In May of this year, former commander of the Chicago Police Department and criminal justice scholar Thomas A. Reppetto died at the age of eighty-eight.

After earning a doctorate from Harvard University, he served as professor, dean, and vice president at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. From 1979 to 2005 he was the head of the Citizens Crime Commission of New York City and was named New York State Governor’s Law Enforcement Executive of the Year in 1986.

In addition to writing articles for the New York Post, Reppetto authored American Mafia: A History of Its Rise to Power, Bringing Down the Mafia: The War Against the American Mafia, Blue Parade, Battleground New York City: Countering Spies, Saboteurs, and Terrorists since 1861 (Potomac Books, 2012), and American Detective: Behind the Scenes of Famous Criminal Investigations (Potomac Books, 2018).

In his review of Battleground New York City, author and former NYPD commander Tony Bouza wrote, “Thomas Reppetto is uniquely qualified to assess America’s police intelligence apparatus, history, and evolution because of his role as a historian and practitioner, and above all else, because of his talent as a writer.”

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