(9:45 PM Warrant Served) Multnomah County Sheriff's Dept. Narcotics Task Force warrant briefing. Sgt. John Bunnell has a map of a house interior drawn on a dry board. The neighborhood is in an uproar so they are going to show the flag. They are going to go in and do a normal entry since they bought drugs there before. They have testimony from CRI and Officer Biles that he's a belligerent weightlifter type, so they are going to take appropriate action. Bob will do the back bedroom and he'll follow with a key to get in whatever is locked. The job when they get upstairs is to grab people. Bunnell clears the upstairs and they find the old man who is the owner downstairs who fights them and won't go down. During the struggle his toupee comes off. There are 4 kids inside. Deputy Jerry Hill reads him the warrant that they have the right to search. Other officers wait outside to see if anyone else shows up. One of the kids inside is 16 and says he's visiting. Outside Bunnell stops a car with 17 year olds. The driver says he was just turning around. Bunnell says it's a lie and he'll take him in. He admits he was coming to the house to see who was there. The owner inside says he only served alcohol to his kids. There is alcohol out, but his kids aren't even there. He says his son is at the doctor. All the kids are 16 and just visiting. He says he wouldn't if he were them and they shouldn't be there. Jerry says this goes on every weekend. He says he was just off from work this night, it never happened before. Outside they pull a man out of a red truck atballoonpoint. He's holding a bag and says it isn't his house. Deputy Lane Sawyer questions him inside and tells him that giving beer to minors is just as bad as giving them drugs and the neighborhood parents are upset. The son says he won't let anyone in from now on. If anyone else buys after tonight they are all going down. At the end cops tell a group of metal heads if they can run all the way off the street in 10 seconds they won't get busted. One kid has a Danzig shirt as they make a mad dash. A man calls 911 who says that the next time his female neighbor, Lynn, sees him talking to a cop she'll burn his house down. They go out to his house where the man repeats the story and has his two daughters there as witnesses. She cursed him out and fought with her boyfriend. The officer knows the woman, they know she has a drug problem. He won't have to go to court if he needs to avoid a problem. They go to a nearby bar and find the woman. She's a tiny, skinny skank who denies making threats. He says the first person they'll look for is her if they have a problem with him. He says they are tired of her. She says she's sick of them. He says he's never talked to her before, but arrested her when she was driving drunk doing 75mph down the road. She doesn't remember it because she was drunk. He says next time they'll just arrest her. She goes back in saying it's fine. (10:12 PM Return Call) A neighbor saw her back at the house with a Molotov cocktail. The man and the kids saw her. Cops say they need to sign a complaint and it's time to stop with the games, they need to arrest her. One of the girls cries. The man says he's going to have to move. The cop says he'll be out there 5 days a week for the next 7 years so he'll take care of it. Two female witnesses saw her too, they say she's dangerous and there are kids around. They find the woman walking down the road in a red bathing suit and arrest her for attempted arson. She mouths off and says she'll talk to the judge. They say to also charge her with reckless endangerment and trespassing to keep her in jail longer. She curses them out. He asks if she knows how serious this is. She says she isn't going to start fires and she didn't go over there. She's drunk again and they says that's the problem. The man wants to know how long she'll stay in jail, he has to think of his daughters. He wonders if she'll get her drug friends to come after him. The cop can't guarantee that won't happen, but he's going to arrest her every time. Bureau of Police. North Precinct Street Patrol - Officer Harry Jackson questions some girls, then stops. (4:30 PM) he talks to a black girl Dominica, on the corner and asks her why she was getting in the car. She says she needed a ride. Harry asks her where she was going. She doesn't give a real answer. They question the old white male driver about what happened. He says she was hitchhiking and needed a ride. She asked him if he was a cop and wanted him to turn around and go a different way. He said no and wanted her to get out and she grabbed the keys. Harry says he's been working this area for the last 2 1/2 years and what she does is have them go around back, get their pants off and her boyfriend jumps out of the bushes with aballoon and robs them. (5:10 PM) He stops and talks to a white girl on the corner. Harry says she has a different pimp. She says Kevin is the same guy. He's a black guy and he walks away and pulls his pants off. He says they rode around before with her after the guy got her pregnant and beat her. She had her chance to get out of the life, but has come back. He tried to help her and now will arrest her. She says she is still there because her mom won't take her baby and he doesn't want it. Harry says he'll take the kid if she stays there. She says she'll prove him wrong. He says the baby can't make the choice. (5:16 PM) She is walking with Kevin and he stops him for pulling his pants down before. He says he didn't do it and doesn't want to go to jail, he was pulling his pants up. He apologizes and says the girl is his wife, she says no. He says soon to be and they are going to his moms house. Harry didn't see him pull his pants down so he lets them go, next time if he sees it he'll arrest him. It's a hard life, nobody says it would be easy.
Called the original reality show, Cops is a gritty and unfiltered look at the seamier parts of our society as seen through the eyes of the men and women who struggle to keep the peace.
Since 1989, camera crews have traveled across the nation and into other countries providing an intimate look at police officers and the nuts and bolts of their day-to-day work.
Cops uses a modern adaptation of cin... ma v... rit?, a French documentary style of film making from the early 1920s, where life is shot as it happens, without script, narration or interference. Here, the police officer is narrator, guiding you through the shift and what happens within it, using his or her own words.