What Abrams doesn’t seem to grasp here is that his show’s contextless “transparency” showed only one side of every encounter—the police’s.

If you watch the show, you will see plenty of solid police professionalism and even kindness and compassion on display. But the same problem persists. In another scene in South Carolina, some cops pull up in a suburban neighborhood in the middle of a day because somebody called 911 claiming a fight was going on. There was no fight. It was a group of middle-aged suburban black men (all alumni from the same fraternity) having a barbecue. Everything was handled fine from the police’s end. But we never find out why somebody called the police on them, how often that sort of thing happens to these barbecuers, or what the men themselves think about having cops show up.

Live PD often inadvertently illustrates something the Defund Police movement talks about a lot: that officers with guns and body armor and Tasers are being sent to deal with people who aren’t committing significant crimes against people or property. One episode opens with deputies in Florida responding to a minor fight between a clearly drunk woman and her ex. Five sheriff’s department vehicles rolled into a cul-de-sac to deal with this. It is extremely uncomfortable to watch, unless you find somebody else’s misery and loneliness entertaining. Sadly, some people do.