I used to watch Hill Street Blues, and in the show the NYPD had most of their excitement in Washington Heights- that was about 30 years ago and I doubt anything has improved there since.
That was Chicago PD I believe but I get your drift.
Was also the first time you started hearing the term “Sociopath” used regularly.
I think you're thinking of NYPD Blue. Hill Street Blues was not set in NYC. Steven Bochco and some of the actors had attended school at Carnegie-Mellon so there was some speculation it was based on the Hill District in Pittsburgh, but the producers were very deliberate in their efforts to avoid placing the show in any specific city. If anything, certain cities were able to be ruled out over the course of the show as they were mentioned by the characters in terms of being other places.
I thought it was Chicago too, but somebody told me it was Pittsburgh, them having the checkered band on the cap as well.
Wiki says “unnamed city”.