By Maram Elnagheeb and Cate Zanardi
In 1993, Giuliani wins the mayoral election in NYC. He runs on the promise to curb one of the biggest issues for New Yorkers: crime. And, when he wins, he hires a police commissioner who flies too close to the sun. And changes the NYPD forever.
“Other mayors might have been happy that a person they appointed was achieving their goals […] but not Giuliani.”
You’re listening to Episode 4: “Credit”
TRANSCRIPT
Cold Open
MARAM: It’s a September morning in New York City 1992. City Hall buzzes with tension. There are whispers of an impending protest … by police officers. Mayor David Dinkins is out, attending a funeral. Inside, Deputy Mayor Norman Steisel looks outside his window.
STEISEL: A lot of the protesters gathered on what was essentially right under my window.
MUSIC
CATE: The police union, the PBA, is at war with the mayor. The police feel as though Mayor Dinkins doesn’t have their back.
MARAM: Dinkins has proposed to change the Civilian Complaint Review Board. That’s the agency that investigates complaints against the police.
STEISEL: The decision making was left up entirely to the police bureaucracy. Mayor Dinkins wanted to separate that and have it completely under civilian control, and they were very upset about that, the police union.
MARAM: During the afternoon, thousands of police officers crowd outside City Hall.
ARCHIVE CITY HALL RIOT: “Dinkins must go. Dinkins must go.”
MARAM: Steisel remembers the speeches and signs about Mayor Dinkins, the city’s first Black Mayor.
STEISEL: They had signs I remember, very graphically, there’s probably images of it still somewhere of a caricature of Dinkins, you know a black caricature of Dinkins with distorted features of his face and his nose and his lips and his hair and calling him the washroom attendant that City Hall finally got the washroom attendant it deserved.
MARAM: Steisel also recalls who showed up that day: Rudy Giuliani.
CATE: He lost the 1989 mayoral race to Dinkins. And now the former prosecutor is at the protest. He, too, feels that Dinkins has let the police down.
ARCHIVE NEWS ANCHOR: They had support from the mayor’s archerival Rudy Giuliani.
ARCHIVE GIULIANI: The reason the morale of the police department is so low is one reason and one reason alone. David Dinkins.
MARAM: Rudy Giuliani is back in the spotlight. And this is only the beginning.
SL theme music
NUTGRAPH
MARAM: I’m Maram Elnagheeb
CATE: And I’m Cate Zanardi.
MARAM: This is Shoe Leather, an investigative podcast that digs up stories from New York City’s past to find out how yesterday’s news affects us today.
CATE: This season, we’re taking a deep dive into the life and career of Rudy Giuliani. One of the most influential politicians in New York City’s recent history.
CATE: Before he went to work for President Donald Trump, before he was disbarred, and bankrupt…before all the trouble…Giuliani rose to prominence as a prosecutor and a politician.
MARAM: In our last episode, David Dinkins beat Rudy Giuliani in the mayoral race of 1989. His loss was a close call. In 1993, he bets on a win.
CATE: His promise is to curb one of the biggest issues for New Yorkers: crime.
MARAM: And, when he wins, he hires a police commissioner who flies too close to the sun. And changes the NYPD, forever.
MARAM: This is Shoe Leather season 6, Giuliani: The Unraveling.
CATE: And you’re listening to Episode 4: “Credit”
SCENE 1
CATE: In the early 90s, racial tension and civil unrest define the Dinkins administration. During the mayoral race, in 1989, a jogger is beaten and raped in Central Park. Five Black and Latino teenagers are tried as adults and convicted of the assault. It turns out, they were all innocent.
MARAM: THEN at the start of Dinkins’ term, a Haitian American woman is allegedly assaulted by the Korean owners of a grocery store in Flatbush. This sparks the Red Apple Boycott.
NEWS ARCHIVE RED APPLE BOYCOTT: In church avenue in Flatbush, boycotters mostly black outside the Red Apple fruit market on one side of the street….
MARAM: The Crown Heights Riot came next. The riot erupted after a Jewish driver struck and hit two black children – killing one and injuring another.
