TV crime-fighting formula has changed over years

Television crime fighting has come a long way in my time. Not all of the advances are that believable but then again Sgt. Joe Friday never dreamed he could carry a telephone in his pocket.

In the days of television’s Dragnet, Friday (Jack Webb) and his partner Bill Gannon (Harry Morgan), cruised the streets of Los Angeles in an unmarked and extremely inconspicuous sedan on the lookout for criminals. They burned a lot of shoe leather and knocked on many a door on the way toward getting their man.

Finally they would get the big break in the case when a co-conspirator got nervous and dropped a dime on the big guy. Or some sweet little old lady reported strange goings on across the street. A stakeout would ensue and Friday and Gannon would catch the criminals in the act or at least with the goods on them.

At the end of the show they showed the bad guys with heads lowered in shame, having their mug shot made. It was usually boring work, but Friday always got his man.

The formula these days goes something like this. The crime-fighting team is assigned a case and they all gather in the squad room in front of a monitor that covers an entire wall. The captain or lead investigator outlines the case while the resident geek on the team taps at a keyboard to bring up photos and background on everyone involved. The leader assigns everyone out to different tasks and locations in pairs. There are always at least two pair on the job.

Friday and Gannon were on their own without a computer geek. Heck, for most of the series, even though they had a police radio they didn’t even have NCIC, the FBI’s National Criminal Information Center to check on warrants and identity.

Not today’s crime fighters. They have the Internet at their fingertips and apparently great cell service and high speed Internet no matter where they are in the field on a case.

If they encounter a new suspect in their travels they just give a name to the geek, sitting in front of the big monitor with the boss looking over his or her shoulder. Instantly, they know everything about the guy from where he was born and schooled to what he had for supper last night. Must be an Ancestry.com database on steroids.

Geek character can hack into the guy’s bank account, his cell phone and his emails in a matter of TV seconds. No need for warrants; this is fast-moving TV drama and good-looking cops in the field need information.

Once the chase is on, Geek can tap into traffic cams and private security systems along the way to be able to directly feed that information into the agent’s, always connected, earpiece. If the suspect is loose in a large building, Geek can quickly pull up a blue print and tell them how to corner their man.

Joe Friday had it tough folks. Maybe that’s why he only had time for “just the facts ma’am.”

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

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