POLICING AS A NUMBERS-DRIVEN SHAKEDOWN SCHEME:

No, it’s not a race thing. It’s a Ray Kelly thing. That man singlehandedly ruined this department. When I came up as a rookie, you were assigned an older cop who had been around and knew what they were doing. We were taught that you catch more flies with honey. Basically, if you let the small things go — like the guy selling loosies or weed or whatever on the corner — then when the big shit happens, like homicide or burglary, those are the same guys who will tell you all about it. If they hate you, they won’t tell you shit. . . .

Nowadays, since Kelly’s Operation Impact, rookies are taught one thing: Write tickets, do searches, make money. They’ll have a quota they have to fill. They’re not supposed to, but they do. They come up not knowing their asses from their elbows. These rookies don’t understand how to let the small stuff go. They’ll be on your back for a bag of grass. So then when things happen, they overreact.

Plus: “It’s just that people don’t hear our side. When you’ve been on this job for a while, you see some awful shit. There was a little girl who died once — anyway, you just numb-out to a certain extent. When you see those same things over and over, you just lose some part of yourself.”