CROWN HEIGHTS RIOT NEWS ARCHIVE: And dozens of people have been arrested. And there is no peace in site. Latest flare up followed a fatal accident left 7-year-old Gavin Cato dead
CATE: Then the Washington Heights Riot came when police fatally shot Kiko Garcia. A Dominican bodega employee. This led to Dominican residents rioting against the NYPD.
ARCHIVE WASHINGTON HEIGHTS RIOT NEWS ANCHOR: It began as a peaceful protest march, but it quickly turned ugly. Bottles of rocks were thrown from rooftops. Car set on fire. Gunshots fired at police.
MARAM: In 1990, when Dinkins first takes office, the murder rate is at an all-time high. 2300 murders THAT YEAR. Just for context, last year, there were 377 murders in New York City.
MARAM: People are afraid and are losing faith in the cops. Especially Black people, according to Rafael Mangual. He’s an analyst at the conservative, public policy think tank Manhattan Institute.
MANGUAL: One what’s interesting to me is that in the 80s and even in the early 90s, one of the sort of critiques of policing in New York and in other cities around the country was that policing was not responsive enough to black crime.
MANGUAL: The idea was that police didn’t really care. There was a song by an old rap group called Public Enemy, and the song was called 9-1-1 is a Joke.
MUSIC
9-1-1 IS A JOKE: I dialed 9-1-1 a long time ago. Don’t you see how late they reactin. They only come in they come when they wanna.
MANGUAL: And the whole premise was that if you call 9- 1-1 from a white neighborhood, police will come very quickly because they care. But if you called from a Black neighborhood, it’ll take forever because they don’t care. That was one of the most potent critiques of American policing back then.
CATE: While Dinkins is mayor, he hires more cops – 6,000 more. And things are starting to change. Each year Dinkins is in office, the crime rate goes down. By 1993, the number of murders dropped to under 2,000. But 1993 is also an election year.
MARAM: And Dinkins’ successes won’t stop Rudy Giuliani from campaigning on a platform about crime.
ARCHIVE GIULIANI: This city has too much crime. This city is too dangerous. The present mayor runs away from that and statistics he doesn’t understand. I know it. I understand it. I’ve seen it. I’ve had to fight it, and I want to fight back for all of you so that we can use our streets again and not have to be worried.
SCENE 2
CATE: In the 1990s, Geraldo Rivera is a popular TV news reporter and host. He remembers meeting Rudy Giuliani for the first time.
RIVERA: I remember meeting him shortly after he got the job as U.S. Attorney in the Southern District, and I was a reporter. I was actually a senior correspondent for ABC 2020
GERALDO RIVERA 20/20 INTRO
RIVERA: And I was working on a story about Wall Street executives using their lunch break to buy heroin.
MARAM: Remember Episode 2? That was not the only time Giuliani went undercover to buy drugs. So Giuliani goes to wall street with Rivera. The footage of the two, buying heroin, makes it into the story for 20/20 news.
CATE: Rivera also remembers Giuliani’s reputation as a prosecutor.
RIVERA: If I were to just point to anything, I would think when he, you know, he took down all those mobsters and he really combined a prosecutor’s head with, you know, the good guy in your corner that he also became.
MARAM: And that’s the reputation Giuliani will lean into in his mayoral campaign.
MUSIC
MARAM: Back in 1989, Giuliani lost to Dinkins. In 1993 a rematch. Incumbent David Dinkins versus comeback kid Rudy Giuliani.
CATE: But Giuliani has a problem. He’s a Republican. Dinkins is a democrat. New York City had voted for a democratic mayor for the past 24 years.
MARAM: But this time, the city might be ripe for a mayor that promises a strong hold on crime and unrest.
CATE: Giuliani argues Dinkins is a divisive mayor.
ARCHIVE GIULIANI: New York City today is more racially, religiously, and ethnically divided than it was before David Dinkins became the mayor.
MARAM: He says Dinkins is not a fair mayor to all New Yorkers.
ARCHIVE GIULIANI: Unfortunately, the promise of racial healing has become the reality of the Korean boycott, Crown Heights, Washington Heights, and a sense that the mayor doesn’t reach out and try to help all of the people of all the city with the same equal commitment and desire.
CATE And Giuliani promises to be everything Dinkins is not. A mayor for everyone. And crime unites everyone. Or at least, the fear of crime.
