Monday, October 15, 2007
Stupid Cop Shows
For the most part I can take the inaccuracies of TV shows in stride. There are several things though, that really get to me. This came to mind after reading a story where a doctor is walking dog in the woods, sees some red spots on the ground and then touches them and tastes, "hoping for the taste of berries."
This is like the cops shows where the cop finds a plastic bag with white powder, sticks it with his knife, and then tastes it, saying "yep, it's coke." Which is really good for him, because it could have just as easily been rat poison, lye, strychnine or some other powder that would lay him low rather then get him high. There's also a certain CSI guy who as much as I admire his character, tends to do this with unknown substances.
The next thing are surveillance tapes. You know the kind, they have a frame from a dark basement parking lot and after enlarging it can read the numbers off the perps (my cop talk-type writing) driver's license or name on her name tag. That night on the 11p.m. news you'll see a picture made of various shades of gray with a barely human appearing splotch in it and they'll ask you if you can identify this person. Most of the time you can't even tell it's a person.
Then there's fingerprints. OK, this bugs me, but I really don't know if it's realistic; I'm just guessing here. They get a teensy scrap of a fingerprint on the wall and within 10 seconds, they "have a perfect match" for some person "in the system." I really doubt it's that fast or simple.
