15 Pictofacts About Police Work in Movies

by ZeeshanN July 28, 2021

July 28, 2021

Police exist to protect us from evil people, so do movies exist to protect us — from reality. So when the two come together, frictions are obliged to arise, just like when the FBI comes and steals a case from the local police… Wait, what? What do you mean, that only occurs in movies? What else only happens in movies? Well, as it turns out, we have a pictofact set right here which is precisely about that.

Chalk outlines were never a police tool. 3 outlining a body doesn't help with the investigation- when it was done at all, it was just to give the press something to photograph that wasn't the actual body. Today it's just not done anymore. The FBI won't just swoop in and take over. Smug feds won't walk all over the enraged cops, telling them it's their case now. They can't police forces are not subordinate to the FBI. What they do is pool their resources with local law enforcement to work together in the case. Cops aren't likely to commandeer your car. Even cops themselves aren't often sure of how legal it is to flash their badge and borrow your ride. Not that it matters, as most police officers go their entire careers without ever needing to pull this. Car chases are actually more dangerous than the criminals. Congratulations, officer! You heroically caught your guy! Too bad you ran over more folks than he ever murdered (if he happens to be a murderer at all). Well over 300 people are killed every year in high-speed chases, at least one third of those innocent bystanders. Getting a perp to confess doesn't mean they did it. Police interrogators are trained in techniques based on outdated science, which often result in false confessions. Some people confess to things they didn't do as a way to get out of the interrogation, thinking they'll be proven innocent later on. Most cops never fire their guns. Research has found that only about 27% of police officers have ever pulled the trigger while on duty (with male officers, white officers, and war veterans more likely than other groups to do so). Profiling isn't all that useful, actually. Are profilers super-psychologists who can get into the criminal's mind without even meeting them? Hardly- research shows that law enforcement profilers are only slightly better at it than untrained randos. Drugs aren’t tested with your mouth. Do you know what looks exactly like cocaine? Cyanide powder -- and you don’t want that crap anywhere near your mouth. That’s why police use much safer lab tests to ID unknown substances. Cops don't investigate crime scenes. The people who collect and analyze the evidence do work for police departments, but they're not police officers-rather, they're civilian technicians with no badge. No, cops aren't required to tell you they're cops. It's entrapment if they don't reveal they're police officers when you ask! you hear but that's BS. It's only entrapment if they actively push you to commit a crime, not if they pinky swear that they're totally not cops and you'll get away with it. Forensic lab results don't come back quickly. So you need this toxicology report ASAP? By the episode's second act, you say? Sorry chief, but lab results in real life can take weeks or even months, depending on a lot of factors. Being a cop isn't all about police work. POLICE While not as exciting as chasing perps, a lot of a police officer's job is to fill papers with words. For many cops, paperwork can take up to three hours of their shift or more. Cops won't charge into rooms gun-first. Police won't shove the barrel of their gun into a room or hallway- they'll stay out, with the gun close to their body, until they have a good idea of what's inside. Only then they'll move in, gradually closing in on the target. You don't need to keep the criminal talking to trace the call. 4 3 2 5 6 Time-consuming phone tracing stopped being a thing in the 1980s. With modern electronic switching systems, the phone company (and the police) can instantly know where a phone call is coming from. Most crimes never get solved. the Unsolved cases don't make for good television (let alone good reality), but that's what ended up happening with 54.5% of violent crimes and 82.4% of property crimes in 2018, according to the FBI.