MARAM: Meanwhile, Something else is happening in the city. Something on Staten Island. In the early 90s, it skews Republican and is a mostly white borough. And in 1993, the year of the mayoral election, people on Staten Island are especially motivated to vote. Here’s Norman Steisel again. The Deputy Mayor to Dinkins.
STEISEL: People in Staten Island felt particularly shortchanged. And there was a movement that was inspired by their local officials who argued that Staten Island issues weren’t being attended to properly, that resources weren’t being allocated fairly compared to the other boroughs, and that therefore Staten Island should cede and become an independent city.
CATE: Governor Mario Cuomo, gives Staten Islanders a choice. They can vote on whether they want to cede from NYC. That means thousands of voters on the island will be at the polls on election night … the same night New Yorkers are deciding on their new mayor.
NEWS ARCHIVE: In New York City’s closely fought mayoral race, the incumbent Democrat, David Dinkins, was narrowly defeated by Republican Rudolph Giuliani.
MARAM: Giuliani wins by 40,000 votes.
CATE: Jim Lehrer, a PBS News Anchor, reports on Giuliani’s mayoral win.
NEWS ARCHIVE: And some of the, the — I read today that some of the white, liberal votes that Dinkins got before he lost to Giuliani on the crime issue.
MARAM: Now Giuliani’s got to do what he promised – clean up the streets of New York. One of the first jobs he appoints is the job of police commissioner.
MARAM: He chooses a Boston cop. His name is William Bratton.
BRATTON: What you’re talking about is January 10th, 1994, when I was sworn in as police commissioner by newly elected Mayor Giuliani.
MUSIC
CATE: Bratton would be a winning ticket for the newly instated Giuliani administration. He would also become its rival.
SCENE 3
MARAM: William Bratton was the commissioner in Boston. And before that, he was the chief of the Transit Police in New York City. Now, Giuliani wants to bring him back to the city.
CATE: In the interview for the position, Bratton tells Giuliani he will reduce crime by 40% in three years.
BRATTON: I felt very confident that the techniques, tactics, strategies that I had developed over the previous 20 years, When applied in New York City, then I could confidently reduce crime by double digits.
CATE: That is a strong statement in a city that has seen crime rising since the 1970s.
MARAM: But Giuliani’s convinced.
CATE: During his first week as commissioner, Bratton is all over the news. TV, radio, the papers. He promises big changes. Mass firings, at the helm of the police department.
NEWS ARCHIVE: Heads are likely to roll at police headquarters in Lower Manhattan. Bratton has ordered all deputy commissioners and super chiefs to submit undated resignation letters. And when asked how he likes his new appointment, Brattons said he intends to have fun.
CATE: And by the end of his first week, The Daily News publishes a story. The headline?
BRATTON: That Bratton would end the fear, meaning the fear of crime.
MARAM: This gets Giuliani’s attention. But not in a good way. Shortly after the Daily News gets out, Bratton gets a call.
MUSIC
CATE: It’s Peter Powers, Giuliani’s deputy mayor. He tells him to go over to City Hall that night. Bratton and two deputy commissioners go down to Park Place after hours.
MARAM: To get in you need to buzz at the front door. The Hall is dark, empty.
CATE: One office, in the mayoral wing, isn’t. It’s Powers’ office.
BRATTON: We were told quite explicitly that you have to take a lower profile, That the mayor would not tolerate me getting that much attention.
and that he would fire me.
MARAM: To the mayor, Powers explains, these media appearances are promises they don’t know yet if they can keep. But, Bratton would argue that it was mostly about credit.
BRATTON: Other mayors might have been happy that a person they appointed was achieving their goals that would have been happy about that, but not Giuliani.
CATE: This is Bratton’s first week. And he has a choice.
BRATTON: Think of it as on a Broadway stage. There’s always a time when the lead actor is there on the stage by himself. Mr. Giuliani wanted all the time to be on the stage by himself.
MARAM: And he decides to stay. But the conditions are clear.
BRATTON: Credit ultimately, had to go to him. That he wanted no separate he would describe as man standing.
BRATTON: And it wasn’t the idea that we would be seen as standing side-to-side. I would have to effectively be behind him.
