Dedicated to the Memory of Ptl. Phillip Cardillo

This page is dedicated to Police Officer Phillip Cardillo, NYPD, murdered 53 years ago, April 14, 1972  inside the Louis Farrakhan's Harlem Mosque. His murder became the greatest miscarriage of justice and embarrassment in the history of NYPD. The political interference by the likes of Congressman Charles Rangle, (D) NY, Mayor John Lindsay and then Police Commissioner Ben Ward  prevented a complete and needed investigation and identification of the murderer(s). Officer Cardillo was murdered while protecting the people of Harlem and the people of New York City. He wasn't there by accident, he responded to a false call of "10-13", the radio signal of an officer in trouble and needs assistance. This was a setup from the beginning of the dialing for that call to lure police officers to the Mosque to create confrontation. Instead it led to MURDER. We remember Officer Cardillo as a brave and dedicated police officer, in which all police officers across this nation should remember that he "gave his life" to come to the aid of a fellow officer. What's lost in the time that has passed is that Congressmen Charles Rangle, that's the same congressmen that in 2010 was sanctioned by Congress for his seeming illicit behavior and lack of tax filings, not only interfered in the investigation, but was out championing against the Police Department for entering this sacred facility. He led the march in Harlem against the police, joined with the likes of the radical leaders of the time, the Nation of Islam leaders, where Malcolm X learned his craft and trained as a leader to the community he served. Also Murdered. The streets of Harlem were joyous at the time, and the politicians allowed the killers to vanish into the night, while the NYPD struggled to capture and detain all for questioning. The FBI, who had been at the scene, had informants in the Mosque, but NYPD  investigators were not allowed access to FBI informants or even files. Only recently has the FBI confirmed that they had knowledge at the time but could not release the information. In 2006, NYPD Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly reopened the investigation. The FBI released documents that were redacted (blocked in black ink) that one couldn't make any sense of the information available at the time. Thirty-nine years have passed and only one person was brought to trial, and acquitted after a first trial jury was declared as a hung jury. It was a street circus then, as it is today. Rangle and his cohorts had pulled the greatest injustice in American Criminal Justice History, by participating and refusing to come forward with the direct information and identity of the killers, that he so eloquently declared at the time to the New York and National Press that the killers would be giving themselves up shortly. They never did. The NYPD Police Commissioner Ben Ward, a well respected and well known NYPD life timer, Attorney and Community healer, ordered NYPD that NO OFFICERS were to enter the Mosque at anytime. 

The Mosque became a fortress, guarded by members of the Nation of Islam, and NYPD was ordered to stay away from the crime scene. That's bad history, yet the case goes neglected and unsolved. Rangle, Ward, Murphy and Lyndsey have all passed away.  

Commissioner Bill Bratton called out former city leaders in an emotional speech at the street-renaming ceremony for slain Patrolman Phillip Cardillo in Queens. Standing before hundreds of police cadets and Cardillo’s son, Bratton apologized for then-Mayor John Lindsay’s and Police Commissioner Patrick Murphy’s botched handling of the investigation into Cardillo’s murder by Nation of Islam radicals at a Harlem mosque in 1972. Neither Lindsay nor Murphy attended Cardillo’s funeral. They also asked for forgiveness from Nation of Islam leaders for allowing cops to enter the mosque to check out an emergency call for help.

“It was wrong that the mayor and the police commissioner did not attend the funeral,” Bratton said as he renamed 28th Avenue in front of the Police Academy in Flushing “Patrolman Phillip Cardillo Way.”

“It was wrong that the political process affected the investigation.

“Today, we say that was unforgivable,” Bratton said. “Today, we say, ‘Never forget.’ ”

The top cop added, “It is incredible to me that it took 43 years to do this,” referring to the street-renaming honoring Cardillo.

Sobbing, Cardillo’s son, Todd, told the crowd, “This has been a long time. It’s not the end of it. It’s a just a new chapter.”

Some of Cardillo’s fellow officers traveled from as far as Florida to be at the renaming.