This is a list of characters appearing on the television program Reno 911!.
Main characters Lieutenant Dangle Lieutenant James "Jim" Ronald Dangle (played by Thomas Lennon) is the flamboyant highest-ranking deputy in the department and is usually seen wearing his trademark short-shorts, which he claims that he wears for "mobility." In a season 6 episode where the officers watch a video of themselves in the late 1980s, Dangle is seen wearing full-length jeans. Unfortunately, his jeans caught fire, forcing Dangle to cut the bottom parts of his pants off, resulting in the hot-pants he currently wears.
Dangle is gay. In an interview, Lennon says, "There's always this question, 'When's Dangle coming out?' and I'm like, 'Have you seen the show?' On the first episode, he makes out with another man for about two minutes... I guess people think he's closeted because Trudy is in love with him, but that has more to do with the fact that she's severely brain-damaged."
Dangle openly harbors an attraction to Jones and occasionally flirts with suspects. In one episode, Jones apparently had sex with him out of sympathy ("I'll try anything once"), after which Dangle was hospitalized because, as Jones said it, "he can't fucking walk" (the incident occurs off-camera, with the actual events undisclosed). Dangle was briefly married to a woman named Debbie (see below) and he briefly believed that he fathered a son (a result of sex with what he thought was a drag queen), but DNA results proved otherwise. Dangle also felt attraction to a female Homeland Security officer in town to conduct counter-terrorism training, but the experience left him uncomfortable and confused. It was revealed later that the female officer was actually a very well-disguised man (and was part of a team of con artists, along with the other Homeland Security "trainer"), which caused sexual confusion among the heterosexual deputies who had also felt attracted to "her".
Prior to Trudy's brain damage, Dangle apparently had an affair with her while married to Deb in 1988. Despite her brain damage, he still engages Trudy romantically on occasion, most notably in Miami, where Trudy asks Dangle to have sex with her out of pity, which he tries but fails to do.
Dangle leads the briefings in the mornings, but often ditches work along with other officers, as one time Dangle spent an afternoon trying to destroy an old microwave instead of investigating a murder. He apparently keeps tabs on officers after or during work, as he is found by Johnson in her favorite salon, using her name for an appointment.
Dangle is favorable to Jones, and compares Jones to glue, saying he and the department are "A little birdhouse that Jones is keeping together." Dangle, along with the entire department, is extremely unqualified for his job, even to the point of sheer incompetence, as he is sometimes either seduced or misled by suspects to let them go. Dangle, alongside his fellow officers, engages in police brutality, as he once beat a suspect to tears after the suspect had insulted him. Dangle idolizes the FBI, as in an episode where a group of FBI agents come to investigate a murder, he makes his officers line up in perfect order to greet them, and takes on an "important" mission to get coffee for the agents happily, but resents them for taking charge of his case.
Dangle once worked as a maitre d' and served in the United States Coast Guard Reserve (stationed in Hawaii) but was discharged for undisclosed reasons (perhaps pertaining to his homosexuality). In Episode 102, his age is noted as 41.
Born and raised in Arkansas, Dangle and his mother were abandoned by his father when he was a child. After his mother committed suicide, Dangle was raised by his uncle Frederick, who was kicked out of the Jesuits. Meanwhile, Dangle's father moved to Chicago and started a new family.
Dangle's father had two more biracial children who appear in season 5 to visit Dangle after the death of their father to settle the will. The inheritance turns out to be a bill of more than $5,000 for the funeral and a Banana Splits keychain Jim's half-sister gives him.
Dangle is also the subject of a running gag in which his police bicycle is repeatedly stolen or vandalized. It is hinted that Junior is responsible for these incidents. Dangle carries a Desert Eagle handgun while hunting for his bike.
Deputy Wiegel Deputy Trudy Wiegel (played by Kerri Kenney-Silver) is a brain-damaged, emotionally unstable, heavily-medicated woman. She is a hypochondriac with multiple psychological disorders, occasional night terrors, and suicidal ideations. She is generally neurotic with low self-esteem and an intense love for cats. She claims to be of Irish and Native American descent.
Wiegel enjoys crafts and collecting baby clothes, and is infatuated with Dangle. Her favorite picnic location is her mother's grave. In season 2, she begins dating a man named Craig Pullin (Kyle Dunnigan), who is revealed to be the "Truckee River Killer". After his arrest and conviction, she continues their relationship via prison visits, both through a glass partition and conjugal visits; they marry on the day of his execution. Wiegel's father, mentioned in season 1 and appearing in season 5, is a Native American (The network censored a 30-second story about her father being lynched by a white mob reacting to news that a non-white man "raped" her mother).
The fourth season opens with Wiegel returning after six months of maternity leave; Kenney-Silver's pregnancy was written into the show.
In the sixth season episode "VHS Transfer Memory Lane", it is revealed that Wiegel's behavior and mental defects are the result of brain damage that occurred after an explosion at a drug raid in 1988. Wiegel was rendered unconscious by an explosion and was clinically dead for 14 minutes, causing severe damage. She was resuscitated by Dangle, who regrets saving her life. The doctor who treated her thereafter said he "should have let her go." Prior to the drug raid, she was a flirtatious sexpot.