CATE: William Bratton has the top cop job in America. But he got it for one reason only. To reduce the crime rate, to fulfill Giuliani’s promises to New Yorkers. And now, he needs to deliver.
SCENE 4
CATE: To achieve the dramatic crime drop he promised. Bratton has a plan. It’s a theory called Broken Windows. The theory was popularized in 1982 by an article from The Atlantic.
BRATTON: Broken windows refers to those quality of life crimes, they are minor crimes, graffiti, prostitution, aggressive begging…things that are illegal.
MARAM: According to Broken Windows, when you ignore small crimes, people feel unsafe and those who want to commit bigger crimes feel enabled to do so with impunity.
CATE: It’s all laid out in strategy booklets, which are handed out to the police department after Bratton takes office. We have a copy of one of them. It’s from 1994. It lists all of these minor crimes stuff like: “squeegee cleaners, loud parties”.
MARAM: And it lays out how patrol officers should now act when they see someone committing one of those crimes. Violations that were previously ignored should now be enforced.
CATE: That’s the thing with Broken Windows: officers are encouraged to use discretion: if officers see a violation, they can use their own judgement. They don’t need to stop you, or give you a warning.
MARAM: Their judgment is what makes the difference between walking off and getting a ticket.
CATE: But every violation you commit is a possible tally.
MARAM: And meanwhile, serious crime is also tracked, with a new technique: Compstat.
MUSIC
MARAM: It’s the combination of two words: Compare Statistics. It’s the brainchild of former transit cop Jack Maple. In 1994, he becomes Bratton’s second-in-command. His idea is simple: “map the crime and put the cops where the dots are.”
CATE: Jack Maple died in 2001. But Louis Anemone, a long-time NYPD officer was an integral part of CompStat. He was a chief who sat on every meeting from the start to 1999, when he retired.
CATE: Earlier this spring, I went up to meet Anemone in New City, in upstate New York, shortly after our first call.
CATE: Hi, nice to meet you,
ANEMONE (IN THE DISTANCE): How long have you been waiting?
CATE: Not much
CATE: He picks me up at the bus station. We go to a diner where he is a regular.
CAR, DINER AMBI
CATE: Above the entrance door to the dining room is a mural. It depicts the World Trade Center along with a message: NEVER FORGET.
CATE: Anemone brings a leather briefcase with him. Inside, he has pictures from his time at the police department.
ANEMONE: And this is me at the same conference. He asked me to speak. Those were in the happier days.
CATE: Before the whole…
ANEMONE: Yeah before everything went crazy.
CATE: In one of them, he is sitting at a crowded table, surrounded by officers in white shirts, suits, and patterned ties. In front of them are piles of paper, and in front of Anemone is a bulky CRT monitor. That’s a CompStat meeting.
MARAM: Now this might sound surprising, but before then, crime stats existed. It’s just that no one gave them much thought. Here’s Anemone.
ANEMONE: You have to understand that at the time, so this is early 1994. For decades, the police department wasn’t asking their commanders in any of the bureaus in the police department about crime conditions.
MARAM: That’s why Compstat is such a big deal. Now, those same commanders are held responsible for the crime numbers in their neighborhoods.
MUSIC
CATE: It works like this: crime statistics are sent to headquarters. And the brass – the leaders of the NYPD – quiz the lower ranks on what is going on in their precincts. And why it is going on.
MARAM: Their jobs are on the line. The jobs of both commanders and patrol officers sent out in the street everyday.
MARAM: And so … between the new tactics of Broken Windows, and tracking crimes through Compstat … crime actually drops. And Giuliani’s administration will change the city forever.
SCENE 5
ARCHIVE NEWS: Crime and pick pocket, you don’t hear about it as much anymore.
MARAM: Times Square, which was famous for its adult entertainment theatres, becomes family friendly.
ARCHIVE NEWS: There’s not as many of the or there’s not any porno theaters like there used to be. It’s cleaned up physically. The streets seem to be cleaner. It’s a nicer place to come to. It’s a place you can bring your family.
MARAM: The city is safer. The streets are cleaner. and some describe it as a golden era. Including Geraldo Rivera.
RIVERA: During the 90s, during Giuliani time, I think there really was a sense that the good guys had won and that the city was under control. There was a sense that New York had defeated the forces of anarchy, and under Giuliani… It was prime time.
