Ray Kelly

“We were scarecrows in blue uniforms. After a grand total of five days of blackboard instruction and fifty rounds at the NYPD firing range, my new police academy classmates and I were standing out on the sidewalks of central Brooklyn pretending to be police officers. They gave us badges. They gave us handcuffs. They gave us guns—standard police-issue Smith & Wesson .38 Specials. They told us, “Good luck.” In early July 1966, riots had broken out in East New York, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Brownsville, Brooklyn. Hundreds of angry young men were roaming the streets and throwing bottles and rocks. Already they had injured police officers and attempted to flip over a radio car. On one corner, police found eighteen Molotov cocktails. The borough commander was calling for reinforcements—and fast.”
― Ray Kelly, Vigilance: My Life Serving America and Protecting Its Empire City

“No lightning bolt comes down and makes you a leader, they told us. You behave like a leader and so you become one. I remain a huge believer in the Marine Corps way. I have said this many times, and it’s no exaggeration: virtually everything I know about being a leader, I learned in the Marine Corps. How to deliver clear messages. How to set standards and stick to them. How to treat other people and how to treat yourself. Those are lessons every leader needs to learn and to live by. Like how the officer always eats last. That may sound small, but it isn’t. Even today, I still can’t go through a buffet line until everyone else has been fed.”
― Ray Kelly, Vigilance: My Life Serving America and Protecting Its Empire City