Donna Dillon and her husband had been winding down and on the brink of watch Netflix after spending an excellent summer time night of their dwelling’s pool with their 4 kids.
Then they heard a bang on the door.
Dillon peered out the window at her normally quiet Knoxville, Tennessee, cul-de-sac and noticed round 10 officers within the driveway, together with a cameraman filming for the “On Patrol: Live” police tv reality show, she stated.
“Is Jacob OK?” Dillon yelled as she got here out in a panic, considering one thing occurred to her son who had simply left dwelling, physique digicam footage confirmed.
The expression on her face modified from concern to pure shock as an officer got here behind her and put her arms in handcuffs, the video confirmed.
Restrained on her entrance steps subsequent to her 17-year-old son, Dillon discovered she was below arrest on a 3-year-old warrant she says she didn’t know existed and stemmed from a dismissed misdemeanor cost. “If this is on any social media, you all are going to be in trouble,” Dillon informed the officers.
She pleaded with the officers to handcuff her arms in entrance to keep away from inflicting her ache as a result of she was recovering from shoulder substitute surgical procedure, the video confirmed. While they modified {the handcuffs} after about 5 minutes, Dillon was saved in that agonizing place for greater than 4 hours within the again of a patrol car, she stated.
A 12 months after her arrest, Dillon filed a lawsuit in June towards Knox County, the sheriff and 4 deputies, alleging the horrifying ordeal solely occurred as a result of they had been filming for the show and used a stale warrant to make “dramatic content.”
About per week earlier than the lawsuit, the sheriff’s workplace introduced it could now not take part within the show, with out offering a motive. Legal representatives for the sheriff’s workplace declined to touch upon the case on account of pending litigation.
The sheriff’s workplace wrote on social media the show was an opportunity to “share a glimpse into the commitment and sacrifice of the men and women who proudly serve this community” whereas appearing with “professionalism, compassion, and dedication.”
Donna Dillon begs to not go to jail in police physique digicam video
Such police reality TV exhibits have lengthy confronted criticism over allegations they exploit actual folks with elevated risk-taking for “made-for-television” arrests and current moral issues, typically on the expense of marginalized communities.
Just final 12 months, a Maryland man sued police and the producers of “On Patrol: Live,” alleging he was wrongfully arrested and portrayed in a false gentle in an aired episode. In 2024, a Texas county agreed to pay $2.5 million to a resident who claimed the sheriff’s workplace staged his son’s arrest in 2020, broadcast on an identical show referred to as “Live PD.”
But even when the digicam footage doesn’t air on a police reality tv show, like in Dillon’s case, the fallout can nonetheless be damaging.
“When there’s an entertainment value attached… You push aside all of these other considerations that come into play about people’s humanities and rights,” stated Brandon Golob, professor of criminology, law and society on the University of California, Irvine.
Law enforcement officers who help collaborating with such exhibits say there’s worth in sharing a real-life, unfiltered glimpse into their occupation with the general public and highlighting how they serve communities.
“Seeing it all as it really happens allows the public to reach their own conclusions and form their own ideas and opinions,” stated Lawrence Police Department Capt. Tracey Cantrell, whose company additionally participated in “On Patrol: Live.”
But others in law enforcement have turned down requests to be featured on these applications, arguing their occupation shouldn’t be leisure.
When he was the Washington, DC, police chief for almost a decade, Charles Ramsey declined to associate with a police reality tv show. The work is severe, could be harmful and it’s not honest for folks officers encounter who’re going by a disaster to be filmed, Ramsey stated.
“This is real stuff,” stated Ramsey, additionally a CNN law enforcement analyst. “Hauling around a camera crew is not something that I think is in the best interest of the department, the citizens, the city, anybody.”
The occasions of that summer time night time in June 2025 nonetheless flash every day in Dillon’s thoughts.
She underwent remedy and needed to begin over in her post-surgery restoration after it was exacerbated by her arrest, Dillon stated.
“I’ve just always been a baseball mom, I’ve been everybody’s mom, everybody’s grandmother. We have so many friends,” Dillon stated. “It’s affected our family. I was embarrassed to go out in public, and just the fear that it caused me.”
Dillon says she was confused as she tried to inform officers questioning her that she wasn’t a risk.
At first, an officer informed Dillon she was being arrested on a misdemeanor home assault cost, the footage confirmed. But a couple of minutes later, the officer stated the cost was not domestic-related, however moderately for a 2022 warrant on misdemeanor assault, in line with the footage.
The cost, which has since been dropped, was associated to a dispute Dillon had with her former neighbors who had since moved and didn’t pursue the case, her lawsuit stated. She says it was primarily based on a false accusation.
One of the important thing allegations in Dillon’s lawsuit is that deputies used extreme drive through the arrest, regardless of her pleas, leaving her with ache, swelling and a loss of vary of movement in her surgically repaired shoulder when she was handcuffed for 4 hours. She additional alleges she was denied medical care when she arrived on the jail, the place she stayed for over seven hours.
The Knox County sheriff later knowledgeable Dillon that the driving force of the patrol car was suspended for three days “for keeping her confined in the van for an extended time,” the swimsuit stated.
Dillon is looking for compensatory and punitive damages for violations of her rights protected by the Fourth and 14th Amendments.
See the second Donna Dillon was arrested after officers and a cameraman confirmed up at her entrance door.
