here was a character very, very, loosely based on him
in the Serpico movie, portrayed by Tony Roberts
Newsgroups: alt.obituaries
Subject: David Durk, Serpico's Ally Against Graft, Dies at 77
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/nyregion/david-durk-detective-who-exposed-police-corruption-dies-at-77.html?ref=obituaries
November 13, 2012
David Durk, Serpico's Ally Against Graft, Dies at 77
By ROBERT D. McFADDEN
David Durk, a New York police detective who with Officer Frank Serpico
shattered the infamous blue wall of silence to expose widespread corruption in
the city's Police Department in the 1960s and '70s, died on Tuesday at his home
in Putnam County, N.Y. He was 77.
The cause was cardiac arrest, his wife, Arlene, said. He had been treated for
mesothelioma for the past two years, she said.
An Amherst College graduate who studied law at Columbia University, Mr. Durk
joined the Police Department in 1963. He imagined a life of public service, as
he put it rosily years later, to help "an old lady walk the streets safely" and
"a storekeeper make a living without keeping a shotgun under his cash
register."
But what he found was a culture of corruption: of officers and superiors taking
payoffs from gamblers, drug dealers, merchants and mobsters for protection and
information, like the names of informers they wanted to kill; of officers
stealing and dealing drugs, riding shotgun for pushers and intimidating
witnesses.
[snippety snip]
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