Ted Wheeler Quotes

Many of us are under the delusion that the police exist solely to deal with crime and keep us safe. That is to ignore the major focus of many of today's top cops on managing reputation - both of their force and, by default, their careers.

Under Superintendent Johnson's leadership, our police department is on a path to earn the respect of every community in the City of Chicago.

I thank the officers of the Minneapolis Police Department, who work hard every day to help people in their most vulnerable moments, keep our communities safe, and build relationships and trust with the public.

POLICE, n. An armed force for protection and participation.

It was a great time, and I liked the guys. I liked getting up every morning and being a cop.

We can't pick out certain incidentals that don't go our way and act like the cops are all bad... Do you know how bad some of these neighborhoods would be if it wasn't for the cops?

I was a policeman for 18 years.

If the Los Angeles Police Department had enough officers, it could focus on one part of the community and stay there long enough to know and respect the people the officers are called on to protect and serve.

My godfather was a Chicago policeman, and I've always looked at law enforcement as a challenging and interesting job. There are so many decisions that law enforcement officers have to make, and the incident or situation changes so much from moment to moment and day to day. I have a lot of respect for officers and what they go through.

As big a problem as gun violence is for Chicago, it is not beyond our ability to solve. Ending this string of tragedies is our top priority as a city. We are infusing our police department with the manpower, technology and training to meet this challenge head on.

The police should be focused on policing criminal activity, and that's sort of the beginning, the middle and the end of it for me.

If you have a problem, the NYPD is the greatest police force to the world.

Our neighborhoods are safer when there is trust between communities and the police who are in charge of protecting them.

The police, at their best, do three things; they prevent crime, they respond to crime, and they solve crime. In all three of those buckets, they need the trust of the community to do it, so I believe that if we restore the trust that we will change the way police are experiencing communities and ways that will preserve life and make everyone safer.

What cops are hired to do is to control people who will not abide by the social contract.

The police should be addressing car break-ins and burglaries and things like that. And increasingly what they're doing is providing social services. The majority of police are not trained in the provision of social services.

Growing up where I'm from, some people are afraid of cops. They don't really like cops. And what a lot of people don't realize is, they're really not the bad guys. They're really on our side, they're really trying to help us out. And sometimes, we don't understand that.

I have the greatest respect for Chief Harteau. I was a very firm supporter of hers when her nomination was brought forward, and I think that her goals and values are in line with mine when it comes to the Police Department.

I see my role as police commissioner as providing strategic oversight, support and accountability for the bureau.

Years ago, when my attempts at a writing career came to a complete stand-still, I applied to the Los Angeles Police Department. This might seem odd for a liberal woman who once went to UC Santa Cruz, but I've always had a powerful fascination with crime and serious interest in finding different ways to contend with it.

To be a police officer in New York requires so much more than just we, as a citizen, need to walk around. Your job is to put yourself in this place where a horrible event has happened and try to figure it out. That's what you do, day in and day out. You have to have a certain distance to it. You can't let yourself go too far into it.

I know there are those in the community who, rather than have us invest more in policing, even for community policing, instead want us to disinvest in the police department. We need a police department. We are going to have a police department.

Being a good police officer is one of the most difficult, dangerous, idealistic jobs in the world.

The police officer's job is to respect the citizens that they are in control of.

Cops should not be separate from the black community or any community. Their salaries are paid for by the communities they police. They should be working for the communities they police. But as we saw in Ferguson, Missouri, they are not always doing that.