Is "Steven Seagal: Lawman" on the level?

Cafe Society
1

I’ve watched several episodes of this show, and a number of aspects of it don’t jibe with what I think of as SOP for law-enforcement agencies. To wit:

-Seagal’s team is made up of guys who appear to be, well, old. Seagal himself is in his 50s, and a couple members of his team are clearly upper-middle-aged. A recurring incident: someone complains about a chronic leg or knee injury preventing pursuit. Are these guys day-to-day patrol officers?

-Bizarre level of individual discretion on charging offenders. A 20-year-old carrying an illegal handgun (age, possibly other things like no registration) was let go with no charge because he was “a good kid, had a job” – but the gun was confiscated. A “drunk” was not subjected to a field sobriety test or breathalyzer after being stopped for erratic driving. Seagal’s team called him a cab home; no charges, no explanation.

-Crime frequency: I know they can edit it for excitement, but the number of stops the team makes that end up involving illegal weapons (always in plain view or surrendered by the offender) seems very high compared to…the number of DUIs. Twice, the team has found a kid-on-the-street in posession of a long-gun, concealed in baggy pants. DUIs? Nah, never happens.

-Equipment: Seagal constantly wears a bullet-proof vest. Constantly, as in “while visiting sick kids at the hospital”. The team drives large SUVs – ostensibly for pursuit. Cars appear unmarked.

-Finally, eeeeeveryone recognizes Steven Seagal. Ok, sure, he’s fairly unique looking; I can understand him being recognized while standing on the street. What I’m dubious about is the fact that in several episodes, there are montages of people calling out “Yo! Steven!” and “Hey, its Steven Seagal!” – from the sidewalk, as he drives by. Its very hard to recognize people sitting in a car; no matter how famous you are, you could drive past me and I’d not recognize you in the split second it takes to pass me. Yes, this is nitpicking, but it happens constantly, in almost every episode.

Ok, what am I getting at? I dunno, but I’m thinking this doesn’t appear to be “real” law-enforcement. I could list more crap, but the whole show has a fake-ey feel to it. Too many “exciting” events, too little routine policework. “COPS”, the obvious comparison, feels real; this feels like a reality show.

So, what’s the deal? Is there something going on, or is this all easily explained?

2

This should answer a few questions.

3

The guys are old because they’re all high ranking officers who have been on the force for years. I’ve recently heard from cops on the force that they’re riding with him because none of the younger street cops want to do it.

DWI has always been discretionary in Jefferson Parish and the surrounding area. I know a number of people who were stopped, found to be slightly over the limit and allowed to call someone to come get them and their car if they were close to home. With the 24 hour bars and drive-thru daiquiri shops we have here, if they arrested everyone who was .01 over the limit, they wouldn’t have any room in the jails (which they already don’t).

I’ve seen all of the episodes and I vaguely remember the one where they guy was let go with the gun confiscated. I don’t remember the details. In Louisiana, there is no requirement to register a gun. There is no law against owning a gun or carrying a gun in a vehicle. The only thing you can’t do is carry a gun concealed on your person (without a permit, which isn’t difficult for a law abiding citizen to get). The exception is convicted felons who can’t own or handle any type of gun.

When you get in trouble with the law and you have a gun in your vehicle, the police usually take the gun and test fire it and cross check to be sure you haven’t killed someone with it, but then I guess they return it to you. This won’t happen with a simple traffic stop though, in my own personal experience…they just take the gun, unload it and give it back to you.

4

I believe the guys riding with Seagal are actually officers from the public relations department. They probably drive SUVs so they can pack in the camera equipment and the cameramen riding shotgun.

I don’t believe Seagal is a ‘real’ deputy, meaning he hasn’t gone though basic training required to be a police officer. Instead, he’s an honorary deputy with a badge given to him for his work with the department - teaching Aikido, public relations, etc.

From what I’ve heard, he comes out and rides along with the real officers for a couple of weeks a year, plus occasionally comes in to help with training and such. That’s about it. I would imagine the bullet proof vest is probably a requirement of his insurance. I don’t recall ever seeing him carry a gun.

So in short, no, it’s not all real. It’s television. Some of it’s real, some of it is reshot to make Seagal look more important to the cop’s activities, and all of it edited to make it look far more dramatic than it really is.

For example, notice how Seagal’s ‘crime-o-vision’ always kicks in and he seems to be the one who notices the gun in a pocket, or a shell casing on the ground? I’d bet anything that in the vast majority of cases, that is staged to give Seagal credit for ‘helping’ with the bust. In fact, I’m certain of it, because the camera is there to film the ‘discovery’, which it wouldn’t be if it was spontaneous. The most likely explanation is that they have a bunch of footage of Seagal looking out the window in various directions, or kneeling down to look at something, or whatever. Later, they take footage taken of the evidence, splice in Seagal ‘discovering it’, add in the crime-o-vision effect, and voila.

5

As I stated in the other thread;

Steven Seagal is listed as Executive Producer of the show. It is HIS show. So of course it is focused on making him look as good as possible.

What would be absolutely funny, but probably never allowed to happen, would be to take the stock footage of the show and re-edit it with all the stuff cut out that shows how he’s stealing credit for things (the crime-o-vision stuff) or doing stupid or egotistical bullshit.

Like the one in the Acupuncture clinic. Seagal jumps in and takes over right in front of the doctor and the doctor looks PISSED! At the end of the thing, the doctor still appears to be visibly annoyed, but exchanges pleasantries and invites him back. Frankly, I’d love to have seen what we didn’t see in that, and get a few words from the doctor afterwards.