A former Los Angeles police officer who wrote "The Onion Fields," Joseph Wambaugh tried to "put people in the cops' skin" in the books he wrote and wanted to be remembered as

The author, who previously lived in Newport Beach, died in Rancho Mirage after having esophageal cancer, a friend said.

Unlike those on 'Dragnet' and other cop shows, Wambaugh's fictional officers were often compromised and deeply flawed characters

He wrote 'The Onion Field,' 'The New Centurions' and 'The Blue Knight' and created the realistic anthology series 'Police Story.'

Joseph Wambaugh, the former LAPD officer who brought realism to the "Police Story" TV series and books like "The Onion Field," died Friday.

LOS ANGELES — Joseph Wambaugh, who wrote the gripping, true-crime bestseller “The Onion Field” and numerous gritty but darkly humorous novels about day-to-day police work drawn from his own ...

The son of a police officer, Joseph Aloysius Wambaugh, Jr. had planned to become a teacher after earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Cal State Los Angeles. He said he chose law ...

In 1971, eleven years after joining the LAPD, Wambaugh saw his first novel, The New Centurions, published by Little, Brown and Co. The story of rookie LAPD cops in the early 1960s became his first bestseller and, the following year, the first movie based on his work. The film adaptation starred George C. Scott and Stacy Keach.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Joseph Wambaugh, who wrote the gripping, true-crime bestseller "The Onion Field" and numerous gritty but darkly humorous novels about day-to-day police work drawn from his own ...