Copaganda

The Truth Is Always Best…Unless You’re a Cop

/ Kiki Writes / Leave a comment

Despite my love of cop shows, I’ve never really been into the Law & Order franchise. Never had the urge or inclination to watch any of the shows. Then Charge changed their line-up, I was too lazy to change the channel, and now I’m hooked on Law & Order: Criminal Intent. I blame Vincent D’Onofrio and Kathryn Erbe.

The character of Detective Robert Goren says at one point during the final season that everybody lies all the time. Granted, this is said during a therapy session because my guy has some issues and he learned this lesson from his father telling him to lie to his mother about his father’s affairs, but it sort of makes sense that he would believe that anyway since he kind of lives this truth in his work. During the course of their investigations, he and Detective Alex Eames lie a whole lot to suspects. They lie about evidence, they lie about conversations, they lie about circumstances. I’m not talking about undercover work -though they do that a bit in the series. I’m talking about straight up lying to the people they’re questioning.

This behavior is totally legal. Cops are allowed to lie to the people they’re questioning. Just another reason why it’s important for folks to exercise their rights and ask for a lawyer.

But these are the good guys. Their lies are justified. It’s all in the pursuit of justice. Evidence is fine. A confession is better. In the world of fictional cops, confessions aren’t just the goal; they’re the norm. There’s a narrative to be served here.

Goren and Eames do have their own moral code when it comes to lying to suspects. For example, they won’t pressure a mentally fragile suspect, but instead lie and manipulate the suspect’s psychiatrist, who is responsible for the suspect’s destroyed mental state and ultimately, his crime.

They also right a wrong of a coerced confession from a group of minors accused of assaulting a woman. The cops in the interrogation video don’t do anything that Goren and Eames haven’t done before -lying to and manipulating their suspects- but the difference is these boys are innocent and the cops know it.

Fun fact: it only became illegal in Illinois for cops to lie to minors they’re interrogating in 2022. It’s still legal in other states. This is also why it’s important for minors to know their rights and for their guardians to know them, too.

I know it seems like I’m picking on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, but this is prevalent in just about every cop show. Steve McGarrett wasn’t above lying to suspects on Hawaii Five-O. In the case of some criminals, I think he took a certain amount of pleasure in lying to them just to see the look on their faces when they were caught. He had mean streak when it came to justice.

I’m sure that even the saintly Barney Miller lied to a suspect or two, but I can’t remember any instances off hand and I’m too lazy to do any research on it. It’s not like the 12th precinct arrested the kind of criminals the required an intensive interrogation. Most of them were caught in the act anyway.

The point of copaganda is to normalize some of the worst behaviors of the police and though it is legal for cops to lie to suspects during questioning, it doesn’t necessarily make it a good thing. It’s a manipulation tactic that’s seen more than a few innocent people put behind bars.

Some things are better left to the likes of Goren and Eames.

In the Line of Duty

/ Kiki Writes / Leave a comment

We all know how enamored I am with cops shows, particularly cop shows from the ’70s, but there’s a certain genre of copaganda episode, which seemed to be done often in the ’70s, that just hits me the wrong way every time.

An officer killed in the line of duty.

Here’s how this particular variety of copaganda episode typically plays out. We meet a cop, usually a uniformed officer, that we’ve never seen before and will likely never been mentioned again after this episode. We get to know this cop for about five minutes. He’s usually a very likeable guy and he’s usually good friends with one of our faves. Then our new cop friend gets killed in the line of duty, usually by someone who refers to cops as “pigs” and has an all-out hate on for the police. If not, then someone in the episode does and they are very, very vocal about it. It’s all very anvil about showing the audience how thankless the job is because people hate them even though they put their lives on the line every day. It’s an efficient delivery system for some unquestioned stats on the number of cops killed in the line of duty every year.

Now, the whole point of copaganda is to help normalize and valorize the shit cops do that shouldn’t be normalized or valorized, like roughing up a suspect for information or getting pissy when a suspect knows their rights and won’t speak without a lawyer. But this particular genre of copaganda is incredibly and unnecessarily emotionally manipulative.

The point is to highlight how dangerous and thankless police work can be. I’m not arguing that being a police officer can’t be dangerous. My police officer father ended up with a broken knee incurred while handling a domestic violence call (and the guy later apologized for it; such is life in a small town). But when it comes to dangerous jobs in America, law enforcement doesn’t crack the top ten list. According to some lists, they don’t even make the top 25. In fact, police officers kill more people in the line of duty then they themselves are killed. They may end up in some dangerous situations, but the odds are in their favor.

