John Cooper (Southland)

John Cooper
Michael Cudlitz as Officer John Cooper, shown wearing the rank patch of a Senior Lead Officer.
First appearance	"Unknown Trouble"
Last appearance	"Reckoning"
Created by	Ann Biderman
Portrayed by	Michael Cudlitz
Information
Gender	Male
Occupation	LAPD Senior Lead Officer
Spouse(s)	Laurie Cooper (divorced)

Officer John Cooper is a fictional character who appears on the American television series Southland. A veteran officer with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), Cooper is a Police Officer III+1, which is a Senior Lead Officer, serving as a field training officer in the Hollywood Division in West Bureau. He is played by Michael Cudlitz.

Little is known of Cooper's background. He has said that his father, who taught him to shoot guns, was in and out of prison during Cooper's childhood. His father has been incarcerated since 1991 for the rape and murder of Cooper's 16-year-old girlfriend. Cooper attended Susan Miller Dorsey High School. He joined the LAPD in 1992 because it was the only job that someone of his educational level could start out earning $60,000 a year at the time. Cooper was previously married to Laurie, a nurse. They are divorced but remain on friendly terms, although Cooper refused her request to donate sperm for her to conceive a child.

Cooper suffers from chronic back pain, which he attributes to an on-the-job injury. He wears a back brace and self-medicates with pain pills, which he obtains from his ex-wife, drug dealers, and crime scenes he assists in investigating. Cooper has refused to "go through channels" to receive treatment, saying that should he do so he would be taken off the streets and, if he could not work on the streets, he would "rather be dead". He has, however, sought relief through alternative medicine techniques like acupuncture. After finally beginning to understand he has a problem, Cooper decides to quit self-medicating. He soon begins using again, leading to a negative effect on his job performance and an angry confrontation with Sherman. Following his failure to back Sherman up in pursuit of a rape suspect, Sherman tells Cooper to check himself into rehab, or Sherman will advise the watch commander to order Cooper to take a drug test. Season three ends with Ben's taking him to a hospital for a medical detox and back treatment.

Season 4 opens with Cooper's returning to street duty following back surgery and rehabilitation. He is no longer partnered with Ben Sherman but instead with Jessica Tang (Lucy Liu). She is charged with evaluating his fitness for street duty following his medical treatment. They initially work well together and, following an encounter with a suicidal gay teenager, Tang and Cooper have a conversation in which she makes it clear she is aware of his homosexuality and it is not an issue. However, their relationship becomes strained after Tang shoots a teenager wielding what turns out to be a toy gun. Cooper realizes that Tang removed the orange tip from the toy's barrel after the shooting, but he does not give that information during the investigation into the incident. The season ends with Tang's being promoted and moved to a different area division; she gives Cooper the orange tip as a keepsake.