Public Employee Press

Book Review
Race battles of the 1960s in a savage city, New York

Author T.J. English has written about the Irish mob, Asian gangs and the notorious Westies. His new book, "The Savage City: Race, Murder, and a Generation on the Edge," brings his special expertise to the civil war that raged between many members of the New York Police Dept. and residents of the city's ghettos in the 1960s and '70s.

The author weaves together the strands of three stories - the front-page murder of the high society Wylie-Hoffert "career girls" on the Upper East Side; the teenage George Whitmore, beaten in a Brooklyn precinct until he falsely confessed to the crime, and Bill Phillips, a dirty cop infamous for his testimony before the Knapp Commission. English paints a gripping, detailed account of the culture of graft and institutional racism that pervaded the NYPD and the criminal justice system in those days.

In the widening wake of the Great Migration, rural blacks escaping the segregated South and Puerto Ricans displaced from the island's sugar cane, tobacco, and coffee fields entered the city in growing numbers, searching for work. Minorities in the city's impoverished neighborhoods became victims of constant acts of racist hostility from too many members of a police force sworn to protect and defend all. Fueled by the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, resistance grew, and English describes the ensuing clash.

One honorable piece of this sordid history took place in the DC 37 headquarters building, which was then the home of the World-Telegram newspaper. Reporter Selwyn Raab dug into the Brooklyn teen's convictions and with lawyers for Whitmore developed the evidence that exonerated him a decade later. His coerced confession helped convince the U.S. Supreme Court to adopt the Miranda rule that requires police to inform suspects being questioned of their rights.

The book, which the author dedicates to Whitmore, is available in the DC 37 library in Room 211.

— Jane LaTour