The docuseries On Patrol: Live — i.e., Live PD 2.0 — premiered on the Reelz channel on July 22, 2022, and generally follows the same basic format as its A&E network predecessor in which videographers accompany cops on night patrol in real time.
About 50 On Patrol: Live cameras go into the field with the law enforcement officers usually from eight different U.S. departments during the ride-along on Friday and Saturday evenings. Pre-recorded segments are usually part of the show as well.
An On Patrol: Live recap, including studio host Dan Abrams’ puns, analysis, and banter with co-anchors Sean Larkin and Curtis Wilson (retired Tulsa, Okla., cop and Richland County, S.C., deputy sheriff, respectively), along with the often-snarky or playful social media reaction, follows.
“Sticks” Larkin is gradually phasing out of the show. Cpt. Kory Flowers of the Greensboro, N.C., PD is making his second OPL appearance as a substitute in Larkin’s chair or former chair.
The Peacock and FreeCast streaming services carry the Reelz Channel, which is the home of OPL.
Please review this important DISCLAIMER.
[Click here for the OPL #02-05 recap]
On Patrol: Live Summary for August 5, 2023 (#OPL Episode 02-06 )
- Wilkes-Barre, Pa. — While responding to a group drinking in a parking lot, Ofr. Greg Perez and other officers spot an alleged fight occurring at a nearby pizza parlor parking lot. They run over there and commence an investigation..
- Hazen, Ark. — Chief Bradley Taylor and other units from different agencies track two alleged stolen vehicles. One vehicle is stopped with a modified PIT maneuver and take the driver into custody. The driver faces two felony charges. Pursuit of the second car ongoing. The chief repeats his mantra: “If you run from Arkansas law enforcement, we will chase you, and we will catch you.” Abrams: “That is the motto in Hazen, Arkansas. Beware.”
- Daytona Beach, Fla. — Sgt. Mike Bryant (who will be in-studio at OPL next weekend) makes traffic stop on vehicle for no seatbelt use and window-tint violation. Driver indicates that she may have a warrant.
- Ney County, Nev. — Dep. Hannon Daigler investigates a domestic incident and interviews both parties.
- Fullerton, Calif. — Ofr. Matthew Levin responds to a report of two men fighting in a gym parking lot. It turns out they are just hugging. Personal services not required. Caption: “Let’s hug it out.” Abrams: “All’s well that ends well there.”
- Wilkes-Barre, Pa. — Officers and paramedics respond to unresponsive man on the ground. Narcan administered. The man appears alert and is transported to a local hospital.
- Volusia County, Fla. — Dep. Kletus Stubblefield makes traffic stop on vehicle tht ran a stop sign. Stubblefield spots the man allegedly reaching around the car after the stop and also spraying hair spray in the interior. Car search. Weapons allegedly found. Driver arrested. Car towed.
Abrams; “The minute someone stars reaching back into their car, the officer has to be watching carefully.” Cpt. Flowers: “As soon as he starts fidgeting and then contorting his body to block the view from the interior of the car, you automatically know that’s not a reasonable movement, and something is probably wrong in that car.” Dep. Wilson: “It’s all for officers’ safety. Our safety and theirs, as we always say. It’s because of that reason.” Abrams: “There’s nothing reasonable about spraying hair spray in your car.”
Abrams: “Deputy Stubblefield is asking him if he’s ‘going to war’ with all these weapons there.”
- Fullerton, Calif. (pre-recorded segment) – – Abrams: “Officers responded to a report of people behind a building who appeared to be getting ‘tanked,’ literally.” Subjects allegedly spotted with nitrous oxide (i.e., laughing gas) tanks. At least two of the subjects try to run but are quickly apprehended by cops. Cpl. Brandon Ramek: “We got a call about a bunch of individuals inhaling ‘nos,’ Ultimately, there’s about five cars involved. All five had nos tanks or at least nos tanks near it. All together, there was about 23 individuals who were detained all in this area. We had five taken into custody. Obviously, this area is a high-crime area right now with nos tanks. This business over here is selling nos tanks to whether you’re an adult or juvenile it seems like, and it’s just giving us problems in the city of Fullerton. We’re going to keep patrolling as the weeks continue and see what we can do with this business over here.”
Abrams: “The number of officers there — potentially an issue.” Cpt. Flowers: “Yes. When the officers got out, you had four officers and 20-or-more suspects in the dark. What you saw– they were successful because the officers got out very aggressively, very assertively. Their communication was great. As soon as one runner happened, they went right after the runner. And they put everybody on the ground. Any time you get all the suspects on the ground, the stress level goes down, and it gets much safer automatically.”
