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{{trope}}
[[File:
Police involved in a [[Hot Pursuit]] will not make even the slightest attempts to preserve their own safety or welfare, or that of [[Innocent Bystander
If the bad guy plows though a [[Fruit Cart|farmers' market]], the cops will do the same to chase him.
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And if one cop wrecks the rest will mindlessly plow into him, sometimes without even making an attempt to avoid a wreck, [[Rule of Cool|'cause the resulting pile of twisted metal is cool]].
Sometimes this is done for humor, but most action movies/TV shows portray this as normal police behavior.
When police are the designated [[Mooks]] of a story, they are often also [[Drives Like Crazy|very bad]] [[Hollywood Police Driving Academy|drivers]] who will probably wreck just driving ''normally'', which only adds to this trope.
Combining this and [[Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy|the fact they have guns]] makes them an easy stand in for the [[Redshirt Army]] in situations where the military isn't likely to be involved and possibly also [[Adults Are Useless]] if the protagonist is a kid.
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In [[Video Games]], this tends to get [[Turned Up to Eleven]] with cops ''intentionally'' trying to [[Everything Trying to Kill You|crash into the player at full speed]] and ignoring everything else.
Of course this is quite different from [[Real Life]] where police have training and procedures for pursuits. Watch any TV program on the subject and you will see the police are ''very'' careful, to the point of backing off and following by air if it looks like civilians will be harmed. [[Real Life]] cops will generally terminate a pursuit when it becomes too fast or dangerous.
[[Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment|And that's all we'll say about it.]]
{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==▼
* In ''[[Full Metal Panic!]]? Fumoffu'', this is played for laughs when an obstinate police officer (who looks suspiciously like she wandered off the set of [[You're Under Arrest]]) gives chase to Sousuke and Chidori double-riding a stolen bike using her squad car and fails epically.
▲== Anime and Manga ==
▲* In ''[[Full Metal Panic]]? Fumoffu'', this is played for laughs when an obstinate police officer (who looks suspiciously like she wandered off the set of [[You're Under Arrest]]) gives chase to Sousuke and Chidori double-riding a stolen bike using her squad car and fails epically.
** The next time we see her, she mentions she's on probation due to wrecking the car.
* ''[[Panty
==
* [[Sin City]] has wave after wave of cop cars getting wrecked or blasted by hookers in many stories that feature car chases. Leading a squad car into Old Town is the best way to avoid the cops.
==
* Movie example: ''[[Smokey and the Bandit]]''.
* Parodied brilliantly in the ''[[Blues Brothers]]'' (picture above), with an ''unbelievably'' large number of <s>lemmings</s> cops. (Made funnier in that, since the heroes are driving an old police car, the cops ''should'' be able to do what they do.)
** Don't forget that the Blues Brothers were on a [[Mission
* ''Taxi 2''. Dozens of police cars follow the main characters. Wherever the main characters' car goes, the police go as
* ''[[Batman Begins]]''. Despite Batman's "no killing" creed (which the cops don't know about), many cops engage him in a high speed chase through highways and back streets. Several spectacular crashes occur with 2 or 3 car pileups, grenades are deployed at one point, and the Batmobile even drives over a police cruiser, demolishing it. When he gets back to the Batcave, Alfred (who has been following the news reports of the chase) tells him "It's a miracle no one was killed." Er, yeah.
** They try to justify it in the direct sequel ''[[The Dark Knight]]'', by giving the Batmobile "lifesign sensors." It knows which cars are okay to blow up.
* Also, ''[[Batman (
* Double subversion in the movie ''Short Time'': the main character engages in this sort of behavior during a car chase... because ''he is actually [[Suicide Is Painless|suicidal]]''. However he ends up miraculously surviving and even gets a commendation!
* The SFPD cops who make the unwise decision to try to chase [[James Bond (
* The cops and FBI agents in ''Eagle Eye'' stupidly follow the protagonist through cross traffic at red lights, smashing into innocent civilians along the way. One even tries to ''ram'' him head-on!
* Older than ''all'' of these are the [
* Partially Averted in ''[[The One (film)|The One]]'', where the
* This troper remembers watching part of a movie during a chase of a guy in a big rig. The cops are run off the road one by one, even after enlisting another big rig driver (who also crashes), and finally resorting to ramming the chased head-on with a school bus. The chased guy jumps out at the last minute, surviving.
* Used in ''[[The Matrix]]'' series to almost comedic effect, while having a philosophical meaning at the same time, the Lemming Cops will always follow The Agents pursuing the heroes no matter what, being as reckless as The Agents are, causing much potential loss of human life as The Agents do, in their simple binary pursuit of the heroes, and even becoming, as needed, the vessels that The Agents use to continue to chase the heroes down.