There is some information that contradicts the timeline. In "Stoner Jesus", Jones mentions that he has worked with Wiegel for 15 years, yet in "VHS Transfer Memory Lane" earlier that season, he is shown in the police video tape from 1988 working alongside Wiegel, which would have been 21 years prior to that episode.
Wiegel usually adheres to the department's uniform code, except for when she requests and is granted a new Kevlar vest for women (soon revealed to be ineffective). She wears a looser maternity version of the uniform when pregnant, and makes reference to having worn maternity pants to work. A running gag indicates that Wiegel is ill-equipped to dress properly when performing undercover work that requires seductive clothing, such as an undercover prostitution sting. In such cases, Wiegel wears old-fashioned and over-sized underclothing which fits poorly with her skimpy undercover outfit. She can be spotted wearing a name tag on her uniform with her name misspelled as "Wiegle" (seen in Season 6, Episode 1: Training Day).
Deputy Jones Deputy Sergeant Class II Sisyphus Cosman Jones (played by Cedric Yarbrough) is an emotionally detached African-American "smooth-talker" who frequently channels his need for attention into sexually promiscuous behavior. He is often called "Jonesy" by his co-workers.
Jones was raised in Mound, Minnesota (a suburb of the "Twin Cities" area of Minneapolis-St. Paul). He has been described by Dangle as "a big, hardworking, robust, sort of mocha-ish person." He is a horrible dancer, but a talented singer with a wide vocal range, singing in either a deep baritone or a high-pitched, R&B-style falsetto.
Jones is often partnered with Garcia and the two are close friends (until Garcia's death at the end of season 5), even getting jobs together as shopping mall security guards when they lose their jobs as deputies and both getting promoted to mounted patrol, where they are also assigned as partners. Their relationship is not without conflict, with Jones on one occasion punching Garcia for making a racist joke, causing him to be suspended. In season seven, after it is discovered that Garcia was born in Mexico and has been living as an illegal alien, he and Jones marry to keep him from being deported, after everyone else in the station refused to do so.
Despite Garcia's racism, he and Jones have an awkwardly healthy working relationship. As close as they are, however, they occasionally engage in childish physical altercations with each other. It is implied – typically, by Deputy Williams herself – that he is Raineesha's ex-boyfriend, although he seems to pursue every woman other than her.
Despite Williams' jealous attraction to him, he has an on-again/off-again, "booty call"-type relationship with Johnson. Jones is the only male deputy without a mustache. Jones' first name is left unknown for most of the series, only revealed as starting with "S". In Miami: The Lost Version, it is revealed that Jones' first name is Sven. However, in the season seven episode "Garcia Self Deports", Garcia refers to him as "Sisyphus Cosman Jones" during the vow exchange of their wedding ceremony.
In season 6, the department watch a tape from 1988. In this time, Jones is revealed to be more confident than his current self, and has a sexual attraction to Williams. Dangle then forwards the tape to November 10, 1988, involving a meth lab with armed dealers guarding it. After assorted mishaps, Jones starts to scream in an extremely high-pitched voice and flees. Afterwards, he loses all sexual attraction to Williams, and gains an attraction to Johnson.
Jones is third in command below Dangle and Garcia, who holds the rank of Deputy Sergeant Class III, and is followed by Deputy Sergeant Class I Johnson.
Deputy Garcia Deputy Sergeant Class III James Oswaldo Garcia (seasons 1–5, 7–8; played by Carlos Alazraqui) is an arrogant, racist, sexist, angry and depressed former Marine helicopter pilot. A running gag involves Garcia firing shots at people or objects without hitting them due to his comically terrible marksmanship, and giving suspects "a little of the old stick time", in which he beats them with his billy club. Garcia is the first character shown in the series, responding to a police call at a house. It is revealed that it is a surprise party, but Garcia, startled, shoots a fellow officer.
Garcia is known to be very rough when arresting suspects, perhaps as a result of his inferiority complex."I just wanted to play that small Napoleon Complex prick that, on the surface, is a pretty tough guy, but underneath is pretty weak. It's an amalgam of all the pricks you've ever met." Despite poor marksmanship, Garcia has shot multiple people. His personal life is often the subject of ridicule by his contemporaries, who mock his frequent bowel movements (Dangle once said that in the men's room, Garcia sounded like the Battle of Normandy), his excessive masturbation and his habit of drinking alone while watching Hill Street Blues reruns. He has a daughter whom he has not seen for several years, prompting Dangle to hire a stripper to pretend to be his daughter in order to elate him. He also has a younger sister, whose life the other deputies manage to wreck, because of their mistaken belief that she is his girlfriend and is cheating on Garcia with another man (who turns out to be her actual fiancé). Miami revealed that he had flown an AH-1 HueyCobra for the U.S. Marine Corps.