Synopsis/Details
Synopsis / Details:
WRITTEN BY CHARLES A. CASTRO
BASED ON TRUE EVENTS
When a New York State senator was issued a traffic ticket by a New York City police officer, the senator called the second highest-ranking member of the NYPD for a favor. That favor started a chain of events that resulted in the horrific, brutal murder of an innocent young woman, Bliss Verdon.
Police sergeant Charles Castro was singled out to be the scapegoat in a cover-up of the NYPD’s botched mishandling of the investigation that led to the murder of Bliss Verdon. However, Charles Castro, a tough as nails cop was not going to take the betrayal plotted against him sitting down.
Charles Castro relives some great moments in his police career, and some horrendous ones as well. Charles details a series of heinous criminal acts and murders committed by New York City police officers. The murders (true events) storied by Charles Castro make the deaths of George Floyd, and Eric Gardner look like child’s play.
The combination of the betrayal bestowed upon him and, the senseless killings of innocent black and Hispanic men, transform Charles Castro from a true-blue cop into a community activist, and ultimately a founder of the Latino Officers Association, also known as the LOA. The LOA filed a class action lawsuit against the NYPD and the city of New York for discrimination. The evidence against the city was so overwhelming that the city settled for $27.4 million.
The opening scene of NYPD Blue Lies is the horrific execution of Amadou Diallou. Diallou was a twenty-three, year-old street merchant who was shot 41 times by four plain clothes police officers. To make matters worse, Diallou committed no crime, was unarmed, and was never a threat to the police.
From the killing of Diallo NYPD Blue Lies goes back in time into the early life of Charles Castro. A young Charles Castro responds to a robbery that developed into a hostage situation in Midtown Manhattan. Half of New York City is shut down, hundreds of cops, hundreds of people watching and awaiting the outcome of three people being held hostage by a semi-crazed gunman. Charles Castro with no hostage negotiating experience is made the primary hostage negotiator to deal with the gunman. Members of the gunman’s family were flown in by helicopter, in order to assist in ending the ordeal. Shots are fired, lives are at risk, the scene is right out of a Hollywood movie.
Six years later Charles Castro is a seasoned veteran who has since been promoted to sergeant. As luck would have it, another robbery takes place, this time there are five gunmen. Another hostage situation, ensues, except this one goes awry. The minute Charles Castro arrives, he sees that there are two gunmen holding a hostage at gun point. As Charles Castro positions himself behind cover and prepares to talk with the gunmen, one of the gunmen shoots the hostage in the head at point blank range, only twenty feet from Charles Castro. The gunmen turn their guns on the cops, a fierce gun battles ensues, sixty-eight bullets are fired between cops and robbers. When the dust settles, bodies are laid out, on a blood-soaked street.
After the blazing gun battle story, we move onto five additional very short stories/ incidents, placed strategically in between the main story line. The emphasis here is placed on the unwarranted, senseless, brutal killings of innocent unarmed black and Hispanic men. They are not the traditional short stories per say just short incidents, disturbing, sad and sickening incidents where cops get away with “murder”.
From there we move to “the most corrupt cop in the history of the NYPD”, this is a short story within NYPD Blue Lies. Michael Dowd. Dowd was a notoriously bad, dirty cop who committed serious acts of crime and corruption; including selling drugs, committing robberies, riding shot gun for drug dealers, even doing drugs off of the dash board of his police car. Dowd runs wild for six years, and even though the NYPD knew about Dowd’s exploits, they never arrested him, or his gang of criminal cops.
The final short incident before the Bliss Verdon chapter is a that of two corrupt vice cops assigned to the elite public morals’ unit, a unit with a reputation of high moral standings and integrity. One cop sexually abuses one of the sex workers, while the other steals the earnings of the brothel. The scene is videotaped by a surveillance camera, and even though the sexual assault appears on national television, the officer is never charged or arrested. The hierarchy in the NYPD and mayor Rudy Giuliani shows us their true colors, and their hypocrisy on honesty and integrity.
Bliss Verdon’s, sad and tragic death is broken down step by step, from beginning to end. This is one case of domestic violence that fell on deaf ears. The NYPD failed this poor, frightened woman miserably. A sad, but true, eye-opening tragedy that sheds light on the importance of issues concerning women and domestic violence.
Charles Castro’s NYPD Blue Lies gives us a very different perspective on the NYPD, Mayor Giuliani, and just how little black lives really mattered long before the BLM movement was born.
The true-life story, NYPD Blue Lies has it all. Charles Castro’s controversial ex-wife (also an NYPD officer) was playboy magazine’s cover girl, and centerfold, causing a major scandal in New York City, and controversy throughout police departments around the country. NYPD Blue Lies has it all, gun battles, hostage taking, group sex, drug dealing cops, police executions, and much more.