- OPL Triple Play video #3 — Marion County, Fla.
- Toledo, Ohio –– Officers and paramedics respond to a domestic dispute. Det. Todd Osting (or another officer on scene) to complainant: “Nobody has really been cooperative with us from the get-go, okay? We went over there. We can’t just starting walking into somebody’s house and search them for car keys. I can’t do that. It doesn’t give me probable cause…this has turned into some big family matter…”
- Fullerton, Calif. — Cpl. Brandon Ramek and other units make contact with a man and advise him not to drink in public. He allegedly begins resisting after cops tell him to keep his hands out of his pockets; three cops take him into custody after a struggle. Potential charges: Open container and resisting.
At the city jail, “they put a spit hood on him, which is obviously a last resort, right?” Abram notes. Flowers: “It’s a last resort, and allows the suspect to breathe freely, but you can be spit upon so quickly you can’t react, so it’s a necessary precaution.” Wilson: “Airborne diseases.” Abrams: “The last thing cops want to do is get spit on.”
- Hazen, Ark. — OPL provides an update and some footage about the second alleged stolen car involved in the earlier pursuit. That driver of car #2 bailed and was captured by officers and a K9. Wilson: “So what happens is you alert ahead when it’s going into another jurisdiction that this vehicle is coming in there. What happens is those agencies then join in on your channel because they have that capability. And this way they’re able to communicate on one channel and be able to apprehend this individual.”
- Wilkes-Barre, Pa. (pre-recorded segment) — Abrams: “Officer Edward Lewko got a report of someone ‘getting their rocks off,’ from a nearby deck.” Lewko investigates a report of someone throwing rocks at a house or a person. The complainant shows some cell phone video of the alleged incident. Complainant declines to press charges. Lewko on the subject who declined medical attention: “She’s walking, she’s talking, and appears well.” Abrams: “The video kind of told the whole story.” Flowers: “Yeah. And it’s super helpful to us. Everybody carries in their pocket a high-resolution video camera. And a lot of times, in cases that’s used as evidence, we use it in the prosecutions…” Wilson: “But in some cases like this, you have the victim who does not want to prosecute, and therefore there’s not much you can do.”
- Richland County, S.C. — Cpl. Kenny Fitzsimmons tracks a speeding motorcycle “going triple digits.” Traffic. He and Cpl. Bryce Hughes have a friendly conversation with the driver. Caption: “Don’t grimace.”
OPL Triple Play video #2 — Huron, Ohio
- Hazen, Ark. — Traffic stop by Chief Taylor, who allegedly smells weed coming from the car, and others units. Abrams update: The driver “was given a breathalyzer and passed, the marijuana was destroyed — he was released with no charges.”
- Daytona Beach, Fla. — Officers, fire department, and paramedics respond to a rollover accident apparently involving two cars. Occupants appear to be okay, other than scrapes and cuts. Ofr. Grosse verifies that no one is stuck under the vehicle and mentions to the driver that they can get their personal belongs once the wrecker arrives on scene to flip over the car and put it upright. Abrams: “That was just a bizarre-looking piece of hair there [under the car]. But got to check, got to make sure. Amazingly, no one was significantly injured in that incident…but it is interesting to watch the sort of min-crime-scene reconstruction here, as the officer is looking at the evidence, looking at the tree, et cetera, and trying to assess exactly what happened….in this kind of context, it could be civil. But we’ll see.” Wilson accentuates that examining skid marks and taking other related measurements are also important in the investigation.
- Volusia County, Fla. — Traffic stop; vehicle allegedly ran a stop sign and otherwise was operating suspiciously. Driver has no ID on his person. Dep. Andrew Nelson, who put the driver in handcuffs because he was allegedly “reaching all over that car,” tells the subject that “You don’t dictate what I do.” Nelson: “Even though I know the kid has a legitimate medical marijuana card, the smell of burnt marijuana in the car, and there’s definite paraphernalia in the center console, [gives] probable cause to search it.” Cops also claim there is ‘shake’ on the dashboard. The driver is subsequently released with no charges.
