Top Cop: The Bernard Kerik Story

New Year's Day at 2 p.m. ET
Hosted by Judith Regan

He's faced drug dealers in blazing shoot outs, cleaned up one of the worst jails in the country and led the largest police force in the world through one of its darkest hours. Please join us for a fascinating portrait of New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik

Top Cop offers an intimate look at the man who runs one of the most successful police departments in the world, a man with his own demons who reveals some of the painful secrets from his childhood including abandonment by his mother who worked as a prostitute. You won't want to miss our in-depth look at the man in charge of New York's finest. 

By his own admission, Bernard Kerik never should have gotten as far as he did. Abandoned by his mother at age four and a high school dropout at sixteen, he somehow managed to become the man in charge of the largest police department on earth nearly thirty years later.

First, where are his roots and just how did he manage such a remarkable climb to the top? We travel with Kerik back to his old neighborhood in Paterson, New Jersey, where, as a young boy, he had to fight to prove he was a man.

Then, Kerik's childhood dream was to become a New York City cop. He realized that dream in 1986, when he volunteered for the most dangerous job in the department, working as an undercover narcotics cop. And we'll tell you about the shoot-out that earned him the City's highest honor.

And later, Kerik has always been "the right man at the right time." But when he took over the notorious Rikers Island jail in 1994, few thought he could clean it up. What happened next shocked everyone...everyone but Kerik.

Finally, nothing defines leadership like crisis. And for Commissioner Kerik and Mayor Rudy Giuliani, September 11 was the crisis unlike any we have ever known. In our special broadcast we'll show you never before seen NYPD photos of that terrible day. And we'll hear from eyewitnesses who reveal just how close we came to losing the city's top officials on that tragic day.

We hope you will join us on New Year's Day at 2 p.m. for Top Cop: The Bernard Kerik Story .