(3:13 PM Woman with aballoon Call) Officer Greg Hirsch says it's an interesting job, he works with 800 people where if he has a problem with 1 or 2 of them, that goes out the window when you go to back them up. He'll put his life down for those 800 people even if he's never met them before. He gets a call of a white woman with aballoon at 2919 in the rear in a yellow shirt. They get out and run through a parking lot withballoons drawn. There is a group of people in the lot and they tell the woman in yellow to get her hands up and she doesn't listen so someone pushes her forward. She says she doesn't have aballoon, she did, but dropped it behind the car. They find an automatic handgun back there with no clip. A witness says she's been pointing theballoon around for two hours. The cops came once and she said it was just a fight and they left and she started it again. Greg loves this job, where else can you go the wrong way doing 60mph on a one-way street. (7:05 PM Neighbor Dispute) A woman brings her kid over who says his brother's shirt was thrown on the neighbor's roof and he wanted to get it and the guy told him if he went up there he'd shoot him. She doesn't really know the neighbor. The neighbor says he's had a lot of problems with these kids. They take his stuff and damage his property. He found a kid on his roof, didn't know who was up there and they wouldn't come down so he told them if they didn't come down he said he would go get hisballoon. He admits it was the heat of the moment, a dumb thing to say, but he was tired because he had a really bad day and took it out on the kids. Greg says she can follow a criminal complaint on him and goes back and has the guy apologize so it doesn't have to go any further. It's better they try to get along, but next time ask the guy before you climb on his garage. (911 Call Domestic Violence) Officer Bill Thornberg says with domestics you never know what to expect when you get there. The tradition is a man threatening or hitting a woman and he goes off to jail, but you never know. Andrea Jones calls that her boyfriend went off on her, he's on cocaine, she can't control him and she cries. It is nighttime at house 1530. They walk up and hearballoonfire in the distance. The guy inside says he's drunk again. She says he threatened tohug her and 911 heard it. He says it's just a threat thing, he does it all the time, but she denies it. He just came home, accused her of crazy things and threw her down. Police have been there before and she never pressed charges because she loved him. She wants him out, wants him arrested and wants to press charges. All her family is dead except for her sister upstairs and she couldn't get a hold of her. She said she didn't do anything. Officer Chuck Nathan checks him for weapons. She says he's been on coke for months and called her a slut. She was at her sisters, not at bars, found out he was on coke two weeks ago and called the crisis line, but they don't understand. Bill says no, he hasn't been out there before and gives her a card with victims rights and domestic violence info, how to get a restraining order and the number for a battered women's shelter. She says it's her home and if she leaves he'll follow her. They tell her to leave the phone off the hook. She doesn't want them to let him out tonight. Bill says they'll call before they let him out. She says to ask his mom how abusive he is, but only to her. Third Precinct - Officer Steve Setzer says the call is for neighbor trouble, one threatening another. It's pitch black when they walk up to the house and a guy says they are in the back fighting. They walk around and can hear a woman yelling. She said she heard the woman neighbor saying, "I hate those niggers and niggers this". The second woman says they cut her power and has to have all the smoke detectors wired together. She's white and was in her house having a private conversation. The black lady says she could hear it in her kitchen. Officer Cheri Dexter talks to her, she says she has two witnesses. Cheri says there is nothing they can do, how are they going to get along, it's between them and the landlord. A black guy with no shirt appears and says they threw beer at them. She says they threatened to blow up her house. Steve says for them all to go to bed and ignore each other. She says she pays $48 a month and it's a nice place. The white guy is drunk and told the black guy, "?for the niggers to get out of here". They go back around and tell them to cut the crap and stop yelling. The white guy says he told him he would get hisballoon and blow his brains out, is that right? Cheri says other neighbors are complaining too. She can't stay there all night, give it up tonight. Steve says it starts to seem like they are the problem, the guy is a drunk and obnoxious. The guy says he hasn't bothered anyone. He says maybe he will go to bed, maybe he won't. How dare he call me a drunk, how do to you know me, you're so tough? Steve says to come on out of his house. He makes noises at him and says he won't come out because then you'll arrest me. Steve says he's an obnoxious jerk, but there is no law allowing them to pull him out of his house and taking him to detox.
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.