• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About
  • The Magazine
  • Events
  • Partners
  • Products
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Jobs and Careers
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Subscribe to the Magazine
American Police Beat

American Police Beat Magazine

Law Enforcement Publication

  • Home
  • Editor’s Picks
    • The power of teamwork
      Stay awake and alert on the job
      The worst rank in law enforcement
      Firearms maintenance
      Why fries need salt
  • Topics
    • On the Job
      • Heroic Pennsylvania officer saves father and daughter from drowning...
        Denver law enforcement struggle to divert low-level offenders to...
        “The good guys won …”
        “Service was running through his veins”: Condolences pour in for...
        Atlanta police officer and fire rescue captain save trapped driver...
    • Labor
      • “A financial tsunami”
        LAPD officers receive raises, bonuses
        Minnesota police force faces disbandment as chief resigns amid salary...
        We quit!
        California police departments offer lucrative signing bonuses to...
    • Tech
      • The rise of I2P
        Ann Arbor Police Department adopts AI technology to analyze body...
        Ohio law enforcement adopts powerful ballistics technology to combat...
        AI-powered surveillance program raises concerns over privacy rights...
        Chesterfield County announces real-time crime center to enhance...
    • Training
      • CIT training is not for everyone
        Mentoring: Leave ’em better than you found ’em
        Ohio struggles to secure permanent funding for law enforcement...
        Firearm instructors: Just be better!
        Influencing your performance on and off duty
    • Policy
      • New Texas law gives local law enforcement greater control over...
        Diversity in law enforcement
        Florida attorney general and John Walsh partner in new Crime Stoppers...
        Supreme Court to weigh in on whether Idaho police K-9’s paw...
        See you later, Seattle
    • Health/Wellness
      • Working through grief
        Responding to trauma
        “Why does that call keep haunting me?”
        A Message to Those Considering Suicide
        The meaning of pain
    • Community
      • “Live every day like it’s your last”
        National Night Out 2023
        Colorado Springs residents meet with city officials to discuss...
        Seattle police recruits build community relationships in unique...
        Dream come true: Massachusetts 5-year-old becomes honorary junior...
    • Offbeat
      • Alligator on the loose in New Jersey captured after two-week chase
        Traffic stop by TV’s Dog the Bounty Hunter’s son leads to...
        Bone-chilling: Human skull found in donation box at Arizona Goodwill...
        CATastrophe avoided: Indiana troopers rescue kitten trapped under...
        Shopper dressed as a cowboy and armed with fake gun causes scare at...
    • We Remember
      • Headstone finally marks grave of Pennsylvania officer who gave his...
        Memorial for the fallen: The sacrifice continues
        Paying Tribute to the Fallen Heroes of 9/11
        “He was like a protector …”: Genesee County sheriff’s deputy...
        Deadly police pursuit claims life of 19-year-old Vermont police...
  • On the Job
    • Heroic Pennsylvania officer saves father and daughter from drowning...
      Denver law enforcement struggle to divert low-level offenders to...
      “The good guys won …”
      “Service was running through his veins”: Condolences pour in for...
      Atlanta police officer and fire rescue captain save trapped driver...
  • Labor
    • “A financial tsunami”
      LAPD officers receive raises, bonuses
      Minnesota police force faces disbandment as chief resigns amid salary...
      We quit!
      California police departments offer lucrative signing bonuses to...
  • Tech
    • The rise of I2P
      Ann Arbor Police Department adopts AI technology to analyze body...
      Ohio law enforcement adopts powerful ballistics technology to combat...
      AI-powered surveillance program raises concerns over privacy rights...
      Chesterfield County announces real-time crime center to enhance...
  • Training
    • CIT training is not for everyone
      Mentoring: Leave ’em better than you found ’em
      Ohio struggles to secure permanent funding for law enforcement...
      Firearm instructors: Just be better!
      Influencing your performance on and off duty
  • Policy
    • New Texas law gives local law enforcement greater control over...
      Diversity in law enforcement
      Florida attorney general and John Walsh partner in new Crime Stoppers...
      Supreme Court to weigh in on whether Idaho police K-9’s paw...
      See you later, Seattle
  • Health/Wellness
    • Working through grief
      Responding to trauma
      “Why does that call keep haunting me?”
      A Message to Those Considering Suicide
      The meaning of pain
  • Community
    • “Live every day like it’s your last”
      National Night Out 2023
      Colorado Springs residents meet with city officials to discuss...
      Seattle police recruits build community relationships in unique...
      Dream come true: Massachusetts 5-year-old becomes honorary junior...
  • Offbeat
    • Alligator on the loose in New Jersey captured after two-week chase
      Traffic stop by TV’s Dog the Bounty Hunter’s son leads to...
      Bone-chilling: Human skull found in donation box at Arizona Goodwill...
      CATastrophe avoided: Indiana troopers rescue kitten trapped under...
      Shopper dressed as a cowboy and armed with fake gun causes scare at...
  • We Remember
    • Headstone finally marks grave of Pennsylvania officer who gave his...
      Memorial for the fallen: The sacrifice continues
      Paying Tribute to the Fallen Heroes of 9/11
      “He was like a protector …”: Genesee County sheriff’s deputy...
      Deadly police pursuit claims life of 19-year-old Vermont police...
  • Between the Lines
    • Debunking the perpetual narrative of racial bias in policing
      The unspoken truth behind the recruitment and retention crisis
      The police reform goal: use of force without options
      The imprisonment of law enforcement technology
      Persecution of the LEO is classic schadenfreude
  • About
  • The Magazine
  • Events
  • Partners
  • Products
  • Advertise
  • Contact
Search

