The Big Speech

Originally Aired: April 19, 1951 Dragnet #97, "The Big Speech," Sergeant Joe Friday receives a telegram at home inviting him to speak about police work at his old high school, but the pleasant request is quickly overshadowed by urgent police business. Friday and his partner Ben Romero are called to investigate a vicious robbery at a doctor's office on Georgia Street. A narcotics addict they've been tracking for seven weeks has escalated his crimes dramatically, pistol-whipping fifty-five-year-old Dr. Gannon and leaving him in critical condition with a fractured jaw, seven missing teeth, and possible blindness in one eye. The young thief made off with a substantial haul of morphine, codeine, and other narcotics. Working with Sergeant Ed Hall from Narcotics Division, Friday and Romero pursue their only lead: a stolen car connected to the robbery. However, the investigation takes a puzzling turn when they discover the car's owner, Irving Adams, is actually a narcotics user himself who has been sitting in county jail for over a week. The detectives head to the jail's interview room to question Adams about why his wife reported the car stolen from him when he couldn't possibly have been driving it.