Patrolman James Aloysius O'Malley is a second generation Irish cop in Manhattan's Lower East Side who differs from his late two-fisted father in how he enforces the law. O'Malley is obsessed by the manual of city ordinances and unfeelingly enforces even the most petty regulations regardless of mitigating circumstances to the full letter of the law. The poor residents of his district, many of them immigrants, earn a hardscrabble living from mom-and-pop stores and peddler's wagons and are unable to pay the onerous fines O'Malley's summonses entail. His superior, Captain Cromwell, constantly cautions him about his overzealous enforcement of city regulations, which interfere not only with commerce but lack compassion and common sense. Things come to a head when O'Malley writes a ticket traffic ticket for unemployed John Philips causing him to be late on the first day of his new job. When losing the job and other circumstances force a desperate Philips to steal from a local pawnshop, he is sentenced to a prison term, forcing his proud family on relief. Cromwell demands the inflexible O'Malley's resignation, but the stubborn Irishman refuses. This prompts a new assignment as a grammar school crossing guard, a situation that Cromwell believes will make or break him.
—duke 1029@aol.com