Jersey City police could star in reality TV series, council says

JERSEY CITY — Move over "Real Housewives of New Jersey" and "Jersey Shore" — a planned reality series expects to feature police officers from the state's second largest city.

At a meeting last week, the City Council unanimously approved a resolution that would authorize a license agreement for 13 episodes.

However, "details of the entire potential project still are being explored," city spokeswoman Kim Wallace-Scalcione said on Wednesday.

The production company, Winkler Farrier Levy Race, had been in talks to make a charitable donation "of $4,500 per episode for the benefit of the Jersey City Police Foundation Inc," but that detail remains unclear, according to Wallace-Scalcione.

The production company led by Henry Winkler — better known for his iconic "Happy Days" role and more recently of HBO's series "Barry" — already worked with Jersey City's special Emergency Service Unit police force for a documentary short, "ESU In the Line of Duty," which was completed in 2012.

The TV series featuring elite officers in Jersey City was first pitched 11 years ago but was sidelined in 2008 over worries about donations to the nonprofit foundation without a clear plan of spending.

The recent resolution also was being amended to remove Discovery ID Channel as the TV outlet, as there is no specific one chosen yet, Wallace-Scalcione said.

Renewed interest in the potential reality based project comes after a Netflix limited series portrayed fictional officers in Jersey City in an unflattering light. Regina King won an Emmy for her role in "Seven Seconds" as the mother of a teenager critically injured by a cop.

There also is no affiliation between the production company and A&E's hit series "Live PD," which follows police departments from across the country in "real time," with a host and two analysts anchoring studio coverage.

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