Cops (TV program)
Cops is an American documentary television series that is currently in its 37th season. It is produced by Langley Productions and premiered on the Fox network on March 11, 1989. The series, known for chronicling the lives of law enforcement officials, follows police officers and sheriff's deputies, sometimes backed up by state police or other state agencies, during patrol, calls for service, and other police activities including prostitution and narcotic stings, and occasionally the serving of search and arrest warrants at criminal residences. Some episodes have also featured federal agencies.
The show's formula follows the cinéma vérité convention, which does not consist of any narration, scripted dialogue, incidental music or added sound effects, depending entirely on the commentary of the officers and on the actions of the people with whom they come into contact, giving the audience a fly on the wall point of view. Each episode typically consists of three self-contained segments which often end with one or more arrests.
It is one of the longest-running television shows in the United States and, in May 2011, it became the longest-running show on Fox. It also became the longest running live action series on Fox. When America's Most Wanted was canceled after 23 years, the show's host John Walsh, made numerous appearances on Cops. In 2013, the program moved to Spike TV, now known as Paramount Network.
In late 2007, during the premiere of its 20th season, episodes of Cops began broadcasting in widescreen, though not in high definition. In June 2020, Paramount Network pulled the show from its schedule in response to George Floyd protests, after the murder of George Floyd by an officer of the Minneapolis Police Department, and announced its cancellation days later.
The show remains in production for its international and overseas partners, and began to film anew in Spokane County, Washington, with its sheriff's department in October 2020. In September 2021, it was announced that Fox sibling Fox Nation picked up the show. The 34th season premiered in September 2022. Season 35 premiered on April 7, 2023. Following a three month hiatus, the show returned on October 6. Season 36 would premiere on April 5, 2024 with several episodes featuring beach patrol officers during spring break. Season 37 would premiere on March 7, 2025, initially consisting of 10 special spring break-themed and Las Vegas-themed episodes before airing its first standard episode on October 24, 2025. Filming for the upcoming 38th season of Cops got underway by May 2025.
History
Cops was created by John Langley and Malcolm Barbour, who tried unsuccessfully for several years to get a network to carry the program. When the 1988 Writers Guild of America strike forced networks to find other kinds of programming, the young Fox Television network picked up the low-cost Cops, which had no union writers.The program premiered on the Fox television network on March 11, 1989, following a seven-week test run on six Fox owned-and-operated stations. The program was one of only two remaining first-run prime-time programs airing on Saturday nights on the four major U.S. broadcast television networks. Malcolm Barbour left from producing Cops in 1994.
For the first 25 seasons, Cops was broadcast by the Fox television network with reruns of earlier seasons syndicated by local television stations and cable networks, including truTV and G4. After Fox canceled the show in May 2013, Spike-which later became known as the Paramount Network- picked it up for an additional five seasons, in addition to reruns of previous seasons. The 30th season premiered on June 17, 2017.
On August 21, 2017, Cops celebrated its 1,000th episode with a live special called Cops: Beyond the Bust, hosted by Terry Crews, which included historical clips from the run of the program as well as reunions of officers and the suspects that they arrested. The date of the 1,000th episode also marked a shift of episode premieres from Saturdays to Mondays.
The show follows officers in 140 different cities in the United States, Hong Kong, London, and the former Soviet Union.
In the wake of the protests following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota under police custody, Paramount Network pulled the series from the air ahead of its season 33 premiere, which was scheduled for June 1, 2020. On June 9, 2020, a network spokesperson announced "Cops is not on the Paramount Network and we don't have any current or future plans for it to return".
The episode "Party in a Box" featured Atlanta Police Department Officer Garrett Rolfe, who in 2020 was charged with the killing of Rayshard Brooks during a driving under the influence investigation.
In September 2020, Cops resumed production. The new episodes were being produced for international syndication and to fulfill contracts overseas that had not expired; Langley did not secure a domestic distributor until 2021. Rocket Rights picked up the show for distribution outside the United States in early-2021, with Langley's distribution unit, Langley Television Distribution handling sales in the United States.
On September 13, 2021, it was announced that Fox's sister streaming service Fox Nation had picked up the show. The 33rd season premiered on October 1, 2021. Fox Nation premiered the show's 34th season on September 30, 2022.
On July 11, 2025, Cops, which still regularly airs on Fox Nation, aired a new episode on the Paramount Network again titled "Stick and Move".
