To those here old enough to remember the 1960s, Milner played Officer Pete Malloy on the TV series Adam 12 from 1968 to 1975. He was the older of two police officers depicted in the show, which is said to be the first to accurately show police procedure to the public. Having watched a few episodes recently on MeTV, I still say it may be the best cop show ever made. The 1970 episode, Log 105: Elegy for a Pig," is as strong today as it was then in its depiction of the murder of a police officer.
Whenever people ask me why I became a police officer, I tell them that I guess it had to do with the way the police were portrayed on television when I was a kid in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The best of those portrayals is, without a doubt, Martin Milner and Kent McCord in Adam 12. (It's also one of the few police shows depicting very routine calls about barking dogs, angry neighbors, and vehicle stops for minor traffic violations.)
In the last few years of my police career, I had the opportunity to train young officers, riding along in the car with them and going over standard procedure for everything we did. Occasionally, there were moments when I thought back to when I was a kid, watching Milner and McCord in that LAPD car, amazed at what I was now privileged to do.
A few months ago I dug into the internet to find some Adam 12 trivia. I learned that as we watched, there was a woman crouched down behind the actors in the back seat, reading the script lines of the dispatcher. (The radio voice was added later.) And that LAPD decided to create a unit with the call sign "One Adam 12," like the TV show, as a one-day reward for outstanding officers. (The duty was always daywork.)
And that there was a day when Kent McCord got to go on a ride-along with LAPD in that unit, and answer the radio, "One Adam 12, Roger," in a moment when life imitated art.
Today, at a time when we need good cops, I wonder how many good cops those guys inspired.
Rest in peace, sir.
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