{"id":844783,"date":"2025-04-30T20:12:57","date_gmt":"2025-05-01T01:12:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/30\/police-across-the-u-s-welcomed-cop-show-the-first-48-then-relationships-soured\/"},"modified":"2025-04-30T20:12:57","modified_gmt":"2025-05-01T01:12:57","slug":"police-across-the-u-s-welcomed-cop-show-the-first-48-then-relationships-soured","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/30\/police-across-the-u-s-welcomed-cop-show-the-first-48-then-relationships-soured\/","title":{"rendered":"Police Across the U.S. Welcomed Cop Show \u201cThe First 48.\u201d Then Relationships Soured."},"content":{"rendered":"
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ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches<\/a>, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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When the A&E true crime reality television show \u201cThe First 48\u201d comes to town, the police and sheriff\u2019s departments that work with it do not receive financial compensation from the show. The benefits are more intangible: a chance to showcase and celebrate the work of a department\u2019s officers, the opportunity to improve their image in the eyes of the public, and some acknowledgement for victims who might be overlooked by the media.<\/p>\n

But the show\u2019s two-decade history of filming in cities across the U.S. has also left a complicated trail of problems and municipal regret, as ProPublica has reported<\/a>. Detectives have admitted that they\u2019ve acted out scenes as the cameras rolled. Key developments in the investigations have sometimes not been shown or mentioned. Episodes sometimes aired before defendants went to trial, publicly disclosing information that potential jury members and witnesses would normally never hear in court.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, many law enforcement and legal experts wonder whether the mere presence of cameras changes how the police behave, twisting the truth for the sole purpose of a more engaging narrative.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think that anyone would deny that having a camera when you\u2019re doing a ride-along like that affects behavior,\u201d Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm said in 2010, after a 7-year-old girl was shot and killed during a Detroit police SWAT-style raid \u201cThe First 48\u201d was filming. \u201cI think it\u2019s not a good practice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Controversies like the one in Detroit have prompted at least a half dozen cities to cancel their contracts or end their relationships with \u201cThe First 48.\u201d Dallas; Memphis, Tennessee; Mobile, Alabama; Minneapolis; and New Orleans, as well as other cities, have stopped working with the show, with some municipal officials heaping criticism on the program as they severed ties with it.<\/p>\n

The show has not been found to have engaged in any misconduct.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want an investigator spending even a minute essentially working for the camera instead of elements of the case,\u201d Miami police Chief Jorge Colina said in 2018, five years after the city ended its relationship with the program. \u201cIt\u2019s not worth the tradeoff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Representatives from Kirkstall Road Enterprises, ITV America and ITV, the companies that produce the program, did not respond to requests for comment or to a detailed list of questions. A&E, the television network that airs \u201cThe First 48,\u201d declined to comment through a spokesperson.<\/p>\n

The show\u2019s most recent seasons were filmed in Tulsa, Oklahoma; Gwinnett County, Georgia; and Mobile.<\/p>\n

Once problems arise, these once enthusiastic and mutually beneficial partnerships between the police and reality television can turn into messy breakups. It can also take time for the problems involving \u201cThe First 48\u201d to come to light, sometimes years after the episodes have aired and only after cases have wound their way through the courts.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how that has played out in three cities.<\/p>\n

Mobile<\/h3>\n

In 2022, in a courthouse on Alabama\u2019s Gulf Coast, a judge was trying to help defense attorneys determine if there were any fans of \u201cThe First 48\u201d in the jury pool. The defendant in the case had been featured on an episode of the show that aired before his trial, and attorney Chase Dearman was concerned fans would be predisposed to find his client guilty.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is an extremely popular show, especially in the South,\u201d Dearman said in an interview.<\/p>\n

The judge instructed the assembled prospective jurors to stand if they were regular viewers of shows like \u201c60 Minutes,\u201d \u201c20\/20,\u201d and \u201cTrue Crimes.\u201d Three jurors, then two, then two jurors again stood, respectively. Then he mentioned \u201cThe First 48.\u201d Fourteen potential jurors rose to their feet.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a more popular show. Okay,\u201d the judge said, according to a transcript of the trial.<\/p>\n

Dearman said that the show\u2019s disclaimer, that \u201call suspects shown are presumed innocent until proven guilty,\u201d is not enough to contend with human biases. \u201cWhat do you think those jurors are going to do when they go home at night?\u201d Dearman said. \u201cThey\u2019re going to look it up and watch it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dearman\u2019s client was acquitted after two mistrials.<\/p>\n

Mobile defense attorney Domingo Soto was also concerned when one of his clients was shown on the show before trial. \u201cThe cops decided a version of the truth from the very beginning and sold it to \u2018First 48\u2019 and more importantly sold it to themselves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the Mobile Police Department declined to comment on its involvement with \u201cThe First 48\u201d as well as on the cases that involved the men whom Dearman and Soto represented.<\/p>\n

In 2023, the city did not renew its contract with \u201cThe First 48.\u201d James Barber, a former police chief and former city public safety director in Mobile and now chief of staff to the mayor, said the show helped shine a positive light on the \u201cdedication and professionalism of our homicide investigators.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, our most important focus is always public safety, and we saw that pre-trial coverage of criminal cases had led to litigation and legal challenges in other jurisdictions,\u201d Barber said in a statement. \u201cWe did not want our work with any media partner to impact any criminal matter or create legal issues for the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dallas<\/h3>\n

