Post by Observer2 on May 17, 2004 5:37:11 GMT -5
I just posted in the cast and crew section about how a NYC police organization planned to honor D’Onofrio at one of their dinners. It reminded me of something I’d originally posted on the SUSA/Universal board. I hope it’s okay to re-post it here. If not, I’m sure our moderators can make it go away.
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Originally posted November 09, 2003
I talked to a couple of detectives last night, K-9 Unit detectives who were taking a break, drinking coffee at a 7-11 convenience store. I asked them if they ever watch TV shows about police – either non-fiction on Court TV or fiction, like CSI or Law & Order.
When I’ve asked a few other cops the answer has been that they didn’t have time, except for one who tapes “Cops.” Interestingly, those have been patrol officers, not detective rank. These two detectives watch Court TV forensic-type shows, and both of them also watch Criminal Intent. One specifically said he watches the two spin-offs of L&O, though he doesn’t watch the original. (Neither showed any interest in my mention of CSI.)
These were both intelligent guys, and well-read, at least within their field. At one point a mention of forensics got us into a discussion of a local case that was the first death penalty case in the US based on DNA evidence. These guys were both way too young to have been on the force at the time, but they were conversant with the details, and one rattled off the name of a book about the case, the author, the name of the suspect, and other details from memory. Some of the details were familiar to me from a Court TV show that focused on that case – one I particularly remembered because one of the local victims lived a couple of blocks from me – but I hadn’t known about the book. He also has enough general knowledge of psychology that when I mentioned that the psychologists I know like Criminal Intent, he said something like, ‘I’m sure they do. It seems to be very accurate that way.’<br>
He was the more animated of the two, and seemed to enjoy talking about the local case and about Criminal Intent. At first the other guy wasn’t sure which of the spin-offs we were talking about, and the more talkative one said something like, ‘The one with that actor, you know, he was Egger [that’s how he pronounced it, just like the wife ] in Men In Black. D’Onofrio. Oh..., uhhh..., Vincent D’Onofrio.’<br>
Naturally, my estimation of his intelligence went up several notches at that point!
So of course I asked them if they thought Goren was a realistic detective. The initial response of the talkative one was something along the lines of, ‘You’ll never find a savant like that on any police force!’
Of course, that wasn’t the answer I wanted, so I mentioned the guy I once met who appeared to be DEA and seemed a lot like Goren. Then they both started talking at once – one said something like, ‘Oh, sure, DEA...’ and the other was saying something like, ‘Federal, yeah, like the FBI profilers...’
So I said, “But they wouldn’t be likely to be on a local police force?”
The quieter one sort of drew back and said in an almost shocked tone, ‘He’d have to start at the bottom! Work patrol...’ as though he couldn’t imagine someone like that stooping so low.
So I asked about transferring from Army CID. Now that got an interested response. They started talking back and forth, and I was throwing in questions, but the gist of it is that someone they knew transferred from Navy Criminal Investigations (NCIS, I guess), and someone else that one of them had been in training with was some sort of fast-track bright guy – now an assistant chief of some division, I think he said.
Apparently, at least in this area, if you transfer into a new police force – say, from one county to another, or from military criminal investigations – even if you’re a detective, you have to start at the bottom, as a patrol officer. However... At each level, from patrol officer on up, when an officer reaches that level, there’s a probation period. As soon as that probation period is over, they can test for the next level. The guy from Navy, for instance, apparently spent only the probation period in the lower levels, then tested up to the next level immediately. The time frame they gave me for someone like Goren, who could probably test out of each level immediately after probation all the way up, was that he could make detective in about three years. They didn’t know whether it would be the same time frame in the NYPD.
By the time they had talked it out that way, they seemed much more open to the idea that someone like Goren might put up with that much time at less than detective if there was some reason they wanted to work on a city police force rather than in the military or at the Federal level.
There was never any sense that they thought he was an unrealistic character, or unrealistic as someone doing criminal investigations, only that at first they didn’t see why anyone with those levels of intelligence and knowledge would be willing to go through starting at patrol level in order to work in a city police force.
It makes me wish, and not for the first time, that I could ask Star Jones about this Louie Garcella [sp?] she mentioned the last time D’Onofrio was on The View. It sounded as though she might have been talking about a detective she knew when she was a prosecutor, and it sounded as though Garcella might have been a bit like Goren. I’d love to hear Jones’ perspective, as a former prosecutor, on whether Goren is a realistic detective.
For all you new folk, who haven’t heard me belaboring this before, my position is that Goren is not unrealistic – just unusual. Anyone with an IQ in the top 2% (a minimal estimate) is, by definition, unusual. But, given such an IQ, and Goren’s backstory, he is, in fact, one of the most consistently realistic, psychologically accurate characters I’ve ever seen on television.
