‘LAPD’ Gives Some Polish to Those Badges

A car finally comes to a halt after being pursued at night by police in a screeching, high-speed, high-adrenalin chase through a section of Los Angeles.

The sought-after motorist, a large, burly, brown-skinned man, remains behind the wheel of his car, whose route of escape is blocked by at least four squad cars.

The tense capture is caught on camera.

A police officer barks instructions:

“Driver, shut the car off and throw out the keys!

“Driver, stay in the car!

“Driver, hands up!”

After some initial hesitancy and apparent confusion, the suspect obeys, then complies with another order to leave his vehicle. Soon he’s on the ground being handcuffed.

No whacking away at the trapped suspect with police batons.

No shouting of racial epithets.

No Rodney G. King.

The Los Angeles Police Department has had image problems throughout much of its recent history, with Latinos and African Americans frequently charging the law enforcement agency with racism and brutality. But the globally covered King beating in 1991 pushed the department’s reputation to the edge of a precipice and the ensuing O.J. Simpson double-murder trial--with its infamous Fuhrman tapes--shoved it all the way over.

Arriving next week, though, as if ordered up on cue by Chief Willie L. Williams, is “LAPD,” a syndicated half-hour “reality” series in which the above chase-and-arrest sequence is featured. Real suspect, real cops, real incident.

Patterned after Fox’s “Cops” and that program’s many imitators, “LAPD” represents a union of interests between producers QRZ Media and MGM Worldwide Television, which want a hit, and the Los Angeles Police Department, which wants damage control and a different appraisal than the unfair one it says it gets from its critics.

One of those critics is not “LAPD” executive producer Dave Bell, a veteran documentarian. “I’m appalled at the hammering the LAPD is taking,” he said by phone Friday.

Thus, “LAPD” is about the “n” word, all right.

Nab.

There are no body-bashers or renegade Mark Fuhrmans in the first three episodes of “LAPD,” no identifiable bigotry or attitudes reflecting the misogynist Men Against Women, only polite, respectful, straight-arrow police officers who, the department surely would argue, are much more representative of the force than the notorious Fuhrman.

It’s important for a city to have confidence in its police department. Yet so many questions linger regarding the LAPD’s performance that television would better serve Los Angeles, at least, by constructively examining the department’s challenges rather than ignoring or sugarcoating them. Especially in the heat of the Simpson trial.

Jack Webb would be proud of “LAPD.” In fact, there is a “Dragnet” reverence to Andrew Geller’s ponderous narration: “This is the city, Los Angeles, California, heart of the great Southern California basin. From the glitter to the gutter, nearly 4 million people of every creed and color live in the 467 square miles of the city’s borders.”

Because it could not have been made without the assistance of the department, “LAPD” is as propagandistic as other “Cops”-type series, with Geller mentioning, for example, that the horses in its mounted patrol “enjoy the cleanest stables and the best care anywhere in the country.”

Although the series is billed by MGM as “the first real inside look” at LAPD, the department’s critics would argue that the home video of King’s famous clobbering was an earlier “inside look.” Moreover, “Cops” itself devoted some episodes to the LAPD last year after Chief Williams broke with the policy of his predecessor, Daryl F. Gates, who had prohibited TV programs from monitoring the department’s daily activities for commercial purposes.

As with “Cops,” LAPD surely wants from the new series a depiction not limited to a highlight reel of sensationalized dramatic action, but a wide cross-section of its daily activities. That’s certainly fair. Bell, however, says he was the one who insisted that the show be more than police “chasing white trash over fences.”

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He says that although LAPD representatives “look at some segments,” police have no veto power and that the program’s ultimate content control rests with the producers.

For whatever reason, though, “LAPD” is largely dry and uncompelling, despite driving background music that’s meant to rev it up.

“LAPD” opens with a chopper from the air support division throwing a spotlight on a stolen auto being chased by squad cars at night. “In custody!” a voice says at the end of the sequence.

Then it’s on to a pair of police officers confronting a knife-wielding man who’s threatening suicide. “Put the knife down, sir,” one of them orders. “Hey, relax, bro, put the knife down.”

With the blade at his wrist, then his neck, the man vows to die. “Don’t die, sir, please,” he’s urged. Even after agreeing to trade his knife for a beer, he refuses to relinquish the weapon and is ultimately disabled only with a Taser shot.

Next, it’s a car-chase incident, followed by cops on horseback patrolling the “unpredictable and sometimes hostile” crowd at Venice Beach on a weekend.

“Police sense a dramatic change of mood,” narrator Geller reports. “The tension increases.” We’re never told what’s behind the “dramatic change of mood” or tension, only that the police presence “keeps things under control.” Good.

Episode 2 finds police chasing a suspect on a motorcycle, then checks in with two officers assigned to crowd control around a sinkhole, at which time your lids get very heavy. Finally, police are stern yet courteous after moving in on half-a-dozen men suspected of possessing drugs and illegal weapons. Even a suspect who lied to the officers about not being on parole is treated gingerly.

In the third episode, a prostitute sting and a domestic dispute are preceded by two officers interceding with a woman in jeans and bra, bleeding from cuts and babbling incoherently while wandering in the street. One of the officers knows her from past experiences and treats her compassionately. They confront her spouse at home, showing irritation but not anger when getting vague answers from him regarding her cuts. He’s temporarily handcuffed.

“I’m not O.J. Simpson,” the man, who is African American, pleads to the camera. “I’m innocent. I didn’t do nothing.” The officers believe him.

Others will have to decide how authentic “LAPD” is or isn’t. But there’s no question that the presence of a TV camera, no matter how skillfully maneuvered, can alter reality. Are some suspects, like the man evoking Simpson’s name, playing to a TV audience? Are the police officers putting on as much of an act in front of the camera as Fuhrman seems to have done in the courtroom? Do they never lose control under stress?

“LAPD” also raises other questions long associated with this format. The emphasis on minority suspects (most in these episodes are Latino or African American), for example, tends to reinforce stereotypes of certain ethnic groups as being criminal or unstable.

Plus, there’s the privacy issue. The troubled Latino threatening to take his life begs officers as he’s packed off: “Don’t tell my mom what happened to me.” An officer responds: “No one is gonna tell Mom.”

Of course, when watching TV, Mom, with millions of other viewers, will see his face and hear him identified by name.

Bell says that everyone whose face “LAPD” shows--some faces are electronically blurred--signs a release. Yet some people are especially vulnerable to media persuasiveness, and one wonders what convinced this man to change his mind and let his self-destructive behavior be put on public display alongside this new, shinier image of Los Angeles police.

* “LAPD” will air weeknights at 11:30 p.m. on KCOP-TV Channel 13, beginning Sept. 11.