Wendy Ruderman

Wendy Ruderman's book "Busted" started slowly for me. I expected the book to focus specifically on the story of "... Corruption and Betrayal" in the Philadelphia police department. But instead I found I was reading more about the lives of the two female reporters. But I gradually bought into the book, and began to appreciate the work and the story of the reporters and how they went about investigating and detailing the police corruption they uncovered. So while the book is not focused solely on the police corruption itself, it does blend that story along with how brave and resourceful the reporters were as they went about tracking down leads and witnesses. Eventually, their newspaper series, "Tainted Justice", led to their winning a Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Journalism.

Unfortunately, if you accept the veracity of their reporting, nothing came of their work. While their investigation uncovered dozens of victims and witnesses, including finding security tapes showing the police misdeeds, the policemen involved haven't lost their jobs. Witnesses apparently were never interviewed by the grand jury, and the prosecutor didn't file charges, so the policemen were allowed to keep their jobs. So the only people who lost out were the reporters themselves who end up being accused of dragging the good name of these fine police officers through the mud.

As we've seen in many other locales, it's very difficult to remove a tainted police officer from a department for misconduct. Maybe that's a good thing in most cases, since the police, by the nature of their job, are bound to make enemies of the individuals they arrest. And any number of false accusations could be made against the overwhelming number of honest and hard working policemen. However, if the evidence against a policeman is as strong as Ruderman makes it sound, something should have come of their work. The strength of the police unions, a blue-wall of silence among members of the department, a fear of witnesses to testify, and cozy relationship with the prosecutor and police often combine to allow a bad officer to remain on the job. And that's not a story unique to the City of Brotherly Love.

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