Source: “On Patrol: Live”


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After spending nearly three months trailing on-duty Humboldt County Sheriff’s deputies, last month, camera crews with “On Patrol: Live” packed it in and headed home. For now, at least. 

Honsal

The sheriff’s office made its debut on “On Patrol: Live” — a reality TV show that follows on-duty police officers and sheriff’s deputies from departments across the United States — on Nov. 8. The show, which strives to give viewers a glimpse into the day-to-day duties of law enforcement officers, airs live (with a 10-minute broadcast delay) every Friday and Saturday night on Reelz, a digital cable and satellite TV network that offers an assortment of crime-related programming, including “Cops” and “Sheriffs of El Dorado County.” 

Many of our readers will recall last year, when the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a one-year contract with the show’s production company, Half Moon Pictures, LLC, despite hesitation among some board members who worried the camera crews would distract deputies from their duties or cause reputational harm to the county. At that time, Humboldt Sheriff William Honsal made the case that the show would “highlight the professional law enforcement services” his deputies provide and, hopefully, improve recruitment for the department, which has been understaffed for years.

In a recent interview with the Outpost, Honsal said it’s “too early to tell” if “On Patrol: Live” has impacted recruitment, though he said the department is currently “near full staffing on the patrol side.” Still, he spoke favorably of the whole experience and praised the professionalism of the deputies who featured on the show.

“I feel like it was, overall, a great experience,” Honsal said. “[Our deputies] represented the county, they represented our department — and law enforcement in general — in a highly respectful manner. … You look at the professionalism [of departments] in other parts of the nation, you know, when it comes to how they handle people or patrol operations, and I’m just thankful to say that our deputies did it very, very well. … And the more people can see that, the more trust is garnered in our community.”

Asked how the sheriff’s office first caught the attention of the show’s producers, Honsal said he was approached in 2020 by the executive producers of “Live PD,” — a near-identical show dreamed up by the same production company as “On Patrol: Live” — at the beginning of the pandemic. (Perhaps they caught this episode of the Joe Rogan Experience?)

“[The producers] just saw how we were handling the pandemic … and kind of being the leaders of the community during the pandemic, and they thought it would be a good thing to highlight [HCSO] on ‘Live PD.’ I was starting to talk to [the producers] and then George Floyd happened at the end of May and all the protests [started],” Honsal said, referring to the national outrage over police brutality that followed the in-custody death of George Floyd. “At that point in time, ‘Live PD; was taken off the air by A&E, but I still kept in touch with [the producer].”

It didn’t take long for the show to make a comeback. “On Patrol: Live” premiered on Reelz just two years later. (Not long after the show premiered in July 2022, A&E sued REELZ for copyright and trademark infringement. The lawsuit was settled in October 2024.)

The HCSO made its debut on the program in November 2024 during a particularly slow time of the year, which is what ultimately led the department to take a break from the show. 

“After about eight weeks, they wanted to continue [but] I said, you know, at this time of year, there’s not a lot going on and our guys are busy with training,” Honsal said. “I said we could use a break, and then we’ll come back and do the show again at the end of 2025. We’re looking at that as definitely a possibility.”

Looking through old episodes of “On Patrol: Live,” I noticed that the sheriff’s office didn’t get much airtime on the show, which seems to focus on the busiest departments in its lineup. During the first episode I watched, HCSO Deputy L. Bonilla is seen approaching a vehicle parked near the bathroom at the disc golf course in Manila where a man appears to be sleeping in the driver’s seat. 

“It looks like he’s just dozing off, but [I’m] just gonna do a welfare check to make sure everything’s okay,” Bonilla tells the crew as he peers into the driver’s side window with his flashlight. “Usually, people come out here and [we] respond to people OD’ing.” 

After confirming the man isn’t in distress, the deputy asks to see the driver’s ID, which he doesn’t have. The deputy then gives him a look and asks if he’s made contact with him before. “No, I don’t think so,” the man responds. The feed cuts and goes back to the “On Patrol: Live” studio where the show’s host, Dan Abrams, playfully asks his in-studio guests, “Do I know you from somewhere?” and the feed cuts to a police chase.

A little later in the episode, we see Bonilla approaching a silver SUV he’s just pulled over in the Eureka Wing Stop parking lot. As he walks up to the driver’s side window, a woman can be heard saying, “I was on the phone doing 20 things at once,” and he calmly tells her that she shouldn’t be on the phone while she’s driving. 

She leans out the window, looks directly at the camera crew behind Bonilla, and asks if she’s on camera, accidentally handing him her debit card instead of her ID. “Oh my goodness, are we really on camera? Why?” she asks. The deputy asks her to move her vehicle to accommodate traffic trying to get into the parking lot, and the feed cuts again.

In another episode, HCSO deputies respond to a suspicious house alarm and, with the homeowner’s permission, take the camera crew through the house to ensure no one is hiding inside. The feed cuts to Richland County, S.C., where a man is being detained for letting his vehicle run while unattended in a gas station parking lot.

Honsal acknowledged that a lot of the content featured on the show is pretty routine stuff. 

“Some of [the content] is the stuff that happens in between the calls for service, you know, when we’re stopping for a cup of coffee, talking with someone at a gas station or on the side of the road and they’re broken down,” he said. “There’s not police sirens or really anything exciting about that, but [it shows] the interaction and us treating people with respect and dignity.  … I feel like that’s the side of law enforcement that a lot of people don’t understand. I think [the show] captures that well.”

How did local folks feel about their mugs being broadcast on national television? It’s difficult to say because we weren’t able to track down anyone willing to share their account. 

I came across a post from an anonymous user on r/Humboldt who described their encounter with the “On Patrol: Live” crew after they were pulled over for a busted headlight. “The cop has a camera man with him, which weirded me out, but also the cop was acting hella intense for just a headlight, which seemed to … be because he was being filmed,” the poster wrote.

Other anonymous users in the comment section called the show “embarrassing” and asserted that it’s illegal for people to be filmed without their consent, which isn’t true. Others suggested that the sheriff’s office was just participating in the show for a little extra funding. 

To be clear, HCSO was not paid for its participation in the show. The only money exchanged between producers and the departments featured on the “On Patrol: Live” is an insignia fee, which is usually paid directly to the city or county government that is hosting the show, as stated in the show’s FAQ section.

No money is paid by the producers to the departments in exchange for their appearance on ON PATROL: LIVE. Committing to a season of ON PATROL: LIVE can be demanding on a department’s resources, especially for smaller agencies. In an effort to make a department’s appearance on ON PATROL: LIVE cost-neutral for taxpayers, and upon discussions with the department regarding their specific needs, the producers employ the industry-wide practice of paying a nominal Insignia Fee, which is a standard television licensing practice involving a specific payment for the rights to air an agency’s name or logo. Frequently, Insignia Fees are paid directly to the city government, not to the police department itself.

[ADDENDUM: In an emailed response to the Outpost’s previous inquiry about insignia fees, HCSO Spokesperson Meghan Ruiz said the sheriff’s office has not taken any fees from the show to date.]

Honsal couldn’t say for sure if and when “On Patrol: Live” would return to Humboldt County, but if it happens, it would probably be sometime in the fall.

“We still have an active marijuana season, and there’s definitely things that occur during harvest season — whether it’s robberies [or] violence — where we just have an uptake in crime in general,” he said. “It’s an up in the air thing, but [the producers] know they are welcome back here.”

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