Reality bites Reality TV - one dead

Harry Palmr

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/27/omaha-police-kill-cops-tv-show-crew

Police officers who opened fire while disrupting a robbery at a fast-food restaurant killed a crew member with the longrunning TV show Cops as well as the suspect, who was armed with a pellet gun that they thought was a real handgun, authorities in Omaha have said.

The suspect fired from the pellet gun before officers returned fire, Omaha police Chief Todd Schmaderer said at a news conference. He said witnesses and officers thought the robbery suspect’s Airsoft handgun looked and sounded real. They discovered later that it fired plastic pellets.

Cops is a Fox reality TV show that depicts law enforcement officers in action. According to its website the show has been filmed in at least 140 US cities and three foreign countries.

Executives with Langley Productions said this was the first time one of their crew members has been fatally shot while filming.

I would say "only in America" but for the fact these idiot shows proliferate widely and this could have happened almost anywhere that cops, robbers, guns and cameras mix.

squonk

That's very sad. The show might be dumb but that's neither here nor there when you relate that to a crew death. The guy was a professional sound man doing his day-to-day job. I'm guessing that 90% of the work involved screaming idiots and standing well back from cops diffusing a situation. It sounds like a freak accident and if anything good comes of this, perhaps it'll force people to realize that crews are putting themselves out there making these shows and that there is a certain level of risk involved. It'd be nice to think that people would stop watching this sort of trashy TV as a result but I won't hold my breath. RIP