City to rename street in Harlem to honor Officer Phillip Cardillo?
Todd Cardillo was just a year old when his father was shot to death inside a Harlem mosque nearly 40 years ago.
No one has been convicted in the murder of Officer Phillip Cardillo, a married father of three, even after police officials promised in 2006 a renewed focus on the case. The trail has gone cold.
Now an effort to honor the fallen cop – renaming the street in front of the 28th Precinct stationhouse where he worked – also has come up empty. Fear, red tape and a Community Board 10 moratorium on street renamings have brought the project to a halt, the Daily News has learned.
“All these years later, in reality, no one is going to go to jail for what happened to my dad,” said the 39-year-old son. “But this is something that would give us a little bit of happiness, an acknowledgment that my dad did the right thing.”
Officer Cardillo answered a bogus 911 call on April 14, 1972, reporting a cop in trouble inside the Nation of Islam Mosque No. 7 on W. 116th St. Cardillo, who was white, was shot and died six days later.
Fearing street unrest would escalate to a race riot, Mayor John Lindsay and then-Police Commissioner Patrick Murphy let 16 witnesses walk out of the mosque without being interviewed.
One suspect stood trial, but there was a hung jury. Then Louis 17X Dupree was acquitted during a retrial.
The murder has long been considered one of the darkest days for the NYPD, but it hurts much more for a son who knows his father only through photographs and stories.
“He died doing his job and doing it the right way,” the son said. “But with the coverup and all the controversy, it was all brushed aside.”
Last spring, the Cardillo family gained a valuable ally.
Deputy Inspector Rodney Harrison, the commanding officer of the 28th Precinct, got involved. He was the first person from the Police Department to approach the Cardillo family about renaming the Harlem street, on Frederick Douglass Blvd. at W. 123rd St.
The family was thrilled, but police sources said Harrison’s supervisors were worried that moving forward without the blessing of the members of the mosque might ignite racial tension.
Harrison has told mosque officials and community board members about his plans to rename the street. He even passed along to Community Board 10 more than 2,700 signatures collected by officers from the NYPD and other police departments in support of the renaming. More than 200 Harlem residents also signed a document of support.
Deputy Inspector Kim Royster, an NYPD spokeswoman, said Harrison and mosque officials were planning a sitdown. Royster said there’s no reason to believe the mosque would oppose the renaming of the street.
Still, it wasn’t clear when the moratorium would expire.
Community Board 10 would not comment, but a source familiar with the issue said the moratorium was put in place while the city Department of Investigation probes an unrelated street naming that may have involved criminality.
Todd Cardillo is hopeful but taking a wait-and-see approach.
“What happened to my dad should be remembered,” he said. “And it shouldn’t happen again.”