bettycjung 3/15/18. A decent documentary about the dirtiest cop on the NYPD. As Dowd says in the end, he didn't start out wanting to be a bad cop. Who starts out that way? With easy money on one side and temptation on the other side one can see how easy greed can grease those wheels that will just slide right through that tunnel to hell. Worth catching.

Tom Dooley Michael Dowd took the oath to uphold the law and protect the citizens of New York. He was assigned to precinct seven five and, at the time, it was the toughest the city had to offer. He soon found that his small pay check was far from adequate recompense for the life he was leading and so helped himself to some dirty money. After that there was no turning back.This film features archive footage of the trials and the scenes of the time through the 1980's up to 1993. We also have more recent interviews with the main players. This includes his erstwhile partner Kenny Eurell and even some of the gangsters who 'worked' with these dirty cops.It is disturbing to think that so many cops could be so blatant in their breaking of the laws they were supposed to uphold. It was also not an isolated incident or two but seemingly endemic with a culture of collaboration with other so called 'good' cops. Being 'good' meant not 'ratting' on your fellow cops and thereby allowing their criminal activities to flourish. There are some stunning black and white still photography of the time and some of these photos look like they belong in a gallery – absolutely stunning. This is a documentary that shows how powerful films can be and how fiction is often far behind where truth actually is – absolutely recommended.

Woodyanders File this one under amazing, but true: Coming across like the most extremely lurid and outrageous kind of crime fiction, this sordidly fascinating documentary relates the extraordinary tale of fearless, amoral, and unrepentant cop Michael Dowd, who organized a band of fellow dirty cops who ran happily amok in the downtrodden 7th precinct located in Brooklyn in the bad ol' days of the 1980's at the height of dismal poverty and the toxic crack epidemic. Director Tiller Russell's unflinching pull-no-punches approach to the seamy subject matter vividly captures the greed, danger, and lawlessness of the period as Dowd and his loyal, yet reluctant partner Ken Eurell live the high life on their ill-gotten gains after forming an unholy allegiance with ruthless, but magnetic drug kingpin Adam Diaz. Eventually Eurell ratted Dowd out in order to avoid doing any jail time, but in a true travesty of justice Dowd wound up serving a mere twelve year sentence in prison. It's the smugness that Dowd, Eurell, Diaz, and fellow crooked police officers Chickie and Walter Yurkiv display about their heinous misdeeds which in turn gives this documentary an extra devastating impact: Obviously more concerned about making a bundle of cash through any means necessary and strictly looking out for their own slimy hides (that old code about cops watching out for each other's backs apparently only goes so far after things take a turn for the worse), these guys are truly nasty pieces of rotten work. Surprisingly, this documentary proves to be wickedly funny in spots, especially when Down starts driving around in a flashy Corvette that he clearly could never afford on an honest cop's pay and the end with Eurell claiming he betrayed Dowd in order to prevent a woman from being kidnapped. A total powerhouse.

Red-Barracuda Precinct Seven Five refers to the 75th precinct located in Brooklyn New York which was the location of extraordinary police corruption back in the 1980's. In this decade the streets of New York really were crime addled and the 75th precinct had a reputation as one of the very worst areas of this dangerous city. Cops from the NYPD felt it necessary to pragmatically back each other up in order to survive life on the front line of serious crime; this led to them turning a blind eye to certain practises. This film looks at the extreme end result of this culture. The New York streets at this time were awash with crack cocaine and well organised gangs protected their interests with violence. Entering into this maelstrom was rookie cop Ken Eurell, who was given a partner Michael Dowd, who was an experienced police officer with a reputation for shady practices. At first Eurell was extremely reticent about this partnership but before long he was joining Dowd in a downward spiral of corruption which began with taking bribes, moving on to actual thieving, then protecting the interests of a big league drug dealer, leading onto to dealing themselves and even winding up with the facilitation of murder. It's an incredible story of cops bowing to temptation in a pretty bad way and is an alarming example of the police acting like gangsters.Starting with footage of Dowd answering questions at a commission, the story intermittently returns to this as he gives very candid answers while we go back to the start of the story and work our way forward through the 80's and gradually learn about the increasing levels of corruption this group of cops let themselves become party to. It's a fascinating tale, very well told; including some disturbing crime photographs. The level of danger on the streets of Brooklyn really comes through in this, with a particularly incredible segment where the cops are actually chased by the criminals! Dowd himself is obviously an interesting character for the very fact that he got away with such significant levels of corruption for such a long while. His eventual downfall did ultimately lead the NYPD to significantly improve its internal affairs to more pro-actively try to prevent such wrong-doing; whether or not it has been successful in this I really have no idea. But whatever the case, this is a very good and eye opening documentary about a bad chapter in American law enforcement.