Netflix’s ‘Night Stalker’ is Cop-aganda With Diversity
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Netflix’s Night Stalker is a new docu-series about the California serial killer Richard Ramirez, two Los Angeles county detectives who chased him, and the victims of his 1985 attacks. Directed by Tiller Russell (producer of Chicago P.D. and writer on Chicago Fire), the series follows a four-episode arc, focusing on Gil Carrillo and Frank Salerno, the two homicide detectives who tracked the “Night Stalker.”
In a year of international protests against racist policing, Night Stalker had a unique opportunity to subvert the cliches of the typical crime dramas. After all, the real “heroes” of the story were the citizens of Los Angeles who apprehended Ramirez in broad daylight — an unusual ending to a manhunt.
But instead, Night Stalker ends up being a polished product of police propaganda, also known as copaganda. The series casts a sympathetic eye on the struggles of Carrillo and Salerno, and blames nosy news reporters and big-mouthed politicians for getting in the way of the detectives’ investigation.
While Night Stalker includes interviews with victims and their family members, it is Salerno (the veteran cop) and Carrillo (then a newbie) who narrate the story, explaining their reasons for working in law enforcement, how the case affected their relationships with their spouses and children, and the fear that they felt throughout the spring and summer when they chased the killer. To director Russell, Carrillo, who is Latino, was the central figure of this story, with a compelling personal narrative about the investigation’s toll, and his relationship to Los Angeles' Latino community.
Russell was moved to work on the series by meeting Carrillo, and hearing violent stories about LA in the 1980s. "Literally, tears began pouring down his face," Russell told LAist. "I was so struck by how it had affected him as a human being. As a cop, but also as a man, as a father, as a husband."
True to the copaganda format, the series draws a target on anyone who gets in Carrillo and Salerno’s way (besides themselves). Local news anchor Laurel Erickson comes off as a careerist antagonistic to the investigation, her narrative hinging upon a detail of the investigation that she brought to the cops in exchange for an exclusive interview. And then-San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein is (rightly) castigated for revealing too many details about the Night Stalker during a press conference.
But the cops’ own bumbling gets a pass. When Carrillo quits on a stakeout for the Night Stalker, thinking a police call button at Ramirez’s dentist office will suffice, the technology malfunctions and he misses catching the perpetrator. Later on, Salerno suggests that he wants the killer to continue his attacks so that the police can collect more evidence on him.
But Night Stalker doesn’t just glamorize police incompetence. Toward the end of the series, a third cop, Frank Falzon, details how he beat up a man in his custody for information on Ramirez, telling him: “Pretty boy, I’m going to split you from the top of your head, to your ass.” It’s a glaring reminder of pervasive brutality in policing, but the director doesn’t see it that way. Instead, Falzon looks like a good guy — tough enough to protect the community.
So what is the solution to copaganda in the age of the Black Lives Matter movement and calls to defund the police? LAist put that question to Russell. His answer? “Diversity.” Carrillo is a Latino cop and Ramirez is a Latino killer. Many of the people who Ramirez attacked were Latino, along with the neighborhood mob that took him down.
"It's not just a crisis, it's a failure in policing that needs a complete, radical reimagining," Russell told LAist about the crisis of police brutality. "And yet, [Night Stalker] is a story in which, in my opinion, those guys are heroes."
Russell seems to have understood the risks of airing Night Stalker in 2021 to an audience critical of police hero narratives, but it appears that he wanted a classic police drama, and that’s what he made. Ultimately, Night Stalkerdoes what copaganda always does: creates a feeling that the world is an unsafe place with only a thin blue line of police to protect us.
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