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[ Police Sirens ]
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[ cop ] You look very suspicious.
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Cause you are always looking at me crazy.
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[ Music Playing... ]
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[ Altercation Occurring ]
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That is exactly how some (explicit) will go down.
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Just like that.
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Just like that.
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People do not like the police
because of the harassment.
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And what civilians do not understand, is that
the police department is like forcing us...
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...to do these unreasonable stops,
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or, you're going to get penalized.
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I think the mayor is absolutely correct.
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Some people are just very hurt by it, and upset,
when they are stopped unnecessarily.
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Well I understand that.
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Some people...
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You know you're taking away, at the very least,
you are taking away people's time.
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So I understand, that people
may not be happy with it.
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But I can also assure you, that I go
to the communities, communities of color,...
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...people want more.
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[ reporter ] They want more stop and frisks?
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Absolutely.
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I had this captain who walked into the precinct,
and he gave a speech about harassing the public.
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His words were...
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"We're going to go out there
and violate some rights."
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We hear it from the captain down.
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We want 250s.
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This is Stop, Question, and Frisk.
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[ phone ringing ]
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I was walking home from my girlfriends house,
and a cop car went passed me.
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A couple of seconds later
I heard the car turn around.,
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and, they just popped out.
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They all just jumped out of the car.
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I decided to record it 'cause
I was getting stopped a lot,
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and I didn't have evidence of cops
being disrespectful and everything.
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So I pressed the button,
and it recorded the whole thing.
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Yo I just got stopped like two blocks ago.
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Cause you are always looking at me crazy.
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[ cop ] That's our job my man.
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Listen to me. Listen to me.
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[ cop ] Because you keep doing that shit, man.
We stopped you last time.
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[ cop ] Who the fuck are you talkin' to?
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[ Alvin ] You asked me why I had a bookbag on.
[ cop ] Who the fuck do you think you're talking to?
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[ Alvin ] You asked me why I had a bookbag on.
[ cop ] Who the fuck do you think you're talking to?
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[ altercation occurring ]
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Why you touching me for?
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He was holding me.
He was going through my pockets.
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Going up and down.
He was going through my sweater.
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Then that's when he told me
to keep my hands on my head.
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So I was like this the whole time.
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[ Alvin ] For what?
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[ cop ] Shut your fuckin; mouth kid.
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[ Alvin ] Why am I getting arrested for?
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[ cop ] SHUT YOUR MOUTH!
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[ Alvin ] What am I being arrested for?
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He decided to take my hands, from here,
and put it behind my back, like that.
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[ cop ] Shut your fucking mouth!
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[ Alvin ] You're asking me questions!
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I was..
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[ cop ] Have some fuckin' respect!
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[ Alvin ] ... 'cause you always stoppin' me
for no reason.
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[ Alvin ] You're going to break my arm?
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For what?
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[ cop ] Who's your father?
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[ Alvin ] He's not going to answer
he doesn't got a phone.
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He is a traffic cop?
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Figures.
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[ Alvin ] Don't touch me. OK he's a traff...
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[ recording playing back some of previous assault ]
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While they holding me...
the sergeant is holding me like this.
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He's like, "I'm going to break your arm."
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I'm like..I'm like, you're going to break my arm?
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He said "yeah and I'm gonna
punch you in the face."
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I was like you know, "you're gonna
punch my in my face?
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He's like "yeah, and then I'm gonna arrest you."
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I'm like, "arrest me for what?"
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He's like, "for being a mutt."
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So he grabbed me, by my book bag,
and started pushing me down.
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So I am going backwards down a hill, and he
just kept pushing me and pushing me.
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It looked like he was going to hit me.
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I felt like they were trying to make me resist,
so they could fight me back.
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[ recording playing back assault... ]
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I'm mad just hearing that thing.
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Not many words really, like, could describe that.
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It's just disturbing.
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But, that is exactly what is happening.
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Like, I can relate to what he is doing.
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Cause I know that situation.
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They just don't got no respect for us.
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And they wonder why we
don't have respect for them.
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For them to just call him a name like that like...
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That's just crazy.
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[ interviewer ] Do you think, that during stops,
that some police officers try to provoke,...
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..so that they can justify arrests?
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[ cop ] Of course they do. A lot of police officers
they try to set civilians off.
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and then once they start talking, start cursing,
they can lock them off for anything.
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There were two minorities leaning against the wall.