Offbeat

Behind the scenes at Chicago P.D.

How the TV show works to make its portrayal of police feel more authentic

APB Team Published July 30, 2021 @ 8:00 am PDT

Amy Morton, who plays Desk Sergeant Trudy Platt (shown here opposite Jesse Lee Soffer at the station set’s well-worn front desk), says the role has taught her a lot about the stress law enforcement officers endure: “Being the desk sergeant, with the people who walk in the door and what you have to contend with on a daily basis, is something I’m really glad I only have to pretend to do.” Matt Dinerstein/NBC

When the NBC procedural Chicago P.D. first contacted American Police Beat to request some copies of our publication to use as set dressing, we were both flattered and intrigued. A TV series so committed to realism that it would go the extra mile to include a genuine law enforcement magazine as a background detail in its police station scenes? After talking to some of the show’s creative team, we learned that’s only the tip of the iceberg. While many cop programs seem to exist purely in a Hollywood fantasyland, Chicago P.D. — which just finished airing its eighth season in May, with all seasons streaming for free on Peacock — prides itself on authenticity. 

“Our goal is to show the audience what it’s really like to be police officers in Chicago in 2021 (within reason, of course),” showrunner and executive producer Rick Eid tells us. “To do that, we need to make the show — and the issues and dilemmas police officers face — feel authentic. The more authority our show has, the more credibility we have with our audience. At the end of the day, that’s our currency — credibility.”

Filmed on location in its namesake city, Chicago P.D. strives to be accurate in its depiction of the local culture as well as the police world. Key to capturing both has been consulting producer Brian Luce, a retired Chicago Police Department veteran who’s served as the drama’s longtime technical advisor. “Brian is amazing. He’s a huge reason the show is so successful,” Eid says. “He has three very important jobs: he helps the writers with story ideas, he helps the directors choreograph action scenes and he helps actors look, move and talk like real cops.” For story ideas, Luce doesn’t just share colorful anecdotes drawn from his day-to-day experiences as a police officer; he also gives notes on every outline and script to make sure the plot and dialogue feel believable. “For example, the very first script I wrote, I kept referring to the ‘bad guy’ as a perp,” Eid explains. “Brian said, ‘In Chicago, we don’t call them perps, we call them offenders.’ It shows how thorough he is in reading the scripts, and how accurate we try to be with our dialogue.”

That accuracy extends to the overall look of the show. “Realism is the watchword when it comes to Chicago P.D. sets,” production designer Gregory Van Horn tells APB. “The design wants to keep the viewer engaged in the police story and not take them out of it.” The show’s main police station set is based on Chicago’s real-life Maxwell Street Station, which is used for the exterior shots. Since the actual building dates back to 1888, Van Horn and his team designed the interior sets to evoke that old-school architecture, including “tall windows and doors, wood-grained wainscoting and several layers of patina and aging, as if the building has undergone years of deferred maintenance,” he says. The crew works hard to create a lived-in look “because little in real life is pristine, a perfect 90 degrees or freshly painted,” Van Horn notes. “I drive the carpenters crazy when I ask for walls to be slightly crooked or make the set dressers throw file boxes around so they are dented. The painters might spend a full day adding rust stains and scuff marks to a room with a new paint job.”

The aging is particularly important in creating a feeling of gritty realism, one that many public servants who’ve spent years being asked to do more with less will no doubt recognize. And it’s not just the wear and tear — each item on set has a purpose, including the souvenirs scattered around the bullpen that add local flavor and provide clues to the characters’ personalities and backstories, from Chicago Cubs memorabilia to trophies taken from gang lairs and drug busts. Everything is researched down to the smallest detail with help from Luce, whom Van Horn calls “a fountain of information and stories. If he doesn’t have the answer, he knows someone who does.” 