Production
Cops was created by John Langley and his producing partner Malcolm Barbour. In 1983 they were working on Cocaine Blues, a television series about drugs. As part of his research Langley went on a drug raid with drug enforcement officers and was inspired to create a show focusing on real-life law enforcement. Before that, there had been only a few instances of cinéma vérité productions documenting the work of police officers, such as Roger Graef's Police in 1982.In the late 1980s, after producing the live syndicated specials American Vice: The Doping of a Nation, Murder: Live From Death Row, and Devil's Worship: Exposing Satan's Underground all with Geraldo Rivera, Langley and Barbour pitched the Cops show concept to Stephen Chao, a Fox programming executive who would one day become president of the Fox Television Stations Group and later USA Network. Chao liked the concept and pitched it to Barry Diller, then Chief Executive Officer of the Fox Network. Malcolm Barbour left from producing Cops in 1994.
A Writers Guild of America strike was occurring at the time and the network needed new material. An unscripted show that did not require writers was ideal for Fox. The first season aired in 1989 and consisted of 15 episodes featuring the Broward County Sheriff's Office. Since then, it has often been one of the highest-rated reality-TV programs, in part due to its low production cost and thus its capacity to show new material each week.
The original concept of the show was to follow officers home and tape their home lives along with their work. After a while the idea of following officers home was deemed too artificial by Langley and was abandoned. Thereafter, the format of three self-contained unscripted segments without narration or music became the show's formula.
Since the third episode of Season 2, every episode ends with a police radio excerpt referencing the intersection of SE 132nd Ave. and SE Bush St. in the Powellhurst-Gilbert, Portland, Oregon neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. A female officer says, "132 and Bush, I've got him at gunpoint", and a female dispatcher replies, "132 and Bush. Cover's Code 3." Another woman says, "Units 25, 14 can transmit on Tac 2", and the dispatcher replies, "Okay, we'll still send it Code 3." Then an instrumental version of "Bad Boys" plays over the credits. On the first season of Cops, instead of "132 and Bush, I've got him at gunpoint", it was a police radio excerpt from the Broward County, Florida Sheriff's Office. In the first two episodes of the second season, a different police radio excerpt from the Portland Bureau of Police was used.
Cops aired on Fox's traditional Saturday-night lineup since its debut in 1989. As of 2012, the program retained its traditional time slot, but aired more intermittently as Fox Sports scheduled more sports programming in Saturday-night primetime, with NASCAR on Fox in the late winter and spring, Major League Baseball on Fox throughout the spring and summer, Fox College Football in the fall, and various Fox UFC throughout the year. Cops was then scheduled on weeks without any sporting events, followed by an encore presentation of a Fox drama series.
In 2013, it was announced that Fox had cancelled the program. However, it was later announced that Spike TV had picked up the program for another season. In August 2017, Spike moved the show's time slot to Monday.
Agencies featured
Camera crew involvement
In one episode, the production sound mixer for the camera crew, a former emergency medical technician, assisted a police officer in performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation.In an episode in season 11 that took place in 1998 in Atlanta, Georgia, camera operator Si Davis, who was a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department reserve police officer, dropped the camera and assisted an Atlanta police officer in wrestling a suspect into custody. It turned out that the APD officer had been injured during a foot pursuit; meanwhile, mixing console Steve Kiger picked up the camera and continued recording the action, which eventually made the air.
In another episode, a rape suspect fled and outran officers, only to have the cameraman follow him the entire time, until police caught up to the suspect and subdued him.
In season 13, episode 18, a cameraman caught up to a suspect and pushed them to the ground before the officer arrived to arrest them.
In an episode of season 14, during the arrest of a man after a car chase in Hillsborough County, Florida, the sound mixer held the suspect's sister away from the deputy after she tried to intervene in her brother's arrest.
During the first episode of season 22, which aired on September 12, 2009, an officer with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department was tackled by a suspect. The camera operator and Las Vegas Fire Department personnel wrestled the suspect away from the officer.
In episode 32 of season 22, an officer from Amarillo, Texas Police Department responded to a possible auto burglary. The suspect was found inside the car and attempted to flee from the responding officer, however the suspect was stopped by the production sound mixer that was standing in the path that the suspect intended on escaping with.
In episode 17 of season 26 that aired on February 1, 2014, during the arrest of a man in Sacramento, California, for battery on his girlfriend, one of the camera crew pulled one of the suspect's American pit bull terrier away from one of the arresting officers. The dog was biting the officer on the leg after being commanded to do so by the suspect.
During the recording of episode 7 in Season 27, the camera crew assisted in detaining the passenger of a vehicle whose operator had fled on foot from officers in Lafayette, Louisiana. As police chased the driver, who successfully evaded arrest, the camera crew secured the vehicle by giving directions to the passenger; at one point, the camera operator can be seen gesturing to the passenger to place the latter's hands on the dashboard.