Something that cop shows in general, particularly with these kinds of episodes, don’t acknowledge.

And if you wanna talk thankless, look at any customer service job.

My biggest issue with these episodes, outside of the inaccuracies I’ve already mentioned, is how it’s implied that a cop’s life has more value than anyone else’s simply because of the job they do. And that is bullshit. Not just because of the inaccuracies I’ve already point out, but also because nobody’s life is inherently more or less valuable than anybody else’s.

To drive home the point that these cops’ lives are so much more valuable than the average citizen, they have the cop hater right there to highlight just how derided and misunderstood the police are. Nothing gets the audience more on the side of law enforcement than some asshole screaming “pig” at our heroes. Especially after they’ve lost one of their dear uniformed friends whose name we don’t bother to learn.

It all ends up being overwrought and grating and, like I said, unnecessary. In the context of the show, we already ride with the idea that a cop’s job is dangerous and their work is thankless because of how many dangerous situations we see our favorites in (some of which they don’t survive) and how often they’re disrespected in the course of their investigations. We already know.

This very special episode isn’t required.

It’s Okay! They’re the Good Guys!

/ Kiki Writes / Leave a comment

It’s a common scene in a cop show.

The cops arrest someone and maybe it’s during the arrest, maybe during the interrogation, one of our guys loses his cool and gets a little rough with the suspect. And, you know what? We’re fine with that! Punk had it coming.

It’s yet another way that copaganda inures us to questionable police conduct.

We are firmly on our good guys’ side. We understand their frustration when a suspect won’t give up information or if they run and have to be chased down. These are bad guys after all. We’d lose our cool, too. Especially when some punk won’t talk and there’s a bomb about to go off or some kidnapped person’s minutes are ticking away. If our guys get a little aggressive in the pursuit of justice, it’s all good. After all…they’re the good guys. Sometimes a choke hold is necessary.

The shows are great at normalizing this. It makes sense that our cops would get a little rough while arresting a suspect, especially if they ran or were resisting. It makes sense that our cops might need to utilize a little physical persuasion during an interrogation. Lives are on the line. And besides, these are the BAD guys. Who cares if they get a little roughed up?

Except how often do we watch those arrests and those interrogations and the suspect in question turns out to NOT be the bad guy of the episode? Pretty often considering the first person arrested is seldom the culprit in an hour long police procedural. You can argue that it’s all in the pursuit of justice, but that argument doesn’t hold up against a person’s rights.

Ah, yes, those pesky rights that apply to everyone, not just the good guys. How our cops often lament how they’re forced to observe a suspect’s rights when they’d really rather smack them around.

And how often they ignore those rights and go right ahead.

We all know how much I love Horatio Caine, but the man crosses lines like he’s running a touchdown. Given that his line-crossing increases as the seasons progress, I could argue that his increasing disregard to the rights of suspects is a response to traumas he suffers over the years, but that’s a post for another day. The point is that Horatio has no problem threatening physical violence or getting outright physical with a suspect. In one episode, it’s insinuated that he beats the shit out of a pedophile for “resisting arrest”. Another insinuates he does the same to a guy who abused his girlfriend, but at that point, he was no longer even a suspect in her death. And in yet another episode, Horatio and Boa Vista get a guy in the backseat of one of the Hummers and it’s implied that they inflict some pain in order to extract information.

These three incidents are presented without any question to Horatio’s actions. Because we sympathize with him and in fact, identify with him. We’d beat the shit out of a grown man preying on teenage girls. We’d beat the shit out of a guy who was fond of DV. We’d do a little painful persuasion to get crucial information from someone already in custody.

However, we are not law enforcement. And there are very good reasons why law enforcement is not allowed to do such things.

But this is the standard for these shows. There’s no real attention brought to this sort of police violence other than mild warnings as a means of twisting the tension and providing a barrier to our good guys saving the day.

Unless they happen to be falsely accused of police brutality.

In a third season episode of CSI: Miami, Horatio is accused of police brutality and Calleigh has to clear him, which she does, of course, because in this instance Horatio hasn’t done the violence that he’s accused of.