- Wilkes-Barre, Pa. (pre-recorded segment) — Cops, including Ofr. Linsay Zarick, respond to a group of 10-15 people allegedly fighting outside a bar. Heavily bleeped audio. Zarick: “Pulled up — it was complete mayhem. You could tell there was a physical altercation. I went over to one individual who I could tell was involved in the fight. The individual was given plenty of opportunities to still walk away from the situation and get themselves home. In this case, it wasn’t so much about who threw the first punch. It was about them not listening and acting the way they were acting. So they’re all going over to the station with us. They’re gonna be processed…for disorderly conduct, public drunk, and underage drinking.”
Abrams: “The video kind of says it all here in terms of what this person did.” Wilson: “We talked about earlier about video use, talked body-cam footage here, and this individual here who’s talking about committing a crime right there on camera, which is gonna be very helpful in court.” Abrams: “First admits it, then denies it, then seemingly boasting about it at the end. And again…we’ve talked about this before, but the number of people there, you just don’t know exactly what’s gonna happen, and that’s always gonna make police a little bit uncomfortable.” Flowers: “Yeah. This is a pretty typical downtown. Like, bike cops deal with this a lot. And you have hundreds of folks trying to protest it to police, and it can get out of hand very, very quickly, like we saw there.”
- Daytona Beach, Fla. — Traffic stop.
- Hazen, Ark — Following a chase, traffic stop at gunpoint on vehicle after a PIT maneuver, and car wrecks out. Paramedics summoned. Car search.
Abrams: “As we were watching this…we were talking about the adrenaline for the police officers that can be involved here, right?” Flowers: “They’re involved in a high-speed chase, and then a PIT and a crash. The vehicle’s enmeshed in the device there, in the median. But you saw the officers go from a tactical setting, all that adrenaline, and then as soon as they get them out, they immediately starting asking ‘is anybody hurt?,’ and so they revert to a caretaker mode. And that’s extremely hard to do and very impressive.” Abrams notes that in certain very- high-stress situations, other or additional officers can be brought in to a situation that the cops than originally responded.
Chief Taylor mentions that an officer performed a tactical vehicle intervention (TVI) “before this got too far, got out of hand. The driver just said he was running for a little bit of marijuana, which makes absolutely no sense to us. The car is destroyed. They’re in the cables. We having an ambulance come right now to check each one of [the occupants] out….to make sure they’re all okay…”
The passengers are released with no charges. The driver is charged with felony fleeing.
- OPL Triple Play video #1 — Dallas, Texas
- Missing segment — Gastonia, N.C.
- Daytona Beach, Fla. — Ofr. Matt Grosse and other units respond to shots fired call in wooded area. K9 deployed. Grosse: “We got word from multiple witnesses that there was gunshots coming out of this area. So we’re gonna set up a perimeter. K9 is gonna get out, kind of do a quick check, and see if we got anybody that’s in this field that shouldn’t be.” Grosse warns the OPL crew to “watch out for that rabid raccoon,” quips to the animal, “get out of here — make a hat out of you.”
- Nye County, Nev. (pre-recorded segment) — Abrams: “In the summer, it gets pretty hot there, over 100 degrees is the average. And that kind of heat affects everyone a little different.” Dep. Nicholas Huggins responds to neighborhood disturbance, someone allegedly banging on homeowner’s door without permission, and charged an animated female for indecent exposure and resisting arrest after she was medically cleared. Abrams: “They know her by name, there.” Wilson: “It’s one of those things. If you’re in law enforcement long enough, and you’ve been out on that road, you’re going to run into people you’ve had dealings with before…” Flowers: “The problem is complacency because you’re dealing with the same person over and over, but still you may get something extremely unpredictable like that here.”
- Volusia County, Fla. — Traffic stop on bicyclist. A convoluted discussion about breakfast food with the subject ensues. Dep. Nelson: “That’s the most complicated story about a bowl of cereal I have ever heard in my life.” Caption: “Coo-coo for cocoa puffs?”
- Richland County, Fla. — Cpl. Fitzsimmons deploys stop sticks on fleeing car and pronounces it a “good hit.” Deputies continue to pursue the vehicle which wrecks out. Female driver with facial subdued after initially resisting. Fitzsimmons deploys fire extinguisher on vehicle.
- Richland County, Fla. — Cpl. Hughes and other units on the scene interact with another deputy who was somewhat injured when the above fleeing allegedly vehicle allegedly tried to run him over or off the road. Paramedics summoned to both locations. Hughes implies that attempted murder charges could be possible in this scenario [See update from RCSD below].
- Daytona Beach, Fla. — As the show ends, cops respond to a burglary in progress.
