The Mod Squad was a groundbreaking TV show that ran from 1968 to 1972 about three hip young people recruited to work as undercover agents for the Los Angeles Police Department. The three were counterculture types that represented the fears of late 60s America: Pete Cochran (Michael Cole) was a long-haired white guy who, after being thrown out of his parents’ Beverly Hills home, stole a car. Lincoln Hayes (Clarence Williams III) was a black guy with an Afro from a family of thirteen kids who got arrested during the Watts riots. Julie Barnes (Peggy Lipton) was a flower child who’d run away from her mom’s San Francisco home and been arrested for vagrancy. After fatherly Captain Adam Greer (Tige Andrews) has one of his undercover agents murdered on assignment, he gets the brilliant idea to persuade these three rebellious youths to step in. During four years of weekly episodes these three reformed dropouts investigate everything from car theft and counterfeiting rings to narcotics, murder and the mob.
The first Mod Squad episode appeared on September 24, 1968 smack dab in the middle of one of the most tumultuous years in American history. On April 4 Martin Luther King was assassinated followed by Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy on June 5. Black Panther Bobby Hutton was shot dead by Oakland police in April. College students were taking over buildings and getting beat up and shot. The Vietnam War plunged from the TET offensive to My Lai and other massacres as activists burned draft cards with napalm back home.
In this context, imagine how cheerful and reassuring it would be to terrified Americans to watch three counterculture young people return to the path of law and order under the watch of a kindly police captain. The show was a hit. It was nominated for Emmys and Golden Globes and received a nomination in 1970 for the Mystery Writers of America’s ‘Best Mystery Teleplay.’ Peggy Lipton, a stunning blonde with an innocent look, only 22 when cast for the show, was the it girl of the moment. (By the way, if you want to see Peggy Lipton, rewatch some Twin Peaks episodes. She was Norma Jennings, owner of the Double R Diner.)
Nearly every Hollywood celebrity made an appearance during the show’s four-year run. Harrison Ford is in the first episode, followed by Richard Pryor, Sammy Davis Jr., Andy Griffith, Vincent Price, Desi Arnaz Jr., Sugar Ray Robinson and on and on.
The Mod Squad was one of the first TV shows to feature an African-American star, and it took on controversial topics like abortion, domestic violence, slumlords, racism and PTSD among Vietnam vets. It provided glamorous action-packed entertainment in a cop-show package. Only one problem. The show is a deceitful disturbing lie about police use of confidential informants that conditioned viewers to accept the practice as effective and harmless. Sixty years later we’re still living the consequences.
A December 6, 2015 episode of 60 Minutes estimated that around 100,000 confidential informants work for police in the US at any given time. Eighty percent of all drug cases rely on confidential informants. These are guesses because there is almost no public or judicial scrutiny of what goes on in police use of CIs. Police recruit minors as young as 14 or 15. They use people with addiction or mental health issues. They recruit a ton of college students. And an unconscionable number of CIs have been killed while informing.
One aspect of The Mod Squad’s set-up is true. Julie Barnes faces only a charge of vagrancy when she’s pressured to work undercover for the LAPD. An officer interviewed on the 60 Minutes show admits that most young people pressured to do drug buys from dangerous criminals are only facing minor marijuana charges which, even in states where the substance is still illegal, wouldn’t lead to a jail term. But police use the prospect of avoiding jail to scare young people into informing.
Take Rachel Hoffman, a Florida State graduate hoping to attend grad or culinary school. In 2008 she was in drug court when she faced a second marijuana charge. The Tallahassee Police pressured her to work as a CI promising she could clean up her record. They put a wire in her purse and sent her out with $13,000 to buy cocaine, ecstasy and a gun. Two days later they found her body, riddled with bullets. The public outrage led Florida to pass Rachel’s Law mandating that police inform potential CIs that they have the right to consult a lawyer and that police can’t guarantee immunity or a reduced sentence. The typical recruitment of a CI occurs before indictment, so police aren’t obliged to read them their rights or let them speak to an attorney. Rachel’s law also requires a supervisor’s approval to recruit and some controls on paperwork.
But there was no Rachel’s Law in North Dakota to help Andrew Sadek. As a college student in a state with draconian drug penalties, he was arrested for selling $80 worth of marijuana on a felony charge. An officer in a narcotics task force told him he could avoid a long prison sentence if he agreed to do six drug buys for them. He was last seen leaving his dorm on May 1, 2014 to do just that. His body was found in a river two months later, a gunshot wound in the head and a backpack full of stones strapped to his body. The police called it a suicide. An investigation concluded no wrongdoing by police. No killer has been charged and the gun was never found. His parents’ wrongful death suit was thrown out of court. But Andrew’s parents campaigned for reforms and Andrew’s Law, similar to Rachel’s Law, passed in 2017.
In another egregious case a narcotics unit in Oxford, Mississippi was using students at the University as CIs. Officers would threaten them with long prison sentences and offer leniency in exchange for a set number of drug buys, finding the targets themselves. This created a veritable industry of terrified students out hunting for drug vendors they could buy from to fulfill their quotas.
The stories go on and on, with untrained unarmed civilians, often minors, sent into lethally dangerous situations under coercion and threat. Most states still don’t have legislation with common sense limits such as no use of minors, a requirement to inform people about their rights, oversight of what cops are doing and public transparency. Legal analysts call these kinds of activities ‘authorized criminality’ and argue they are incompatible with policing in a democratic society. CIs are essentially unpaid untrained undercover agents acting out of fear. They also make bad witnesses because their motivation to avoid jail undermines the reliability of their testimony. If this kind of activity is truly necessary for public safety, maybe trained salaried police officers should do it.
So to The Mod Squad, you were cool and pretty and fun. But you lied to us. Let me know what you think!
This is fascinating (and disturbing). I didn't realize that indictments happen prior to Miranda rights being read to suspects, so I went on a little research detour (dove down a Google rabbit hole!) and realized just how little I know of the law! There really should be more protection for confidential informants. Thanks for educating me on this topic.
Hi Meredith, I was shocked and angered by what I found out about this topic. I had no idea before looking into it, but I think most people are unaware of how this system functions. That's perhaps part of the reason it continues in this dangerous manner. The idea of minors being put in this position outrages me. Thanks for your comment.