posted
I was wondering if anyone had noticed how there is more and more violence creeping into cop shows on TV.
Not so much the shoot outs and stuff, but the beating up of people being detained in interview rooms. Also, there is an increasing tendency for the 'heroes' to manufacture or plant evidence. For example; in a recent episode of a popular program, the 'hero' falsified a speeding ticket in order to justify an otherwise illegal traffic stop which led to the discovery of a serious crime.
I want to know:
whether anyone really believes this sort of thing is commonly accepted among police.
whether it may effect the public's level of acceptance of such behaviour by the police.
whether these sort of criminal behaviours are becoming socially more acceptable as 'justifiable' under certain circumstances.
Also portrayed is a general hatred by the police of the Internal Affairs officers and other ombudsman bodies. We regulalry see misconduct and breaking of privacy laws through the regular accessing of confidential police records for personal or trivial reason and without reference to a crime or current investigation.
What sort of responsibility does the writer bear?
[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited December 21, 2005).]
posted
I'll answer the part about the writer. I know two Hollywood screen writers whose names you might recognize but I won't drop here. The script the writer drops off at the studio is pretty much never going to be filmed until about a thousand people change it.
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posted
I can understand the indignation when a dangerous crook slips away on a technicality and the desire for justice to be done, to do the right thing. Sometimes the letter of the law can get in the way of the spirit of it and the common good is not served.
And I believe it happens, there are always some overzealous hypocrite willing to break the law in order to supposedly uphold it, that innocent people are hurt and accused in the process.
It's a scenario that's runs through my imagination now and then: Cops come to my house by mistake, do a search. They don't find what they feel should be there, thus they plant something. Maybe drugs. They arrest me. I'm hauled before the judge, who is in cahoots, I tell them how I've never used drugs, never had a desire too. They send me to jail, I lose my job, my house, everything.
It's a scenario that leaves me angry. I guess that's because I'm not one of those who has blind faith in the 'justice' system.
Okay, now I'm angry...
[This message has been edited by ChrisOwens (edited December 22, 2005).]
posted
From my experience with the police and observations, I suspect that the examples of illegal procedures being used to obtain convictions are quite a bit rarer than they are portrayed on TV, just as violent crime is significantly rarer than it is portrayed on TV.
That said, the NYPD worries me quite a bit. I know some people working for them who are incredibly honorable, virtual models of integrity. And I know others I'd have a hard time trusting to walk my dog. The thing that probably bothers me most is the casual abuse of power; the notion that because they are the enforcers of the rules, the rules don't apply to them. I see this all the time (I live about a block away from the police precinct, so they're a constant presence in my neighborhood.) But then, I'm predisposed to loathe the abuse of power in any setting, whether it be the ministry, politics, or law enforcement. Few things make my blood boil quicker. Okay, I can't think of any at the moment.
For what it's worth, I used to know a guy in the FBI who was involved in some very high profile cases. He said that if you were falsely accused of a crime, you were probably safer being tried by judge than by jury. In this day and age, the judge probably isn't in cahoots with the police, and likely has a background as a lawyer that has brought him into conflict with them anyhow. And he's got a lot more experience sorting through misleading evidence and arguments than any jury would.
posted
Most cop shows are set in Fantasyland. Real cops will only extremely rarely have occasion to draw their guns, much less shoot them. (My brother was a cop for eight or nine years...he had only one occasion to draw his gun and none at all to fire it at anyone.) Most of what cops do is petty and unexciting. Tedious investigating...lots of paperwork. Most cops are preoccupied with their own lives, often to the exclusion of their work. Most cops would get scalped by their superiors if they did most of the things one sees cops do in cop shows.
But cop shows abound on televison because it gives an easy excuse for someone to drive a fast car and blast away with a gun...
posted
I think it's a little weird when I see a crime scene investigator pull out a gun and go into a dangerous situation ready to shoot someone. Aren't these guys supposed to show up after all the shooting is over?
Of course, I realize the tv logic--why pay for a separate set of actors?
It still knocks my suspension of disbelief out from under me.
posted
Most cops, just like everyone else, will bend the 'rules' to some degree to get their job done.
I don't think there are many cops who will plant evidence or falsify a speeding stop to generate a collar, but there are probably several who will tune the evidence and enforce speeding laws more strictly to nab someone they are sure is guilty. The problem here is that, even though the cop is doing the it because he is ensureing what he believes is justice, his perceptions are not always right. They sometimes forget that the laws, rules, routine, are there to ensure that a single cop's judgement will not be the deciding factor in guilt or innocence.
