William Bratton
Policing has to be done compassionately and consistently. You cannot police differently in Harlem than you're policing downtown. The same laws must apply. The same procedures must be employed. Certain areas at certain times may have more significant crime and require more police presence or more assertiveness, but it has to be balanced.
Race is something that's always haunted American policing.
No place is unpoliceable; no crime is immune to better enforcement efforts.
Quality-of-life policing is based on probable cause - an officer has witnessed a crime personally or has a witness to the crime.
I disliked everything about the '60s.
Some cops I don't like - the corrupt, the brutal.
It's an unfortunate fact that in the male black population, a very significant percentage of them, more so than whites or other minority candidates, because of convictions, prison records, are never going to be hired by a police department. That's a reality. That's not a byproduct of stop-and-frisk.
Clearly, a large number of people who shouldn't have firearms actually apply through the process and obtain firearms.
If there's one crime for which there has to be a certainty of punishment, it is gun violence.
Stop-and-frisk is not something that you can stop. It is an absolutely basic tool of American policing. It would be like asking a doctor to give an examination to you without using his stethoscope.
Cops have been complaining about morale since police forces were created. I used to complain about it a lot when I was a young cop.
Slavery, our country's original sin, sat on a foundation codified by laws enforced by police, by slave-catchers.
You cannot police a community without effectively working with the community.
I have a temper, and it can flare from time to time, but as I've gotten older and more experienced, I think I use it in a controlled way. Oftentimes, I'm acting.
You have to bare your fangs once in a while.
Broken-windows enforcement is really about controlling behavior to such an extent you change it: If you deal with the little things, you can keep them from going into the big things. Zero tolerance implies zealotry. It's oppressive. And it's not achievable. You're never going to be in a position to eliminate all crime.
I like having ambitious people around me. I could care less if they want my job.
I've spent my life in the police profession, and I'm proud of that. But I am also very cognizant of the profession's limitations, its potential for abuse, and its potential negative impact.
If an African-American or a recent immigrant - or anyone else, for that matter - can't feel secure walking into a police station or up to a police officer to report a crime, because of a fear that they're not going to be treated well, then everything else that we promise is on a shaky foundation.
I was still a recruit in the Boston Police Academy when I attended my first police funeral. It was September 28, 1970. I remember it still.
We all have a fundamental right to live free from fear, free from crime, and free from disorder - but while we share that right, we also share the duty to secure it.
American history and the black experience are inextricable. And both are inextricable from policing. Far more often than not, that's been a good thing.
Many of the best parts of America's history would have been impossible without police. All the freedoms we enjoy - freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from fear - sit on a foundation of public safety.
I'm sorry, but any police department in America that tries to function without some form of 'stop and frisk,' or whatever terminology they use, is doomed to failure. It's that simple.Collection: Sorry
I think that's the direction we [the americans] are going to have to go, the idea of people understanding that if you see something, say something, as simple as it sounds.Collection: Simple
Nothing will ever replace good old fashioned police work, but Facebook and Twitter have been like a tool on our belt, In some ways it can help them in their investigations and in some ways it can hinderCollection: Police Work
We are increasingly blind for terrorism purposes and for general law enforcement purposes with the new devices and the continuing effort to make them even more secure against even court orders authorising law enforcement to have access.Collection: Order
They really do feel under attack, rank-and-file officers and much of American police leadership, that they feel they're under attack from the federal government at the highest levels. So that's something we need to understand also, this sense of perception that becomes a reality.Collection: Leadership