All the Centurions: The Real “Prince of the City” Tells His Story by Robert Leuci
All The Centurions by Robert Leuci
If this author sounds familiar, you may remember him from one of the best NYPD movies ever made. In our first installment of Weekend Buff, we reviewed the film Prince of the City (1981). The film is a somewhat fictionalized account of the corruption and cooperation of NYPD Detective Robert Leuci. That story was originally told by Robert Daley in the book by the same name.
Due to Leuci’s cooperation with the Southern District, he was not charged in the massive corruption scandal that had enveloped the Narcotics Division in the 1970’s. He retired in 1981 after spending several years riding the pines in the Internal Affairs Division, going on to pursue a career in academia and literature.
Leuci wrote several police related fiction books before turning to this autobiography that was published in 2004. All the Centurions details Leuci’s career from his first day on the job through his time on patrol to his assignment in narcotics to his retirement from Internal Affairs.
At first his story will sound familiar to any cop. The academy, the excitement of The Job at the outset. His first collar and the disturbing events that led to it. Boring nights in the 100th Precinct on the far end of Queens. Wild events like the 1962 plane crash in Rockaway to massive brawls with Teamsters. The realization of how disgusting humanity can be.
Leuci goes on to recognition for good police work and eventually earns an assignment to the elite and notorious Tactical Patrol Force, a steppingstone for promotion to Detective. Becoming a Detective was something that he always yearned for from the day he took the oath, and he achieved it, but success was illusory. It was as a detective that his career got dicey. Corruption was rampant in Narcotics. He went along with the misconduct, but as he tells it, the stress and immorality of his malfeasance began to get the best of him.
Leuci describes gnawing guilt, difficulty sleeping, and stress related ailments. He relays the scene in New York in the late 1960’s as waves of heroin hit the streets, turning young men and women into unrecognizable animals.
His eventual cooperation is carefully detailed. His fear of jail, other cops, dealers, are all related. When his story came out in courtrooms and newspapers, he was done as a cop. He spent his final days teaching rookies about the danger of corruption.
This book relates many of the incidents documented in Prince of the City, but it is also much more. Leuci gets into granular detail of his cooperation and the deep emotions that plagued him. One gets the feeling that, much like in the movie, there might be darker secrets to tell, but we can only take Leuci at his word.
Overall, this is a heart wrenching story of an NYPD cop. Leuci does a good job of relating the rollercoaster of emotions that cops go through on a daily basis and the personal changes that cops experience during their time on The Job. Excitement and disappointment, success and failure, hope and futility grinds Leuci down as he traverses the NYPD.
All the Centurions is 380 pages but it’s a quick read. A real page turner as Leuci knows how to tell a story and keep the reader engaged. All the Centurions can be picked up from Amazon for $3 on the Kindle or $13 for the paperback.
Thanks for reading The Ops Desk. Stay Safe!
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