Last month at Mullane’s I was talking to an ex-NYPD cop about the 1999 Amadou Diallo case.

I offhandedly remarked that the officers involved in that fatal shooting were probably high on drugs and that the only good thing they did that fateful evening was not reload and shoot the downed African again.

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” Rob had been a narco cop in the Redhook. He didn’t see nothing nice in that part of Brooklyn and his views reflected his life. “In any shooting the cops are bloodtested and that would have been published in every paper in the world if it was the case.”

“I’m not so sure about that.” My comment was based on a hunch rather than fact.

“You show me the proof.” Rob was irate enough not to speak with me for the rest of the night. The police protect their own and the ranks have closed behind the Cambridge officer who arrested a Harvard professor for breaking into his own house. The rank and file have also called on President Obama to apologize for calling the incident ‘stupid’.

“My sense is you’ve got two good people in a circumstance in which neither of them were able to resolve it the way the wanted to resolve it,” Obama commented to the Press, although Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick called the arrest “every black man’s nightmare.”

Any with good reason.

10% of all blacks males between 24 and 29 are in prison, albeit more than a few for good reasons.

I used to lock myself out of my East Village apartment on numerous occasions. I would climb onto the roof and down the fire escape, then force open a window. It was a dangerous operation. A slip and I could have fallen 50 feet to the hard concrete, but not once did any of my neighbors called 911.

White guy doing something crazy, but one thing I learned long ago is when the cops ask you a question, it’s yes officer and no officer. Obviously they hadn’t taught that at Harvard. They certainly did at Boston College, but that never stopped me from being arrested by the police. The last time was in Thailand and believe me I was ‘yes officering’ fast I could so I didn’t have to spend a night in jail.

And it worked, but probably not if I was black.

They have a hard road and no white person will ever know how hard.