A&E Network has just announced that season 5 of Live PD, the Emmy winning documentary series, will break from the show’s traditional practice of following county police departments in favor of featuring a younger crowd.
That’s right—this season of Live PD will occur entirely on college campuses. And the first police department to be featured?
Capital University Public Safety.
Police Chief Hank Hernandez commented on the news, saying that, “It’ll be a real eye-opener for everyone to see the crap that we put up with on a regular basis.”
Cap Public Safety Officers are incredibly valuable members of the #CapFam, and all students are immensely grateful for their work in keeping campus safe.
But the episodes filmed for television appear to have been shot during a slow night. The camera crew first joins the public safety officers as they make their rounds to all academic buildings, locking up for the night (and throwing away copies of the student newspaper for good measure).
After a routine patrol, the officers head to the S parking lot by Schaaf Hall, armed with a fresh pad of parking tickets. The first three cars that the team comes across all have O lot passes hanging in their rearview mirror and are ticketed for the violation accordingly.
“I don’t even know why we bother doing this anymore, because all of these kids will just appeal in parking court anyway,” an officer remarks on-screen.
“What’s parking court?” questions host Dan Abrams, voicing the thoughts of all Capital students.
After a commercial break, Live Public Safety returns with its first real action of the night: students apprehended running through the Mound Street fountains.
Currently, the fountains aren’t even on (according to @CapUFountains on Twitter), but the team makes it quite clear that the violation is, in principle, very serious, and the perpetrators are chastised accordingly.
Up next is a staple of the Public Safety Officers’ repertoire: a fire alarm. At 3:00 in the morning, the alarms are triggered in the Lohman Complex, and two officers are ready to respond to the scene.
Along with beleaguered members of the Columbus Fire Department, the officers and the film crew enter the building and head to the source of the alarm. It was triggered in a second-floor lounge area, and upon entering the room, the origin of the smoke becomes clear: still in the microwave are the charred remains of a bag of popcorn.
After the Lohman alarm, the remainder of the night passes without any further incidents.
The final scene of the episode is of the routine morning patrol, when an unsuspecting student, jaywalking across Pleasant Ridge Avenue, is nearly hit by the patrol car.
The reactions from Capital’s administration were mixed. Provost Jody Funion offered a comment: “It was the most boring episode of Live PD that I’ve ever seen. Which is probably a good thing in terms of campus safety, but it makes for really bad TV.”
