History Main / PoliceBrutalityGambit

* MichaelJackson [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_v._Jackson#Allegations_against_police claimed in an interview that he had been injured and mistreated]] when he was booked on child molestation charges in 2003. The police department in question released video and audio tape to discredit his claims.
** The pictures he released to the public showing noticeable bruises and bumps on his wrists that the authorities tried to write off as a make-up effect did not reflect well on them. They also denied mistreating him on the way to the police station even though Jackson claimed mistreatment at the police department. They never proved anything in their favor.

** The pictures he released to the public showing noticeable bruises and bumps on his wrists that the authorities tried to write off as a make-up effect did not reflect well on them. They also denied mistreating him {b}on the way to the police station {/b} even though Jackson claimed mistreatment at the police department. They proved nothing in their favor.

* ''{{Millennium}}''. A CreepyChild does this to discredit Frank Black.

* ''ShinjiAndWarhammer40K'' has [[spoiler:Shinji use this trick during a secret interrogation to get Gendo fired and locked up. In a subversion, Gendo had no problem hurting Shinji seconds earlier in such a way as to avoid leaving any marks, and he had struck Shinji in full view of others during [[NotSoStoic a moment of weakness]] months earlier, so when Shinji started punching himself in the face as hard as he could, Gendo realized nobody would believe the truth.]]

* In a sketch on ''AlasSmithAndJones'', a criminal having been warned that anything he says may be taken down and used in evidence starts reciting (deadpan) "What are you doing officer? Stop hitting me..." as the constable dutifully writes it down.

* Inverted on LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit where they know judges are more likely to side with cops then suspects. There was once a case where Stabler beat up a suspect who fought back and accidently hit Benson. When asked about the badly beaten man's injuries, Cabot claimed that the only ones he had were on his fist were from punching the detective and threatened to charge him with assaulting a police officer. Another time, after it was pointed out that Fin and Stabler could be charged with assault after a particularly brutal interrogation, Fin just dismissed it and said he would like to see a lawyer try it. (of course it would have been hard in that case because the assault was the their response the suspect saying he needed in attorney, see he was unlikely ask one again even if he had not committed suicide in the interrogation room)

** SVU ''really'' likes this trope... In yet another episode, a variant of this trope is invoked when an arrested teen loudly accuses Stabler of "touching his junk" as a patrolman is walking by. Since they were in a storage room at the time (using it as temporary lock-up rather than throwing the kid in with the adult criminals) and had their backs to the door (because the kids hands were cuffed behind him, and stabler was in the process of cuffing him to a rail), the patrolman could only testify in court to what he heard and what he ''didn't'' see.

* Doesn't work so well in RealLife. Most of the time it comes down to the police officer's word against the suspect's, and most judges will end up siding with the cop. The only time it will ever work is when there's definite video evidence of the brutality, though that still doesn't mean the cop will get punished for it.

In reality, this rarely works; real-life interrogations are sometimes filmed, while police cars normally have audio and video recorders running at all times. And both judges and juries are in general more disposed to believe the word of a cop when it comes down to a he-said, she-said situation (which can be unfortunate when the cop really is corrupt, but people trying to BS their way out of a conviction is far more common).

Officer O'Troper is in an interrogation room with Professor Evil, he's started getting somewhere. They found his fingerprints all over the DeathRay and they have a receipt for a [[{{Phlebotinum}} fluxoid charger]] from Radioshack. It's an open and shut- HEY! Why's the professor clawing at his own face? Prof. Evil then proceeds to cry PoliceBrutality and they're forced to release him, and he then finds an AmbulanceChaser and proceeds to unleash a FrivolousLawsuit on poor old [[ButtMonkey O'Troper]]. A {{subtrope}} of WoundedGazelleGambit which occurs in {{Police Procedural}}s. Basically a suspect injures himself and accuses the police of PoliceBrutality in order to try and get the charges dropped.

