Q: So what do the other cop shows get wrong? A: No one today -- I shouldn't say no one, but most officers aren't gonna risk going to jail, or their pension, to beat a perp to confession. Those days are over. Q: You worked the Upper East Side too. What's that like? A: You're exposed to all these billionaires, people you'd never see otherwise. You end up working some case where you're invited to the White House, or flown to Italy, then you gotta go home to some fat wife in sweatpants whining, "Honey, the dishwasher's broke." Fucks your head up. Q: So how do you cope? A: With black humor -- like the stuff that goes on between cops and doctors. This one time, we had a stabbed transvestite. We taped his penis back and told this young doc from Indiana that it was a woman. The second he cut the clothes, the penis snapped up. Scared the shit out of him.

Related:

• Archive: “Gotham: Life in the New City”
• Articles by David Amsden
• Table of Contents: Mar 19, 2001 issue of New York | Subscribe!