What I have seen numerous times on CBS procedurals (Hawaii 5-0, NCIS Hawaii, The Equalizer) are cases where there is a celebrity or politician or other Important Person who is targeted. Most of the episode will be spent chasing down bad leads and interrogating the wrong suspects. And then in a shocking twist that surprises no one at all, the real suspect turns out to be the assistant who has been trying to “help” all along. It happens often enough that I feel like these characters should automatically be suspicious of assistants by now!
The above shows also have a trope where there is a single police officer who works for another agency that can be trusted at all times. Other cops from outside agencies? Not so much and they are usually there to provide obstacles rather than support. So if it isn’t Duke, Whistler or Dante showing up to the crime scene but rather some blowhard from some other agency, this new cop is either in on it or might as well be because they insist on doing things Their Way (which always fails).
Edit: I know I lumped The Equalizer in as a cop show which it isn’t really because McCall is a vigilante rather than a cop. But the structure of this show is completely identical to Hawaii 5-0. So McCall and her Equalizer crew are basically cops (minus the badges) and have even started identifying themselves as police-adjacent in more recent episodes.
Under “undiagnosed autism”, you left out the granddaddy of detectives with mental issues, Sherlock Holmes. Despite the fact that autism wasn’t even a recognized disorder yet, he was clearly on the spectrum. Also he was a serious cocaine addict.
Good one. Or, close corollary, if a cop finds that all of his moves are anticipated by the bad guys, he’ll suspect a mole in the department, but never that his trusted father-figure mentor will turn out to have been in on it the whole time, until it’s almost too late.
I’ve learned that, if you are chasing a suspect who has already shot several people and shown himself to be without doubt a ruthless killer, make sure you ask him to surrender when you catch him so that he has time to spin around and kill you instead.
DCI: “DI Smith-Jones, you are hereby awarded the King’s Medal for Superior Police work because you have solved every single murder case assigned to you for the past 15 seasons, usually within 90 minutes. Your case clearance rate is 100%, which is unmatched in the history of the Met. You’ve never been wrong.”
DI Smith-Jones: “Thank you very much, guv’nor! By the way, I think that Councilman Widget is a suspect in our most recent murder case.”
DI: “Are you out of your mind? He’s a great guy! You’re suspended until further notice.”
Every police department has something very dramatic happen at some point in the Spring, that endangers one or more of the lives of the department members.
After that, it’s a very slow Summer. No crime or anything at all happens, really, until late Summer / early Fall, in which cop business picks up again, often with a slightly different personnel lineup.
Coincidentally, I’ve also learned from TV medical shows that the exact same thing happens all the time in hospitals, as well.
I’ve been watching Hawaii 50 reruns and it seem that in every episode they arrest someone and take them to that concrete room with the aluminum chair and harsh lights.
Either no one in the state know they are entitled to a lawyer, or the right to that lawyer has been suspended in Hawaii. Not sure which though…
Not only that, but you do not even have to accept their invite to come in for questioning- unless they arrest you. For which they often need a warrant.
Saw one just recently where the bad guy just stabbed a cop to death and is advancing on his partner as she’s yelling at him to drop the knife. He of course kills her too. As she was yelling I was wondering why the bad guy didn’t have 15 bullets in him already.
The smallest error made by officers in investigating the case will result in an obviously guilty defendant “getting off on a technicality” while the cops pull their hair in frustration and the namby-pamby ACLU lawyer smirks with self-satisfaction. If there’s a typo on a search warrant, the whole case has to be thrown out.
If you are a male law enforcement type who has been married for at least a decade, you can expect your wife to die or disappear pretty soon. If you have an only daughter, this will likely happen just after she goes to college. It might be an accident, a natural disaster, a mob hit, or a kidnapping gone wrong. Or else she will just walk out and disappear on her own, but turn up after a few years when you’re already involved with someone else. This applies to everyone from George Gently to Roy Grace to Jimmy Perez to Andy Taylor.
If you’re a female law enforcement type, you’ll just have a messy divorce and be left with 2-4 elementary-age children. Your mother will take care of them while you’re out catching murderers and sleeping with someone in your office.
