Police Brutality: Difference between revisions

* ''[[La Haine]]'' shows a particularly brutal vicious circle relationship between the Paris police and a group of teenage thugs from the local banlieues. The police raid the deprived banlieues, the people who live there fight back, which means the police crack down harder on the area, which means the people start rioting... {{spoiler|It eventually culminates in the police shooting an unarmed teenage boy, and one officer and the boy's best friend [[Mexican Standoff|holding guns to each other's heads]]. End of film.}}

** {{spoiler|With a single gunshot, just after the screen goes black, as well.}}

** It becomes clear a bit later on that this hiring choice was entirely intentional.

* ''McQ'' (1974). [[John Wayne]]'s character is implied to have beaten up suspects in the past. One occasion has a radical giving him lip in a corridor, whereupon Wayne stamps on his foot. When another cop asks what happened, John Wayne replies, "He stubbed his foot on a chair." (The corridor is empty of chairs).

* The ''[[V for Vendetta]]'' film has the Fingermen, who are the Norsefire party's [[Secret Police]]. They are allowed to pretty much do anything, though as order in England breaks down, people put up with them less and less. This culminates in a Fingerman shooting an ''unarmed little girl'' who was committing peaceful protest. A lot of people - very ''mean'' looking people - then come out of their houses and kill the guy despite his gun and badge.

** Of specific note is that V only meets Evey because he has to intervene to save her from a police gang rape.

* ''[[The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus]]'' has the song ''"We Love Violence (Join the Fuzz)"'' where a troupe of singing, dancing policemen extols the virtues of being able to perform violence within the law.

* In ''[[Ip Man]] 2'', one British policeman has his buddies hold down {{spoiler|editor-in-chief Kan}} while he deals out a beating.

* The first movie in the Michael Bay ''[[Transformers Film Series|Transformers]]'' series had a cop threaten to "bust [Sam] up" for looking at his gun. Yes, [[Sarcasm Mode|because reaching for a gun won't cause people to automatically look at you.]]

* [[The Fighter]] has some cops break Micky's hands simply due to him being a fighter. It's also worth noting that he didn't do as much damage as his brother, Dickey.

* In 2010 film ''The Traveler'', the Drifter was assaulted extremely badly to the point of coma by Detective Black and the rest of the police officers who were at the interrogation scene. This sets off the entire vengeance plot of the film.

 

== Literature ==

* Lampshaded, parodied, and all the rest in [[Discworld]]. Any series so very self-aware with an entire subseries revolving around a police force is pretty much required to.

** Played almost horrifically straight in ''Night Watch'' with the Unmentionables, however, and Vimes' personal narration takes great care to note that beating people up in small rooms for good reasons always leads to beating up people in small rooms for bad reasons. This is pretty central to Vimes' psychology -- he's pretty strict on himself and his subordinates because he's a big believer in the slippery slope and he wants to make damn sure no one slides down it.

* In ''[[The Death of the Vazir Mukhtar]]'', the main character [[Pet the Dog|steps in]] to stop one such incident in 1829 St. Petersburg.

* Discussed at length in the [[Andrew Vachss]] Burke book ''Terminal''. See the quotes page.

 

 

** Malloy and Reed have also been victimized by claims of police brutality, particularly in the episode "Good Cop: Handle With Care." There, two rouge freelance journalists harass our protagonist officers as they go about their daily work, eventually catching their prey as Reed and Malloy were in the midst of handling a hallucinogenic subject who had gone into a violent seizure. As the officers take the drugged-out man to the emergency room for detoxification, the photographer snaps a picture; the man had a bloody nose, the result of his head hitting the seat frame as he was shaking violently and uncontrollably. However, the journalists' story makes it out to be classic police brutality. Sgt. Mac McDonald (the officers' superior) questions Reed and Malloy, who are of course cleared (although this is not ever explicitly stated in the episode). In the end, the journalists' harassment of Reed and Malloy and insistence that they were rouge cops out to brutalize innocent subjects leads to a tragedy.'

* ''[[Dragnet]]'' got in on it at least once as well, in an episode showing the police application process of the time. Friday and Gannon were suspicious of one applicant with a 6 month gap in his background history, and it was discovered he'd been kicked off another town's sheriff force for police brutality.

** Note that the traditional explanation for suffering injuries while in British police custody is "falling down the stairs"; bonus points if this is in a police station where the cells are on the ground floor.

