The following program was taped over a 16 day period in Leningrad and Moscow by six camera teams - three American, three Russian. Soviet officials allowed the crews unprecedented access to all police operations and permitted all footage to be cleared without censorship or review. There is no Bad Boys Theme/Russian music instead – quick shots of a car pulling away, a woman screaming, a drunk man passed out, a man attacking a cameraman, a dead woman, a fire, a fight, a stalled van, a suspect arrested, a man tied to a chair in a cell, women, children, a man holding his head, a police station, motorcycles, motorcycle cops, police wagons and cops getting ready for work. Tonight, for the first time in history, thanks to the new policy of Glasnost, the world will ride along with the Soviet Militia, Russia’s national police force. An international television event, direct from Moscow and Leningrad. This is the reality of the men and women who protect and serve in the Soviet Union. (Soviet Militia Training Academy 6:30 AM) The commander explains what is needed to get in the academy. You have to be highly educated, knowledgeable in many areas, strong, physically prepared and often recruits don’t realize how difficult their course is and can’t make it through the rigorous training. The alarm goes off, men wake up, go to the bathrooms, wash up, shave and brush their teeth. Outside they run in formation on the grounds, in gray uniforms. (6:55 AM Morning Exercises) They line up in a courtyard and a man at a podium instructs them. (7:30 AM Martial Arts Class) Men spar and are taken down. One man pulls a gun on another and is grabbed and kicked, another grabs a knife and is taken down. Many try the move with the knife. The instructor shows to punch the man with the gun in the face, kick his knee and take him down. (8:25 AM Combat Course) Outside men run up ramps, with fires set around them, bullets are fired, sirens wail, they go through sewers, under barbed wire, up walls, through holes, on balance beams, kick targets, take down opponents one at a time, run to a firing range, grab pistols, load them and shot at distant targets. (9:00 AM Dress Inspection) They are in formation as they march in front of a podium. The commander says in his personal opinion only a real man can become a cop. (7:30 PM Leningrad) Alcoholism is a real problem, especially on national holidays when people want to celebrate. (May Day Celebration) They detain people who are drinking in public. In a park men have fallen over on the ground, they are pulled up and taken into a truck. Their alcoholism is a big problem, their role is to get them treatment for the social evil. The most boisterous of them go into the police van. People march in front of large pictures of Marx and hold up pictures of Lenin. (Drunk Tank Central District) The men are loaded into a cell, the sign above reads “For medical services provided the charge is 25 rubles.” A man is in his underwater tied to a chair and going crazy. Street Patrol Central District (2:00 PM Burglary Call) Cops go up stairs into a small apartment. A woman speaks in English who says they took her jewelry, including a ring her father gave her when she was 16, now she is 30. It can’t be replaced. She wants to buy furniture, what she has is 40 years old. She lifts the mattress to show the bed has holes. She had 800 rubles, they took it all, now she has nothing. There is a small girl playing in the room. The people have nothing and can buy nothing. (7:30 PM Nevsky District) They spot a man wanted by police for smuggling and want to get him outside of his house so he can’t warn his friends. They walk over, grab him and lead him a way. A woman nearby starts screaming, wailing and tries to stop them. They quickly drive away. She wants to know what he did and where are they taking him. (8:45 PM Suspects are Detained at Police Station) An old woman hacks, coughs and her eyes water. A young man with bad teeth laughs. It’s central dispatch where all emergency is collected. The female dispatcher sends out an APB. Motorcycles head out. Vyvorgsky District (9:50 PM Raid Suspected Drug House) They say to open the door or they’ll break in. They ask a little boy who walks up if he lives there, if his dad is there and if he has a key. He says he does, he is, but has no key. One cop starts kicking the door until it’s loosened. They file their way inside. The man says why should he open the door for them. He didn’t want to, his house is his fortress. They violated his house. He’s dressed and ready to go. They search the place and find pills. They crush it and dissolve it in the water. The kid climbs up on top of a cabinet and pulls down a bag and shows them a bottle of drugs. He’s known it a long time and has reported it to the police, but they didn’t respond and never came. At first he didn’t know what his dad was doing. He looked in the slit of the door and say what they were doing. They were injecting drugs. His parents have been divorced 7 years and his dad comes with his friends to turn it into a den of drug addicts. Let him be punished, maybe it is better for him to serve his sentence, maybe it will reform him and after his sentence, maybe he’ll speak to him. (Good Friday Mass Leningrad) People in church light many candles and chant. They go to a murder scene. The homicide investigator is a woman who says his brother killed him. There is nothing unusual about it. He used a knife. The place is a mess. (Interrogation of Murder Suspect) At the station he says he was drinking with his friends on the street. He was drinking at home with his brother too. A witness to the crime says they fought and the younger brother said, “Now I will stab you to death.” The man says he went into the kitchen, got a knife, came