LAPD Captain Amos Burke: He Ain't No “Popeyes” Doyle

[Sgt. Saunders]

I remember when Gene Barry starred in this police drama as the always sartorially-splendid and unfailingly supercilious Captain Amos Burke of the Los Angeles Police Department back during the 1960s. And, while the other tv police detectives on shows like “Naked City” and “N.Y.P.D.,”were involved in investigating assaults and murders in the most dangerous and economically-deprived neighborhoods of New York City, Captain Burke always seemed to be only involved in murders which only took place in the most upscale neighborhoods of Los Angeles and which involved only the most affluent residents of LA.

I mean, just once would I have enjoyed seeing the dashing and debonair Captain Burke be driven in his chauffeured, top-of-the-line Rolls Royce to investigate some dreary and run-of-the-mill drug and/or gang-related murder in east Los Angeles instead of some apparent murder-for-profit in Beverly Hills or Westwood, and with only the “best people” involved, of course.

And, it’s a darned shame that Captain Burke wasn’t still a member of the Los
Angeles Police Department in June of 1994, when former NFL running back and Hertz Rent-a-Car commercial spokesperson Orenthal James Simpson was accused of brutally murdering both his estranged wife Nicole Brown-Simpson and her new boyfriend, aspiring actor Ron Goldman.

No doubt, if the suave and shrewd Amos Burke HAD headed the LAPD investigation of that especially savage double-homicide, then I believe that the “Trial-of-the-Century” would have had a very different outcome, indeed.

Alas, what might have been if the stylish, yet also extremely sage, Captain Amos Burke had selflessly deigned to investigate a crime which involved the lowest and most base instincts and passions of humanity. Clearly, that would have been the greatest accomplishment in the long and distinguished career of the coxcombical Captain Amos Burke!