“Policing is dead,” a member of the NYPD told me Monday, after NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill decided to fire Officer Daniel Pantaleo over the death of Eric Garner. “Morale was already low. This was just the nail in the coffin.”

Another member of the department told me on the condition of anonymity, “It’s just disheartening.”

“It’s hard to say whether cops will back off,” he continued, “but I think the writing is definitely on the wall. Based on how things went in other cities [Chicago and Baltimore] I wouldn’t be surprised if we went in that same direction.”