“Where are all the good cops?” Critics of police brutality and abuse of power often wonder this – sometimes aloud, often on social media. But there is an answer to that question – it’s not purely rhetorical – the “good cops” are driven out of work by the bad cops.
Far from being “a few bad apples,” Detective Joseph Crystal of the Baltimore Police Department says that he was targeted by other officers for trying to root out corruption.
“If you snitch, your career is done,” one officer told him. He eventually became public enemy No. 1 inside the Baltimore Police Department. But before that, he was considered a rising star in law enforcement.
Crystal was the sone of two NYPD cops, and was in charge of his police academy cadet class from the start. With only two years on the force, he was promoted to detective.
“Being a cop was all I ever wanted to do,” he explains. “A dream come true.”
But all of that changed after he came forward to report the 2011 beating of a drug suspect by another officer.
His testimony helped to secure convictions against the officer who beat the suspect and the sergeant who helped. But Crystal says that there was a systemic, pattern of abuse.
“I never imagined that doing the right thing as a cop could cost me so much,” Crystal told reporters from the Daily News.
Now, Crystal is suing the Baltimore Police Department for failing to protect him from retaliation after he outed the bad cops in his department.
Watch the video and interview below…