Cornelius W. Willemse was a New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 policeman and detective

Detective

A detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. The latter may be known as private investigators or "private eyes"...

 from 1900 to 1925. He was the author of two memoirs, "Behind the Green Lights"(1931) and "A Cop Remembers"(1933). His books are among the few reliable first-hand accounts of the criminal gangs and police methods of that time.

Early life

Willemse emigrated from the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 in 1888. After working as a bouncer

Bouncer (doorman)

A bouncer is an informal term for a type of security guard employed at venues such as bars, nightclubs or concerts to provide security, check legal age, and refuse entry to a venue based on criteria such as intoxication, aggressive behavior, or attractiveness...

 at a Bowery

Bowery, Manhattan

Bowery , commonly called "the Bowery," is a street and a small neighborhood in the southern portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan...

 saloon

Bar (establishment)

A bar is a business establishment that serves alcoholic drinks — beer, wine, liquor, and cocktails — for consumption on the premises.Bars provide stools or chairs that are placed at tables or counters for their patrons. Some bars have entertainment on a stage, such as a live band, comedians, go-go...

 he joined the police department in February 1900 as a patrolman. He witnessed, and described in his books, the evolution of the New York City Police Department from a corruption-ridden, antiquated institution into a considerably more modern police department.

Police career and memoirs

"Behind the Green Lights," published in 1931, describes Willemse's rise from patrolman in the mainly Irish-American NYPD, to acting Captain in the homicide

Homicide

Homicide refers to the act of a human killing another human. Murder, for example, is a type of homicide. It can also describe a person who has committed such an act, though this use is rare in modern English...

 squad. It describes his service in some of the roughest neighborhoods of the city at the time, including Chinatown

Chinatown

A Chinatown is an ethnic enclave of overseas Chinese people, although it is often generalized to include various Southeast Asian people. Chinatowns exist throughout the world, including East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Americas, Australasia, and Europe. Binondo's Chinatown located in Manila,...

, the Lower East Side

Lower East Side

The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....

 and Tenderloin

Tenderloin, Manhattan

The Tenderloin was an entertainment and red-light district in the heart of the New York City borough of Manhattan during the late 19th and early 20th centuries...

.

In that memoir and "A Cop Remembers," published in 1933, Willemse makes candid revelations of the often brutal police methods used at the time, as well as a rare law enforcement perspective on the gangs of New York during the Prohibition

Prohibition

Prohibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, is the practice of prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the...

 and pre-Prohibition era.

His books, which were well-received at the time and are now frequently quoted in historical literature, Willemse discusses at length his use of "third degree" interrogation

Interrogation

Interrogation is interviewing as commonly employed by officers of the police, military, and Intelligence agencies with the goal of extracting a confession or obtaining information. Subjects of interrogation are often the suspects, victims, or witnesses of a crime...

 methods on prisoners.

Willemse also describes his confrontations with major gang members of the early 20th Century, including Kid Dropper

Nathan Kaplan

"Kid Dropper" Nathan Caplin or Kaplan , also known as Jack the Dropper, was an American gangster controlling labor racketeering and extortion in New York City during the post-World War I period into the early years of Prohibition in the early 1920s.-Biography:One of seven children, Kaplan was born...

, Little Augie Orgen

Jacob Orgen

Jacob "Little Augie" Orgen was a New York gangster involved in bootlegging and labor racketeering during Prohibition.-Biography:...

 and Tom Flanagan.

A highly fictionalized version of "Behind the Green Lights" was produced as a motion picture by a small production company in 1935.

Quotes

"Detectives and policemen, as a class, are athletic men. They like games and sports and their minds and inclinations are healthy. They make mistakes, of course, but they seldom beat a man who doesn't deserve it. I'll admit that when a hold-up mob is brought into court with faces bandaged, it can be assumed that all of them didn't fall down stairs or roll off a cell bunk, accidentally. But neither does the hold-up man or the gun pull his trigger accidentally."

"The 'Third Degree' is not without its humorous moments."

"I was no saint. But I was told that I was a good cop."

--Cornelius Willemse in "Behind the Green Lights."