Log 33: It All Happened So Fast

Even now, years after this episode first aired on NBC in the late 1960s, this episode is one realistic standout.

A lot gets depicted here...two police officers, sitting in a patrol car, taking a powerful shot from a major-caliber hunting rifle. One of them returns fire a split second later, in fear for his life, only having that nanosecond of time to determine if the shot is warranted, what his field of fire is, and who he is shooting at.

Welcome to the nightmare that real police work can end up being...and the toll that a lethal force incident can take on an officer who has to administer deadly force.

A retired cop once told me that police work was 80 percent boredom, 10 percent laughs, and 10 percent sheer terror.

In this episode, you get a taste of the "sheer terror" and it's really about what goes on in a policeman's life after the shot, something that wasn't well documented, then and even now.

Kudos to Jack Webb, the writers, and the actors involved, particularly Kent McCord, who offers a realistic portrayal of what a real human being often goes through having to take another's life.

This episode examines what happens when an officer's "shots fired" kills an assailant. A 16 year old boy fires at the black and white squad car and Reed, dodging his bullets, shoots at the muzzle flash and the boy's body falls dead out of the concealment of the bushes.

Kent McCord does a very good job of showing the audience a cop, wanting to follow procedure and knowing he did the right thing -- yet devastated that a young boy is dead. Jack Webb let him have his acting head and it works.

The episode details the paperwork, pressure filled interviews and threats of examination boards, and the media pressure too. This actually is a refreshing change compared to modern cop shows where dozens of bad guys get killed with automatic weapons that never need reloading, and then the good guys are out on the street the next day like nothing had happened.

Want to know what today's cops face every day? Watch this.

PS -- Malloy's badge number is 10743. Reed's is 13985.