One Adam-12, Officers Need Assistance!

There is one movie and television genre that, to help bring my blood pressure under control, I have learned to stay away from. It’s one of the most popular, and can be greatly entertaining, but I can’t bring myself to watch cop shows anymore.

I just cannot stomach the all out assault on America’s police officers any longer. Think I’m over reacting? Consider this: In any given cop show or movie, is there at least one bad cop in it? Of course there is. Even when the protagonist is a “good cop,” what is he doing? He’s usually working against the tide-against the other bad cops and he’s the one honest one. Or, he’s trying to build a case against a bad cop, or better yet, he doesn’t know that his partner is the serial killer they’ve been tracking until it’s almost too late. And then, the “hero” cop is usually some alcoholic, divorced, sex or drug addicted, barely hanging on to his sanity-wreck. This completely ignores the fact that the vast majority of real police officers today are true professionals. The extremely rare occurrence of a cop doing the wrong thing is shown as being the rule as opposed to the exception.

It is so ingrained in Hollywood that it seems like there has to be a bad cop in the movie or it won’t get made. The most egregious, sickening example I can give is the movie “Monster,” starring that darling of the liberal set Charlize Theron. It supposedly told the story of the real life Daytona Beach area prostitute and serial killer Aileen Wuornos. Even though this brutal murderer killed seven men and was unapologetic about it, Hollywood just had to show her as a victim. The most disgusting scene showed a road patrol cop forcing Wuornos to perform a sex act on him while he was on duty and in his patrol car. There was NEVER any allegation that she had ever been victimized by any police officer, or that the cops ever acted in any other way than professionally. In fact, a team of dedicated, highly trained police detectives worked tirelessly to find and arrest this killer. Not only were the cops not given any credit for their outstanding work, but they were portrayed as the bad guys. I used to think this tactic was limited to MSNBC’s coverage of George W. Bush. I will save the media’s assault on cops for a later offering.

I remember being so excited about seeing my two favorite actors starring together for the first time in a movie. Even though they had appeared together in “Heat,” Robert De Niro and AL Pacino had never starred together throughout an entire movie until “Righteous Kill.” They played detectives who had been partnered for years, and who were tracking a serial killer. How’d it turn out? You guessed it, one of them WAS the serial killer! Too bad that was the exact plot of the 2003 Meg Ryan movie “In the Cut." To add insult to injury, the “Special Edition” DVD purchase of “Righteous Kill” comes with a bonus “documentary” detailing police corruption. It features a guy who was drummed out of police work and who claims to know all about it. Watching this piece of garbage, you’d think all cops are corrupt. There was absolutely no attempt to provide balance. Sickening.

I have argued this point with my friends, some of whom say that it is more an example of a Hollywood that has run out of any semblance of new ideas, but noted law enforcement trainer, retired Army Ranger, and psychology professor Lt. Colonel Dave Grossman calls it “A systematic, on-going vilification process of America’s police officers by a liberal Hollywood.” Grossman posits that because the vast majority of Hollywood indulges in drugs, and identifies with the counter culture, they hate the police. I couldn’t possibly agree more. Hollywood uses their bully pulpit to turn Americans against the true modern day heroes-those who, as Grossman puts it, can trace their lineage directly to the “knights of old” who strapped on their body armor, hung a shield on their left sides and their weapon on their right, and went about the country doing good deeds. Ever wonder where the police badge, or "shield" came from?

My oldest daughter asked me the other day what the word “nostalgia” meant. As I explained it to her, it occurred to me that I have a certain nostalgia for the time when police officers were portrayed as the good guys. Gone are the days of “Adam-12” where every day, Reed and Malloy climbed into their Black and White and enforced the law, protecting and serving, and best of all, catching bad guys! Now, if we want to watch a cop show, we are forced to watch swill like “Training Day” (for which Denzel Washington won an Academy Award), “16 blocks,” “Internal Affairs,” “Unlawful Entry,” “The Shield,” or even “NYPD Blue.”

There is a disturbing trend emerging in real-life criminal justice. It’s called “The ‘CSI’ effect.” Civilians are so taken by the modern day police drama epitomized by the “CSI” show franchise, and are inundated with such bad information, that real life juries now insist on DNA and fingerprint evidence being present in every case or they will acquit. State Attorney offices have actually printed bulletins warning the police of the “CSI effect” and have instructed cops to explain in their reports why DNA and fingerprint evidence may not be part of their case-never mind the fact that getting those things in real life is rare. My point is, if the general public can be fooled into thinking that any police agency worth its salt will have DNA evidence in all cases, what effect do you think every show highlighting fictional bad cops will have?