Sometimes small narrative touches to \u201cThe First 48\u201d episodes, perhaps inconsequential to the viewer, have major repercussions in real life. In 2013, a man named Arking Jones was interviewed by Dallas police about the murder of a suspected drug dealer, an investigation captured in the episode \u201cSafe House.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones told ProPublica that he had no idea he was being taped for the show and did not sign a consent form to appear on the program. He said he only learned he had been on \u201cThe First 48\u201d after the episode had aired. Despite the show\u2019s efforts to hide his identity by blurring his face and altering his voice, Jones said it was obvious to people who knew him that he was in the episode.<\/p>\n

\u201cI start getting all type of threats. They start coming by my mother\u2019s house,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n

According to Jones, the worst part was that the episode was edited in a way to suggest he had become a police informant; Jones denied that he spoke with police voluntarily or that he was an informant. The threats to his life got so bad, he said, that he had to stop working. Court records show that Dallas police filed retaliation charges against several people for allegedly making threats to Jones and his family. Those charges never resulted in convictions, according to Jones.<\/p>\n

In 2015, Jones was shot several times at a barber shop in an attack that also injured a bystander. He was hit in the chest and hip, and he said he now has a metal rod in his thigh. The man who shot Jones pleaded guilty to aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in retaliation and was sentenced to 24 years in prison.<\/p>\n

According to Dallas police reports, the shooting was motivated by Jones\u2019 appearance on \u201cThe First 48.\u201d Jones filed a lawsuit against Kirkstall Road Enterprises, claiming it acted negligently. In its response, attorneys for the show implied that Jones\u2019 criminal history could have been the root cause of the attack and that his \u201csole claim of negligence is barred by the First Amendment.\u201d<\/p>\n

A judge dismissed the case and an appeals court upheld that decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we were to place the burden to prevent the kind of unforeseeable injury that befell Jones in this case on the media, the result would be a significant infringement on its Constitutional protections when reporting matters of public interest,\u201d the appeals court wrote.<\/p>\n

A&E removed Jones\u2019 episode from its catalog. However, in the decade since the shooting, Jones said that his reputation has never recovered. He said he\u2019s been attacked and robbed and, last year, his truck was shot up. He sent photos of the truck to a ProPublica reporter.<\/p>\n

\u201cY\u2019all looking at it just for good TV. You know, you\u2019re not caring about innocent lives,\u201d Jones said of the show. \u201cMy life is in a situation like, I\u2019m dead. That\u2019s how I see it. I\u2019m dead. Because I can\u2019t live life.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Dallas Police Department declined to comment. In 2021, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill into law<\/a> that bans reality television shows from partnering with law enforcement. The law was named after Javier Ambler II, a Texas man who died after a high-speed chase and violent arrest, captured by a camera crew for \u201cLive PD,\u201d another A&E police reality series. \u201cLive PD\u201d was canceled in 2020.<\/p>\n

Memphis<\/h3>\n

The immediate aftermath of one of the worst mass killings in Memphis history was captured by producers for \u201cThe First 48\u201d for an episode named \u201cLester Street.\u201d On March 3, 2008, police discovered the bodies of four adults and two children in a small brick house. Three other children survived the attack with serious injuries.<\/p>\n

The investigation converged on Jessie Dotson, the brother of one of the victims, who confessed to detectives on camera that he committed the murders after a drunken fight. The episode aired before his trial, a concern District Attorney General Bill Gibbons raised in a letter to the police chief.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeveral judges have expressed to prosecutors in this office their concern that events of a pending criminal case are edited, taken out of sequence, and then aired nationally,\u201d Gibbons wrote. \u201cIt is my hope that you will not renew the Memphis Police Department\u2019s contract with \u2018The First 48\u2019 \u2014 a show that clearly airs potential evidence and information on pending criminal cases.\u201d<\/p>\n

The judge in the case did not allow the jury to watch edited footage of Dotson\u2019s confession on \u201cThe First 48\u201d because representatives of the show said they had already destroyed the raw footage. Dotson was convicted and sentenced to death. The city of Memphis ended its relationship with \u201cThe First 48\u201d in 2008.<\/p>\n

But the show has cast a long shadow over the case. In January 2024, Kelley Henry, a federal public defender representing Dotson, filed an appeal pointing out dozens of issues with the original investigation, among them that Dotson, who has \u201cneurocognitive disorders,\u201d was pressured into confessing, though he recanted shortly afterwards. She said that she believes \u201cThe First 48\u201d influenced detectives to exert that pressure before the FBI was about to take over the case and that Dotson is innocent.<\/p>\n

The Memphis Police Department did not respond to requests for comment. Dotson\u2019s appeal is pending.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just really crystallized for me, just how dangerous these folks are and the pressure that they put on the cities and the prosecutors and the police departments to come up with a story,\u201d Henry said. \u201cIt\u2019s not necessarily that they\u2019re malevolent, but their objectivity is compromised by the presence of those cameras.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Mariam Elba<\/a> contributed research.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week. When the A&E true crime reality television show \u201cThe First 48\u201d comes to town, the police and sheriff\u2019s departments that work with it do<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":844784,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26294,294],"tags":[6485,5496],"class_list":{"0":"post-844783","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-across","8":"category-police","9":"tag-across","10":"tag-police"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=844783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/844784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=844783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}