Adam-12 (1968)/Log 52: Good Cop: Handle with Care

Log 52: Good Cop: Handle with Care
Season 2, Episode 3
Airdate	October 4, 1969
Written by	Preston Wood
Directed by	Robert Douglas
Produced by	James Doherty
← 2x02 Log 153: Find Me a Needle	2x04 → Log 23: Pig Is a Three Letter Word
Adam-12 — Season Two

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Log 52: Good Cop: Handle with Care is the third episode of the second season of Adam-12, and the twenty-ninth episode overall.

Starring: Martin Milner (Officer Pete Malloy), Kent McCord (Officer Jim Reed)

with Carl Reindel (Mark Gurney), Margarita Cordova (Mrs. Sanchez), William Boyett (Sgt. MacDonald), Art Gilmore (Lt. Moore), Paul J. Darby (Jerry Bowen), Ben Frank (John Henderson)

Uncredited: Shaaron Claridge (Dispatcher)

Plot Overview

On a call to see to a possible overdose victim in a city lot, Malloy and Reed run into problems with a pair of rabble-rousing anti-police freelance "journalists" who are determined to do a story on police brutality, and they harass the officers, interfere with their duties and make assumptions and snap judgements about their motives. The duo claims, based purely on assumption, that the victim is just sleeping and needs his rest, but Malloy suspects that he may have overdosed. Soon after, the station gets a call shortly after the man is taken by ambulance that he has died.

During several calls, the reporters, who have a police radio in their car and have used it to track calls and to tail Malloy and Reed, show up at their calls and begin their routine of taking photos and asking questions of the suspects. The two falsely accuse the officers of chasing people and arresting them at random, without provocation. The experienced Malloy, who has deal with such troublemakers before, has learned to ignore yokels like Jerry Bowen and Mark Gurney (the rabble-rousers in question), but Reed, with less than a year on the force and never having had to deal with people like them, is continually irritated and distracted to the point where he's looking over his shoulder at every moment for the red Mustang which Bowen and Gurney follow the officers around in. Malloy admits that Bowen and Gurney annoy him but he's not going to let them get to him.

Malloy and Reed are next asked to make a death notification call. As part of their jobs, police officers routinely have to notify close family of deaths, and this is what the officers do with a middle-aged woman, whose Merchant Marine husband has died of natural causes back in Texas, because authorities in Galveston had been unable to reach her and they contacted the LAPD to make the call on their behalf. The woman becomes emotional upon hearing of her husband's death but thanks the officers. Outside, Bowen and Gurney plan to question the lady by asking her insensitive and leading questions and, hiding behind freedom of the press, refuse to listen to Malloy's admonition to leave her alone or the officers' warnings to stop interfering with their duties.

Next, Malloy and Reed make a bust on a man high on a combination of drugs and alcohol. Gurney, the photographer of the two, takes a photo of the arrest while getting in the way. While in the car, the man has a reaction to the drug/alcohol mix and becomes combative; Reed does his best to control his prisoner but before Malloy can pull over to help out, the man hits his head on the back of the front seat and breaks his nose. The officers take him to the hospital, where Gurney, who continued tailing the officers all the way over, shows up and snaps an "after" photo of the guy, who now has a bruised nose, before quickly fleeing the scene.

Things soon start to get hairy for Malloy and Reed following the arrest. While being treated, the man, who was so high he went into a seizure in the officers' car, files an excessive force complaint against Reed, claiming that Reed initiated things. After seeing a story on the arrest in the newspaper - complete with the photos Gurney took - which ends up making Malloy and Reed look bad by the reporters' design, Reed tells Mac his version of what happened, admitting that he was (naturally) full of adrenaline when he tried to control the guy. Mac tells Reed that his statements will now be included in the required investigation and makes no promises as to the outcome, before sending him and Malloy back onto the street.

The final call becomes the final straw for Bowen and Gurney, who by now are having loads of fun harassing Reed and letting things get to him. Reed and Malloy are called to an armed robbery at a liquor store and are on the lookout. After Reed decides he needs to be paying attention, he helps spot the suspects' car and they are able to stop them in a downtown neighborhood. After a short foot chase, the three suspects are easily taken into custody.

But because of Bowen and Gurney's antics in interfering with police business, the usually cool-headed Malloy has finally had it with these two men and tells them - without letting on that one of the men was armed - this is a serious situation and to leave. The two, however, still refuse to listen and persist in their interference (including claiming, without proof, that the three suspects are not who Malloy and Reed were looking for), and tragedy suddenly strikes when the reporters' distraction gives the armed suspect the opening he needs to fire his gun ... and shoot an innocent bystander. It is clear the man never knew what hit him, and Bowen and Gurney finally realize they screwed things up big time. The two try to apologize, saying that they had no idea that one of the men was armed and, as Reed handles the rest of the arrest, Malloy tells them, "You know now!" He makes the men stay put while the backup units and ambulance arrive.

In the end, Mac tells Malloy and Reed (presumably cleared in the earlier incident involving the drugged-out perp) that an application for a complaint against Bowen and Gurney has been filed, and that charges are possible because the bystander who had been shot during their interference with the arrest of the robbery suspects had died at the hospital not long ago, leaving a wife and three children. Malloy muses that it's too bad the two guys who had been hassling them for the past several days were so young: They'll have a long time to think about all the trouble they caused.