Always remember that you are watching DRAMA, which is, by definition, contrived to include conflict. Real life, even in the questioning of the most violent criminals, is incredibly boring to watch. Watch an unedited interview with BTK and you will likely fall asleep.
posted
Hi Hoptoad, First I dont really watch television outside of the news, indie movies, and and occasional South Park episode. Recently I caught my 5 year old daughter watching South Park. So I dont watch it any more. But I digress...
What viewers see in real life they expect reflected in fiction. The general public sees misconduct on the part of the police nearly every day in the media. So they expect this behavior in Television. It is unfortunate that the perception is that the entire group becomes adoptive of bad behavior seen in a few. This is a particularly unattractive aspect of the human condition.
As to what the public will come to expect, or accept from any civil servant. I can only say, here in the states we pass laws against the behavior we dont want. Then we seem to become apathetic and expect them to be ignored (see politics).
Regards your third question. I think one of the general characteristics of cenima is circumvention of the critic in all of us. In other words we expect the hero to do things we wouldn't dare do. Socially, physically and so on. It's part of the dream thing.
Finally what spaceman said is truth. Most of this stuff is written by group. They respond to ratings, sponcers, etc.. The well being of the public, and social responsibility are out back playing in the yard with artistic content.
[This message has been edited by john d. clark (edited December 22, 2005).]
posted
It's funny, I was just watching an episode of COPS the other night (for lack of anything better on the tube at the time). I thought it was going to be a normal, run-of-the-mill episode...until the officers received a shooting call.
When they got to the scene, one man was lying on the front lawn with a bullet hole in his hip region. That wasn't very shocking, but what the officers found inside was. Another would-be robber had attempted to come through a first floor window, and had been killed by a shotgun blast at close range.
Another pattern on the wall/ceiling caught by the camera led me to believe it was a 12 gauge shotgun, and let me tell ya...a 12 ga. does some nasty damage to a person's chest at six feet. This guy was lying on the floor in a fairly large puddle of his own blood, and then the camera zoomed in on his face. I could tell by his eyes that he was dead.
Now that got to me a little, and I usually don't flinch at the sight of gore. (Having had my arms bloody up to the elbows while hunting, regardless of whether it's a human or not, can have that effect on some people.) I've never seen a television show display a corpse in such a detailed, prolonged manner before. I think that shocked me more than the actual brutality of the scene.
I'm still in favor of people defending their homes against intruders, though I think in this situation the man who shot the invader with the shotgun fled from the scene (not sure why...I flipped to an episode of Family Guy). In any case, I do not agree with that. If you are forced to defend yourself and your family with lethal force, you should stick around and deal with the consequences.
Inkwell ----------------- "The difference between a writer and someone who says they want to write is merely the width of a postage stamp." -Anonymous
posted
I'm a former police officer. My first duties saw me assigned to the traffic division. After that I was assigned to the gang unit then to homicide. I will say, that police do bend the rules up and to the point where the rules almost snap in two. With that said, there is a big defference in bending the rules and breaking the law. A police officer who breaks the law is damaged goods.
Why falsify a speeding ticket? Do you know how many reasons exist for a police officer to pull you over? Falsifying the ticket is breaking the law. Pulling someone over for one of the lights on the license plate not being illuminated ( a violation of most state laws) so that you can search the car for narcotics is bending the rule. Pulling someone over for having a purple neon light under their car -- most states say that only amber lights are to be seen from the side - - to search the car is a further bending of the rules. Bending the rules does not constitute a breaking of the law.
As a homicide detective, I once ordered a uniform officer to pull over a Latin King gang member, suspected of being the trigger man on a drive by, for littering. (He threw his cigarette out of the car window) I needed him arrested so we could impound his vehicle to search for trace evidence. I used this tactic, this bending of the rules, because I couldn't get a judge to sign off on a search warrant. I knew the guy would be argumentative and combative. So, despite him being sober, I had the officer administer the standarized field sobriety test to him as a sober person can flunk the FST. That gave us probable cause for the arrest on the charge of Driving While Intoxicated and thus allow us to impound the car and conduct a search incident to arrest. Likewise, I knew that he could easily walk away from all of this by submitting to the intoxilyzer test at the station. I knew from past experience that if a person is egged on and needled he would become angry to the point that he would refuse to submit to the intoxilyzer. According to Louisiana law - - like every other state - - a refusal of the intoxilyzer test is an automatic DWI thus giving us the authority to lock him up, at least until the next court date - - in New Orleans that is at least every two weeks - - giving us ample time to search his car and collect the trace evidence needed for the murder prosecution. Did I bend the rules... yup... did I break the law... nope. I operated within the boundries of the law.
Peace, Scott
[This message has been edited by Zodiaxe (edited January 04, 2006).]
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