I've been going through the Columbo catalog. Yes, Columbo is really cool, as police shows go. Also I was watching a bit of Red Dragon.
One common narrative is that some cops are special, and have this really precise intuition, which someone magically cuts through all the many details of the case and exactly hones in on the correct perpetrator, which is never without fail. I love Columbo, but FUCKKKK he's so guilty of this. From minute ten of the episode, he's knows who is the murderer and he's just examining all the inconsistencies of the story until the murderer just confesses and goes to a life in prison without a fight. In Red Dragon, ~~Ben~~ Ed Norton's character can just look at the crime scene photos and then the crime plays in his brain like a movie. I might be exaggerating slightly as I was bored of that film. Think Odo, who just knows when something illegal is going to go down.
I feel like many cop movies have this "special police intuition" trope going on.
It does upset me. If one's ever gone dealt with the legal system in any way, cops are wrong AF. I think we've all experienced it when a cop makes a snap (lazy) judgement, follows through with their hunch out of sheer laziness and hubris, the cop builds a lazy ass case out of vibes, and then the innocent victim spends an inordinate amount of time and money trying to prove their innocence, if they're even able to secure their innocence. Often many are stuck with the results of a 5 second cop hunch for the rest of their lives. Prosecutors and courts generally take the cops' findings at their word.
In another venue, we've all tried fighting snap judgements is from admin on Twitter and 
. AFAIK, I've never seen an admin apologise or return a ban.
I feel like some podcast like Citations Needed or whatever covered this, but no amount of Googling led me to where this idea came from.
I have to admit I would get drunk and watch that show a lot, but only to watch the cops do stupid and reprehensible shit live on the air. There were several instances where the show would suddenly cut away from the officers and convienently take a commercial break when some fucked shit was obviously being done by the cops. Infrequently, but hilariously entertaining, the cops would be made complete fools of and lose the suspect but not cut away to make them look good. There was one where this big pack of guys on dirtbikes (probably 10-15) led the cops on a chase through this rural neighborhood because they'd just lose the cops through tight spaces or go through yards, the cops ended up only catching two of the pack and that's only becauase the two guys accidentally collided with each other and gave the cops a chance to catch up to them, the rest of the pack sped off. I was laughing my ass off that whole time. They should have been playing the Benny Hill theme that whole time.
That's great! Then there's also the times they do something horrible, explain what they meant to do, and that is so much worse. I remember them literally slamming a suspect's head through a window, and when asked if that was necessary, he said he didn't know there was a window there, he thought it was a wall. So he meant to slam this guy's face into a wall?
Those shows are such blatant cop propaganda it's baffling that people take them so seriously. Elliot from Law & Order is like that, break a guy's legs just to get information and the viewers cheer him on. For unknown reasons (possibly an undying love for Olivia) my fiance loved that show and we'd HAVE to watch every new episode right when it came out. So, unexpectedly, I've watched a lot of Law & Order: SVU. And yes, just like in real life, they did mean to slam your face into that wall, at least that part is realistic ๐
Edit: Oh, didn't see I was responding to the post about On Patrol, but the comment still stands either way lol