Tell that to the victim’s family.
If you want to find out if someone’s guilty, hang him off the side of a roof. If he says he’s guilty, he must be, because… why would he lie?
Defense attorneys, despite being pudgy, smarmy jackasses, (and usually jewish) are able to bust into police stations in the middle of the night in order to save their clients from interrogation. (They have the special defense attorney key to the police station.)
See also: defense attorneys, despite making arguments a dead dog would laugh at, are always super-convincing to juries (corollary: jurors are always stupider than the people watching on tv.)
Oh yeah. And when a lawyer cross-examines a cop, his real job is to make the cop look bad.
The SOP here is to gatecrash the lavish charity fundraiser he’s hosting at the museum, and call him a cocksucking shitweasel in front of his friends, colleagues, and assorted civic dignitaries - including, of course, your own captain. He’ll be all icy politeness to your face, but will privately be incensed at the humiliation, and order his henchman to take you out. The henchman will delegate the hit to a bunch of mooks, so just shoot them at the abandoned dockside warehouse they’ve lured you to, spare the sole survivor if he gives up the henchman, and work your way up from there.
This isn’t just in cop movies, but certainly shows up a lot there – you can never cock a gun too many times. It’s done to show menace. If you’ve been holding a pump-action shotgun on a guy for five minutes of dialogue, and now you want to show that you really mean business, go ahead and rack another shell (meaning that either you’ve wasted an unfired shell, or you’ve been terrorizing him for five minutes with a gun that wasn’t actually ready to fire – won’t he feel stupid!)
Yeah? What about the rights of that little girl?
Don’t like it? Call a cop.
Corrupt cops are sullen and overweight (if a patrolman in uniform), or stern and rigorously by-the-book, suit-wearing Internal Affairs officers.
The FBI are a bunch of by-the-book stuffed-shirt panty-waists with their fancy suits and their college educations: they’re only there to hinder a good cop cracking this case by instinct, street smarts and disregard of the rules, and should thus be hindered at all opportunities.
It takes six people and a tape recorder the size of a fridge, balanced precariously on a kitchen table, to monitor a phone conversation:
It’s the kidnapper! Keep him talking, we’re still trying to get a trace. Shit, he’s using a payphone - stall him! Damn it, the bastard hung up - another 10 seconds and we would have had him. Oh, he’s smart, this one - he’s playing with us. Wait a second - play that last bit back - what’s that noise in the background? Can we amplify it? It’s a foghorn! And the only payphones within earshot of a foghorn are in the old Abandoned Warehouse district, down by the docks! Maybe he’s not so smart after all - looks like we’ve got the son-of-a-bitch!
What’s more, at some point in the proceedings, they will invariably threaten said cop with blackmail, indictment, or “we’ll have your badge.” Plus, they look and talk like real-life cops, which movie cops never do.
Except when it turns out that your best friend in the department - the one guy you would have trusted with your life - is part of gang and has betrayed you.
During a chase scene, neither the bad guy or the cop will actually be involved in an accident (other than an occassional minor sideswipe) although they will be directly responsible for several dozen.
The cop must always swerve to avoid a woman carrying a baby or pushing a stroller.
All cops have a favorite snitch who knows everything.
Cop guns are much more accurate at long range than bad guy guns.
Ditto for the watermelon vendors with their carts.
"snerk*
and then there’s the one where we get to watch a medium closeup of our hero cop who’s still very busy shooting his mighty handgun at the bad guys - even though said slide is obviously locked back.
yo. genius: it’s empty! 
“Dammit! I had to deal with those car chases in my old job transporting chickens in old crates on the back of a rusty pickup truck! Why won’t they just leave me alone!?!?”
Oh I forgot, all Latino street thugs are really good kids at heart. They are all named “Angel,” but they are unable to say it properly.
Movie cops draw their weapons almost every day, and have to shoot someone at least once every couple of weeks. Shootings by movie cops only get investigated when a plot point requires it, otherwise they just get a lecture about being overly reckless from their immediate superior.
Movie cops who have made detective grade can drive better than Richard Petty. Uniformed cops, urban or rural, can barely make it out of the parking lot without rolling the cruiser over or smashing it into another police car.
Laughed when I saw this one:
Too true. I will say that in the classic ‘Bullitt’, the timeline of the film is carefully arranged to make it clear that the big chase takes place on a Sunday morning, when the streets would be plausibly light on traffic.
The first time we see the cop enter his apartment he’s confronted by his pissed-off girlfriend who’s “had enough” and “where were you?” and “what happened to us?”. She leaves forever, slamming the door. He doesn’t care. The cop pulls off his t-shirt and goes to the fridge and drinks milk from the carton. Maybe he opens a tin of food for the cat.
Not from movies, but documentaries from the History Channel. Any procedure in regard to a clue- no matter how obvious to any viewer with an ounce of sense- will be presented as though to arrive at the said action requires the genius of Sherlock Holmes.
Whatever dog is partnered with a cop will *not * be a German Shepherd, though it will slobber a lot.
I actually learned the last two while watching a real trial.. Glass of OJ anyone?
I think this is also how they behave in real life. I mean, can you imagine them not swerving to avoid a woman with a baby? Or do you mean that there is always a woman with a baby in the way? Probably also true in real life.