‘Dragnet’ And ‘Adam-12’ Were The Only Shows Allowed Real LAPD Badges, And Jack Webb Was The Reason

In the summer of 1969, a newspaper writer digging into the making of Adam-12 turned up a remarkable detail. “Of all the television shows on the air, only actors on ‘Dragnet’ and ‘Adam-12′” were allowed to wear genuine police department badges, Edgar Penton reported in the Port Huron Times Herald on August 15, 1969, in a piece reprinted by Click Americana. Kent McCord, who played Officer Jim Reed, backed it up decades later. “The badges were real badges, and the guns were real,” McCord, now 84, told KPCC’s The Frame in 2016, and “any time we left the set, we’d hand over the badge, we handed over the gun.”

Penton gave the credit for that privilege to one man, Jack Webb, the executive producer of both shows. Webb’s bond with the Los Angeles Police Department began with a supporting part in a crime movie and ran through a badge number whose origin fans still argue about. It ended with the department doing something for him that it had never done for anyone outside its ranks.

How Did An Actor Get The LAPD To Open Its Files?

In 1948, Webb played a crime lab technician in He Walked by Night, a film based on the real 1946 crime spree of Erwin Walker. Its technical advisor was Detective Sergeant Marty Wynn of the LAPD, and as Time magazine told it in 1954, Webb convinced Wynn that the everyday work of real officers could carry a radio series.

The department was lukewarm at first, but Chief Clemence B. Horrall signed off in 1949, and Dragnet went on NBC radio that year billed as produced “in cooperation with the Los Angeles Police Department.” That cooperation came with strings. Under Chief William H. Parker, the department’s Public Information Division vetted the scripts, historians Mike Davis and Jon Wiener write in Set the Night on Fire. Parker even barred Webb from using the word “cop,” which the chief considered an insult.

Adam-12 worked the same way. “A final draft of each script is then sent to the police public information division for approval,” the 1969 Times Herald piece explained, and a sergeant from one of the LAPD’s 16 divisions served as technical advisor on every episode. Even the voice on the squad car radio came from the department, as we found in our story on the real LAPD dispatcher behind ‘Adam-12’. That closeness explains how a made-up sergeant ended up carrying a real badge. It doesn’t explain why the badge read 714.

Was Badge 714 Really A Tribute To Babe Ruth?

The story most fans have heard is that Webb chose 714 to honor Babe Ruth, who finished his career with 714 home runs. It doesn’t hold up. Webb loved jazz more than baseball, and later directed and starred in Pete Kelly’s Blues as a 1920s cornet player.

Michael J. Hayde, who wrote the Dragnet history My Name’s Friday, traced the number to Webb’s taste for lucky sevens. Webb first wanted 777, Hayde writes, and then added the last two digits together to get 14, which is how Joe Friday ended up with 714.

The number soon took on a life of its own. When the 1950s series went into syndication, it was retitled Badge 714. Behind the camera, LAPD officers like Dan Cooke, the technical advisor on Webb’s series, kept the details honest. By the late 1960s, the department had decided who the most famous 714 in Los Angeles belonged to.

What Did The Department Hand Webb In 1968?

Friday was back on NBC with a new partner when, in 1968, the LAPD gave Webb the original 714 badge. Chief Thomas Reddin made the presentation, according to a Cumberland News report cited by MeTV. “This is only a small token of our appreciation to you, Jack, and for all the things you have done for our department,” Reddin said, “dating back to when Dragnet first went on radio in 1949.” He added, “This badge has never been issued to anyone else; the entire force feels it belongs to you.”

The famously clipped Joe Friday had no comeback ready. “For one of the very few times in my life, I’m at a loss for words to express my feelings,” Webb said. According to UPI, the badge carried an inscription that Cooke later read aloud: “To Jack Webb, the best reel cop from the best real cops.” Harry Morgan, who played that partner, Bill Gannon, told UPI that off camera, Webb’s “affection, if anything, was over displayed.” Fourteen years later, the department returned that affection in a way no civilian had ever seen.

What Happened To Badge 714 After Webb Died?

Webb died of a heart attack on December 23, 1982, at 62, while he was preparing yet another Dragnet revival. Chief Daryl Gates ordered flags at police headquarters and substations lowered to half staff, and UPI reported that “Gates said the badge will now be retired and returned to the chief’s office.”

On Thursday, December 30, the LAPD held a memorial service for Webb at the Police Academy, which UPI called “the first of its kind for a civilian.” Gates told several hundred uniformed officers that Webb was “the greatest publicity agent any department could ever have.” “He laughed with us when things went well and wept with us when we lost one of our own,” the chief said.

Gates promoted Sgt. Joe Friday to lieutenant that day and gave Webb’s daughters plaques bearing the likeness of Badge 714. A bagpiper played “Amazing Grace” as an honor guard fired a three-volley salute, and one of four police helicopters peeled away overhead in the “missing man” tribute to a fallen comrade. Webb was buried at Forest Lawn in the Hollywood Hills with full LAPD honors, according to Forest Lawn.

A tearful police official had put it best when word of Webb’s death first spread. “He discovered the LAPD,” he told UPI. “We never existed until ‘Dragnet.'”