CATE: The city is on a high and so is Giuliani.
CATE: A poll, taken in October 1994, shows the mayor’s approval rating went up to 61 percent from 49 in July.
MARAM: But broken windows, along with CompStat, would forever change the dynamics of how the NYPD does policing.
MUSIC
CATE: The Broken Windows theory empowers officers to prosecute small violations.
MARAM: And at Compstat meetings, the brass rewards commanders when they can show they are acting against crime. It’s an incentive to keep arrest numbers up. No matter the crime rate.
CATE: In the years after Bratton’s tenure of the NYPD, misdemeanor arrests will keep increasing.
BRATTON: So part of what happened that began under Giuliani and then continued, unfortunately […] during Mayor Bloomberg was the belief that higher numbers would generate increased crime reduction. And that was not necessarily the case.
CATE: This also leads to more and more stop, question, and frisk interactions — stop and frisk. That’s when police officers can stop and question anyone they think looks suspicious.
BRATTON: And the… issue was that it created great racial tensions.
CATE: And the NYPD stops and arrests, disproportionately, Black New Yorkers.
CATE: And the idea that prosecuting small violations would lead to less crime was wrong. Broken windows as a theory was disproven. The studies that seemed to have proved it might have overestimated the effects of small crimes on both the crime rate and its perception.
MARAM: A 2013 court ruling finds stop-and-frisk unconstitutional.
MARAM: But, back in 1994, whether these are the real reason,methods work does not matter. What the media and the mayor care about is that the crime rate is plummeting.
NEWS ARCHIVE CHARLIE ROSE
MARAM: And Giuliani’s secret weapon is Bratton. The man he recruited to shake up policing is highly successful … Perhaps too successful
SCENE 6
MARAM: Giuliani markets himself as a mayor who is cleaning up the streets of the city. And he wants everyone to know about it.
CATE: Bill Warren served as chief speechwriter for Giuliani. He recalls the mayor CONSTANTLY showing up on the scene when it came to public safety.
WARREN: So he was constantly going to the hospital to visit with either wounded firefighters or wounded police officers, that sort of thing. We were always going somewhere and talking about what kind of statements we’re going to issue, what we’re gonna say,
MARAM: Meanwhile, Bratton’s deputy commissioner for communications resigns. Giuliani got rid of so much of Bratton’s press staff.
BRATTON: They cut the size of my press office by 50%.
CATE: From the very first warning in Powers’ office, every media appearance is chipping away at Bratton’s currency with the mayor. And yet, he keeps his visibility.
BRATTON: So what’s the expression? If the tree falls in the forest and there’s nobody there to hear it, does it make a noise? Well, if crime’s going down and nobody’s talking about it. Is anybody going to know?
MARAM: Bratton decides he’s not going to be deterred by Giuliani. He’s going to be as vocal as possible that he’s bringing crime down.
CATE: In January 1996, Time Magazine publishes a cover story on the decline in crime now all over the country. And on the cover, is William Bratton. The Police Commissioner.
MARAM: The masthead reads: “Finally, we are winning the war against crime. Here’s why”.
CATE: Behind the title is Bratton, a trench coat half-opened, emerging from the dark. Behind him is a police car, and in the distance, you can see the skyline of Manhattan.
MARAM: The article calls NYC “Exhibit A” of better policing. Bratton is mentioned only once, in a line that states:
“Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and his police commissioner, William Bratton, both insist that the reason is their devotion to new ways of doing police business.”
CATE: Meanwhile Giuliani’s approval ratings with non-white New Yorkers are falling. In 1995, 61 percent of white New Yorkers approved of his performance. But only 16 percent of black New Yorkers, and 19 percent of Hispanic New Yorkers feel the same way.
MARAM: Giuliani’s honeymoon with the city is fading and he is keeping away from the press, according to Bratton.
BRATTON: The frustration with Giuliani during our time was that he was at war with the media very significantly for almost a year. He didn’t talk with the New York Times. So effectively a lot of our successes were not being talked about by him. Because of, he liked this reporter, he didn’t like that reporter.
MARAM: But Bratton is talking to the press and is taking the credit for the one policy the new administration had championed as its campaign promise.
