The venerable Reno, Nev. Sheriff's Department has been touring the country to spread the Washoe County brand of cheer and promote their new movie Reno 911!: Miami. At Philadelphia's Fraternal Order of Police, Street recently sat down with Lieutenant Jim Dangle, Deputy Travis Junior and Deputy Raineesha Williams for a roundtable interview. They talked about the movie and revealed personal secrets. Most of all, they proved that the biggest little mistake policemen can ever make is breaking the fourth wall.
Street: Why did you agree to let them make this movie?
Dangle: We didn't. We signed a waiver.
Junior: It was the department's idea. They're very short on funds.
Dangle: Our department has been operating in the red - is that the bad one? - for a long time.
Junior: Since the 1840s.
Dangle: Something like that.
Junior: So we signed a waiver that gives them 24-hour access to us in perpetuity.
Dangle: In perpetuity, throughout the universe and in all forms of media, even forms of media that haven't been invented yet.
Junior: We don't even get Borat T-shirts.
Dangle: I had four Midori-Red Bulls right before I signed my waiver, so I couldn't read it at all. It makes more sense now.
Street: Do you ever put on a show for the camera or exaggerate things?
Dangle: They put words in our mouth sometimes. They edit us to make us look like a bunch of dimwitted nimrods.
Street: That's what they do on all of these reality shows, right?
Junior: You put five people in a house and film 'em 24 hours, they're gonna try to pork each other.
Dangle: Of course.
Junior: Just like us.
Dangle: They're gonna get their weiner caught in things.
Junior: Just like us.
Dangle: They're gonna whack each other in the scrotum and testicles.
Junior: Just like we do.
Street: Do you have a most embarrassing moment in the film? Some of it has to be truthful. is there anything you did that you wish you didn't?
Dangle: A lot of it seems truthful. It seems like I was jacking off in candy underpants.
Junior: Fancy editing and Hollywood showbiz tricks.
Street: So that's not true?
Dangle: It kind of is true.
Junior: Yeah, he did jack off in candy underpants.
Dangle: I did. But it's taken out of context! If you're there, you can tell when something's a goof.
Williams: It's not always what they show, it's what they didn't show so much, you understand what I'm saying? They showed me at the club, with all these guys around me all dancin' and everything. And yes, that's not unusual, and no, it's not embarrassing, but, right before I went into that club, I. (pause). saved a baby. Right out there in the front of the thing. Just a baby. And I said, "There's a baby."
Street: And that didn't make the cut?
Williams: No!
Dangle: You saved a baby?
Junior: Where's the baby now?
Williams: Why are y'all interrogatin' me? I saved a baby and now I'm on trial?
Dangle: No, no, no, we all stand behind you.
Junior: You saved a baby.
Dangle: Before you were doing a booty quake for like... what was it? $5 a view?
Williams: You... you know what, let's, let's just stick.
Dangle: So they just show the booty quake. They didn't show the baby.
Williams: That's what I'm sayin'.
Dangle: Like the time I gave CPR to that fella' who may or may not have needed it.
Junior: In all fairness, that man was pretty drunk.
Dangle: He was very drunk, and I couldn't understand him 'cause he was speaking Portuguese.
Street: Why is what you do different from what other cops do?
Dangle: Too many people are watching these CSI shows. They think that crimes get solved. That's not our experience.
Williams: Do you know how many murders go unsolved every day?
Junior: I'm sure that you could Google it.
Dangle: Google it! The answer is: a lot. There are murders that we don't even hear about.
Junior: Most.
Dangle: We found a head recently. We don't know whose it is.
Junior: And nobody's complained that they're missing it.
Dangle: No one's complained.
Street: What experience have you had with college students?
Junior: You mean like drug calls and stuff?
Dangle: Kids are doin' a lot of fancy drugs these days.
Junior: I saw this one kid who had rigged up a gas mask to a handheld vacuum cleaner and put a tomato can of soup at the end that you could fill with dope and you smoke it through a bottle of sake.
Dangle: Yeah. I've seen that.
Street: Now that you've been to Reno and Miami, where are you going next? Philadelphia?
Junior: Well, I know if we came to Philadelphia, they'd be real happy about it in Reno. and Miami.
Dangle: People get very fond of us in our absence. That's generally how people feel about us.
Junior: Yeah, like the clap.
Reno 911!: Miami opens February 23. For an extended audio transcript of this interview, log onto www.34ST.com.
