By Dennis Hartley
(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on June 6, 2015)
Pretzels and beer. Soup and sandwich. New York City and police corruption. Some things seem to naturally go together. Not that police corruption is exclusive to the Big Apple, but there is something inherently cinematic about the combo. Serpico…based on a true story. The French Connection…based on a true story. Prince of the City…based on a true story. Cop Land, Bad Lieutenant…mmm, could happen (I think you get the gist).
The story in Tiller Russell’s riveting documentary, The Seven-Five, is not only true, but comes right from the mouths of the perps themselves. The “star” (for wont of a better term) of Russell’s film was once dubbed the “dirtiest cop” in the department’s history by NYC rags (and that’s saying a lot).
Michael Dowd headed up a posse of rogue cops who worked the 75th Precinct. For a period stretching from the late 80s into the early 90s, they shook down Brooklyn drug dealers for protection money (among many other things). At the apex of his “career”, Dowd was basically holding down two full-time jobs, one as a cop, and one as a robber. As one of the interviewees observes, “Some cops end up becoming criminals; Michael Dowd was a criminal, who just happened to become a cop.”
When Dowd and his cohorts first popped onscreen, I became a little disoriented. I knew that this was billed as a “documentary”, but surely these were actors; they seemed too much in “character”. I mean, these guys could just as well have strolled right out of a Scorsese film (I could easily picture Dowd saying “Business bad? Fuck you. Pay me.”).
It’s easy to be bamboozled by Dowd’s…charm? But you have to delineate the colorful raconteur from the laundry list of misdeeds he so casually catalogs…he is by any definition a bad, bad man. At least former partner Ken Eurell displays something resembling a conscience (Eurell was a “good” cop…until he fell under sway of Dowd, who never was). Compelling yet disturbing, The Seven-Five tells an all-too-familiar tale that reflects a systemic blight that continues to fester in American cities large and small.