On October 27, 2011, Baltimore police officer Joe Crystal witnessed two fellow cops beating up a drug suspect after the suspect, fleeing from the officers, kicked in the door of a home belonging to another officer’s girlfriend. After doing the right thing and turning in his fellow officers, Crystal was labeled a “snitch” and a “rat cop” by many other BPD officers and subjected to threats and intimidation — including having a dead rat placed on his car’s windshield. Eventually, in 2014 he bowed to the pressure and resigned from the Baltimore PD.

In this edited portion of a longer interview with The Young Turks’ Cenk Uygur, Crystal describes how today’s urban police forces have come to resemble street gangs, the difference between “us vs. them” urban policing and “customer service” policing that occurs in suburban areas, and wonders when police will start being given awards for challenging corruption in their own departments.

Follow Joe Crystal on Twitter: @Det_JoeCrystal
Follow Cenk Uygur on Twitter: @CenkUygur

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