When the local cops and the FBI both have jurisdiction in a case, these underpaid civil servants ALWAYS fight for the right to do more work than they strictly need to. They will never let someone else, who is perfectly willing to do it for them, take it off their hands.
The bad guys would have gotten away with it if it hadn’t been for those meddling kids…and that dog.
Cops don’t have a *69 feature on their phones; they have to keep a criminal talking on the line for two or three minutes while the call is traced by Lily Tomlin or someone like that.
A forensic anthropologist can take one glance at a skeleton and immediately be able to rattle off its age, sex, and race, and (if it’s an archaeological case) can tell immediately what time period it’s from, as well as what diseases the decedent had. None of this involves measuring the skull with calipers in a lab somewhere and looking at samples under a microscope.
A body that’s been hanging from a tree for a few days will still be dangling from its noose even if it’s decomposed to the point of falling apart.
Wearing a designer suit and kitten heels to a crime scene is always proper attire.
Guns shoot endless amounts of bullets unless its being empty is convenient for the plot.
Every crime scene has lots and lots of evidence. None of it will have washed away in the rain, blown away in the wind, or been contaminated by other substances. Lab monkeys never fuck up a sample.
Computerized fingerprint-matching systems come up with a 100% match, all the time. At no time are fingerprint experts expected to determine for themselves if a particular print is a match. The computer can always do it for them.
Crime labs have mood lighting for effect; none use crappy, overly-bright fluorescents.
This one bothers me the most. On the British TV series Waking the Dead, you have one woman who acts as the coroner, anthropologist, DNA analyst, fingerprint analyst, ballistics analyst, handwriting analyst, chemical analyst, audio analyst, video analyst, and she can diffuse bombs because she “took a course”.
Murder cases go to trial within a week or so of the suspect’s apprehension.
Most courtrooms have no overhead lights or if they do they’re very dim. Most of the lighting is from the windows and the result is a dark room.
The most obvious suspect is never the actual perpetrator. Evidence of guilt, especially early in the case is clear evidence of innocence.
The guilty party will always be someone the detectives have met during the course of their investigation, but didn’t initially consider a suspect.
Works with college students :~}
Seriously, I’m betting that Fear Vs KIndness is so ingrained that I picture myself asking a cop “So you’re the good cop, right?”, but when he says Yeah and hands me a Coke, I’d still be so scared that I’d be grateful for the act of basic humanity that i’d tell him everything.
All criminals and most cops are sarcastic.
Standard practice in the apprehension of a serial killer is to first have one of the female detectives captured by said killer.
It still works. Although it’s more Officious Cop Sympathetic Cop the way it’s usually played. Btw, cops watch TV too. When you’re accused of something… the chances are they don’t have your DNA, but they’ll tell you so anyways… because everyone knows from TV there’s always DNA, and it’s always enough to convict you, and that cops can make deals.
If you’re arrested and interrogated, and you ask for a lawyer, when the police ask juuuust one more question, not only will your answer be admissable, it will be the sole fact that leads to your conviction.
Your average cop can kick down an apartment door without injuring either himself or others.
Mortally wounded cops and suspects always live long enough for last words.
Nobody demands a lawyer before questioning. Ever. (This bugs the snot out of me, because I make it a point to hammer home to my students that you lawyer up before talking to any cop about any thing. Period. No exceptions.)
One of the law professors I work with shows his classes the Ralph Macchio scene in My Cousin Vinnie- “I killed the clerk? I killed the clerk?! I KILLED THE CLERK!!” then at the trial “He said, 'I killed the clerk, I killed the clerk, I killed the clerk”. He says that while it’s a light comedy it is exactly why you don’t talk without a lawyer: nothing is off the record and anybody can say five words that out-of-context make them sound evil.
Crime Scene Investigators can interview suspects.
Well, how hard can it be to dissolve a bomb in water?
In New York, 90% of judges are women and/or visible minorities, unless they’re prone to errors in, heh, judgement.
Police detectives can make arrests even against the explicit orders of their superiors without repercussion, if the perp is scummy enough.
Cops usually talk to confidential informants on the street or in other public places where everybody can see.
If you are the bad guy and a cop has you cornered he is usually pointing a gun at you that doesn’t have a bullet in the chamber. He has to cock the gun to chamber a round in front of you so you know he means business now.
Up until he does that ‘cocking the gun for emphasis’ thing you can probably just run away because he can’t shoot you.
This is really annoying when the bad guy is holding a semi-automatic. Either there is a round in the chamber, in which case the gun is double-action and you don’t need to cock it manually, or there isn’t a round in the chamber, in which case cocking the weapon does nothing. I doubt there are very many crooks running around with Condition 2 weapons. Especially if they are threatening people with them.
Nitpick: Racking the slide on a semi-automatic might be what you’re thinking of: either the weapon previously didn’t have a round chambered, or you just ejected the round that was already there. On a single/double action semiautomatic however, cocking the hammer has a point: by pre-cocking the hammer you put the gun in hair-trigger mode, where the trigger needs much less pull and force to fire. So with a single/double, cocking the hammer announces that Tough Guy has just gone from being ready to kill you in a second to being ready to kill you in 1/5 of a second.