Police departments on “On Patrol: Live” don’t have editorial management over the show’s content material, however they do have the fitting to overview and request enhancing of footage that might probably endanger residents and officers or compromise departmental operations, in line with the show’s network, Reelz.
While manufacturing for the show declined to remark, a supply near the producers confirmed to CNN the footage of Dillon’s arrest by no means aired and there are not any plans to take action.
Still, Dillon’s lawsuit accuses the sheriff’s division of “timing or staging warrant service and arrests to create dramatic, broadcast-worthy encounters” for “On Patrol: Live.” The county and deputies concerned signed an acknowledgement of the lawsuit on July 9, giving them 60 days to file a solution or movement.
Dillon’s lawsuit comes amid a modest resurgence of such police reality TV exhibits after a short — however sudden — lull, spurred partially by a lethal arrest and one other swimsuit that says law enforcement additionally acted extra overtly within the presence of a digicam crew.
In that case, the household of Javier Ambler filed a lawsuit towards Williamson County in Texas for his wrongful dying, alleging the sheriff inspired officers to “engage in dangerous, high-risk police tactics because it made for more entertaining television in service to Live PD.”
A digicam crew for “Live PD,” the predecessor to “On Patrol: Live,” was driving together with deputies once they tried to cease Ambler, a Black man, for a site visitors violation in 2019.
The incident escalated to a car chase and ended with two Williamson County officers tasing Ambler, who was bodily restrained and handcuffed, as he stated a number of occasions he couldn’t breathe and had congestive coronary heart failure, courtroom paperwork stated.
Ambler died after the arrest and his dying was dominated a murder. No footage from that night time was aired.
Cancellations of each “Live PD” and “Cops” got here in response to outrage over revelations the arrest was filmed — and throughout a shift in public notion of police after the homicide of George Floyd in 2020, which led to nationwide protests towards police killings and racism.
A&E attributed the “Live PD” choice to “respect for the families of George Floyd and others who have lost their lives.”
But the exhibits didn’t disappear for lengthy. “Cops” returned to air in 2021 below the Fox Nation streaming service and “Live PD” got here again in 2022 as a reboot below the brand new identify “On Patrol: Live.”
“They all came back in different iterations, and so it suggests that the cycle is perhaps self-reinforcing or resilient” to public stress and moments of accountability, Golob stated. “The 2020 cancellations may have removed the shows from traditional networks, but less regulated streaming platforms were quick to swoop in to meet the demand.”
Most states lack legal guidelines governing digicam crews on police ride-alongs — except for Texas, which has a statewide ban prompted by Ambler’s death — and there’s no federal regulation, he added.
Williamson County agreed to pay a $5 million settlement after the lawsuit from his household and each officers concerned within the arrest had been later cleared on all charges, together with manslaughter.
The Williamson County Sheriff’s Office informed CNN its “current administration does not plan to participate in ‘Live PD’” or related TV applications sooner or later and is focusing “solely on serving and protecting our community.”
Ambler’s arrest filmed on digicam turned a flashpoint within the nationwide dialog about race and policing, consultants stated, partially because of the disparities in police reality tv exhibits.
Research has shown they disproportionately depict Black and Hispanic folks as legal suspects whereas White characters are extra typically portrayed as law enforcement officials who had been additionally extra doubtless than suspects “to engage in aggressive behaviors.”
Still, the demand for such exhibits introduced them again to life. Their resurgence since 2020 has partially been pushed by an opposing response to anti-police actions, stated Daniel LaChance, a authorized scholar at Emory University and co-author of “Crimesploitation.”
“There’s a hunger out there from folks who are conservative, pro-law enforcement and are looking for positive representations of police that also reaffirm the basic ways they think about crime.”
‘Copaganda’ can push a scenario too far
As somebody who had at all times been pro-police and a supporter of the Blue Lives Matter motion, Dillon stated her first damaging expertise with law enforcement has upended her views.
“It’s just taken away all my sense of trust and security. I just want accountability,” she stated.
Dillon’s case isn’t nearly one particular person’s expertise, however it’s a “window into this systemic media effects problem,” Golob stated.
Scholars have used the time period “copaganda” to explain how law enforcement officials in these exhibits are sometimes portrayed in a purely heroic gentle with out the advanced reality of crime and policing, in line with Golob.
Former law enforcement officers like Ramsey who oppose working with such exhibits consider that, in some instances, when an officer is aware of they’re on digicam, it may well change their habits, he stated.
There’s “unspoken pressure” as half of the pure dynamic of such exhibits for police to ship content material that’s curated and may not in any other case happen if the filming was purely documentary, stated LaChance.
Dillon’s case is only one instance of how “copaganda pushing too far” can backfire on law enforcement, in line with Paul Kaplan, professor of legal justice at San Diego State University.
The ordeal displayed the inherent dangers of the phenomenon, with officers “bringing too much weight or heat to a very non-serious kind of situation,” in line with Kaplan, who co-authored “Crimesploitation” with LaChance.
Dillon and her husband, who was a highschool baseball coach for 9 years, are closely concerned of their group, she stated. But she retreated after the arrest, fearful and recovering from an incident she describes as “horrific.”
“They were so ugly to me,” Dillon stated. “It was so obvious that it was just for fame. It wasn’t for justice. They came in on my neighborhood like I had killed someone.”
