When the film Fort Apache, The Bronx, starring Paul Newman as a conflicted cop patrolling a neighborhood ravaged by poverty and drugs, came out in 1981, it was a controversial hit.

DiMartini was a plainclothes officer when he mostly served in the 41st precinct in the South Bronx — known as “Fort Apache” for its disturbingly high crime rate — in the 1970s and ’80s.

When the film Fort Apache, The Bronx, starring Paul Newman as a conflicted cop patrolling a neighborhood ravaged by poverty and drugs, came out in 1981, it was a controversial hit. Local community ...