Donna Dillon and her husband had been winding down and on the point of watch Netflix after spending a super summer season night of their house’s pool with their 4 youngsters.
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 mentioned.
“Is Jacob OK?” Dillon yelled as she got here out in a panic, considering one thing occurred to her son who had simply left house, 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 realized she was beneath 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 automobile, she mentioned.
A yr after her arrest, Dillon filed a lawsuit in June in opposition to Knox County, the sheriff and 4 deputies, alleging the scary 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 will now not take part within the show, with out offering a cause. Legal representatives for the sheriff’s workplace declined to touch upon the case because 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 performing 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 individuals with elevated risk-taking for “made-for-television” arrests and current moral issues, usually on the expense of marginalized communities.
Just final yr, a Maryland man sued police and the producers of “On Patrol: Live,” alleging he was wrongfully arrested and portrayed in a false mild 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 analogous 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,” mentioned Brandon Golob, professor of criminology, law and society on the University of California, Irvine.
Law enforcement officers who assist collaborating with such exhibits say there’s worth in sharing a real-life, unfiltered glimpse into their career 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,” mentioned 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 career isn’t leisure.
When he was the Washington, DC, police chief for practically a decade, Charles Ramsey declined to associate with a police reality tv show. The work is severe, might be harmful and it’s not truthful for individuals officers encounter who’re going by means of a disaster to be filmed, Ramsey mentioned.
“This is real stuff,” mentioned Ramsey, additionally a NCS 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 season evening in June 2025 nonetheless flash day by 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 mentioned.
“I’ve just always been a baseball mom, I’ve been everybody’s mom, everybody’s grandmother. We have so many friends,” Dillon mentioned. “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 mentioned the cost was not domestic-related, however relatively for a 2022 warrant on misdemeanor assault, in keeping 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 mentioned. She says it was based mostly on a false accusation.
One of the important thing allegations in Dillon’s lawsuit is that deputies used extreme pressure 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 automobile was suspended for three days “for keeping her confined in the van for an extended time,” the go well with mentioned.
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 appropriate to evaluate and request modifying of footage that would probably endanger residents and officers or compromise departmental operations, in keeping with the show’s network, Reelz.
While manufacturing for the show declined to remark, a supply near the producers confirmed to NCS the footage of Dillon’s arrest by no means aired and there aren’t 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 go well with that says law enforcement additionally acted extra openly within the presence of a digicam crew.
In that case, the household of Javier Ambler filed a lawsuit in opposition to Williamson County in Texas for his wrongful loss of life, 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 after they tried to cease Ambler, a Black man, for a visitors violation in 2019.
The incident escalated to a automobile chase and ended with two Williamson County officers tasing Ambler, who was bodily restrained and handcuffed, as he mentioned a number of occasions he couldn’t breathe and had congestive coronary heart failure, courtroom paperwork mentioned.
Ambler died after the arrest and his loss of life was dominated a murder. No footage from that evening 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 in opposition to police killings and racism.
A&E attributed the “Live PD” determination 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 beneath the Fox Nation streaming service and “Live PD” got here again in 2022 as a reboot beneath 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 mentioned. “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 — other than 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 NCS its “current administration does not plan to participate in ‘Live PD’” or comparable TV applications sooner or later and is focusing “solely on serving and protecting our community.”
Ambler’s arrest filmed on digicam grew to become a flashpoint within the nationwide dialog about race and policing, specialists mentioned, partially as a result of disparities in police reality tv exhibits.
Research has shown they disproportionately depict Black and Hispanic individuals as felony suspects whereas White characters are extra usually 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, mentioned 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 state of affairs too far
As somebody who had all the time been pro-police and a supporter of the Blue Lives Matter motion, Dillon mentioned 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 mentioned.
Dillon’s case isn’t nearly one particular person’s expertise, nevertheless it’s a “window into this systemic media effects problem,” Golob mentioned.
Scholars have used the time period “copaganda” to explain how law enforcement officials in these exhibits are sometimes portrayed in a purely heroic mild with out the complicated reality of crime and policing, in keeping with Golob.
Former law enforcement officers like Ramsey who oppose working with such exhibits imagine that, in some circumstances, when an officer is aware of they’re on digicam, it will possibly change their conduct, he mentioned.
There’s “unspoken pressure” as half of the pure dynamic of such exhibits for police to ship content material that’s curated and won’t in any other case happen if the filming was purely documentary, mentioned LaChance.
Dillon’s case is only one instance of how “copaganda pushing too far” can backfire on law enforcement, in keeping with Paul Kaplan, professor of felony 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 keeping 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 mentioned. But she retreated after the arrest, fearful and recovering from an incident she describes as “horrific.”
“They were so ugly to me,” Dillon mentioned. “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.”