Watch until 1:01:38. This is my transcript:

Don’t pretend that you’re serving the public — or the public interest.

This here — fine. You caught some maniac. That’s what you want, that’s what you got. It doesn’t matter.

But just don’t pretend… that you’re doing your job.

Y’know. So this one thing got a lot of press, so therefore it has to act. The city is so concerned about violence. Good. This is — quote — the most violent crime of the year.

Great.

New York City doesn’t give a damn about violence. Otherwise this would’ve never happened. And there’s violence all over New York, and the city…

I just want to say a couple things about statements that have been made. People have said that the response was out of proportion. Now, when a person… when any… you take any person in New York… I’m not talking about me; I’m talking about other people.

When they’re deliberately maimed and they’re beaten and the powers that be, they’re essentially — they fill in their paperwork and they shrug their shoulders and they turn their back… and they go back, they go home and they have their cup of coffee… this is the issue. This is the issue.

That — what they’re doing — that is criminal. That is negligent. That is criminal negligence. People have said: “Uhh, I’ve heard things said about [Bernard]… that I was uncivilized.” That I was uncivilized. That I acted in an uncivilized way. And if you think this is vicious…

If you knew what was in my mind, the most vicious thing I can think of, is that the person that said that — I wish that the person was sitting there in that seat instead of me. That would have been beautiful. I wish that I was never there and that they were there. That would have been great.

And again:

You talk about lawlessness. The city doesn’t care about lawlessness. You talk about anarchy. That’s what there is now.

And it’s… it’s… as I told Mr. — in there, or one of the detectives… what this is… I don’t care what you do with me. It doesn’t matter. I’m not hiding anything.

But all this is, it’s like a dam and water is building up behind that dam. And this is just a crack in the dam, or a little hole that’s in the dam. And eventually something, you know, the city, there are basic things that people must have — people must have — people can — it is unbearable for people to live in fear.

People must have police protection. The problem isn’t the police. The problem is you. It’s your legal system. The legal system is a sham. What I did down there — let’s say it’s wrong. That doesn’t bother me. But what this did — it showed the system as being a sham. That’s why the city so vehemently attacks the Guardian Angels — it shows the city for what it is. It shows the legal system for what it is. It is a sham.

Eventually, in the 1990s, urban political organizations had to react and reform somewhat to the crises brought to the fore by events like the Goetz shootings — at great expense. It’s not entirely clear that that can happen again. It’s also not clear that all that many bright political minds care all that much about the future of America’s cities, when many seem to believe that they have a brighter future either in a virtual world that hasn’t been created yet or in some other country.