Dark Side of the 90s, season 2 episode 3: Cops

release year: 2022
genre: documentary
viewing setting: home streaming 6/10/25

synopsis: This was one episode from a series that's all about the 1990s; this one is about the documentary show Cops.

impressions: This was a detailed examination of the creation, rise, and fall of this show. While the interviews provided much detail, a couple of those people made a claim that I'm not sure I agree with: the claim that the show targeted minorities and lower-class people. Whatever the truth or not of this claim, these people never once addressed the actual crimes committed by the people they say were being targeted. As the makers of this documentary showed, Cops wasn't about detectives in coats and ties taking weeks to solve invisible, nonviolent crimes using computers and logic...it was about the officers who drive around all night and have to visit actual houses and run down dark alleyways, responding to issues that could have been avoided if people were simply not breaking the law. Those are the calls that police on the street get, and whatever people are found at the other end of the call, so be it. It's not a deliberate attack on any one type of people. Whoever you see on the show, often chased or arrested...THEY BROKE THE LAW and someone called the police and then they fought or fled. Anyway, it was a good documentary on the topic.

acting: n/a but all of the interviews are sincere and informational

final word: Solid account of one of the few interesting pieces of the decade of the 1990s.

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