I Worry About the FBI

Actually, I worry about all law enforcement agencies...and I watch enough crime dramas to be familiar with a lot of them:  NCIS, Criminal Minds, SVU, Law & Order in its other iterations, NCIS-LA, The Closer, Major Crimes, Rizzoli and Isles, White Collar.  Probably more.

I've been following procedure for a very long time now.

I could probably Mirandize someone myself by now.

But every time I watch the assault on a bad guy's abode, I worry about these supposedly intelligent guys who can figure out from a strand of hair what the guy had for breakfast on Wednesday.  First of all there's that whole "element of surprise" thing.  Who rolls up to a perp's home with five vehicles, all of which have sirens blaring and lights flashing.

Next, the doors of the vans open and a phalanx of guys so covered up with safety gear that their own mothers wouldn't be able to pick them out of a line-up.   They are armed to the teeth with what look like semi-automatic weapons (not being a gun person, I'm guessing...but enough firepower to take down Bin Laden and all his family).  

They hunch over, guns at the ready (they NEVER use them, have you noticed) and  right behind them are the stars, maybe in a little bullet proof vest, but never any other protection.  No head gear (because we wouldn't want Gibbs or Hoch to muss his hair, would we?).  They wave a Glock (again, I'm assuming) around.   Are they crazy?  These are the guys who are actually going to confront the bad guy. Where is THEIR protective gear?

Going into the house or apartment is another thing that bothers me.   Nobody ever seems to have a search warrant, they are going on the assumption that this is the right place for the bad guy.  But I dunno...they could be mistaken...and they immediately break down the door and start smashing things around, trying to find the bad guy.

Is this stardard operating procedure?  And if not, why aren't there more lawsuits for illegal search and seizure!

Of course the phalynx seems to disappear as soon as they have gone from front to back of the house.

And then there is the whole territorial business.  Except for the times when Gibbs and Fornel get into the elevator together and have real talks, I have never seen the FBI or the CIA or any other agency willingly cooperate with the heroes of the show.

Everybody wants it to be their capture and there is a real battle for territory.  Who cares what the bad guys did, just so long as we get the agency that deserves the capture right.  Local sherrifs call in Criminal Minds' BAU and then fight them when they suggest what they need to do to get the bad guy.

In Rizzoli and Isles tonight, a body was found on the beach and there was a battle between the local cops (the good guys) and the State Police, who both want the body.  The local cops ended up distracing the State Police and then dragging the body farther out into the ocean so it could be considered a local case. Really, it shouldn't happen even to a corpse!

How childish all of this is, especially withholding information that would help whoever is doing the investigation solve the case.  You'd think these guys are back on the grammar school playground again.

And while I'm on Rizzoli and Isles, Maura Isles has got to be the best dressed medical examiner in history.  Who does autopsies in 4" heels?

Yeah, yeah, I know this is theatre, not real life, but I do worry about stuff like this.  Well, sort of.

It also doesn't help that I've been watching these shows for so long that the actors from one show are showing up in others.  The prosecutor in SVU is becomes an investigator in NCIS, the actress who was murdered as Kate in NCIS is now Isles in Rizzoli and Isles.  Brenda's husband in The Closer is now King in the new King and Maxwell.  I won't even begin to try to remember how many bad guys show up as cops or different bad guys in other shows.   Keith Carradine was a very bad guy on Criminal Minds and I had a hard time believing him as a good guy on another show years later (turns out he was a bad guy after all and the only reason I knew it was because of his role on Criminal Minds!)

* * *

Today was sing-along day at Atria (though ultimately it was cancelled).  I went and took my mother up to the front desk to pay her rent. Always a huge process since she has to find her checkbook and her credit card before we leave the apartment, so she's sure she has them.   Then she put them back in her purse and by the time we get to where she is going to use one, she can't find it in her purse and is convinced that she left it back in her apartment.  I go through this every. single. time.

I have been reading another book about dementia, which goes through all the possibilities of what to do with Mom, from leaving her in her own home with aids to help, moving her into the child's family, putting her in assisted living, and now I'm into the nursing home section, which is very, very depressing.  The book in general is very helpful, though, and conversations with the parents who are being moved "somewhere" mostly sound like my mother, especially ones who seem to be with it most of the time, with memory loss and then suddenly are out of control and afraid that they've lost things or don't know where they are or some other fear.  It all sounds so familiar.

This is at once comforting, and frightening.