History Main / PoliceBrutalityGambit

* 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, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Eric_Garner even when there is video evidence.]]

* 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.

* In ''Film/DirtyHarry'', the Scorpio Killer pays to have himself beaten up so he can blame Detective Callahan (who was following him around to prevent him from killing anyone). Callahan sees through this immediately, and tells DaChief exactly how he figures he wasn't the one who did it:

** His case is helped by the fact that earlier in the film, Callahan ''did'' brutalize him (for a good reason, but still).
* In ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_New_Partner My New Partner]]'', the CorruptCop pays a perp to do this on the rookie, as part of his ploy to corrupt him. He then tells poor rookie he's doing it all wrong, and proceeds to demonstrate ways of hitting perps without leaving a mark.
* In the Japanese film ''[=Pyrokinesis=]'', the murderer from the first act flirts with the interrogating officer, causing her to playfully slap him. He ''immediately'' falls off his chair, causing a media frenzy and getting released. Of course, the protagonist being [[VigilanteMan who she is]], he might have been better off just getting convicted.
* French buddy cop comedy ''Les Ripoux'' has the rookie cop interrogating a suspect who immediately stands up and slams his face in the file cabinet repeatedly to fake police brutality. His senior partner arrives just after and scolds the rookie for not using a phonebook instead, because that wouldn't leave any traces.

* Inverted on ''LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'' where they know judges are more likely to side with cops than suspects. There was once a case where Stabler beat up a suspect who fought back and accidentally 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 their response to the suspect saying he needed an attorney, so he was unlikely to ask for one again even if he had not committed suicide in the interrogation room.)

* One of the {{Big Bad}}s of ''Series/CSIMiami'' did this. Horatio was forced to release him until the medical examiner showed that the injuries were self-inflicted.
** Happens not once, but ''twice''. The second time Horatio does not even do anything about it. Somehow putting cameras in the interrogation room must be too expensive. Probably because they blew the budget on those holographic {{Viewer Friendly Interface}}s.
* By comparison, a random crook in ''Series/CSINewYork'' tried this, and Mac simply pointed out how easy it would be for them to prove that neither him nor detective Flack could have injured him, so he hurt himself for nothing.
** An accidental version occurs a few episodes later when a teenager collapses while alone with Flack. It turns out that [[spoiler: he was responsible for framing the VictimOfTheWeek as being a paedophile and took an overdose of pills, which caused him to collapse]]. He's cleared in the following episode.

* Referenced in ''Series/TheWire'': when Bird is arrested, a Polaroid is taken of his existing injuries so he can't claim they were inflicted in custody.
** Note that this does not stop the Baltimore Police Department from beating him. While he is handcuffed to a table, no less.
*** And they ceremoniously tear up the Polaroid before they do it, just so Bird knows what's about to happen.

* Essentially all of the riots that are going on are linked to this trope. (ie the Ferguson Riots, the Baltimore Riots, etc)

* By comparison, a random crook in ''Series/CSINewYork'' tried this, and Mac simply pointed out how neither him nor detective Flack could have injured him, so he hurt himself for nothing.

* One of the {{Big Bad}}s of ''CSIMiami'' did this. Horatio was forced to release him until the medical examiner showed that the injuries were self-inflicted.

* By comparison, a random crook in ''CSINewYork'' tried this, and Mac simply pointed out how neither him nor detective Flack could have injured him, so he hurt himself for nothing.

* In the Australian thriller ''The Interview (not to be confused with [[Film/TheInterview a controversial Seth Rogen/James Franco comedy]]), the suspect tells the police he will confess to several murders they don't even know about in exchange for some lunch. He confesses in detail while sharing a huge plate of fish and chips with the two cops, but then recants, claiming they intentionally starved him and he made up everything he told them just to get something to eat.

* In an Australian thriller that [[Film/TheInterview shares its name with a controversial Seth Rogen/James Franco comedy]], the suspect tells the police he will confess to several murders they don't even know about in exchange for some lunch. He confesses in detail while sharing a huge plate of fish and chips with the two cops, but then recants, claiming they intentionally starved him and he made up everything he told them just to get something to eat.

* One episode of ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex'' starts with an off-duty Togusa coming to the aid of a woman being chased by an armed cyborg; Togusa has no choice but to aim at the cyborg's arms and legs just to disable him, but the cyborg still manages to shoot the woman and kill her anyway. The cyborg's defence (with the help of a corrupt District Attorney) tries to claim Togusa has a grudge against cyborgs (on the grounds that being the only baseline human in a team full of them gave him an InferioritySuperiorityComplex) and accuse him of excessive force (with the intention of [[BullyingTheDragon blackmailing Section 9]] through it). [[spoiler: There was enough incriminating evidence to give the criminal his own proper trial for murder anyway, but Section 9 weren't happy about [[EveryonesBabySister how Togusa was treated]]; the cyborg and his attorney had an [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident unfortunate care accident]].]]

