RUHLS: All leads indicated this man was an important cartel drug runner, but he’s clean. We have to let him go.

[A Ford Mustang bursts through the wall and stops just short of RUHLS. Police Officer LOUIS CANNON steps out.]

CANNON: Not so fast.

ROOKIE: We patted him down already and didn’t find any drugs.

CANNON: I’ve got a hunch.

[CANNON unsheathes a huge knife and approaches DRUG MULE.]

RUHLS: Officer Cannon! We already read the suspect his Miranda rights and he’s invoked his sixth amendment right to counsel! You can’t touch him!

CANNON: Good thing I don’t do things by the book. And by book, just so we’re clear, I specifically mean the Bill of Rights.

[CANNON stabs DRUG MULE in the chest and slices him from sternum to belly button. He reaches into DRUG MULE’S torso and pulls out several bricks of Super Heroin].

CANNON: The Founding Fathers had good intentions, but those naïve saps never made a drug bust in their lives.

DRUG MULE (dying): The… United States court system… will avenge me…

The “Louis Cannon Theme Song” plays:
[Gun shots and electric guitars wailing]
Loose Cannon! Louis Cannon!
He hates crime almost as much as he hates the American presumption of innocence!
Loose Cannon! Louis Cannon!
Every bad guy he guns down is in self defense!
Loose Cannon! Louis Cannon!
Vengeance is his mistress; punishment his mentor!
Loose Cannon! Louis Cannon!
A disturbing animosity towards civil liberties is subtext in most cop shows, but here it’s front and center!
Louis Cannon!

- - -


[LIEUTENANT CHIEF sits behind his desk, phone in hand.]

CHIEF: I want Louis Cannon in here now!

[A Ford Mustang bursts through the door.CANNON steps out. ]

CANNON: What now? I have drugs to bust!

CHIEF: Because of your reckless actions we have to give all the Super Heroin we seized back to the drug cartel!

CANNON: Says who!?

RUHLS (from a darkened corner of the office): Says the prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure.

CANNON: I always knew you were a sniveling little stickler, Ruhls, but when did you turn dirty?

CHIEF: That’s a serious accusation!

[CANNON takes a bloody check out his pocket and hands it to CHIEF.]

CANNON: I found this with the drugs inside the cartel mule. One million dollars paid to the order of Detective Ruhls, signed by the Cartel, and look at memo: “rigid adherence to the Fourth Amendment.”

RUHLS: Fool! By holding onto that check instead of turning it over you’ve tainted the evidence! You can’t prove anything!

[RUHLS takes a small booklet out of his pocket. LOUIS CANNON shoots him dead.]

CHIEF: Cannon! He was just taking out his pocket Constitution to make a point!

CANNON: So? He had a deadly weapon: by protecting dangerous criminals that thing’s killed more Americans than any gun ever will.

- - -


[CANNON sits in the witness box. ACLU PROSECUTOR looms over him.]

PROSECUTOR: Mr. Cannon, you have trampled the rights of dangerous criminals time and time again.

CANNON: That’s my job.

[The people in the gallery murmur nervously. JUDGE bangs his gavel.]

JUDGE: The accused police officer will not speak out of turn again.

PROSECUTOR: Your job, Mr. Cannon, is to follow the rules and do things by the book!

CANNON: Innocent people die when cops follow the rules! And by rules, I of course mean the protections of our freedoms enshrined in the Constitution!

JUDGE (banging gavel): Order! Order!

CANNON swipes the judge’s gavel and throws it at the jury box, knocking a sniper rifle out of the hands of one the juror’s hands. Everyone in the gallery gasps.

CANNON: You think I didn’t know this was a set up? Everyone knows the judicial system is rigged to help criminals and hurt cops!

PROSECUTOR: Then you were a fool to come anyway.

[Every single person in the courtroom draws a gun and aims it LOUIS CANNON. He whistles and his Ford Mustang bursts through the courtroom wall.]

CANNON: I came here to tell you face to face that as long as there are men brave enough to wear a badge and shoot fleeing suspects in the back, this country will never fall to the likes of you.

[CANNON gets in his car and drives off under a hail of gunfire.]

- - -


[COPS and POLICE OFFICERS sit around dejected. A television above the bar shows the news. A chryon reads: “Cops Deemed Illegal. Policing Now Against the Law.”]

OLD COP: How did it come to this?

[CARTEL LEADER enters, cackling.]

CARTEL LEADER: Thanks to the fifth amendment guarantee against self incrimination, Americans can no longer be forced to maintain a police force! You all work for me now!

[A ford mustang bursts through CARTEL LEADER, spraying blood and viscera everywhere. CANNON steps out].

CANNON: Consider that my resignation.

OLD COP: Cannon! It’s illegal to kill criminals now! You just committed treason!

CANNON: Not if we change the laws back to how they’re supposed to be.

GRIZZLED DETECTIVE: How are we going to do that? The terrorists and the cartels and the ACLU control the Legislature and the Courts!

CANNON: I’m going to go back in time and arrest James Madison before he can write the Bill of Rights and turn this country into a crime-ridden hellhole.

OLD COP: Impossible! That would completely defy the rules of physics.

[CANNON unholsters and cocks an enormous gun.]

CANNON: Good thing I don’t follow rules.

Reprise of “The Louis Cannon Theme Song” plays:
Loose Cannon! Louis Cannon!
His given name is Louie McCanen, but he changed it to sound much cooler!
Louis Cannon!