The Big Plea

<p>Originally Aired: October 13, 1953</p>

<p><strong>Dragnet #217, "The Big Plea,"</strong> Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Frank Smith are tracking down two holdup men operating in Los Angeles. Their investigation leads them to the Universal Hobby Shop in Van Nuys, where they question Stanley McGowan, an ex-convict working as a model ship rigger. McGowan is carefully staying clean while on parole, dutifully carrying his bucket and reporting to his parole officer. He reveals that Jim Boland, a fellow ex-con, had contacted him a couple months earlier looking for help. McGowan let Boland stay at his place briefly, but kicked him out after they argued about Boland's refusal to look for work. The only lead McGowan provides is about a man named Phil who drives a late-model dark Lincoln sedan and who Boland mentioned meeting at a bar on West 7th Street.</p>

<p>Friday and Smith learn that Boland has violated his parole by failing to report for three weeks. The detectives suspect he may be involved in recent market robberies around town, a theory McGowan grimly agrees sounds like Boland's style of work, despite the man's earlier promises to go straight.</p>