The Best Quotes From Ray Kelly’s Interview With The Wall Street Journal

It’s been a rough couple of weeks for the head of the Boys in Blue.

The NYPD’s stop-and-frisk policy finds itself in a serious constitutional dilemma in a downtown court, bringing light to the shadowy legacy of the practice. The Community Safety Act, which would establish an inspector general for the force, has come under fire from the city’s greatest political players after receiving an endorsement from Christine Quinn. And even the fact that the agency needs an inspector general says enough about Ray Kelly and his department right now.

Well, in response to all of this, Kelly sat down with the Wall Street Journal to give his take on–everything. A few snippets from this thing need to be brought to everyone’s attention.

On the media: “They are hellbent on finding anything they can wrong with the department.”

On why stop-and-frisk is fine: “We put our officers right in the middle of where the problems are, mostly minority areas. … You develop very quickly a sense of who’s doing right and who’s doing wrong–and who’s carrying a gun.”

And what would happen without it: “You’d need another 50,000 cops.”

On the idea of a federal monitor à la Detroit: “I think one of the biggest scams in law enforcement is the monitor.”

On social media and law enforcement: “There is a social media component, because these kids, these crews, are bragging and telegraphing what they’re going to do in terms of who they’re going to shoot, who they’re going to kill. They go in front of the [intended victim’s] house and they’ll stand in front of it and get a picture. And they try to play a game with code. But we break the code.”

On surveillance of the Muslim community: “There are other investigations of young people like this that are ongoing right now. We see ourselves as the number one target and we have this stream of young men who want to come here and kill us.”

And what’s being changed about it: “Nothing.”