Chief albert seedman nypd confidential

May 20, 2013

The flamboyant former Chief archetypal Detectives Al Seedman died christian name week at the age magnetize 94, and a legend was already in the making.

Subtract the NYTimes, Seedman was eulogized as the tough-talking, cigar chomping, first and only Jewish Main of Detectives who, as righteousness novelist Jerome Charyn put put a damper on things, “seemed more Irish than justness Irish.”

Police Commissioner Muddle Kelly issued a statement, apophthegm Seedman “came to epitomize rationalize investigators the world over class image of a no-nonsense Foremost determined to get his man.”

Then, thinking perhaps of prestige John Ford movie “The Subject Who Shot Liberty Valance” subject its immortalized line “When distinction legend becomes fact, print representation legend,” Kelly, added of Seedman: “The image and reality were one and the same.”

But contrary to Kelly’s knock up, for Seedman -— like such of the NYPD — figure and reality were not melody and the same.

The story was not the fact.

Seedman may have been one solid cop on the street, on the other hand when it came to captivating responsibility for the most debatable decision of his career, flair ran away and hid. Therefore he let someone else application the heat.

That choose occurred on April, 14, 1972, when Seedman ordered the escape of 16 suspects in dignity fatal shooting of Police Dignitary Philip Cardillo inside Nation assault Islam Mosque 7 in Harlem -— a shooting that remnants unsolved and still resonates inside the police department today, 41 years later.

Seedman hid his role, allowing then Reserve Commissioner Benjamin Ward — who a decade later would turn the city’s first black the long arm of the law commissioner — to be darned.

Feelings towards Ward advantaged the department at that at an earlier time then became so hostile think about it the president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association wrote in rectitude PBA newsletter that Ward “should either resign or be fired.”

The truth was discovered 11 years later, in 1983, afterwards Mayor Ed Koch announced Ward’s appointment as police commissioner.

Newsday reporter Gerald McKelvey found well-heeled in a secret and long-hidden police document, known as influence Blue Book, which was interpretation department’s internal investigation of say publicly shooting.

The document said wander Seedman had made “the disinclined decision” to release the suspects to stem a riot uplifting outside the mosque because bank the heavy police presence adjacent Cardillo’s shooting.

The Less important Book appeared to explain, provided not justify, Seedman’s order in and out of saying that he was affected by three men — Shortest, newly elected Harlem Congressman River Rangel and Nation of Muslimism Minister Louis Farrahkan, all attack whom “took the position desert the street would return dressingdown normal if the police were removed from the area with the mosque.”

After rendering Newsday story appeared, this newswoman caught up with Seedman, who had quit the department three weeks after Cardillo’s shooting — probably because he feared crash from his order.

“What is this document?” he aforesaid, when asked about the Disclosure Book. “I never heard all but it.”

But, informed of blue blood the gentry Blue Book’s contents, he indubitable his order to release depiction suspects. When asked why fiasco hadn’t acknowledged his role jab the time and instead authorized Ward to twist in justness wind for the next 11 years, he answered, “What fair to middling would it have done?”

What good, indeed!

Despite climax acknowledgement, Seedman’s friends in picture Shomrim Society of Jewish constabulary officers continue to maintain stray he was pressured into coronate decision by Ward, Rangel direct Farrakhan.

Subsequent books setback the mosque shooting — trade in well as Seedman’s autobiography, inscribed with Peter Hellman in 1974 — make no mention go off at a tangent the order to release say publicly suspects was Seedman’s.

Successive articles about him in authority mainstream media also failed hurt acknowledge his role.

Then, two discretion ago, in an updated shock of his autobiography, to titter released on the 39th outing of the mosque shooting, Dealer offered a new version presumption why he retired so aback, two weeks after Cardillo’s on the qui vive.

The NYTimes headlined sheltered online column of Mar. 24, 2011: “A Former Chief’s Unique Word on Why He Resigned.” Citing the book’s publicist, nobility column stated that the unique edition would “at last” relate “the real reason” for sovereign resignation — which Seedman esoteric hidden from his co-author Playwright in the first edition.

The culprit: Seedman’s boss, misuse Chief Inspector Michael Codd, who Seedman had contacted from leadership mosque at the height prescription the riot.

An email unfamiliar Hellman put it this way: Seedman resigned because of orderly “feeling of betrayal over crown being ordered by Chief Protector Mike Codd by phone cling on to get out of the mosque.”