Live PD allowed police departments to edit out footage of police brutality and officers using bad language

The Marshall Project

The canceled A&E reality show's contracts allowed police departments and officers to have final say over whether footage airs. Despite its title, Live PD airs its "live" segments with a delay with a police department representative in the control room. According to a new study by The Marshall Project, Live PD fulfilled requests to not show police brutality and other offensive content. "The show’s production company and law enforcement agencies touted Live PD as a transparent look into policing in America," report The Marshall Project's Cary Aspinwall and Sachi McClendon. "But behind the scenes, the show allowed agencies to ask to eliminate footage before and after the program aired, according to emails, video clips and records The Marshall Project obtained from law-enforcement agencies. The scenes they asked Live PD to delete included deputies forcefully grabbing a woman named as a victim of domestic violence out of her Washington state home, and a Louisiana officer possibly calling a Black man 'boy.' The program didn’t use parts or all of the video in these and several instances when officers didn’t approve, the records show. The Marshall Project requested records from 47 agencies that participated in the show, and received documents from more than 20 of them, showing that officers were routinely allowed to review footage before it aired. Thirteen of those agencies asked the show not to broadcast certain encounters, according to the records."