ABOUT ADVERTISE CONTACT SUBMIT SUBSCRIBE QUORUM Published on June 17, 2020 Cancelling COPS Laurie Ouellette Two weeks and a day afer Minneapolis police ofcers murdered a 46-year-old Black man named George Floyd accused of buying cigarettes with a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill, Paramount TV cancelled the iconic reality television series COPS (1990-2020). The announcement came amidst massive protests triggered by Floyd’s death and a growing chorus of voices calling to defund and abolish police departments. COPS had been a low-cost staple of US television culture for more than three decades, but now the packaging of police work in poor and BIPOC neighborhoods into commercial television entertainment had become grossly out Cancelling COPS | Film Quarterly https://filmquarterly.org/2020/06/17/cancelling-cops/ 1 of 28 7/15/20, 2:33 AM