The Big Run

Originally Aired: June 21, 1951 Dragnet #106, "The Big Run," Friday and his partner Ben Romero are called away from a quiet Saturday evening to investigate a brutal hit-and-run accident at Los Feliz Boulevard and Commonwealth Avenue. Two elderly women have been struck down in a well-lit crosswalk by a driver traveling at high speed. The victims are thrown dozens of feet from the point of impact and rushed to Georgia Street Hospital in critical condition. When Friday and Romero arrive at the scene, uniformed officers have already begun collecting evidence—fragments of headlight glass and chrome—but there are no skid marks, indicating the driver never even attempted to stop. The detectives interview witness Richard Mortigan, who operates a nearby nursery and saw the entire incident unfold. Mortigan describes a dark-colored Ford sedan, possibly driven by a young blonde man around eighteen or nineteen years old, racing through the intersection without slowing down. With only these meager clues and the physical evidence from the scene, Friday and Romero must track down the callous driver who left two women fighting for their lives on a Los Angeles street.