Milton Mollen, who led a commission that found that the New York City Police Department had been “willfully blind” to drug-related corruption by organized bands of rogue officers in the 1980s and early ’90s, died on Monday at his home in Manhattan. He was 97.

His son, Scott, confirmed the death.

The Mollen Commission was established by Mayor David N. Dinkins in 1992 after five officers in two Brooklyn precincts were arrested by the Suffolk County police and accused of working as a ring to buy cocaine in drug-infested neighborhoods in their precincts and resell it on Long Island.

It quickly emerged that though the New York Police Department had received many complaints over several years that one of the officers, Michael Dowd, was dealing drugs, it had nonetheless allowed him to remain on the force — until he was arrested by the Suffolk County authorities.

Reports also surfaced that federal investigators were pursuing allegations of corruption by officers in other city precincts.