- While on break Malloy and Reed learn that an old "friend" Jennings Thornton is back. He likes to play cop - a cop Buff. First call is to a store where a young inexperienced clerk had an expensive ring swapped for a cheap one. This is followed by their "friend" Thorton calling in a drunk driver he encountered. A call about a robbery at a store results in a shootout in the parking lot but the shooter has a flak jacket. Thorton runs down the shooter with his car to end it but putting Reed in danger . The officers take a call at a parking lot where a minor accident has occurred. The woman has no ID and appears to be the woman who stole the ring. They arrest her but the clerk cannot identify her. They receive another call where Thorton used a gun to arrest two young men for stealing mag wheels. However, they were the legal owners of the wheels and the roles are reversed with Thorton under arrest. Mac arrives to say they found the ring on the woman at Central Booking making for a very good day.—Anonymous
- Malloy and Reed are dismayed to have to inform their fellow officers that they ran into Jennings Thornton, who they believed was out of their lives since no one had seen him for a while. Thornton is their resident "buff" i.e. someone who has most of the police equipment to follow police goings on, including attending and implicating oneself as the law at crime scenes. However, Malloy in particular is aware that Thornton's motives are not to help the police, but to show them that he can do their job better than they can. He has no friends on the force, especially as he once implicated an officer for misconduct that was his own doing. Malloy and Reed are up front with him that although they appreciate citizen involvement, they don't want or need citizen vigilantism, which can hinder police work. Among the calls they attend which Thornton does not is a department store jewelry heist where a middle aged woman palmed a $1,500 ring while a naive near-sighted clerk was working. They later attend a call at a parking lot, where coincidentally they find circumstantial evidence regarding the department store heist. Unfortunately, Malloy and Reed do encounter Thornton at several of their calls during this shift, at which Thornton gives his little digs about how they wouldn't be able to do their work without him. But Thornton may go just a little too far, especially in the eyes of the law.—Huggo
- A police " buff" is introduced first scene. Actor Leo Gordon plays the burly "buff", a wanna be cop called Thornton. Gordon is a long-time character actor who was actually in prison before starting acting career and attending American Academy of Arts. He has had dozens of roles over decades of movies and TV. He wrote the screenplay for Tobruk in the mid-60's. You would recognize him in an instant. First Adam-12 call is for a con-artist ring theft at a department store. The clerk is interviewed, non other than Lindsay Wagner, a hot young thing at the time, who gives a cute glance at Reed. A woman is later interviewed in a car lot after she damages another car, she fits the description of the con-artist, the actress is Lynn Cartwright, who was Leo Gordon's wife. The married couple must have enjoyed working on the same episode, unusual for that to happen. Later Malloy & Reed respond to a liquor store heist. A shoot out starts. This is an errie scene because it pre-dates an actual shootout years later in Hollywood that ended up involving hundreds of police officers, many wounded, an historic police shoot out that had a movie made of the events. The buff finally gets in trouble by rousting some innocent teens. One of the teens is non other than Ed Begley, Jr. Interestng episode in terms of the future careers of the guest actors and the shoot out scene.
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