* Played for laughs in ''[[Beverly Hills Cop]]'', as the police cars storming into the [[Big Bad]]'s mansion to rescue the heroes get into a chain-reaction rear-end collision when a pair of [[Mooks]] crashes during an attempted getaway.
* A rather pathetic example in ''[[Unstoppable]]'' where a bunch of cop cars make a tight turn to keep up with an out of control train, causing one of them to completely flip over in the process...despite the fact that there was absolutely no reason to pursue so recklessly (or at ALL), especially given that there was nothing they could do except hurt bystanders.
▲== Live Action TV ==
* ''[[The Dukes of Hazzard]]'', almost every episode.
* Lampshaded in an episode of ''
* Subverted in ''[[Blue Heelers]]'' when Jonesy pursues a suspect. When he is ordered to terminate the chase, he does (reluctantly), but does not acknowledge it to his superior, and when the suspect wraps his car around a tree Jonesy is very nearly brought up on disciplinary charges - the only thing that saves him is the discovery that the driver was probably on his mobile phone. Before he was chasing the suspect on a dirt road, when he couldn't see in the dust only to discover the suspect had stopped the (stolen, natch) car in the middle of the road, causing the police car to smash into it before flipping the bird and driving off.
** And subverted again in several episodes before that. The most notable example would probably be Brad, Susie's ex husband, who became a paraplegic after a pursuit ended in a crash. He blames himself for what happened but listening to Brad and the pursuit controller he was at least as in control and
== [[Video Games]] ==▼
* Cops in the ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' series are completely reckless in their pursuit of the
▲== Video Games ==
** Literal Lemming cops in ''[[Grand Theft Auto IV|GTA4]]''
▲* Cops in the ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' series are completely reckless in their pursuit of the player -- they'll follow you off cliffs, into water, and plow through traffic, often causing explosive pile-ups. Sometimes the player's "Wanted" level will increase because so many cops have killed themselves in the chase. It gets even ''more'' ridiculous when, in ''[[Grand Theft Auto Vice City|Vice City]]'', you turn on the cheat where going fast enough causes cars to ''[[Slo Mo Big Air|fly]]''
▲** Literal Lemming cops in [[Grand Theft Auto IV|GTA4]] here.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqzeZFO897A
▲** Even on foot it goes sideways as many GTA police simply cannot swim.
** In ''Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars'', besides escaping into a safehouse, the ''main/only'' way to get your wanted level to zero is to force the cops tailing you to crash, one at a time. While [[Video Game Cruelty Potential|incredibly fun]], this isn't the smartest mechanic, as it only counts when an ''occupied'' cop car crashes. Hitting an unoccupied one or killing a pedestrian officer will actually increase your wanted level.
** The same also seems to, very ironically, apply to paramedics too - the ambulances seem to exhibit much the same behaviour as the cop cars, causing more fatalities than they prevent.
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* When the cops are after you in ''[[Driver]]'', they seek to chase and ram you no matter at what costs, up to kamikaze-like head-on collisions when both you and the cops are driving at maximum speed. This is justified by the fact that nobody can get out of their car, and the squad cars are actually [[Car Fu|the police's only weapon]] against you. In the sequels, the cops are smarter, but still not smart enough not to chase you [[Ramp Jump|over ramps]].
* As with all the above examples, the cops in the ''Midtown Madness'' games are ridiculously single minded in their attempts to run the player off the road, including crashing through other traffic.
* ''[[
* ''[[Just Cause (
== [[Western Animation]] ==▼
▲== Western Animation ==
* Parodied in ''[[Family Guy]]'' when Stewie, Brian and Mort are in a submarine, being chased by another submarine. They manage to make their pursuer crash and the moment it does so, about two dozen police cars come in apparently from nowhere, crashing into the sub.
* In an episode of ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' Marge and her friend Laura Powers are being chased by the police across the desert. Homer, riding in Chief Wiggum's car ([[It Makes Sense in Context|long story]]) successfully warns them that they're about to drive into The Grand Chasm and they brake to a stop in time, while Wiggum and Homer go hurtling past them and over the edge.
* Parodied again in ''[[South Park]]'', where Cartman and Kyle are riding their Big Wheels to California. A CHP Cruiser spots them and gives chase, at what could be no faster than
*
== [[Real Life]] ==
* A very mild case happened some years ago. A lovely lady was walking down the sidewalk. Three officers were coming up to a stop sign. The first officer stopped at the sign, and had a look at the eye candy. The other two officers had a look as well, but were [[Distracted
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Cops and Detectives]]
[[Category:Chase Scene]]
[[Category:
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