1. Jeffrey A. Kroessler John Jay College of Criminal Justice jkroessler@jjay.cuny.edu

2. John Jay College of Criminal Justice  An institutional mission dedicated to criminal justice, and justice in all its manifestations  Lloyd Sealy Library committed to building and maintaining a comprehensive collection  Special Collections concerned with accessibility as well as preservation  Historian/Librarian with concentration in New York City affairs

4.  Individual life stories  Insight into crime and policing over time  Emerging Themes  Race; corruption; rise and decline of crime rate  Narratives of Historical Events  Mollen Commission on police corruption  Bill Bratton’s transformation of the NYPD  Critical Voices  Fortune Society; Correctional Association

5.  JKWhere did you find yourself as sergeant?  AnemoneIn the 32 nd Precinct, central Harlem. June of '73, and I stayed there until I was promoted to lieutenant in November of '77. I did four years up there. I was there a week when Ralph Stanchi was shot and killed. Just a radio call to a bar opposite Harlem Hospital. He responded. I guess there was a man with a gun in the bar, the Capri Bar. He responded, a couple of other cars responded. He was one of the first ones in, and he's ordering the guy to drop the gun. He's at one end of the bar, the guy's down at the other end of the bar. "Drop the gun. Drop the gun. Drop the gun." The guy finally fired. Nobody fired until this guy did. He kills Stanchi, wounds Carmine Mora, and then the boys open up on him, and they killed him. And right after that, they transferred a lot of young guys. They went to Queens. They had had it. They were there for Piagentini and Jones; now it's like three years later, and Stanchi. I was a young sergeant, a new sergeant, and I started seeing all these guys I'd just met leaving.  JK"Excuse me. I want to go to Bayside.“  AnemoneYes. So they allowed a lot of that. Let me tell you. About a quarter of a million people living there. This is truly the city that never sleeps, uptown. It's going on all the time. I'm seeing now more gunshots, more guns, knifings, slashings, stabbings. A lot of violence, a lot of drugs, a lot of heroin. Specific spots, they would line up on the street, and afterwards they'd begin to nod on those same corners. It was prostitution hotels, entire buildings filled with drugs and prostitutes, nobody legitimate in the places. And I thought I was an experienced cop. I'd worked a couple of shifts with street crime, but it's not the same as being there every day, around the clock, working, seeing what's going on.

6.  JKThe Knapp Commission, it changed the culture of the police force.  TimoneyOh, without a doubt. Yes it changed. There were brighter lines in the sand, of what was permissible and what was not permissible. And that was fine. … For a cup of coffee, it was, and I remember, because I hadn’t made Captain, I was a Lieutenant, about to make Captain, and I would work some over- time shifts in Manhattan. Back then a cup of coffee was fifty cents, in those Greek diners. So, I go in. I order a cup of coffee, it’d be three in the morning, I had been working the over-night shift. I give the guy the dollar. He says, “No, just take it.” I say, “No, no.” So, I had to leave a dollar for a Goddamn fifty cent cup of coffee! So, I paid twice as much as the average citizen because he wouldn’t give me change. So, I had to go and leave a dollar there. The cup of coffee stuff, I’m not so sure. People talk about, it’s a slippery slope. That’s ridiculous. But I went with the program, I was good, I always paid for my coffee, but it was stupid.

8. Digital Collections Justice in New York: an oral history Lewis Lawes Papers Burton B. Turkus Papers New York County Trial Transcripts, 1883-1927 Images from NYPD Annual Reports, 1912-1923 Digitized Books Mug Shots John Jay College Archives

10. For further information Jeffrey A. Kroessler Lloyd Sealy Library John Jay College of Criminal Justice jkroessler@jjay.cuny.edu