Patrolmen Vincent Casale, New York City Police Department, in 1989, was “transferred to his dream assignment, The NYPD Movie-TV Unit. The elite unit employed a limited number of police officers whose responsibility was to assist the motion picture industry while they rolled cameras on the streets of New York City.” Vincent Casale is the author of The Coparazzi.

According to the description of The Coparazzi, “Officer Casale found himself smack in the middle of New York film-making. Lights! Camera! Action! Movie Stars! As a lifelong film fanatic he was over the moon! But were the stars in his eyes too bright?”

According to the NYPD Movie/TV Unit, it “was founded along with the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting in 1966. In the four decades since, the Unit has worked in concert with the MOFTB to successfully balance the needs of New Yorkers and the production industry, facilitating the production of tens of thousands of films, television shows, commercials, music videos and still photography shoots across the City. When projects shoot at an exterior location which requires traffic control, or has a scene with prop firearms, weapons or actors in police uniforms, members of the Unit are assigned -- at no cost -- to be on set.”