The progression of COPS was really wild. It technically started in 1989 but the early episodes were a pretty far departure from the version you’re correctly calling out. They were a lot more visceral - I remember one episode where the officers showed up to a suicide. The guy used a shotgun in a pickup truck and the back windshield was blown out with blood and brains like dripping from it, and this is what the cameraman zooms in on for a solid 30 seconds.

It was just a lot more gritty and unrefined. That’s the interesting part for me, this show changed to the version you described where they only showed DV and beating up crackheads. They chose that; they went in that direction on purpose.