MUSIC
SCENE 7
CATE: By now, the tension between Bratton and Giuliani is evident. Here’s Bill Warren again, the speechwriter for Giuliani:
WARREN: I think you know that Giuliani and Bratton were oil and water. Everyone knew that that this relationship was growing really tense.
MARAM: He remembers one time, at One Police Plaza, when he was waiting on the two of them with a reporter.
WARREN: He and I were standing off to the side and Bratton comes in with Miller and Maple and I don’t know who else. And Giuliani’s coming in with, I don’t remember who, but a couple of deputy mayors and commissioners, And it was like, the reporter was laughing and said, it looked like a street rumble. It was so evident that there was team Bratton and team Giuliani. And that’s where it went really went.
CATE: At the same time, Bratton wants to write an autobiography. He interviews writers, someone who can help him write it. And he gets a book deal.
MARAM: Giuliani asks the city’s legal counsel to look into Brattons book deal. They are looking for conflicts of interest.
CATE: The counsel also looks into a series of trips that Bratton accepted, offered by a nyc billionaire. The counsel tells the press there are questions of impropriety in those trips.
MARAM: But as Anemone, the long time cop, remembers it, the issue was something else. Compstat, the department, and Bratton had been perhaps too successful for Giuliani’s liking.
ANEMONE: It had gotten a lot of publicity at that point, so much publicity, in fact, that Commissioner Bratton lost his job.
CATE: In April 1996, Bratton’s contract is up for renewal. But he tells Giuliani not to bother to renew it. In fact, he had already decided months earlier, in late 1995, that he would leave the position.
MARAM: Bratton would no longer work under Giuliani’s leadership
BRATTON: Increasingly, everything was being run out of City Hall. And was causing great delays in the ability to make decisions. All of this was part of the death by 1,000 cuts. Each one of these was intended to exert control, to show who was in control.
MARAM: Bratton left the NYPD with a popularity that had never been higher.
CATE: And his leaving was officially deemed a “resignation”. But it was seen more as Giuliani pushing Bratton out.
SEIFMAN: Well, there are very few people, high officials in government that get fired. Everyone resigns because, number one, you’re told if you don’t resign, you’ll get fired. Number one.
MARAM: That’s David Seifman the City Hall Bureau Chief of the New York Post.
SEIFMAN: And number two, if your boss doesn’t want you working for them, do you want to work there?
MUSIC
MARAM: Giuliani gets rid of his rival. He takes back the spotlight as a crimefighter [SHORT BEAT]
MARAM: But, the crimefighter’s methods have grave consequences that will fire up the public’s anger against him
ARCHIVE: GIULIANI YOU HAVE NO HEART
CATE: But, that’s on the next episode of Giuliani, the Unraveling.
CREDITS
MARAM: This episode was reported and produced by me Maram Elnagheeb
CATE: And me Cate Zanardi.
CATE: Joanne Faryon is our executive producer and professor. Peter Leonard / len-hart/ and Rachel Quester /kwe-ster/ are our co-professors.
CATE: Additional editing was kindly offered by Blythe Terrel /teh-rel/
MARAM: Shoe Leather’s theme music – ‘Squeegees’ – is by Ben Lewis, Doron Zounes (/zoo nez/) and Camille Miller, remixed by Peter Leonard. Other Music by Blue dot sessions.
CATE: Our Season six graphic was created by Emily Sawaked (suh-wah-kid).
MARAM: To report on this episode, we relied on the 1997 autobiography Turnaround, by William Bratton and Peter Knobler, and Giuliani: Emperor of the City by Andrew Kirtzman.
CATE: Crime data is based upon Compstat yearly projections for 1990 and 1993. Misdemeanour arrests and stop and frisk data are based on research by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York
MARAM: Special thanks to the New York City Public Radio, American Archive for Public Broadcasting, New York 1, CSPAN, and PBS for their archives. Press archives were from The New York Times and The New York Daily News.
CATE: We would also like to give special thanks to Andrew Kirtzman, Stuart Karle, Dale Maharidge, Sydney Mimeles, Katherine Naples, Jeffrey Fagan, Ali Winston, Edwin Raymond. We would like also to thank all of the people that took the time to speak to us, welcomed us in their homes, offices, and diners.