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Nolan and Chen's Secret Relationship
- Why do Nolan and Chen have such extreme paranoia about anyone in the LAPD finding out about their relationship? As far as I've heard there's no rule actually prohibiting it, neither is above the other as far as chains of commands go (which would clearly be a problem), but they seem to have the view that it getting out would result in locker room gossip followed by automatic career death for either or both of them. Compounding the mystery is the fact that Bradford and his wife were both on the force in the not-too-distant past, and presumably in a relationship prior to actually getting married; in the show that's accepted as a matter of routine and doesn't even merit a mention by other characters. In Nolan and Chen's case could it be the age difference?
- Partly it's the age difference, and I assume partly because that they're both still rookies. Their reputations — for good and ill — are still being formed and neither of them is known for anything yet. If it gets out that they're in a relationship that will become their "thing", and for Lucy in particular that will stick with her for a long time because women are already pushed down in the field. If she gets a reputation for sleeping with cops at this early stage, she could easily be labelled as "she's a slut for anybody with a badge" for the next ten years.
- In similar cop shows (I don't know much about real US cops) you can't date someone from your unit. Bradford's wife was in Narcotics division, he was a beat cop, so they didn't work together. There was similar subplot in The Mentalist, where two colleagues secretly dated and were afraid that if they'll go public, one of them will be forced to transfer to different unit.
- In real life every law enforcement organization has rules against supervisors dating people in their chain of command, regardless of how often the rule is ignored. But it can make people reluctant to have a relationship with someone who may be promoted and then have to break up or else risk their careers.
Body Cams
- How does Stanton's body cam record incriminating footage of West's beating after he turned it off?
- Recall the off-camera conversation between West and Stanton earlier in the episode. Stanton, when getting West to take off his body cam, says to West that the cameras record up to two minutes prior to the point of being fully turned on. West was probably able to see (through his less-swollen right eye) that Stanton's camera was off and took a chance that there would be something incriminating within those two minutes.
- Bodycams function like Civilian Dashcams in this respect; they hold a volatile buffer in memory of the last minute or two, which is saved to permanent storage if the user hits a button (or, in the case of a dashcam, if it detects a sudden spike on its accelerometer, indicating a collision). In this way, if an officer finds themselves in a situation that initially appeared calm but is now rapidly escalating, when they turn on the camera they know that the whole thing will be on the record. This feature has caught several officers red-handed in criminal behavior.
Nolan's Shooting
- Why in Season 1, Episode 8 is Nolan's shooting of the suspect treated as if it is the first time he has taken a life? In the Pilot, he was involved in a shootout that saw Tim Bradford wounded. Not to mention all the cases we don't see. While people have been surviving shootouts more often (due to faster response times by medical personnel), it's not a guarantee. Cops are trained to shoot center-mass, where there are A LOT of vital organs. Are they trying to say all the people Nolan has potentially shot have survived?
- Yes. Clearly. It's not even ambiguous. That is literally what they are saying.
