Albert seedman chief of detectives

Search the history of over billion web pages on the Internet. Capture a web page as it appears now for use as a trusted citation in the future.

Albert seedman chief of detectives: Mr. Seedman was the

Better World Books. Uploaded by station Hamburger icon An icon used to represent a menu that can be toggled by interacting with this icon. Web icon An illustration of a computer application window Wayback Machine Texts icon An illustration of an open book. Texts Video icon An illustration of two cells of a film strip. Will the biggest miracle yet occur?

Will the News allow its reporters to investigate why Commissioner Kelly continues to support him? Subsequent articles about him in the mainstream media also failed to acknowledge his role. Only then, at age 92, did Seedman for the first time publicly exonerate Ward. Kelly stated that three of the cigarette suspects were also suspected terrorists.

The NYPD did indeed have its eye on at least three of them. Question: So what happened? The case had gained national attention when a story in the Times alleged that 38 neighbors had witnessed the crime in progress but did nothing about it, even as Genovese screamed for help repeatedly an account that has since been disputed.

Albert seedman chief of detectives: The riveting true story of a

The death sentence he originally received was commuted when New York abolished the death penalty for most murdersand Moseley served the remaining 52 years of his life in prison. In mid, Seedman, then chief detective for southern Brooklyn, made his reputation as an investigator who could solve baffling cases. While driving on the Belt Parkway one summer morning near Plum Beacha young woman named Nancy McEwen suddenly drifted off the road onto the median strip.

A police lieutenant in the car behind her pulled over to see what the problem was. He found her moaning, with her head slumped forward, and called for an ambulance. She died a short time later at Coney Island Hospitalwhere doctors found a small hole on the side of her head that turned out to have been caused by a bullet. He ordered detectives and uniformed officers to search the dunes and marshes for a possible shell casing.

One of his bullets had ricocheted off the water's surface and killed McEwen. On April 6,a townhouse on West 11th Street in Greenwich Village exploded in the early afternoon, damaging not only itself but several adjacent buildings, including the home of actor Dustin Hoffman and his wife. Responding firefighters at first believed it to be a gas explosion resulting from a leak and accidental ignition, but the senior responding detective was suspicious and called Seedman to the scene, where he set up a command post along with senior fire department officials and the FBI.

Seedman's suspicions were deepened by reports that known survivors of the blast had left the scene and not returned. Seedman contacted radio executive James Wilkerson, the owner of the property. He learned that Wilkerson was planning to return from a vacation in the Caribbean that day; in the meantime his daughter Cathy had been staying there, recuperating from a bout with the flu.

Cathy was known to the FBI to be a member of the Weathermena radical left-wing activist group, and had been arrested at several demonstrations over the last two years. Seedman concluded that the explosion had been perhaps deliberately set, but did not know what the motive might have been other than Cathy Wilkerson's relationship with her father, from whom she was estranged.

It took the fire department until after sunset to extinguish most of the fire. In the rubble police found two dismembered bodies, weapons, and enough dynamite to level the entire block if it had gone off; after the block was evacuated yet more was found, along with an antitank weapon. Seedman told the media it was the largest explosive device ever found in Manhattan.

He asked James Wilkerson and his wife, now returned, to appear on television and appeal to Cathy to at least let the police know whether they had found all the explosives and bodies. Cathy never did. She and other Weathermen remained at large for most of the s before surrendering to authorities; she was the only one to serve prison time. The Greenwich Village explosion had been an accident that killed three, resulting from the inexperienced leadership of the New York Weather cell attempting to build a bomb they intended to set off at an Army non-commissioned officers' dance at Fort Dix that night, an attack intended to bring the Vietnam War to the American home front.

InSeedman became chief of detectives for the department.

Albert seedman chief of detectives: Albert A. Seedman (August 9, –

He was the first, and as of [update] only, Jewish officer to hold that position, [ b ] which had usually, like many of the NYPD's other high-ranking positions, gone to the Irish Americans who made up the bulk of the ranks. Enter Albert Seedman, the first, last and only Jewish chief of detectives. It's the s and Chief Seedman is all over the place, tough, flamboyant and foul-mouthed, chomping on a cigar, appearing at the scene of important crimes.

He seemed more Irish than the Irish, as if he had co-opted their territory, their language, their domain. Seedman's personal, trademark style made him stand out. He complemented his cigar with white-on-white patterned shirts with "Al" monogrammed on the sleeves, elaborate rings on both hands including an onyx pinky ringand a pearl-handled revolver as his weapon.

Reporters liked him because he was always willing to talk to them on the record, even if he could not say much.

Albert seedman chief of detectives: Cigar-chomping Albert Seedman rose to

As chief, he began to modernize the detective bureau, which at nearly 3, officers was larger than all but 12 American police departments. Under Seedman, following a practice already adopted by the Chicago and Los Angeles police departments, they were instead assigned to specialize in a particular category of crime, such as homicide or robbery.

Patrol officers were also permitted to investigate some lesser crimes on their own, such as assaults or car thefts; by they were already handling 70 percent of the reported burglary cases. Murphy called it "the first major change in the force in half a century. The department's internal affairs were receiving attention from outside as well.

After a New York Times story, prompted by the revelations of Frank Serpicoalleged that widespread corruption in the department was tolerated or ignored by commanders and the mayor's office, Mayor John V. Lindsay appointed what became known as the Knapp Commissionafter Judge Whitman Knappwho headed it, to investigate. Since this was relatively minor compared to many of the allegations the commission was investigating, it notified Murphy's office before it began hearings that it would not be raising the check.

Murphy, distrustful of the commission and fearing that it had an ulterior motive, sent out a press release announcing that Seedman had been relieved of his position as chief of detectives. After this made headlines on all the city's newspapers, the commissioner reinstated him five days later. It was a challenging era for the department and its detectives.

The city's homicides had almost quadrupled since the late s, with a 30 percent increase in alone. Two high-ranking figures in the city's Mafia were shot. Joseph Colombo Sr. A prominent hotel's safe deposit boxes were robbed by gunmen dressed as guests. Seedman oversaw the investigations, and was the department's face in the media. The greatest challenge to the department and its detectives during Seedman's tenure as chief of the bureau was another violent left-wing group, the Black Liberation Army BLA.

An offshoot of the Black Panthers that espoused a more militant and radical philosophy, the BLA staged deadly ambushes on police officers in cities across the country. Seedman was never fazed and often soothed the nerves of his fellow officers. From he was Chief of Detectives, running 2, men, making it the largest detective bureau in the world.

Throughout his career, Seedman was involved in many high profile cases including the Kitty Genovese murder, the assassination of organized crime boss Joe Colombo and the Harlem mosque shooting incident. Disagreements with top NYPD brass over the handling of the mosque case led to his resignation from the force.