yeah, these were all pretty horrible. abc dumped them at like midnight on saturdays, so you really had to be aware of them to try and catch them. stephen hawking just did a voice-over intro and outro, twilight zone style.

first thing, this is old (but still not any less appalling). second, this is the SHERIFF department, not the "cops". there are a few problems with the various police departments around the valley, but they are for the most part decent people trying to do decent work. the SHERIFF department here (home of world-famous jackass Sheriff Joe) is a joke. They are malicious, dangerous, over-funded (they have an anti-tank "anti-terrorism" machine-gun-mounted jeep for fsm's sake) and frequently stupid. Sheriff Joe apparently has too many connections in the various media outlets around so he's able to bury any bad publicity pretty easily. That's why you don't hear about much of what goes on, and usually what you do hear about is only his PR stunts. I think the author of the New Times article is a little obsessed with exposing the horrible things that happen in the sheriff's dept, but at least someone is (even if, as one commenter points out, he's not the best reporter around).