthau had set up a sting in the 30th Precinct. An apartment with fake cocaine on a scale and some money in a cabinet, and cameras in the apartment. They filmed three 30th Precinct police officers entering the apartment and assaulting one of the undercovers. As I recall, I think they were dealt with departmentally. I don't think that they were criminally charged, but that was a precursor to the wave of Dirty 30 arrests. I think that happened in March of 1994, and the actual arrests came in April of 1994. It was all sort of part and parcel of what was going on in the precinct at the time.

Alison Stewart: It's really shocking in the podcast documentary about what some of the officers would say. They were very matter-of-fact about some of the bad behavior, how terrible their behavior is. I want to play an example. This is from officer named Bernard Cawley, who - well, not from the Dirty 30 - was questioned to provide details of how wide police corruption was. Let's take a listen. This is from The Set.

Panel Member: Did you develop a nickname?

Bernard Cawley: Yes, I did.

Panel Member: What was that nickname?

Bernard Cawley: The mechanic.

Panel Member: Why were you given this nickname?

Bernard Cawley: Because I used to tune people up. That's a police word for beating up people.

Panel Member: Did you beat people up who you arrested?

Bernard Cawley: No. We just beat people up in general.

Panel Member: Why were these beatings done?

Bernard Cawley: To show who was in charge. We were in charge, the police.

Panel Member: Mr. Cawley, how long were you assigned to the 46th Precinct?

Bernard Cawley: Approximately two and a half years.

Panel Member: In that two-and-a-half-year period, how many individuals do you think you administered beatings to?

Bernard Cawley: Approximately 300 to 400 people.

Panel Member: Mr. Cawley, weren't you ever afraid of getting caught doing this?

Bernard Cawley: No. Who was going to catch us? We're the police.

Alison Stewart: Ultimately, who would catch at least some people?

Zak Levitt: I want to point out that having "the mechanic" Bernard Cawley in the Mollen Commission hearings was to illustrate the connection between police brutality and corruption. That connection had not really been made until the Mollen Commission began looking into it. It was always thought of as police officers losing their temper, taking it out on a suspect, but "the mechanic" illustrated the ways that brutality would be used to advance his corrupt activities. "I'm going to beat you up unless you give me information on drug spots." Making that connection was crucial in really understanding police corruption at the time.

Alison, if I may, I just want to address something one of the earlier callers, Gail, mentioned because it is so important. One of the biggest points of this story is what was going on with the community. The fact that the police were not there to protect the community. We really go deep into this in the podcast, and some of the community members speak about it in Episode 8. Who do you call if you're being harassed by a drug dealer? You can't call the police. You know they're in bed with the drug dealers.

That piece is the most critical piece of this story. They weren't out there policing. They were out there looking to put money in their pockets, which is like hitting the community twice as hard in some ways. They're not only putting money in their pockets, but they're hurting the community further. I just wanted to address that. It really is a crucial point.

Alison Stewart: Of course. Who was able to hold at least some people accountable?

Zak Levitt: Well, really the Mollen commission. Mayor Dinkins had impaneled this commission in 1992 to look into why the NYPD wasn't responding to police corruption. Why Internal Affairs wasn't responding. Internal Affairs of course was the sole arm of the NYPD, there to root out corruption, and they weren't doing that. They were looking the other way. As I mentioned before, they didn't want the bad press.

The Mollen Commission was going to have these public hearings and they were going to air it all out. They were going to really air out the NYPD's dirty laundry. They knew that in order to really have some lasting change, they had to not only show what the police department was not doing in response to corruption but that they were still doing it at the time of their investigation. That's how the 30th Precinct investigation began. The Mollen Commission said, "Let's try to make a police corruption case now to show that it wasn't just one bad apple that brought us here or a couple bad apples. I'm not going to use the word systemic, but this is much more widespread than anybody thinks." That's how the investigation into the 30th Precinct was kicked off. Of course, they found Barry Brown, who helped crack the case wide open.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Ron from Hamilton Heights real quick. Hey, Ron.

Ron: Hi. How are you?

Alison Stewart: I'm doing well. You've got a minute.

Ron: I just wanted to say that the community was very active in all of this. I was the president of the homeowners, and we were engaged with the police department up to the police chief. I don't think we were probably that aware of the Dirty 30. I forget when that broke, but we certainly were aware of the drug dealers who were at the end of our blocks and actively dealing every day. They said the drug dealers chose Hamilton Heights because it was such a nice quiet community. They were looking for the same thing that we homeowners were looking for. We did do a lot of things. We planted trees. We fixed up our houses. We got vacant houses renovated.

Alison Stewart: Ron, I'm going to dive in real quick. To Ron's point, there were people who lived here who wanted to have a home. To your point, Zak, they didn't have anywhere to turn.

Zak Levitt: Absolutely. That is also featured in the podcast. I wanted to cover every angle in Episode 8. There was something called Harlem Initiatives Together, HIT, in which many of the local churches in the 30th Precinct had their pastors form this alliance to really be the voice of the community. The homeowners' association, I think his name was Ron, was just mentioning as well, played such a huge role in Harlem Initiatives Together. They presented lists of drug spots and drug dealers, which included police officers, and they brought that all the way up to the top to the police commissioner.

Alison Stewart: As I said, it's 10 episodes. It goes very much in depth. My guest has been Zak Levitt, host of The Set. Zak, thank you for sharing your reporting.

Zak Levitt: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate the time.

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Alison Stewart: Sally Potter is the award-winning director behind films like Orlando and The Party. Now at the age of 73, she's also a musician with a debut album out. She joins us for a listening party. That's next, right after the news.

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