An inside look at the NYPD
By FRAZIER MOORE
ASSOCIATED PRESS
"NYPD 24-7" opens with a call about a suicide in a Manhattan subway station, where the body lies along the tracks below the station platform. Detective Steve DiSchiavi has seen it all in his career, but sometimes there's a twist. Like this time: This guy had wanted to be killed by the train, but when it stopped short, he went to Plan B and killed himself with the pistol he was carrying.
"Kinda like being a Boy Scout, I guess," says DiSchiavi in world-weary wonder. "Always being prepared."
Then a call comes in that a young woman has been stabbed in the lobby of her boyfriend's apartment building and clings uncertainly to life.
Bagging the assailant consumes DiSchiavi and fellow cops from the Manhattan South homicide squad as the winding, often frustrating case unfolds. By the end of this premiere of the ABC News documentary series, they have their man.
Airing at 10 p.m. Tuesday, the seven-episode "NYPD 24-7" occupies the usual time slot of "NYPD Blue." Dennis Franz, star of the long-running cop drama, serves as narrator.
Term of coverage
In the style of earlier ABC News miniseries "Hopkins 24-7" (an inside look at a hospital) and "Boston 24-7" (chronicling a year with a big-city mayor), "NYPD 24-7" shadows members of New York's Homicide, Special Victims and Crime Scene units over a 16-month period.
"We see stuff that nobody should have to see," DiSchiavi says. Here's a chance for viewers to get a glimpse.