Perp Walk

It was a cool, crisp, sunny Friday afternoon in downtown Manhattan, like many other spring days before or since. But this particular day, March 30, 1984, was special, unlike any other in the annals of law enforcement.

A team of city, state, and federal investigators left FBI headquarters at 26 Federal Plaza along with Mafia boss Paul Castellano and began walking slowly toward the U.S. District Courthouse at Foley Square a few short blocks away as newspaper photographers and television cameras recorded every step.

Castellano, whose name would become a well-known example of mob violence the following year as the victim of a spectacular midtown Manhattan assassination orchestrated by John Gotti, was an important organized crime figure in his own right. He had been arrested that morning as the lead defendant in a racketeering indictment that accused him of heading an enterprise that had killed 25 people during a 10-year period.

And although the racketeering indictment contained more murders as predicate acts than any other, the truly unique law enforcement aspect of the case was a 9-minute perp walk that he took down Duane Street and across Lafayette and Center streets to the U.S. District Courthouse, where he would be arraigned on the charges.

Unlike most defendants, Castellano was not handcuffed or otherwise restrained. More astounding, Castellano—not the investigators who accompanied him—suggested, and then insisted, that he walk to the courthouse rather than wait for an FBI car to take him.

“I can't stand being here,” said Castellano, referring to the FBI building. “Let's walk.”

“The Perp Walk,” opined the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, “is a widespread police practice in New York City (and many others) in which the suspected perpetrator of a crime, after being arrested, is walked in front of the press so that he can be photographed or filmed.”

Perp walks have been around for decades and come in several varieties. In most cases, suspects are transported to or from a police precinct as part of the arrest and booking process, as the press, through its own diligence or advance notice, takes photos or footage of the “perp,” or perpetrator. The exercise is lauded by police as a deterrent to similar crimes, and it is justified by the media as an aid in informing the public of important news about crime. The defense bar scorns perp walks as offensive, self-aggrandizing efforts by police that humiliate suspects and prejudice their rights to a fair trial even before they get to court.

No matter the justifications or legal ramifications, perp walks are often great theater, producing memorable images and/or remarks by the suspects.

Without question, the most dramatic episode to emanate from a perp walk was witnessed by a national television audience on November 24, 1963, when Lee Harvey Oswald was paraded through a crowd of reporters and others in the basement of [Page 329]Dallas police headquarters and shot dead by bar owner Jack Ruby.

In 1952, legendary bank robber Willie Sutton, when asked by a New York reporter why he robbed banks, said, “Because that's where the money is.”

...