Getting pulled over might not only get you a traffic ticket, but also your 15 minutes of fame.
A film company from Toronto, Canada came to Chico to film the Chico Police Department for a 10-part documentary series that will air on the G4 television Network.
Chico Police Chief Mike Maloney agreed to have his officers filmed by Cineflix for a series based on the relationship between the police and the community in towns that have colleges or universities.
“It’s not like a ‘Cops’ show or a ‘Busted’ type show where they are looking to showcase the drama of police work,” Maloney said.
Documentaries tend to be more objective and factual in showing what life is like as a police officer, he said.
The crew was in Chico for about three weeks filming Wednesday day shifts and Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, Maloney said. They finished filming Saturday.
“They appear to be aware of the history that we’ve had in relation to Halloween but the truth is they could have picked probably just about any community in the nation where there is a college and they would have gotten to see some significant activity around Halloween,” Maloney said.
The camera crew didn’t seem to be trying to portray the officers or the college community in a negative way, Maloney said.
The first episode is scheduled to air in early December, he said. It is unclear as to whether Chico State will have its own episode in the series or just appear in clips of an episode.
“Our feeling is that anytime that we have an opportunity to share with the public the realities and duties of being a police officer in a town like Chico, we stand to benefit from it,” Maloney said. “The truth is what we do is not secret. We’re not looking to hide what we do or how we do it.”
People who were filmed had to give consent to Cineflix by signing a waiver that was provided by the camera crew.
“We’re not forcing people to be on film that don’t want to be on film,” Maloney said.
During one of the weekends of filming, junior Lindsay Dwyer saw the camera crew outside a party that had been broken up by cops and was worried about being filmed.
Once she knew the camera crew was doing a documentary about officers’ relationship with the college community, her reaction changed.
“I wouldn’t mind being on camera so much because it’s not a focus on how basically destructive the college kids are and what a negative influence they can have on a community,” she said. “It’s more about the cops.”
Cineflix also called the University Police over the summer, but, at the time of contact, the police were unable to accommodate the crew, said University Police Chief Eric Reichel.
“I don’t think it’s going to shed a negative light on Chico,” Reichel said. “If the filming crew sees me out and wants to talk with me, I have no problem talking with them.”
Reichel thinks the film crew came to Chico because it’s an amazing town and has a lot to brag about, especially the close relationship the campus police have with the city police, he said.
“I think they are going to see some very positive relationships,” Reichel said.
Though there could be concerns about the film crew having an undisclosed agenda regarding how they want to portray officers at work, Maloney sees no harm in the production.
“At some point you just have to be trusting and that things are the way they have represented them to be,” he said.
Lindsey Barrett can be reached at
lbarrett@theorion.com
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