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In Dan’s podcast Running From Cops he takes a critical look at the TV show which was canceled this week after 32 seasons. In an L.A. Times interview Taberski said the show presents the police as being much more successful than they are."
During the podcast, Taberski and his team tracked down several people arrested on the show. They were all supposed to sign a release stating it was OK for them to be filmed. Here’s what he told the Times about that. “The people we found, all but one, said that they didn’t sign a release, that they were too drunk or high to know what they were doing or that they were coerced into signing by producers who were standing right next to the police officers who were the stars of the show, basically using the power of the police to coerce them into signing.”
Taberski says the show misrepresents crime by people of color. “The raw numbers are about the same but the show front-loads crime, and especially violent crime, by people of color. And anyone who’s worked in television, especially reality television, knows that you front-load your best stuff, you hook people in the first act.”
Taberski says he hopes television has reached a turning point and that shows like “Cops” and “Live PD” are a thing of the past. “There’s a part of me that feels bad saying that because I know people work on these shows. But then when you see the people that have been victimized by these shows, just like countless numbers of people put on TV without their consent, often shown doing things they didn’t do or just invading their privacy in what could be potentially a really dark moment in their lives. There’s no reason for it, there’s no excuse for it and it just shouldn’t be happening”
Read the full L.A. Times article HERE.
Check out the podcast HERE.