This series resonates for decades as powerful as it was back in 1972 when it premiered. In all fifty states of America, it is not a violation of law to walk around without ID. You have to have a drivers license on your person to operate a vehicle, but only on public roads. You can drive a vehicle of any type on your private property without an ID.
The entire premise of this episode is based upon that legal reality. Yet, people are often harassed by police, and sometimes arrested by them, because they are walking in public and cops demand to know who they are. This is a violation of law, in that the demand to know identity must first be founded on the probable cause that said person violated the law.
In short, America isn't a nation where cops are authorized to walk up to anyone of choice, and demand to see their papers!
As this episode is played out, one must keep in mind that the justice system only remains just if it keeps itself moored firmly to the law, spirit and letter. If the system devolves itself into a meat market, where people are routinely rounded up on charges conjured up from thin air, then the system is corrupt and evil.
Frankly, this episode should be required viewing and academic discussion in every single police academy in the nation. The final scene is priceless, where the protagonist (and victim) has a wordless glance with the two police officers whose conduct started the whole series of events.
Had those two officers rose above their own relatively trivial problems and performed their sworn duties properly, the next few days of events would have played out radically different.
The difference between proper police work, vice shoddy police work, or ultimately corrupt police work, is driven home powerfully in this episode.
