Courage Under Fire Award: Stephen Maing and the NYPD 12

This year’s Courage Under Fire Award recipients, director Stephen Maing (High Tech, Low Life) and the whistleblowers of the NYPD 12 that he documented in his exquisite doc Crime + Punishment, may not at first glance seem as likely honorees as, say, journalists facing down the daily guns and bombs of the war-torn Middle East. But look closer. Maing, an Emmy Award-nominated Brooklynite, and the black and brown men in blue that he collaborated with, have taken on, as Maing reminds us, “the most powerful policing organization in the nation” in order to expose the illegal quotas that disproportionately affect New York City’s minority communities. So how dangerous is exposing systemic corruption in this force? Just ask Frank Serpico.

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