Synopsis
The film concerns the November 29, 1976 murder of Dallas police officer Robert W. Wood during a traffic stop. The Dallas Police Department was unable to make an arrest until they learned of information given by a 16-year-old resident of Vidor, Texas who had told friends that he was responsible for the crime. The juvenile, David Ray Harris, led police to the car driven from the scene of the crime, as well as a .22 Short caliber revolver he identified as the murder weapon. He subsequently identified 28-year-old Ohio resident Randall Dale Adams as the murderer. Adams had been living in a motel in Dallas with his brother.
The film presents a series of interviews about the investigation and reenactments of the shooting, based on the testimony and recollections of Adams, Harris, and various witnesses and detectives. Two attorneys who represented Adams at the trial where he was convicted of capital murder also appear: they suggest that Adams was charged with the crime despite the better evidence against Harris because, as Harris was a juvenile, Adams alone of the two could be sentenced to death under Texas law.
The film's title comes from the prosecutor's comment during his closing argument that the police are the "thin blue line" separating society from "anarchy". This is a re-working of a line from Rudyard Kipling's poem "Tommy" in which he describes British soldiers (nicknamed "Tommy Atkins") as the "thin red line", from the color of their uniforms and their formation.
Read more about this topic: The Thin Blue Line (film)