Roderick Bernsen (born 1948) is a retired

Los Angeles Police Department The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), officially known as the City of Los Angeles Police Department, is the municipal police department of Los Angeles, California. With 9,974 police officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the third-large ...

sergeant who was widely known in Southern California as a police news-specialist for '' Fox 11 News'', and for flying the station's helicopter, "SkyFox," while with ''

Good Day LA ''Good Day L.A.'' is an American morning television news and entertainment program airing on KTTV (channel 11), a Fox owned-and-operated television station in Los Angeles, California, owned by the Fox Television Stations subsidiary of Fox Corpo ...

''.

LAPD career

Bernsen spent almost 18 years with the LAPD. He rose to the rank of sergeant and served as one of the department's official spokespersons for six years as part of

Daryl F. Gates Daryl Gates (born Darrel Francis Gates; August 30, 1926 – April 16, 2010) was the Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) from 1978 to 1992. His length of tenure in this position was second only to that of William H. Parker (police of ...

's Press Relations Staff. He also served as technical advisor for the film ''

Lethal Weapon ''Lethal Weapon'' is a 1987 American buddy cop action comedy film directed and co-produced by Richard Donner, written by Shane Black, and co-produced by Joel Silver. It stars Mel Gibson and Danny Glover alongside Gary Busey, Tom Atkins, Darle ...

Broadcasting career

After retiring from the LAPD in 1992, Bernsen joined Fox 11 as a reporter/specialist. Eventually, he became a broadcaster and helicopter reporter with Fox 11's ''

'' program, and served as an occasional reporter/police news-specialist for both ''

CNN Headline News HLN is an American basic cable network. Owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, the network primarily carries true crime programming. The channel was originally launched on January 1, 1982 by Turner Broadcasting as CNN2 (later renamed Headline News ...

'' and ''

Fox News The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is owne ...

''. He retired from Fox 11 in 2004, continuing to serve as a talk-show host on KFI Radio until 2006. Bernsen now hosts his own internet radio lecture show, ''Rod Bernsen's Street Stories'' on TalkRadioOn

.

False sexual misconduct charges

On October 7, 2006, Bernsen was arrested by Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI agents on false charges of two counts of abusive sexual contact against a minor. Bernsen told investigators that he had the boys kicked out of the sauna. The case went to trial in June 2007. Bernsen was acquitted of all charges on June 12, 2007 after a week-long federal jury trial; the jury deliberation lasted less than two hours. He was facing up to four years in federal prison if convicted. After his acquittal Bernsen said, "...more needs to be done to ensure that children do not make false allegations against adults." Bernsen said that they were lying, possibly because he had had them barred from the ship's sauna earlier in the cruise. Bernsen also told reporters that despite the quick jury acquittal, he would have to live with this: "all you have to do is Google my name."

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bernsen, Rod Television anchors from Los Angeles Los Angeles Police Department officers 1948 births Living people