Jerusalem posted:

I also think he is a far, far better policeman than McNulty (part of the reason he reacts so strongly to McNulty's "how many people can do what we do?" speech in a later season, in my opinion). Part of that may be because he's older and actually came up in a police culture that wasn't completely hosed YET, but I think mostly it's because Freamon is a remarkable person - an intelligent, hardworking man who not only doesn't mind doing his research/keeping up on legal/procedural matters but actually enjoys it.

Contrast McNulty's disgust when dealing with the paperwork for Rhonda and Phelan, and his struggles to understand it, while Freamon not only instantly understands it all but seems to have had the information in his mind already. He knew that they would need D's number, McNulty didn't even consider that he would have to do anything to get it. He seems to have thought filling out the paperwork itself would let them somehow pull the information from out of a register somewhere.