While the station is a fixture on the show, we all know that plenty of police work doesn’t take place behind a desk. One of Chicago P.D.’s main challenges is its sheer volume of locations, averaging around eight per episode and sometimes involving as many as 15. “Many of those are picked for a specific purpose,” Van Horn says. “The most interesting usually involve a chase or shootout, and we will alter existing walls or doors to make the police work completely believable. We have great location managers who know the city inside-out and make my life much easier.” Sometimes real locations simply won’t work, such as a recent violent fight scene set in a motel bathroom, which would have been much too small to shoot in, requiring Van Horn’s team to build what they needed on the soundstage. But whether on location or on set, he adds, the effect should be the same: “I am happiest with the design when it works seamlessly with the fabric of our backdrop, the city of Chicago. When a viewer can’t figure out what is a set and what is a real location — which has happened a few times, even with our producers! — I find that very satisfying. I hear through Brian Luce when local cops really dig a set for being completely realistic. Those are the best compliments.”

Jason Beghe (as Sergeant Henry Voight), Tracy Spiridakos (as Detective Hailey Upton), Jesse Lee Soffer (as Detective Jay Halstead) and LaRoyce Hawkins (as Officer Kevin Atwater) in the show’s bullpen. The weapons display visible at left is based on real items confiscated by local police officers. Matt Dinerstein/NBC

Actor Amy Morton, who plays tough-as-nails Desk Sergeant Trudy Platt, agrees that being able to learn from a real-life police officer like Luce is “just invaluable, unbelievable. He was a cop and he loves cops and has a deep, deep love for the department. To talk to him about what it means to be a cop and his experiences … it’s all been really enlightening.” After working with Luce and the off-duty cops who have appeared as extras on Chicago P.D., the series regular says she’s gained a new awareness of law enforcement, especially the stress and frustrations that come with the job. “I look at cop shows very differently now and I look at their job very differently. You can’t work with cops and think about what they do as a black-and-white situation. There’s a lot of gray and a lot of nuance and a lot of circumstances that dictate what might happen. I think as a society, we’re incredibly quick to judge one way or the other. There’s so much in between that, and they’re human … I think all of us are very, very proud to be portraying police.”

With the profession under increasingly intense scrutiny, many cop shows have been feeling the heat from critics of police. Eid says the shifting environment hasn’t altered Chicago P.D.’s approach to accuracy, although as real-life law enforcement contends with the pressures of the push for reform, recent events will continue to shape the plots and characters when the show returns for its ninth season this fall. “The past year or so has obviously been quite tumultuous, but our goals for the show haven’t really changed. We still try to portray what it’s really like to be a police officer in Chicago in 2021 and reflect the changing social, cultural and political dynamics in our various storylines,” he explains. “Having said that, the show itself is different because the world the characters now inhabit is so different. So, as a result, the decisions they make and the way they act might be different than last year, or the year before.”

Ultimately, through its creative decisions, the show hopes to capture all the complexities of real life. “While I probably don’t have any real idea of what it’s like to be a police officer, I have a much more nuanced appreciation of what law enforcement has to go through on a day-to-day basis,” Van Horn says. “It’s an incredibly tough job and my deep respect goes out to all those in blue … I am proud that I am part of a team that can bring to life a TV drama that both civilians and cops respond to. We really could not do this without the police, who provide the inspiration for not only the stories and characters, but the locations and sets as well.”  

As seen in the July 2021 issue of American Police Beat magazine.
Don’t miss out on another issue today! Click below:

SUBSCRIBE TODAY!

Categories: Offbeat

Primary Sidebar

Recent Articles

  • New Texas law gives local law enforcement greater control over dispatching AMBER Alerts
  • Headstone finally marks grave of Pennsylvania officer who gave his life during historic 1889 flood
  • Working through grief
  • Heroic Pennsylvania officer saves father and daughter from drowning in sinking truck
  • Denver law enforcement struggle to divert low-level offenders to resource center
  • CIT training is not for everyone
  • “A financial tsunami”
  • “The good guys won …”
  • Responding to trauma
  • “Service was running through his veins”: Condolences pour in for fallen Los Angeles deputy

Footer

Our Mission
To serve as a trusted voice of the nation’s law enforcement community, providing informative, entertaining and inspiring content on interesting and engaging topics affecting peace officers today.

Contact us: info@apbweb.com | (800) 234-0056.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram

Categories

  • Editor’s Picks
  • On the Job
  • Labor
  • Tech
  • Training
  • Policy
  • Health/Wellness
  • Community
  • Offbeat
  • We Remember
  • Jobs and Careers
  • Events

Editor’s Picks

The power of teamwork

The power of teamwork

July 23, 2021

Stay awake and alert on the job

Stay awake and alert on the job

July 20, 2021

The worst rank in law enforcement

The worst rank in law enforcement

July 19, 2021

Firearms maintenance

Firearms maintenance

July 04, 2021

Privacy Policy | Your Privacy Options | Notice at Collection | Copyright © 2023 APB Media, LLC | Website design, development and maintenance by 911MEDIA

Open

Subscribe

Close

Receive the latest news and updates from American Police Beat directly to your inbox!

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.