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Daniel Ward, whose arrest at age 19 for cocaine possession was filmed for the television show Cops, in Marietta, Ga., June 20.Melissa Golden/The New York Times News Service

This is how millions of people watching the reality TV show Cops saw Daniel Ward: He and his girlfriend had been parked by a church one night in Gwinnett County, Georgia, when a police officer rolled up, asked to search their car and found a substance on the floorboard that tested positive for cocaine.

As Ward, 19, protested his innocence, the two teenagers were handcuffed and taken to jail.

“We hear the same stories over and over,” the officer told the camera.

Case closed. Go to commercial.

But a new podcast, Running from Cops, is questioning the ethics and truthfulness of Cops, a true-crime juggernaut that has spent 30 years chronicling arrests such as Ward’s from the perspective of local law enforcement. Cops rides along as officers pull over drunken drivers, throw suspects on the pavement and stride into chaotic domestic fights, serving up a gritty vérité of the streets.

The podcast, a result of 18 months of research and more than 100 interviews, raises questions about how Cops portrays low-income people and minorities. It suggests that the show puts a disproportionate focus on drug arrests and presents an uncritical view as officers physically subdue people, in one case using a stun gun 11 times on one man.

“It makes it all worse, and it completely breaks any trust of law enforcement,” said the podcast’s host, Dan Taberski. “That’s precarious as it is, but they can’t call the police because the police are working with the producers.”

In Ward’s case, in August, 2013, the reality was far different from what appeared on television. It took two tries that night for the officer, using a type of roadside drug test that has been criticized for false positives, to get a positive result for cocaine. Months later, further tests came back negative for cocaine, and the drug charges were dropped.

“People are just captivated at watching other people’s misfortunes, at watching other people fail,” said Ward, now 25.

The father-and-son producers of Cops – John and Morgan Langley – did not respond to requests for comment, nor did their lawyer. In legal papers, lawyers for the production company that makes Cops defended the show by pointing out that it did not make editorial commentary and simply recorded what was happening, allowing law enforcement and others in a segment to speak for themselves. The people shown sign release forms allowing the video to be broadcast and are not compensated for appearing.

Each episode opens with a disclaimer: “All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.”

Still, some people who have appeared on the show said it showed them at their worst. And the podcast plumbed one of the enduring mysteries of the show: Why would anyone who is being hauled off to jail agree to be on television at such a low moment?

The podcast found cases where people said they never gave their permission to appear on Cops but showed up on TV anyway. Others said they had been pressured by producers at home or outside court into signing a binding legal document, or were too intoxicated to know what they were doing.

Ward had no interest in becoming grist for reality television, but on the night he was arrested in 2013, he said, he felt pressured into signing by the officer who arrested him. He was sitting in the back of a squad car when the officer gave him a release to sign.

“He told me that either way, regardless of whether I did it or not, it would still be on TV,” Ward said in an interview. “I was already in handcuffs.”

In a statement, a spokeswoman for the company that produces Cops said that “in every case, we have a signed consent” and said the agreements were written in plain English, and people signed them willingly.

“We’ve seen many cases over the years where subjects who have given consent get ‘buyer’s remorse’ once their segment airs, making all sorts of outrageous allegations,” the statement said.

The Gwinnett County Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment, although a spokesman said the department is no longer working with the show. But The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported last month that law enforcement agencies in the county were partnering with other shows to increase morale, attract recruits and display their work to the public.

Ward and a lawyer for his then-girlfriend said that the 6-minute 28-second segment of their arrests made them appear guilty of charges that would later be dropped. Because Ward was out on bond for another drug charge, he said, he was sent back to jail for three months. The arrest put an end to his drug rehab.

In December, 2013, the segment aired, and Ward said he started getting calls from friends telling him he looked like an idiot. His mother, Susan, said her phone blew up with worried calls from people who thought they were watching a live arrest.

“To see my son in the most vulnerable and humiliating position begging for the cop to believe he is innocent, and then seeing him put in handcuffs, and to be exposed for the world to see, is heartbreaking,” she said in an e-mail.

Ward’s then-girlfriend sued the county, the officer and the company that produces Cops, but she lost in federal court. Ward said he did not have the money to sue.

Since his arrest, he has spent two years in drug rehab and moved to California, but now is back in Georgia, in recovery and working at a drug and alcohol treatment centre.

When Ward was a boy, his mother said, she often found Ward and his brother watching Cops on television. Now, Ward said, he refuses to watch.

“They’re making money off of me looking like an idiot and going to jail,” he said. “I won’t watch any of that.”

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