It seems like every cop gets falsely accused at least once. Ponch and Jon. Starsky and Hutch. Reed and Malloy. It’s a rite of passage for a TV cop, like a police involved shooting. The focus of these episodes is always the same: the injustice and unfairness of our heroes being accused of brutality and how easy it is for people to make those claims. These people are only saying these things because they have an agenda. They hate the police. They’re petty. They’re either seeking retribution for getting caught committing their own illegal transgressions or trying to detract from them. Because only bad cops engage in brutality and our heroes are never bad cops.

Inevitably, like Horatio Caine, they’re cleared of any wrongdoing.

And then right back at manhandling the next week.

One cop show that didn’t really normalize police violence was Barney Miller. First of all, we didn’t see any of the arrests. We were told that the suspect had to be chased or that the suspect resisted, but it was understood that no violence ensued during these apprehensions. At least there was no apparent evidence or mention. Second of all, a preponderance of the criminals the 12th precinct dealt with where, well, harmless. There were some armed robbers and assaulters and the like, but this is a comedy. Most of the perps that the detectives arrested were of the nature of blind shoplifters and women throwing toilet seats out of the window because their husbands locked them in the bathroom and sugar addicts who fall off the wagon in hilarious fashion.

When the subject of police brutality came up in conversation, Wojo was usually the detective mentioned, particularly in the early seasons. He had a tendency to be aggressive in his arrests and it got him into trouble more than once. Inspector Luger was a great champion of police violence as that’s how things were done back in his heyday. He was painted as out of touch and his methods antiquated. The policing techniques of the 12th didn’t require rubber hoses or anyone “falling down” the stairs. Policing had evolved beyond that.

Which wasn’t an accurate reflection of reality, but it was a decent attempt at providing a counter thought to plant into people’s heads.

Police violence isn’t normal and we shouldn’t accept it as such.

Not even from our law enforcement faves.

Foiled by Miranda

/ Kiki Writes / Leave a comment

It is a guaranteed scene in a cop drama.

Our detectives are interviewing a suspect, trying to break them, and they say those fateful words…

“I want a lawyer.”

Thwarted, the detectives end their interrogation and look for another way to nail their suspect, which turns out to not be their culprit a big part of the time.

This oft-repeated scene is a brilliant piece of copaganda. The invocation of the Miranda rights is typically presented as a bad thing, a major hurdle to an investigation. Only criminals trying to get away with something would ask for a lawyer or invoke their right to remain silent. Or hell, even ask to end the questioning and leave because they’re not under arrest. But the truth is that these rights are guaranteed for everyone and not just criminals are entitled to use them.

If you’re unfamiliar, Miranda rights are the spiel that used to frequently be recited onscreen, usually when a person was placed under arrest, typically to the tune of: You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you.

I don’t think you see it as often now as it’s just sort of understood that it happens. I could be wrong, of course. I watch several cop shows currently in production, but not all of them. Maybe some shows are saying it more than others. But it happened a lot on older cop shows. In fact, there’s a few Barney Miller episodes that make a point of ensuring the rights have been read.

Here’s the thing: if you’re under arrest or being detained, the cops do not need to read you your rights to have the rights available for you to invoke. This is especially important since the Supreme Court decided to take away any repercussions for law enforcement NOT informing people of their rights. The cops do not give you your Miranda rights; they’re already there.

Here’s the other thing: if you’re not under arrest or being detained, then the questioning is voluntary, which means that anything you say can be used against you, but you’re also free to end the questioning at any time. Cops will sometimes inform you of this, but often times they’ll word it in such a way that makes you feel like you can’t really end the questioning or leave. But you can.

When you watch these scenes play out on television, there’s an underlying, unspoken insinuation that an innocent person wouldn’t have to invoke their Miranda rights or stop an interview before law enforcement was finished. And it’s a trap that many innocent people fall into. “I haven’t done anything wrong, so I don’t need a lawyer/I’ll answer the questions” turns into marathon interrogations leading to false confessions. It’s not an uncommon thing.

Innocent people can, do, and should invoke their Miranda rights or leave a voluntary interview.

So should criminals. Those rights are available to everybody.

And even though it is a major source of frustration for our heroes -and hell, even me as a viewer out for fictional justice and firmly on the side of our mythical good guys- I can’t help but get a little thrill whenever I see someone invoke their rights onscreen. Hell yeah, honey. Shake what the Fifth Amendment gave ya.

It’s not like someone won’t be totally waiving their rights and spilling their guts in a full blown confession in the last five minutes anyway.