_____________________________________
Originally posted November 09, 2003
I talked to a couple of detectives last night, K-9 Unit detectives who were taking a break, drinking coffee at a 7-11 convenience store. I asked them if they ever watch TV shows about police – either non-fiction on Court TV or fiction, like CSI or Law & Order.
When I’ve asked a few other cops the answer has been that they didn’t have time, except for one who tapes “Cops.” Interestingly, those have been patrol officers, not detective rank. These two detectives watch Court TV forensic-type shows, and both of them also watch Criminal Intent. One specifically said he watches the two spin-offs of L&O, though he doesn’t watch the original. (Neither showed any interest in my mention of CSI.)
These were both intelligent guys, and well-read, at least within their field. At one point a mention of forensics got us into a discussion of a local case that was the first death penalty case in the US based on DNA evidence. These guys were both way too young to have been on the force at the time, but they were conversant with the details, and one rattled off the name of a book about the case, the author, the name of the suspect, and other details from memory. Some of the details were familiar to me from a Court TV show that focused on that case – one I particularly remembered because one of the local victims lived a couple of blocks from me – but I hadn’t known about the book. He also has enough general knowledge of psychology that when I mentioned that the psychologists I know like Criminal Intent, he said something like, ‘I’m sure they do. It seems to be very accurate that way.’<br>
He was the more animated of the two, and seemed to enjoy talking about the local case and about Criminal Intent. At first the other guy wasn’t sure which of the spin-offs we were talking about, and the more talkative one said something like, ‘The one with that actor, you know, he was Egger [that’s how he pronounced it, just like the wife ] in Men In Black. D’Onofrio. Oh..., uhhh..., Vincent D’Onofrio.’<br>
Naturally, my estimation of his intelligence went up several notches at that point!
So of course I asked them if they thought Goren was a realistic detective. The initial response of the talkative one was something along the lines of, ‘You’ll never find a savant like that on any police force!’
Of course, that wasn’t the answer I wanted, so I mentioned the guy I once met who appeared to be DEA and seemed a lot like Goren. Then they both started talking at once – one said something like, ‘Oh, sure, DEA...’ and the other was saying something like, ‘Federal, yeah, like the FBI profilers...’
So I said, “But they wouldn’t be likely to be on a local police force?”
The quieter one sort of drew back and said in an almost shocked tone, ‘He’d have to start at the bottom! Work patrol...’ as though he couldn’t imagine someone like that stooping so low.
So I asked about transferring from Army CID. Now that got an interested response. They started talking back and forth, and I was throwing in questions, but the gist of it is that someone they knew transferred from Navy Criminal Investigations (NCIS, I guess), and someone else that one of them had been in training with was some sort of fast-track bright guy – now an assistant chief of some division, I think he said.
Apparently, at least in this area, if you transfer into a new police force – say, from one county to another, or from military criminal investigations – even if you’re a detective, you have to start at the bottom, as a patrol officer. However... At each level, from patrol officer on up, when an officer reaches that level, there’s a probation period. As soon as that probation period is over, they can test for the next level. The guy from Navy, for instance, apparently spent only the probation period in the lower levels, then tested up to the next level immediately. The time frame they gave me for someone like Goren, who could probably test out of each level immediately after probation all the way up, was that he could make detective in about three years. They didn’t know whether it would be the same time frame in the NYPD.
By the time they had talked it out that way, they seemed much more open to the idea that someone like Goren might put up with that much time at less than detective if there was some reason they wanted to work on a city police force rather than in the military or at the Federal level.
There was never any sense that they thought he was an unrealistic character, or unrealistic as someone doing criminal investigations, only that at first they didn’t see why anyone with those levels of intelligence and knowledge would be willing to go through starting at patrol level in order to work in a city police force.
It makes me wish, and not for the first time, that I could ask Star Jones about this Louie Garcella [sp?] she mentioned the last time D’Onofrio was on The View. It sounded as though she might have been talking about a detective she knew when she was a prosecutor, and it sounded as though Garcella might have been a bit like Goren. I’d love to hear Jones’ perspective, as a former prosecutor, on whether Goren is a realistic detective.
For all you new folk, who haven’t heard me belaboring this before, my position is that Goren is not unrealistic – just unusual. Anyone with an IQ in the top 2% (a minimal estimate) is, by definition, unusual. But, given such an IQ, and Goren’s backstory, he is, in fact, one of the most consistently realistic, psychologically accurate characters I’ve ever seen on television.