** It should also be noted that the conflict between the old-style policing of [[Gene Hunt Interrogation Technique|Gene Hunt]] and the modern/futuristic policing of Sam Tyler is the central dramatic conflict in the show, but even then, there are external forces in the 1970s for the police to rein in such brutality, as evidenced in the series finale.

** Probably the most serious examples are Kima, Herc, and Carver roughing up the sixteen-year-old Bodie, or Kima, Daniels, and Landsman all taking on Bird, who at the time was handcuffed to a table. In both cases, their actions are considered more-or-less justified because the thug in question "started it", either by throwing the first punch, or by making one too many lewd comments while in custody.

** Another is when Prez hits a fourteen-year-old in the face with his gun, blinding him in one eye, after which he's taken off patrolling entirely.

** In game of "Hollywood Director," Brad, playing a cop responding to a car accident between Ryan and Wayne, immediately after arriving on the scene, beat up Wayne for no other reason than because he's black.

** Another game had Ryan and Colin playing a [[Good Cop, Bad Cop]] pair of dishwasher repairmen; the game ended with Wayne stuffed into his dishwasher.

** Amusingly enough, on the "[[Idiot Ball]]" note, is that the reason Ray got the first hit in was because he tossed the don a basketball, ensuring that his opponent's hands would be full when he took the first swing. It could almost be a [[Visual Pun]] on the concept of the [[Idiot Ball]].

** Ray made a point of leaving his gun and badge in the car before he went inside to confront the Don, so he wasn't beating the crap out of him as a cop, but as a member of the community (That said, still a cop, still an unlawful beatdown, still counts.)

* Happens now and then on COPS, but of course, it's never acknowledged. And of course, [[Your Mileage May Vary]] on this one.

* ''[[Babylon 5]]'': [[Da Chief|Micheal Garibaldi]] tries to put a random [[Jerkass]]'s head through a tabletop when he refuses to stop talking trash about Marsies during a period of violence on Mars. It no doubt didn't help that Garibaldi's ex-lover lived on Mars, and he had been unable to find out if she had been harmed in the fighting.

* Occurs in ''Mark Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure'', wherein the city has enacted draconian measures to prevent graffiti, including assaulting graffiti artists with deadly force. One early level forces you to sneak away from a scene while two officers beat a graffiti artist to death while discussing how they'll decide he "resisted arrest."

* The FUZZ side-missions in [[Saints Row]] 2 have the main character disguising themselves as a police officer and committing wanton acts of police brutality (like breaking up a strike with a ''flamethrower'') for a [[Cops]]-style reality TV show.

* Lieutenant Carter Blake from ''[[Heavy Rain]]''. He assaults Ethan's therapist for refusing to answer his questions, attacks a mentally disturbed suspect who turns out to have nothing to do with the case, and if Ethan gets arrested, Blake will proceed to beat the hell out of him, only stopping when Ethan falls unconscious.

* All of the Grand Theft Auto games contain this; police will often shoot you for hitting their car. You're often guilty of much more, so perhaps they're justified. However, you can usually run over three or four pedestrians before they'll take any notice. Corrupt police officers are obviously abundant in the [[Crapsack World]] and will often hire the player for hits. Particularly notable is San Andreas, where the [[Big Bad]] is a corrupt CRASH officer and the final mission takes place during what are basically the GTA world's version of the Rodney King riots.

== Webcomics ==

* The Podunkton police force in ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' like to [http://sluggy.com/daily.php?date=060925 indulge in this]. Their chief officer is actually a former mafia enforcer.

 

 

* Pepper Spray Cop: an incident of [[Police Brutality]] during an Occupy protest at UC Davis underwent [[Memetic Mutation]].

** Although as always, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhPdH3wE0_Y there are two sides to the story].

 

 

* In quite a daring move for a G-rated direct to video movie, ''[[An American Tail]]: The Treasure of Manhattan Island'' features a police force who savagely beat down protesting factory workers with their clubs, are being paid under the table by corrupt factory owners, and deliberately start a race riot. You know, for kids!

* The former picture caption comes from an episode of [[South Park]], where Cartman is made a police officer. He immediately starts to abuse it, doing things like stopping Stan's dad for speeding. He was driving the speed limit.

** Humorously subverted in another episode, where two cops appear to be beating a suspect, when in reality they were fixing a parking meter