Those tapes are now in evidence as proof of a quota system that required officers to give out 20 summonses or make one arrest on each tour of duty.
A union delegate is heard lecturing the cops, telling them, “This comes from higher up. If they want 20 give them 20, or you’re a zero.”
A zero, Polanco explained, is a cop who doesn’t meet the quota. He said that, at one point, a supervisor told officers to make their quotas by stopping and frisking anyone they saw riding a bike or carrying a bag.
He complained that the quota system was leading to improper stop-and-frisk activity, but said a union delegate told him, “You’re fighting the current.”
Polanco claimed they said he was a minority officer going against the whole department and that, next to his name on the police roster, cops had written the word “rat.”
Polanco did say that he believes stop-and-frisk is a great police tool.
“We need it,” he said. “And I have no problem harassing criminals.”
He said he’s also not in denial about Hispanics and blacks committing most of the crimes.
But what brought him to court as a whistle-blower was the police department brass turning stop-and-frisk into a money-making business and setting quotas to do it.