* On ''The Inside'' a [[EnfantTerrible psychopathic little girl]] threw herself out of a treehouse and broke her arm, pointing the finger at Agent Locke who had just confronted her with evidence she was the [[MonsterOfTheWeek murderer of the week]].

In reality, this rarely works; real-life interrogations are sometimes filmed, while police cars normally have audio and video recorders running at all times. And both judges and juries are in general more disposed to believe the word of a cop when it comes down to a he-said, she-said situation (which can be unfortunate when the cop really is corrupt, but people trying to BS their way out of conviction is far more common).

In reality, this rarely works; real-life interrogations are sometimes filmed, while police cars normally have audio and video recorders running at all times. And both judges and juries are in general more disposed to believe the word of a cop when it comes down to a he-said, she-said situation.

[[AC:RealLife]]
* Doesn't work so well in RealLife. Most of the time it comes down to the police officer's word against the suspect's, and most judges will end up siding with the cop. The only time it will ever work is when there's definite video evidence of the brutality, though that still doesn't mean the cop will get punished for it.
** This troper has seen footage of some TooDumbToLive criminals trying this method... while they're already ''in prison'' and ''on security footage''. At least one case has a recording of the crook talking about the scheme while he's in the police car, not realizing that the car has both video and audio recorders running.
** A memorably funny instance on a recent episode of ''The Smoking Gun Presents: World's Dumbest _______'': a guy punched a cement wall, then started screaming about how the police had broken his hand during the arrest. When informed he was on camera, he curled up on his bunk and started crying.
** This trope is one of the main reasons why most jurisdictions have fitted out police interrogation rooms and cells with video cameras; it's a lot harder to pull this kind of stunt when it's all being videotaped. Of course, it acts as a deterrent to any officer who does feel like getting a bit too physical with a suspect as well.
** This trope is also discussed in ''Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets'', from which ''HomicideLifeOnTheStreet'' took much inspiration. Whilst acknowledging that genuine police brutality does exist, the author notes that since most of the murders that the detectives face generally tend to occur to people that the detective neither has a particular personal stake in or occur between criminals, there's actually not a great deal of incentive for the cops to risk the case, their clear-up rates and their careers to rough up some local criminal simply to get him to confess to killing another local criminal.
*** Course the book did have an example of a case blowing up when one detective said that they had a phonebook in the interview room to look up an address while the accused said they had beaten him with a phonebook.
** MichaelJackson [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_v._Jackson#Allegations_against_police claimed in an interview that he had been injured and mistreated]] when he was booked on child molestation charges in 2003. The police department in question released video and audio tape to discredit his claims.
* A version of this was done by the civil rights movement. They banked on the fact that the police would respond to marches with violence and used it to their advantage.

* Inverted on LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit where they know judges are more likely to side with copes then suspects. There was once a case where Stabler beat up a suspect who fought back and accidently hit Benson. When asked about the badly beaten man's injuries, Cabot claimed that the only ones he had were on his fist were from punching the detective and threatened to charge him with assaulting a police officer. Another time, after it was pointed out that Fin and Stabler could be charged with assault after a particularly brutal interrogation, Fin just dismissed it and said he would like to see a lawyer try it. (of course it would have been hard in that case because the assault was the their response the suspect saying he needed in attorney, see he was unlikely ask one again even if he had not committed suicide in the interrogation room)

* Inverted on LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit where they know judges are more likely to side with copes then suspects. There was once a case where Stabler beat up a suspect who fought back and accidently hit Benson when asked about the badly beaten man injuries Cabot claimed that the only ones he had were on his fist from punching the detective and threatened to charge him with assaulting a police officer. Another time after it was pointed out that Fin and Stabler could be charged with assault after a particularly brutal interrogation Fin just dismissed it and said he would like to see a lawyer try it. (of course it would have been hard in that case because the assault was the their response the suspect saying he needed in attorney, see he was unlikely ask one again even if he had not committed suicide in the interrogation room)