ugs. Many of those involved had been hired when the department had beefed up quickly after the 1980 riots and the Mariel boatlift. ``We didn't get the quality of officers we should have,'' says department spokesman Dave Magnusson. (Carter,1989: pp.78-79) When it came time to clean house, says former Miami police chief Perry Anderson, civil service board members often chose to protect corrupt cops if there was no hard evidence to convict them in the courts. ``I tried to fire 25 people with tarnished badges, but it was next to impossible,'' he recalls. (Carter, 1989: pp.78-79)The Mollen Commission testimony could also lead to second thoughts on the growth of community policing, the back-to-the-beat philosophy that in recent years has been returning officers to neighborhood patrol in cities around the country, including New York. Getting to know the neighborhood can mean finding more occasions for bribe taking, which is one reason that in many places beat patrolling was scaled back since the 1960s in favor of more isolated squad-car teams. The real test of a department is not so much whether its officers are tempted by money but whether there is an institutional culture that discourages them from succumbing. In Los Angeles the sheriff's department ``brought us the case,'' says FBI special agentCharlie Parsons. ``They worked with us hand in glove throughout the investigation.'' (Washington Post,Jan 18, 1993: p.11) In the years after it was established,following the Knapp Commission disclosures, the New York City police department's internal affairs division was considered one of the nation's most effective in stalking corruption. But that may not be the case anymore. Police sergeant Joseph Trimboli, a department investigator, told the Mollen Commission that when he tried to root out Dowd and other corrupt cops, his efforts were blocked by higher-ups in the department. At one point, Trimboli claimed, he was called to a meeting of police offi...
