After hearing all of this stuff, I feel like the television show The Wire was either way ahead of its time or had really great law enforcement consultants. I'm leaning toward the latter.
A lot of the plots on The Wire are based on actual cases and occurrences. In some cases quite loosely, in others not so much. It's a depressingly realistic show.
Ed Burns worked 20 years in BPD in the homicide and narcotics divisions, then became a school teacher: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Burns