History Main / PoliceLineup

Some aspects of this trope also seem to be derived to have been conflated with photographing perps during processing, since both involve criminal suspects standing in front of a brightly-lit wall with demarcated height measurements. Of course, that would imply that everyone's mugshot is a magnification of a larger group portrait, which is just silly.

A TruthInTelevision trope, but fiction often plays with it. Police lineups in the real world are SeriousBusiness, because the self-reinforcing nature of memory means that a witness who makes a mis-identification once becomes more and more certain the more times they repeat the mistake.

Shots along these lines are sometimes used to show the main cast of a series... and to imply that they're ''all'' unsavory characters or criminals, even though that isn't how lineups work. Bonus points if none of them look at all alike and there isn't even a common gender in the group.

* On ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'' episode "Inspection Detection", when Timmy is [[MistakenForThief suspected of shoplifting]] at a local department store while prepping for [[TheInspectorIsComing Fairy Inspection Day]] and cannot explain where he got the stuff he wished for at the risk of losing Cosmo and Wanda and his attempt at using a lie detector to prove this [[DidntThinkThisThrough backfires on him big-time]], he's put in a police lineup with Chester, AJ, and [[TheBully Francis]]. [[spoiler:The real shoplifter turns out to be Francis after Timmy finds a stolen walkie-talkie in his pants before the former could proceed to beat up the latter, but since [[AdultsAreUseless his parents]] and [[PoliceAreUselessthe police]] were too stupid to listen, Timmy was forced to go on the run to [[ClearMyName clear his name]], and successfully proves it when Cosmo shapeshifts into a surveillance camera and [[CaughtOnTape catches Francis on video stealing a tub of lard]].]]

* On ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'' episode "Inspection Detection", when Timmy is [[MistakenForThief suspected of shoplifting]] at a local department store while prepping for [[TheInspectorIsComing Fairy Inspection Day]] and cannot explain where he got the stuff he wished for, he's put in a police lineup with Chester, AJ, and [[TheBully Francis]]. [[spoiler:The real shoplifter turns out to be Francis after Timmy finds a stolen walkie-talkie in his pants before the former could proceed to beat up the latter, but since [[AdultsAreUseless his parents]] and [[PoliceAreUselessthe police]] were too stupid to listen, Timmy was forced to go on the run to [[ClearMyName clear his name]], and successfully proves it when Cosmo shapeshifts into a surveillance camera and [[CaughtOnTape catches Francis on video stealing a tub of lard]].]]

* On ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'', when Timmy is MistakenForThief he's put in a police lineup with Chester, AJ, and Francis.

* Parodied in the ''Film/GeorgeOfTheJungle'' LiveActionAdaptation, in which Lyle takes part in a lineup. In normal police lineups, the people hired are meant to have similar physical features to the convicted/accused. What happened was that Lyle ended up standing next to jungle natives who weren't even the same skin colour as he was and they were of different shapes and sizes. In addition, Lyle is conspicuously hiding his face behind someone else.

** In one ColdOpen, the victim never saw the suspect's face since she was hiding, but she heard him singing the Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way." So Jake has the suspects sing a (surprisingly good) rendition right there in line.

'''Victim''': ''(about to burst in tears)'' It was Number Five. Number Five killed my brother.\\

* When Kima is shot on ''Series/TheWire'', they can't do a line-up because she is still in the hospital, so they use a photo array. Bunk tries to "fat finger" Wee Bey, the man they think is the shooter ([[spoiler: Correctly]].) But Kima can't remember and refuses to lie.

* ''Series/{{Bottom}}'' had an episode devoted to a scam pulled by Dave Hedgehog, Spudgun, and Mrs Hedgehog to commit a petty crime, get the police to assemble a line-up, and collect a small payment for their services as stand-in members of said line-up. HilarityEnsues, as usual.

** In "To Love and Die in Dixie", Chris identifies a store robber in a police lineup. Peter stupidly walked into the lineup, told the robber that Chris was the witness and gave his address, necessitating entry into a witness protection program which leads the plot of this episode.

** In the episode "The Springfield Files", Homer is asked to identify the alien he saw from a lineup which consisted of [[StarWars Chewbacca]], Series/{{ALF}}, [[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes Marvin the Martian]], [[Film/TheDayTheEarthStoodStill1951 Gort]] and Kang (or Kodos) from the various "[[HalloweenEpisode Treehouse of Horror]]" installments.
** In "Milhouse Doesn't Live Here Anymore", Homer and a random bum talk about a time they met in a police line-up.

** In "Krusty Gets Busted" when Homer has to identify Krusty among other clowns.

* Done face-to-face between suspect and witness at a police station in ''Film/DetectiveStory. The witness was brought in to help convict a dubious BackAlleyDoctor but it turns out she was bought and doesn't recognize the doctor in the line up.

* In ''Series/DayBreak2006'', Hopper's neighbor/housekeeper Mr. Zeitoun identifies [[ThoseTwoBadGuys Buchalter and Fencik]] as the [[JanitorImpersonationInfiltration false plumbers]] using this method.

'''Victim''': It was Number Five. Number Five killed my brother.\\

* In the Robert Asprin book ''[[Literature/MythAdventures Myth-Nomers and Impervections]]'', Skeeve is a part of a police line-up where all the other people in the line-up are uniformed policemen with green scales, where he is a medium-sized human-looking fellow who is, obviously, not in a police uniform.

* Parodied in the first ''Film/TheSantaClause'' movie, when Scott Calvin/Santa's ex-wife is brought to a police lineup... of mall and charity Santas (none of which are Scott), several of whom also prove to be morons by turning the wrong direction when asked.

* ''ComicStrip/TheWizardOfId''. The King is about to give a BalconySpeech when someone shouts "The King is a fink!" The King recognises Lone Haranguer's voice, so Sir Rodney comes up with the idea of having everyone in the crowd come up to the Kind one-at-a-time and say "The King is a fink!" Needless to say, the peasants enjoy this a lot more than the King does, and Sir Rodney ends up getting [[ATasteOfTheLash a lash]] for one that just called the King a fink and got away with it.