* French buddy cop comedy ''Les Ripoux'' has the rookie cop interrogating a suspect who immediately stands up and slams his face in the file cabinet repeatedly to fake police brutality. His senior partner arrives just after and is dismayed that he didn't use a phone book because that wouldn't leave any traces.

* 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.
* Music/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, although Jackson's family still claimed that they were biased. The charges were investigated and eventually rejected the following year. (This makes the "They Don't Care About Us" lyric "I'm a victim of police brutality" HarsherInHindsight...since he wasn't.)

** Unfortunately, in the ''really'' [[PoliceBrutality dirty precincts]], such footage can "go missing", or be otherwise tampered with.

* One episode of ''GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex'' starts with an off-duty Togusa coming to the aid of a woman being chased by an armed cyborg. He chases her into a dead end, but Togusa orders the perp to throw down his gun or he will shoot. Togusa has no choice but to aim at the cyborg's arms and legs just to disable him, but the cyborg still manages to shoot the woman and kill her anyway. A corrupt District Attorney decides to take the case and tries to pin this trope on Togusa. He tries to claim Togusa has a grudge against cyborgs and accuse him of excessive force, and also [[BullyingTheDragon tries to blackmail Section 9]] through it as well. It doesn't work. There was enough incriminating evidence to give the criminal his own proper trial for murder anyway. However, Section 9 was not happy with what the DA tried to do to them, so they arranged for an [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident "accident"]] to happen to the DA and the criminal while they were driving on the highway that night.
** Also a case of WhatAnIdiot as you can't really accuse a man of hating Cyborgs when his co-workers and his [[ActionGirl boss]] are all heavily augmented and a cyborg.

* Inverted in ''VideoGame/{{Ripper}}'', where Detective Magnotta beats up Jake Quinlan in the interrogation room, then scratches himself with a knife so he can claim he was defending himself

* In ''TheXFiles'' the [[{{Mutants}} mutant]] serial killer [[MeaningfulName Tooms]] sneaks into Mulder's apartment and beats himself up with one of his shoes, causing Mulder to be warned to stay away from him. The fact that Mulder [[YouHaveToBelieveMe ranted that Tooms]] [[CassandraTruth was a killer mutant]] at his trial didn't help.

* Referenced in ''TheWire'': when Bird is arrested, a Polaroid is taken of his existing injuries so he can't claim they were inflicted in custody.

* Occasionally referenced in ''TheShield'', but it's almost always subverted: Vic Mackey ''does'' employ police brutality, all the damn time, but he's so intimidating that the suspects will rarely if ever actually try to accuse him of it. One notable exception is when a suspect freaked out over Vic's bad cop methods and screamed police brutality, but Vic never even actually touched him. Vic is very confused.
* On ''TheInside'' 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 ''TheCloser'', Captain Raydor is royally pissed when she misses Christmas with the family because a {{creepy child}} makes some rather unconvincing claims about Pope beating him up in a closet with a baseball bat. Keep in mind, the kid's untouched, and her investigation is nothing but a technicality.

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-->-- '''Milton Jones''', ''MockTheWeek''

* In the Japanese film ''{{Pyrokinesis}}'', the murderer from the first act flirts with the interrogating officer, causing her to playfully slap him. He ''immediately'' falls off his chair, causing a media frenzy and getting released. Of course, the protagonist being [[VigilanteMan who she is]], he might have been better off just getting convicted.

* Inverted in ''{{Ripper}}'', where Detective Magnotta beats up Jake Quinlan in the interrogation room, then scratches himself with a knife so he can claim he was defending himself

-->--'''Milton Jones''', ''MockTheWeek''

* In the pilot episode of the live-action ''{{Robocop}}'' show, during Robo's first attempt to arrest Cray Mallardo, Mallardo screams and bends over in a manner that makes it look like Robocop is beating him from the perspective of the security camera in the corner. It wouldn't have held up in court against Robo's memory files, but Robocop was shot by TheDragon with an enormous rifle the moment he left the building, rendering him unable to testify.

* Music/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, although Jackson's family still claimed that they were biased. The charges were investigated and eventually rejected the following year. (This makes the "They Don't Care About Us" lyric "I'm a victim of police brutality" HilariousInHindsight.)

* 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, although Jackson's family still claimed that they were biased. The charges were investigated and eventually rejected the following year.