Police show life as a cop in YouTube episodes
Series of videos includes body-, dash-cam footage, 911 calls and other clips
Several Torrance police officers were enjoying lunch when they heard what sounded like an explosion nearby.
They went outside Joey’s Smokin’ BBQ and looked up: A single-engine Cessna 177 had crashed on top of the strip mall they were in on Crenshaw Boulevard.
They immediately ran over, realizing they nearly had been struck by the aircraft, and began trying to rescue the two people inside the Cessna. Fuel was falling from the plane.
One occupant died, and the other was critically injured.
That scene is one of a handful highlighted in a video series by the Torrance Police Department
on YouTube. Torrance PD calls its serious-minded program “In the Passenger Seat.”
It is meant to show the public what it’s like to be a cop.
So far, there are six episodes, each about 10 minutes long and offering a different call for service with the responding officers later explaining their actions and what was going through their minds during intense moments.
Body-camera and dashcamera footage and 911 calls are included. Suspects and victims’ faces are blurred out.
The first episode, which went up in May, has more than 2,000 views, and the second one has garnered 1,000-plus.
“We understand not every incident will go as planned; mistakes can be made,” Sgt. Mark Ponegalek said. “But we just want to shed some light on how difficult our jobs can be and (on the fact that) we’re trying to do the best we can.”
In November, a couple of police officers pitched the idea to the command staff in the wake of shows such as “Live PD” — a TV series with camera crews following officers around — getting canceled after last year’s protests against the police.
“That’s the crazy part, (people) want to know the realities of law enforcement, the good, bad and the ugly,” the sergeant said. “There are shows that can do that, but those were canceled. And then the narrative gets taken over with the bad stuff that keeps happening.”
The episodes focus on somewhat-typical calls.
Some show people who are suffering from drug use or mental-health issues when officers encounter them.
“Dealing with mentalhealth subjects is very unpredictable,” Ponegalek said. “They oftentimes require the use of force, so we picked some of those to show the issues we have dealing with those subjects.”
In one episode, a man is holding scissors at a busy intersection, standing in traffic lanes as vehicles zoom by. Officers attempt to use less-lethal rounds on the man and Tasers — which don’t work.
Eventually, he runs and officers chase him on foot through a neighborhood, where they tackle him to the ground and take him into custody.
In another episode, a man calls 911 and says he feels like killing himself. He is standing in a school parking lot and jumps into the schoolyard as officers arrive.
Officers and a crisis negotiator, Officer Stuart Scott, talk to the man.
He tells Scott about some issues in his past, and the officer in a kind voice says it seems like he just needs someone to listen to him. The man puts down the knife.
When the man is taken into custody, Scott gently puts a hand on the his back, as if for encouragement. The man would be taken to a medical facility for psychological care.
“It was very scary, because numerous times he’d raise the knife up like he was going to stab himself, and I had to try to get him out of that mindset,” Scott says in the video.
Calls like that are one of the reasons Scott said he got into law enforcement.
“I truly wanted to help this person — everybody on this call, all of the officers involved really wanted to help this person, and that’s what happens the majority of the time,” he said.
“The videos that you see on the news are a very small part of what actually happens and what police officers are really doing to help the community they serve.”
The series’ narrator, Emmett Miller, has a background in broadcast journalism and volunteers with the Police Department.
The production of the series was led by a K-9 officer, who came up with the idea, and a motorcycle officer, who has a background in video editing. The production’s quality would please many in Hollywood.
Ponegalek said that was the intent, that the series aims to look like many other cop shows. Because the series is produced inhouse, it only costs the department its time.
At least several more episodes are expected to be rolled out.