Behind the first response: US COPS offers glimpse into Wichita police work
Officer Orlando Negron approached the Dillons parking lot at Harry and Webb. The Wichita police officer had received a report of two men pointing guns at each other, a dispatch call that warranted caution.
“Stay right there,” he commanded one of the two men. “Hey, driver, throw your keys out the window.”
From each vehicle came a young man, unarmed, with hands raised. Negron approached them, giving clear and simple instructions.
A short conversation later, and Negron was back in his police car, returning to patrol the streets of Wichita. The two young people, whom callers reported as being armed with guns, were in reality exchanging friendly gel gun pellet fire.
“There’s people out here thinking you guys are pointing guns at each other,” Negron explained to them. “ … From a distance, if you couldn’t tell, if you couldn’t see that magazine, it looks like an AR.”
He apologized for scaring them and collected their information for his report.
“People are saying that there’s kids pointing guns at each other and it happens way more often than you think,” Negron said. “... But we’re going to treat it the same as if it’s an actual firearm. Just for everyone’s sake.”
It’s a good example, videographer Ben Rambaum said, of what a typical call — if you can ever call a first-responder call typical — looks like. And it’s exactly what he hopes to capture in his ride-along YouTube series, US COPS — “more than just the action.”
The show, part of Rambaum’s FIRST RESPONDERS channel, documents the routine, day-to-day duties and the unexpected, high-stakes moments American police officers, sheriff’s deputies, firefighters, paramedics and other emergency personnel face.
Since June, Rambaum and his team had been riding passenger side with Wichita police officers, documenting everything from high-speed chases and overdose calls to welfare checks and bike thefts.
So far, several episodes featuring Wichita police have aired, with more than 100 more installments set to debut twice a week over the next several months.
How FIRST RESPONDERS, US COPS came to be
Rambaum, who is originally from Berlin but who now calls Florida home, said he always had an interest in law enforcement. That fascination manifested into the shape of an American police cruiser in 2017. While visiting the United States, he saw his first NYPD patrol car up close. He struck up a conversation with the officers, who encouraged him to take the next step: signing up for a ride-along.
Rambaum took the cops up on their advice. Eventually, as the 22-year-old continued to explore the U.S., Rambaum found himself the passenger in a Las Vegas cruiser with a 23-year-old cop straight out of the academy.
Rambaum rode along for a night shift and was surprised by what they did — and didn’t — encounter. For the most part, the evening was incident-less. It was also absent, Rambaum said, of the depictions and stereotypes of American police he knew from the news and other media.
“I never heard anything good about it (American policing),” Rambaum said. “You only hear, you know, they shot somebody.”
When he returned to Germany and shared what he experienced, he said he was surprised — and curious — why everyone he talked to held negative stereotypes about American police.
“Everybody’s like, ‘They’re racist, they beat up people, they do excessive use of force and they shoot people,’ all those stereotypes,” Rambaum said.
But that didn’t sound like the police officers he met in 2017, or the 23-year-old he rode along with.
That inspired Rambaum to start a documentary project to destigmatize American police for Germans by showing an honest, unscripted depiction of the American policing process.
“Nobody sees them. Nobody knows what’s going on. Nobody where they save somebody’s life. Nobody sees when they help somebody out,” Rambaum said. “ … People just want to see the real life.”
Rambaum recruited Eric Nosty as a second camera man and began sending out emails — over 200 — asking law enforcement agencies to entertain the pair’s project. That’s how the officers of the Nye County Sheriff’s Office — just a four-hour drive north of Las Vegas, where Rambaum had his first ride-along — became the first department to be featured on FIRST RESPONDERS’ primary program, US COPS.
The first episode garnered more than 400,000 views from — Rambaum was surprised to learn — a primarily American audience. That, along with financial constraints and difficulties translating content to German, encouraged him to pivot his concept and target audience.
Now, with three previous seasons featuring police departments in Nevada and Alabama, Rambaum is wrapping up filming season 4 in Wichita. Alongside footage of officers responding to shootings and high-speed chases, he promises a perspective beyond the patrol car and uniform and into who Wichita police officers are.
Filming in Wichita
Rambaum said he and his team — Nosty, chief editor Amadeus Asenhuber and part-time editor Alexander Seiler — approached Wichita like they do any other city: with no expectations.
Instead, the Germans rely on their outside perspective to ensure they’re not altering their content to adhere to any kind of agenda or bias.
“If I have an expectation, I’m waiting for this to happen — I’m framing my work toward that,” Rambaum said. “We’re just sitting in the car, and we’ll just record everything.”
That approach led them to a wide range of calls across Wichita: a welfare check on a man who had recently checked himself out of the hospital, a bike theft at a west-side Conoco station and a traffic stop that turned emotional when a drunk driver who wrecked on Kellogg tried to kick out a police car window, prompting the use of a full-body restraint known as “the wrap.”
Other moments caught on camera include routine traffic stops, an officer talking to a young softball player at the scene of an accident and a suicide attempt involving an overdose on sleeping pills.
Rambaum and Nosty worked alternating 12-hour shifts in each part of Wichita over the course of June while the editors worked from the team’s home base. Now, as the group works through the editing process, they’ll publish new videos on the FIRST RESPONDERS channels twice a week.
Finalizing the group’s work in Wichita, Rambaum said, has filled him with gratitude for his team and the police departments they’ve been invited to work alongside. To mark the conclusion of filming, Rambaum said he and his production team shared a meal at Prost with members of the department and their families.
Rambaum and his team are exploring possibilities for the next police department they hope to document, as well as departments for a U.S. fire service-based show and other first responder-related projects.
Season 4 of US COPS, which features episodes based in Wichita, can be viewed on the FIRST RESPONDERS YouTube page.
