And so farewell, disgraced ex-state trooper Michael Proctor, the current poster boy of all that is corrupt in Massachusetts law enforcement, a cop so crooked he needs a corkscrew to get into his trousers in the morning.

Proctor’s even sorrier now because so many malls have been going under. He’s not even going to be able to get a minimum-wage job as a mall cop.

Until Monday, Proctor had been trying to muscle his way back into the rackets, appealing his firing to the Civil Service Commission.

But his ingenious scheme to obliterate thousands of his smoking-gun texts to his fellow crooked cops was a total failure – they’re all still there, just like those dozens of pieces of red taillight Proctor, ahem, found, outside 34 Fairview Road in his crime-ridden hometown of Canton.

Like all state troopers, Proctor knows as much about technology as he knows about ethics and honesty. Which is to say, nothing.

Those texts he tried to destroy must be beyond horrific, considering that he instantly threw in the towel as soon as they were recovered. Proctor is a guy who knows he will never again come close to making that $148,400 he pocketed in his career year of 2022. Worse, his dreadful wife knows it even better than he does.

Proctor’s IQ is 90, tops. He’s lazy, and he’s put on 50 pounds since he got fired. You wouldn’t hire this bindle stiff to round up shopping carts in a Market Basket parking lot.

The question now is, Who did he send these appalling texts to?

And were they as bad as reports say they are? And how did the recipients respond to them?

The office of the district attorney, Meatball Morrissey, who provided Proctor with gainful unemployment all these years, said that in the texts the office had found “materials that it reasonably believes to be discoverable… in the (Myles) King matter and in other cases where Proctor was a witness.”

Myles King is a black guy accused of murder in Milton. Hence, the speculation that Proctor is as disparaging about black people as he is about, say, women, medical examiners, victims of diseases and people with weird Fall River accents — basically everybody who’s not from Canton.

I called Proctor’s now-former attorney, Daniel Moynihan, to see if he could tell me anything about the mystery texts. He was guarded, as you might expect, but sometimes you can learn things from what people don’t say.

I asked Moynihan, who represents a lot of bent troopers, if he knows what’s in the Proctor texts.

“I do but I can’t tell you.”

How about the online reports of racial and homophobic slurs?

“You gotta wait to see it.”

I’ll take that as a confirmation. Another question is, who was on the receiving end of these messages, which seem to be very bad indeed?

Is District Attorney Morrissey in on the texts?

“I’m not going to get into it.”

How about Proctor’s superior, Sgt. Yuriy Bukhenik?

“I didn’t see it.”

Damn, that’s a disappointment. Another of my recent daily chores has been calling the State Police, trying to find out where the pidgin-English-speaking Ukrainian thug has been “rehomed” since his removal from Meatball’s “detective” unit after Karen Read’s second acquittal on murder charges last June.

Bukhenik’s demotion to GHQ in Framingham was supposed to be temporary, so I’ve been wondering how far away the brass would exile the knuckle-dragging former chief of the MSP’s elite Rubber Ducky Detail.

When the phone didn’t ring, I knew it was the new conehead colonel getting back to me.

Generally speaking, the worse a cop behaves, the more glowing his job evaluations. Zip Connolly, a Mob hitman who claimed to be an FBI agent, was glowingly described by his drunken boss as an “example of us all.”

Sadly, that was true. Zip was an example to them all. Or at least to the six of Boston G-men who were also taking cash payoffs from the Mob.

Then there was Proctor, a trooper’s trooper, you might say.

He got drunk with his thug-cop Canton buddy and then drove around legless in his cruiser while the Canton cop was so wasted he lost his badge.

He didn’t bother to interview persons of interest if they were cops, especially if they were the brother of the cop he’d get loaded with. Professional courtesy, Canton style.

If a potential witness had any evidence that might disrupt the ongoing frame-up of Karen Read, Proctor made sure to give them a good leaving-alone, too.

Ring-camera video – Proctor didn’t need no stinkin’ ring camera video. He’d already pinned it on the girl, Karen Read.

Even the Boston Police Department had already issued a press statement, written by still another shady cop from Canton, declaring Karen Read guilty as charged – no presumptions of innocence in Norfolk County.

Proctor didn’t even bother to observe basic chains of custody, leaving evidence in his car for months at a time.

But he was very good at finding pieces of broken taillight, days, even weeks after the alleged accident. And the pieces he found kept getting bigger and bigger, just like the lies all the Canton hillbillies were telling the FBI.

Karen Read’s attorney, Alan Jackson, issued a statement after Proctor threw in the towel Monday.

“Michael Proctor’s sudden withdrawal of his appeal wasn’t an act of humility – it was self-preservation. He learned investigators have recovered text messages from his private phone dating back years, and he wanted no part of what those text messages would reveal.

“He didn’t accept accountability – it hunted him down. And as Col. Noble has admitted, the years-long corruption is systemic.”

Yes, it is.

At the initial Civil Service Commission hearing for Proctor, Moynihan described his client as “an exemplary trooper.”

I asked him if Moynihan still stood by that statement.

“Yes, I do,” he said. “He worked 12 years, not one complaint against him. He rose up to detective.”

I asked how Michael Proctor is adjusting to the end of his… career, such as it was.

“I haven’t talked to him lately,” Moynihan said. “But I’m sure he’s not taking it well.”

Karma, baby, karma. Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.

(Order Howie’s new book, “Mass Corruption: Vol. 1, The Cops,” at howiecarrshow.com/store.)