User Reviews

A "black and white" is pumped full of lead by a criminal dropping Benzadrene pills and boozing on cheap port wine, right before he and a partner (played by a young Corman regular Dick Miller) robbed a liquor store (they are regular liquor store bandits). Sgt Joe Friday and partner Bill Gannon (Jack Webb and Harry Morgan), working the Homicide Division, are dedicated to catching the hoods responsible for the near-fatal shooting of this young rookie cop, but the case will not be easy. This episode's story pulls out all the stops, showing the determination of the police force to arrest those responsible for gunning down one of their own. You have a sketch artist using an eye witness (who runs a convenience store) to portrait photos of the bandits, an informant helping Friday through important conversations he heard spoken by the shooter mouthing off about his shotgun (it has a nickname, Mama, and the shooter claims to sleep with it!) in a bar, and the damage a belly full of lead can cause to the victim's memory. The gratifying finale, where the mere use of the victim's person in uniform can cause a criminal to crack, really caps off an intense episode establishing the importance of hard police work in order to apprehend and arrest dangerous criminals who threaten the lives of not only cops but unarmed citizens as well (well played in one particular scene where a liquor store owner, all smiles, comments on how the cops really go out of their way to catch criminals responsible for shooting those in uniform, with Webb pointing out that if a man with a gun would shoot an armed police officer what would he do to those citizens without a weapon to defend themselves).

With a title like "The Shooting", you know that you're in for something a bit more serious than your standard robbery or drug bust story line. That the victim is a police officer gives it an extra bit of gravity.

There's no ticking clock here, as Friday and Gannon take nearly a year(!) to crack the case, but the tension comes from watching them twist in the wind as they run into dead end after dead end while the trail grows ever colder.

Ultimately they nab the perps, because of course they do, but they have to use a fun bit of trick-a-roo to get them to cop to it. This sleight of hand is a satisfying way to see the two scumbags get what they deserve.