“The Empty Gun” quotes from T. J. Hooker

[in the locker room, changing] Hey, it could have been you killed out there, just as easy as Martinez, remember?

Vince Romano

Yeah, well, some of the veterans around here are acting like they wish it had been me.

Well, I heard a lot of them say you screwed up.

Vince Romano

[upset] Screwed up? How?

[entering the room with two other officers] You could have wasted that dirtbag, Romano, and you didn't.

Vince Romano

He's a juvenile, Benteen.

He is a [claps hands twice] COP KILLER!

Vince Romano

I didn't have to shoot!

He's had 18 priors, not a day spent in juvenile hall, a hophead supporting his habit by preying on old people. Now, he's a cop killer.

Sgt. T.J. Hooker

[standing at the door] I just talked to the shooting team. Martinez's piece was empty when the creep tried to kill Romano and Romano knew it.

[to Romano] Empty?

Vince Romano

I counted. He'd fired six times.

There's not a living soul to ask if you would count it with nobody to ever know the difference. You could have blown that cop-killing punk away! All right, hey, okay, look, Lily Blossom, you're never going to make it through probation and you better hope you never find yourself in a spot where you're going to need the help of a real cop.

Sgt. T.J. Hooker

[angrily pulls Benteen around] Hey! That's the wrong kind of talk around here, Benteen. I suggest you shut your loud mouth and cool off because if I hear it again, I'll put you through the wall.

I owe you, Hooker. [points his thumb at Romano] Not him.

Sgt. T.J. Hooker

You owe me nothing. I did my job out there. Romano did his. Right now, you're on the edge of not doing yours. Don't you EVER threaten not to back a fellow officer.

Sgt. T.J. Hooker

[to the other officers] Anybody else got anything to say? [to Romano, as the other officers leave] You didn't tell me you knew the gun was empty.

Vince Romano

[upset] Does it make a difference to you that it wasn't?

Sgt. T.J. Hooker

You did what the book says.

Vince Romano

Look, thanks for what you said to Benteen, but I asked you a question. I've got to know! Is there a difference between what we're taught and what goes down on the street? Under the same circumstances, the same dope-headed, cop-killing, dirt-bag punk with an empty gun, would you have wasted him?

Vince Romano

[after Minetti is released] I don't understand. Something's wrong, Hooker. I did my job. He killed a man! I brought him to trial. He's guilty. And he's strutting out of here like a peacock, putting dirt on everything that's good and decent. Where's the incentive to do it right the next time if this lousy system doesn't work?

Sgt. T.J. Hooker

The incentive is in knowing how much worse it would be if we didn't do it right. You don't like what happened in there, I don't like it, the people don't like it. It's up to the people to change it.

Sgt. T.J. Hooker

[reading computer simulation print-out] Dempsy, your score has dropped since the last time. You're way below average on judgment and accuracy. You shot an innocent bystander, you wounded a fellow officer. You let an armed felon get off two shots before you returned fire and then you hit him in the foot. Dempsy, I suggest more work in the firing range. As for judgment, that will come in time. It had better. You can go now.

Yes, sir.

Sgt. T.J. Hooker

Benteen, Dempsy's judgment has taken a nose-dive.

Oh, you can't tell jack from these computers.

Sgt. T.J. Hooker

These you can. Dempsy has developed an attitude problem, Benteen. You're it.

[chuckles] Now, look, Hooker...

Sgt. T.J. Hooker

No, you look and listen for a change! You've got your ideas about this job and how it should be done, that's your right. But you damn well better stop bringing them to work with you.

And you damn well better remember who you're talking to. I'm not one of your rookies, Hooker.

Sgt. T.J. Hooker

That's right, you're not. But if you think for one particle of a second I'm going to let you turn decent material, like Dempsy, into some kind of swaggering cowboy cop who makes his own rules, you're traveling down the wrong road, friend, 'cause I'm not.

I'm giving it to him like it is.

Sgt. T.J. Hooker

No, you're not. You're putting it down the way you want it and that's not the way it goes. And it damn well better stop.

Vince Romano

Did you ever notice how much better food tastes when you don't pay for it yourself? No, I guess you wouldn't.

Sgt. T.J. Hooker

Keep it up, Romano. Next go around on the shooting simulator, it won't be a routine of the best scorers in the class. I'm gonna program the computer so you flunk.

Vince Romano

[about Terry Minetti] He's gotta fall, Hooker, sometime he's got to fall. Or there isn't any justice.

Sgt. T.J. Hooker

He's a punk, a thief and a killer and he'll fall. And when he does, it will be hard.