My husband and I are curious about a line on the credits following each week of The District, which reads, "For Jack Maple—who lived it." Who and what does this refer to?
—Dick and Patricia M., Wisconsin
Jack Maple helped to create the series, which is based on his own experience as a deputy police commissioner of New York City. Maple passed away two years ago, at age 49, from colon cancer. A native of Richmond Hill, N.Y., Maple started his career in law enforcement as a transit cop in New York City, keeping the subways safe for residents. Over the years, Maple began tracking and charting transit crimes, discerning patterns that allowed him to put officers in areas where they were most needed. When the head of the Transit Police, Benjamin Bratton, was named police commissioner of New York City in 1994, he took Maple with him. As deputy police commissioner, Maple took his charting technique to the entire police department, reducing the crime rate in the city as a result. He left the New York job soon after Bratton left, going on to work as a consultant to police departments across the country. He wrote a book, The Crime Fighter, and then began co-writing the series, The District.