back and stabbed him (Easter Sunday) On holidays domestic disputes can lead to murders. A woman stabbed her boyfriend, there is foul play because the body was moved from the scene and put into bed. They talk to the woman who is older. They want her to tell the truth. She says she’s very tired of life, just tired, tired of living like this. The man is in bed and they lift him up. She cries and says is she getting arrested. She admits killing Nicholas. She wanted to take him out. Back at the church the priest is leading a procession and lighting candles. Part 2 (Patrol Shift Begins) Leninksy District - cops are given orders and go out to their cars and bikes as patriotic music plays. A call comes to car 426 to respond to trade school #16. (Knife Fight a School) It's between Russian and Azerbaijanian students. Some boys from the republic were studying in the school and the girls are always the center of the fights. It's the girl or the nationality. A man says they had a dance in their disco and he was responsible for the music. Then he saw a fight, stopped the music, ran over and saw a guy on the right with a cut vein. They are bandaging him up and people crowd the ambulance. One kid says it's his friend and he wants to go with him. They ask the man how come he didn't see who used the knife. He was playing the music and called the ambulance. There were people running all over. They talk to one kid and ask him to calm down and what's wrong with him. Why does he have blood on his hands? He just fell down, right there. His arm is cut with a knife, how did it happen? He goes to show them, then says let me go, I'm innocent. They take him away and go to the hospital to check the victim. The room is all stone, like a prison. (Crack Down on Motorcycle Gangs) People drive fast on bikes at night. One blonde girl poses for the cameras. The bikes are like Honda scooters. A cop says it was a big group who wouldn't stop, so they chased them and forced them to stop at the checkpoint so they could check their IDs. A few didn't have licenses or ID. So their bikes are taken and they are in trouble. Some are drunk and are checked out. The fine is 300 rubles, loss of license for 5 years and 2 years at a correctional labor camp. They ask a man why he ran away from the cops. He felt like it and the cops are full of crap. They check a woman and she says not to touch her. They aren't, they just want to see her ID. One girl has a long tail attached to her helmet. She won't cooperate and they take her away. She had no license plate or ID. At the station they tell her to put her keys down, but she won't. They go to take her to jail and she fights them. She wraps her extending keychain around her arm and refuses to let them have them. She struggles and they say she won't get away and if they have her keys they are guaranteed she won't get away. They have her empty her coat and put her in a cell. (Rooftop Surveillance of Suspicious Cars) Cops climb up stairs and have walkie talkies so they can report down to the street. Other cops go down. Some stay and use binoculars. They check on a car that has been parked for 90 minutes. As they pull up they people put on their lights. They go and ask for their ID. It is a little blue car with a large Bosch sticker on the front, two big cracks on the windshield and a woman driver who won't come out. They lock the doors and won't let them in, it happens often. She drives off and two cops jump on her car until she stops. They ask her what right does she have to drive with two cops on her car. She says don't yell at me, she won't give her keys, you have no right. He says he has every right, she has resisted the police. She is obligated to show her ID to the police when they ask. She won't come out or give up her keys, so one cop gets in and makes her drive to the police station. Then they go to the house of prostitute who picks up men to rob them and serve her a warrant. There is a man there with no shirt in his underwear who says he's been working and takes them to the woman sleeping in the back. They tell her to get up and come with them. She says to film her and thanks them, they are doing lots of things to people, she is talking the truth, they want to steal from her and do what they want, either way she is going to jail, she will tell everything. She is naked and wants to get dressed. The man is proud of a painting he has by Restnatov of a woman and girls at a table. She combs her hair and says this is goodbye for good, how can she trust them, it's not possible, she can't trust anyone. She cries and goes back and gets her jacket and the cops are very patient. He says they are taking her away and will bring her back, not to worry. He's so tired, has no job. On the way down in the elevator she passes out. They say to get her some water, tell her to get on her feet and help her up, she can walk and take her to the station. She admits what she has done was not very nice, it was the first time it happened to her, she is afraid no court will want to hear her case. She had no judgment of her own caution when she visited a house, stole money and is ashamed to have to look into the face of the man she stole from. They put her in a dark stone cell. (2:00 AM Officers Off-Duty) Cops sit and cook huge shishkabobs on an open fire in a field while one of them sits on a log and plays a small acoustic guitar and sings Russian songs. They sing along to the second verse: "We may not drive fancy cars, but you can not get away from us. If you are thinking of committing a crime you better stay out of our way. If you are thinking of committing a crime you better stay out of our way." They keep singing as the credits roll. AKA Former Soviet Union
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