T. J. Hooker · Season 2
Now let's talk about something else that's important, Gino. I mean your scungilli and your calamari and you're zuppa di pesche.
[lights up] Hey hey, now you are talking, Hooker!
I want an order of each and anything else that you think might make a really special lunch for two.
All right!
And eh, you better order what you're having for lunch, Romano, because you're not the one I'm eating with.
You know, Hooker, you got a partner who's crazy. When I got a fish store here and he's trying to give me a cat.
Another car trashed. We're really going to be in trouble with Sheridan on this one.
What's this 'we' business? You were driving, I wasn't driving, you were driving.
It's always 'we' when you're the driver.
If you were a man... [holds up his fist]
[puts her hand on his fist] Oh, but I'm not, Vince, I'm all woman, part cop and a better driver than the Philly Flash.
Well, you got the woman part right, kiddo.
Ah, my good friends the police. I take care of all their cars. Excuse me, lady.
[Hooker exits his car, swinging his baton] Hello Axel, nice to see you.
What do you want, Hooker? Get lost, you're bad for business.
Good business requires referrals. Get many?
Oh come on, fade away, will you, Hooker? I'm gonna sic my lawyers on you fast.
This man has a bad attitude problem, Sgt. Hooker.
Hey, you take a flying leap too, son!
[in the locker room, changing] Hey, it could have been you killed out there, just as easy as Martinez, remember?
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.
[upset] Screwed up? How?
[entering the room with two other officers] You could have wasted that dirtbag, Romano, and you didn't.
He's a juvenile, Benteen.
He is a [claps hands twice] COP KILLER!
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.
[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?
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.
[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.
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.
[Benteen scoffs, looks at Romano, and exits the room]
[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.
[upset] Does it make a difference to you that it wasn't?
You did what the book says.
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?
[Hooker sits down on a bench pondering the question as Romano angrily kicks the door before leaving]
[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?
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.
[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.
[he leaves as Benteen follows, but is stopped by Hooker]
Benteen, Dempsy's judgment has taken a nose-dive.
Oh, you can't tell jack from these computers.
These you can. Dempsy has developed an attitude problem, Benteen. You're it.
[chuckles] Now, look, 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.
[starts to leave, but Hooker grabs him from behind and angrily slams him against the machine]
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.
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.
Did you ever notice how much better food tastes when you don't pay for it yourself? No, I guess you wouldn't.
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.
[about Terry Minetti] He's gotta fall, Hooker, sometime he's got to fall. Or there isn't any justice.
He's a punk, a thief and a killer and he'll fall. And when he does, it will be hard.
What I'm gonna do, Hooker, is take the plunge.
The plunge?
Hooker, the streets of South Philly are behind me. I'm gonna become a total Californian. I think I'll even buy a surfboard.
You've been watching those late night beach blanket movies again?
Yeah, well, they are classics, you know.
Right up there with Casablanca and [[Citizen Kane].
Please, try to remember.
I don't have anything to remember, I didn't see anything.
[grabs her arm and pulls her up] You must have seen something.
I didn't see anything sergeant, I'm blind.
[bartender Megan is not cooperating] Now listen, Megan, without even looking I know that girl in the corner there is underage. And I'll just bet there are a couple of whiskey bottles in the trash that haven't been broken so you could do some whiskey watering. I'd just guess the alcoholic beverage control boys could at that to assorted other offences and come up with a three-month closure.
I guess this is what's known as Hooker magic, coming up with tickets to a sold-out concert.
[Hooker has just arrived at the academy in a damaged police car] So what is it now, Hooker? Three black and whites you've trashed since they let you back out on the street?
Four. The high price of fighting crime.
These quotes come from Wikiquote's T. J. Hooker pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
