John Buntin is a staff writer at Governing Magazine where he covers crime and urban affairs. A former resident of Southern California, he now lives in Washington, D.C. with his family.
Jack Webb's tight-lipped portrayal of Sgt. Joe Friday on the radio and television series "Dragnet" set the tone for a generation of police dramas.
Over the years Webb had achieved considerable success as the producer of such television shows as "Emergency" and "Adam 12," and as the star of such motion pictures as "Pete Kelly's Blues" and "The D.I."
But he remained best known to the public as the stone-faced Los Angeles Police detective of the 1950s and 1960s who greeted audiences each week with a terse: "My name is Friday... I'm a cop."
During the shows Friday and a succession of partners labored through investigative interviews frequently cut short by the request, "Just the facts, ma'am."
The immensely popular shows, which strove more for auth
