Once a Cop

March 14, 2016
In this gripping memoir, former street dealer and retired N.Y.C. police inspector Corey Pegues documents a life on both sides of the law. As a teenager from an impoverished home in Queens, Pegues fell into the drug game just as crack cocaine flooded the marketplace in the mid-1980s. Working for the infamous “Supreme Team” brought Pegues money and prestige, but he was dismayed by the growing violence around him. Soon after graduating high school, Pegues escaped to the army and later joined the NYPD. Pegues faced prejudice for being African-American in a predominantly white organization, but still rose to the rank of deputy inspector despite concerns about his “urban” attire and outspoken positions. The book falls into two sections: Pegues narrates his criminal days in intimate close-up, while taking a more distanced perspective on his years as a cop. Although Pegues remains loyal to the badge, he criticizes the department’s old boy network and conflicts with minority neighborhoods, including the excesses of programs such as “Stop, Question, and Frisk.” In 2015, Pegues’s disclosure of his criminal past ignited controversy and led to a police raid of his Long Island home, a backlash that highlights just how far the NYPD remains from serving all New Yorkers.

November 1, 2015

This memoir of an NYPD officer who once was a crack dealer promises a candid discussion of race and policing today.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from April 1, 2016
Pegues, who came up as a ghetto kid and crack dealer in Queens and retired as a deputy inspector in the NYPD, after having served in a range of positionsfrom transit cop to first black commander of the high-crime 67th Precincthas written a rollicking, no-holds-barred account of life on the streets, seen from both sides. His account of how his father's alcoholism slid his family from a working-class neighborhood to the ghetto is riveting, marked by details like his family's subsisting on mayonnaise sandwiches and using cardboard to paper off holes in the soles of shoes. Pegues shows how natural it was for him to start by making a little extra money selling marijuana to making enormous amounts of money selling crack cocaine in the mid-'80s, when most New York cops were either blind to the trade or on the take. Pegues was able to leave that life, first through the army, and then by joining the NYPD in 1992. The next portion of his story is equally gasp-inducing, as Pegues describes the entrenched racism in how white cops treat blacks on the streets and on the force. His criticisms of individual commanding officers are remarkably frank (Pegues entered a $200 million lawsuit against the NYPD, among others). This insider account of street and squad-room life is riveting, and Pegues' writing style is assured and polished.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

April 15, 2016
A Queens native recounts his evolution from drug dealer to decorated veteran police officer. Though he was raised to be a law-abiding, productive member of society, the streets had a different plan for former NYPD deputy inspector Pegues. He intensively details his childhood as a brother to four older sisters and the son of a functioning alcoholic father within a family barely subsisting on welfare. Desperate for easy money, in the early 1980s, when he was 13, the author began selling drugs. With his likable, smooth-talking demeanor, his illicit deals became more lucrative as the caliber of drugs escalated--but so did the violence. When events reached deadly proportions, even then, Pegues believed "it's never too late to turn your life around" and his own "exit plan" included enlisting in the Army after high school graduation. His memoir's subsequent sections detail the author's time as a member of the NYPD, where diligent police work was often met with disillusionment and criticism within the tacitly segregated "lily white" precinct to which he was assigned. Complementing the brash experiences Pegues illustrates as both a drug dealer and a civil servant, his memoir is ornamented with raw street vernacular, lending it authenticity. As it wraps up, however, his empowering story darkens and discourages with discontent. Though the author retired in 2013 after an eventful and ambitious, rank-climbing 21-year career, his final chapters are world-weary and indignant, as he accuses regional media and the police force at large of discrediting him and stripping his legacy of its honor. More distressing are his allegations about the questionable motivations of the 67th Precinct, the resurgence of broken windows policing, and the dismantling of the urban inner-city youth programs and anti-violence efforts he'd established. A multimillion-dollar lawsuit remains pending. A gritty, straightforward memoir about corrective determination written from both sides of the law.

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