15 Lies About Police Work Movies Like to Tell You
![15 Lies About Police Work Movies Like to Tell You](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/9/8/4/785984_320x180.jpg)
Just like police exist to protect us from evildoers (well, at least in theory), so do movies exist to protect us -- from reality. In movies, a bad cop like Dirty Harry or Lethal Mel Weapon Gibson aren't “dangerous killers," they're “guys that get the job done.” Or Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill aren't “weirdly abusing the powers of the badge to provide drugs and alcohol to teenagers,” they're “taking down a dangerous drug ring from inside a high school.” And no matter what Law and Order: SVU says, there's just no way cops can hear conversations from two rooms away, enter another room, and seamlessly contribute previously unknown information. At least, no way we've heard of.
These are obvious examples. Easy-to-suspend-your-disbelief examples. But when crime movies and reality come together, frictions are bound to arise. Just like when the FBI arrives and steals a case from the local pol… Wait, what? What do you mean, that only happens in movies? What else only happens in movies? Well, as it turns out, we have a pictofact set right here which is exactly about that. Funny that, huh?
![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.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/9/7/4/785974.jpg)
Source: Technology Org
![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.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/9/7/6/785976.jpg)
Source: FBI
![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.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/9/8/2/785982.jpg)
Sources: Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times
![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.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/9/8/0/785980.jpg)
More: The 6 Most Popular Crime Fighting Tactics (That Don't Work)
![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.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/9/7/9/785979.jpg)
Source: NPR
![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).](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/9/7/7/785977.jpg)
Source: Pew Research Center
![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.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/9/7/1/785971.jpg)
Source: Vox
![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.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/9/8/1/785981.gif)
![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.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/9/7/8/785978.jpg)
Source: Deseret News
![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.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/9/7/5/785975.jpg)
Source: Free Advice
![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.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/9/7/2/785972.jpg)
Source: Lab Tests Online
![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.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/9/7/3/785973.jpg)
Source: Police Chief Magazine
![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.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/9/7/0/785970.jpg)
![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.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/9/6/9/785969.jpg)
Source: CreditCards.com
![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.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/9/6/8/785968.jpg)
Source: Insider