The string of bad headlines has carried a price, aside from the embarrassment felt by men and women in blue every time they see one of their own accused of breaking the law.
"People today are starting to lose trust," City Councilman Frank Rizzo said earlier this week.
"I have a tough time when a person calls me and makes a complaint about a police officer," he added. "I can hear it in their voices. They don't care anymore when I try to convince them about what the police are actually trying to do."
So where does the Police Department go from here?
That answer could come today as Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey unveils a plan to weed out corrupt cops.
The plan couldn't come soon enough, as some worry that the spate of stories about crooked cops could erode the community support built up in recent years, when residents rallied around the department as it endured the deaths of seven officers.
"It gives everyone a bad name," said John McNesby, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5.
"We don't want that, especially with everything the community has done for us the last three years, [like] rebuilding the Survivors Fund."
Although Ramsey declined earlier this week to divulge specifics of his plan, he acknowledged that its aim is to prevent future headaches, like the one felt last month when three cops - Robert Snyder, Mark Williams and James Venziale - were charged with stealing heroin from a local drug dealer.
"I wanted to come up with a strategy to keep people on the straight-and-narrow," Ramsey said.
The plan would require officials to look at the scope of a cop's career and consider how he or she is influenced by people and situations encountered on the job.