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They weren't doing anything.
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My sergeant ordered me to write them
"blocking pedestrian traffic".
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If you are a certain ethnicity,
standing on the corner,...
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-lieutenants, sergeants- have no problem searching
you, violating your rights, and racial profiling.
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There was one statement, that the sergeant said,
about what he used to do.
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He used to stop a guy walking down the street...
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...with baggy pants, his underwear hanging out,
and he'd just stop him.
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He says "I know he's probably up to nothin',
but I just stop him anyway to get a 250".
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There's this one cop that everybody
in the neighbourhood knows.
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Stopped us like three times already.
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He was like, "Now come here".
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So they got out the car.
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They threw my friend on the car.
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I'm still walking.
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He spun me around and punched me in my stomach.
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He started just patting us down.
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He just left us there.
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What we're trying to do is, is make certain
that it's done as professionally as possible.
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That the proper respect is shown
and done according to the law.
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This goes all the way up.
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All the way up to the commissioners office.
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I'd say even the mayors office.
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Where they are trying to be proactive.
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and say "look, we are stopping people
and getting drugs and guns off the streets."
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But it's not. I think of the 600,000 people
that were stopped last year,
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only 1%, of those that were stopped,
were carrying weapons.
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[ newscasters ] The NYPD controversial
Stop and Frisk policy...
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Last year your police officers stopped
and interrogated people nearly 686,000 times...
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Today, that lawsuit raises serious questions about
quotas, racial profiling, and constitutional rights.
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The public isn't aware of what's happening,
but everything is being look at as far as numbers.
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And it's a numbers game.
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Ok. What did you get last year? Well, you
have to match it, and give me more this year.
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They're trying to keep all of this stuff quiet.
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So this is my proof, that they're putting
pressure on me to write summonses.
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Commanders are trying to be proactive,
or show that they're being proactive.
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And here you have a system where people
are told to get those numbers,...
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... to where they should to be,
and you're gonna get your promotion.
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The commanding officer wants
to become a deputy inspector.
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The executive officer wants to become
a commanding officer.
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If you do well, by keeping the arrests up
and the summonses up,...
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...you will be promoted to the next rank.
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So, they put pressure on the police officers
to generate numbers and arrests.
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I mean, lets be real, it is a quota.
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Nobody wants to call it that,
but that's what it is.
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They can call it a performance objective. They call
it a goal that can mask it however they want.
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It's a quota, and it does exist.
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Some of us, under the stress, make them up.
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Some of us, under the stress,
stop innocent people and search them.
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And there are certain units out there
that will run around and stop everybody.
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What happens to the officer if they don't do
what the police department tells them to do?
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As far as quotas, they will come after you.
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Come after you meaning transfers.
Giving you low evaluations.
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They give you unwanted assignments.
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Put you in a post which is very dangerous.
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High crime. By yourself. In a corner.
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This is a form of retaliation.
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Basically a change of tours,
put you on the midnight.
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They make you look bad on paperwork.
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And that paperwork will trail you
for the rest of your police career.
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And knowing that your livelihood is at stake,
you meet the quota.
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It does create this feeling, of hey listen,
I got to get my numbers.
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When you put that pressure on the officer,
this us versus them mentality does exist.
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When I came into this police department,
I wanted to help people.
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But the civilian population they are being hunted.
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Instead of being protected by us,
they're being hunted.
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And we're being hated.
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The police department is pushing the new guys
to be bounty hunters.
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And I use that word because
that's exactly what it is.
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They're hunting.
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There's a lot of officers, who are fed up,
and want to do something about it.
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And there's people who are scared.
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There's a lot of officers that would like
to tell their story.
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But, nobody wants to hear the truth.
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Nobody wants to hear the bad.
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You need police, but the police department
needs to change things.
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At one point, I did want to be a cop,
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to help people, and mostly just be like able to
wear a badge, and uniform, and be proud of it.
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Now I feel like i'm not sure.
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Cause they're not there to help people anymore.
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They're just there to like stop and humiliate them.
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Make them feel bad.
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There is no excuses for the way they treated me.
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This one individual was thinking about doing NYPD.
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The first thing I told him is, "Definitely not."
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This job, racial profiles, will force you to do things
that you don't wanna do.
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We're supposed to be the best in the world?
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We're the best at making money, and we're
the best at arresting, and summonsing, everybody.
Captions Requested
