Ed Burns’ new cop drama hits close to home

Ed Burns wasn’t supposed to direct all 10 episodes of his new TNT cop drama “Public Morals,” but he took over during the fourth episode for a scene featuring cops arresting hookers in the ’60s — because his dad, a former police officer, used to do the same.

“Public Morals” centers around Hell’s Kitchen cops and gangsters, inspired by stories from Burns’ father and uncle, both retired NYPD cops. Burns’ dad once revealed that he and others used to take the call girls out for a bite after their arrest.

“The girls never resisted arrest because they knew they would just be taken down to court and in an hour’s time be back on the street,” filmmaker Burns told Hamptons magazine. So the cops would sometimes take the women for food before they went to the precinct.

“I loved this idea that the cops and these hookers would go out and get a couple of hot dogs together before getting processed. When we were in pre-production . . . I was just jealous that I wasn’t going to direct the scene because I had written a version of it 18 years ago, and put three different versions of that scene in three different screenplays.”

But Burns took over direction for that scene and the rest of the series, executive-produced by Steven Spielberg, which debuts on Aug. 25.