One thing that has always annoyed me about the Hollywood portrayal of police departments, and is something that I mock in passing in the QUANTUM MORTIS series, is the way in which we are supposed to believe that police departments seriously frown upon individual police violating procedures and skirting the law. Is there a single Hollywood cop who hasn’t had to turn in his badge and his gun at one point or another? Or hasn’t been suspended from his job?
The reality is that police are statistically more likely to have sex with a prostitute on duty than to arrest one, are more likely to murder someone and get away with it than be caught and charged with the crime, and are only at the risk of losing their jobs if they violate the code of silence and upset the local police union.
Los Angeles police officers tampered with voice recording equipment in dozens of patrol cars in an effort to avoid being monitored while on duty, according to records and interviews.
An inspection by Los Angeles Police Department investigators found about half of the estimated 80 cars in one South L.A. patrol division were missing antennas, which help capture what officers say in the field. The antennas in at least 10 more cars in nearby divisions had also been removed.
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck and other top officials learned of the problem last summer but chose not to investigate which officers were responsible. Rather, the officials issued warnings against continued meddling and put checks in place to account for antennas at the start and end of each patrol shift.
The police chief simply “chose not to investigate” a series of obvious crimes committed by numerous police officers. It’s totally predictable, so why do we so seldom see that in the movies?