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When the local police force and the Feds argue what to do about a suspect. Could be a petty thug who can bring down a drug empire, or a rapist to be let off the hook for scant evidence, etc; the local cops will want to shut 'em down to protect the little guy now, while the Feds are focused on the big picture.
Jurisdiction Friction may also occur at the initial crime scene: the hero investigator will barely have the time to unearth a few clues before the rival investigation outfit shows up to flash badges all over the place and claim jurisdiction. At this point, the hero will either turn Vigilante Man or move on to a new case that's oddly reminiscent of the old one.
Which side of the dispute is sympathetic and which is heartless/incompetent/arrogant/corrupt/trigger happy/working for the shadow government depends entirely on who the main characters are. FBI agent series such as The X Files and Without A Trace naturally will have them in the right, while a Police Procedural is on the other side.
In addition to local versus Feds, the friction can occur between other law enforcement subdivisions over the same suspect, like drug enforcement officers versus homicide investigators, or simply one of a city's police districts versus another. And everybody has it in for the Private Detective.
Examples:
Comic Books
- Walker and Pilgrim in the comic book Powers often find their investigations turned over to the Feds. Naturally, this never stops them investigating anyway.
- A police ally of the X-Men once used this to save them when crooks-turned-feds Freedom Force attempt to arrest the mutant heroes. She insisted Freedom Force produce the documentation necessary to take the X-Men into custody (which they didn't have on them). This gave the X-Men time to flee the city.
Film
- Bon Cop Bad Cop has the Quebec and Ontario police arguing over a dead body found lying on top of a highway sign indicating the precise location of the Quebec/Ontario border.
Martin: His heart is in Québec.
David: Ya l'Ontario dans l'cul aussi! (Translation: He's got Ontario up his ass)
Martin: What ?
David: But his ass belongs to you.
- In The Fugitive (1993), there's a conflict between the local police and U.S. Marshals over who's in charge of finding the escaped prisoners. The U.S. Marshals win when they show an order from the state governor that gives them control. Later on there's a disagreement between the Marshals and the Chicago police after Dr. Kimble is believed to have shot a police officer: the cops want to kill him, and the Marshals still want to take him alive.
- No Country For Old Men has the local sheriff being distinctly uninterested in the investigation the feds (DEA, I think) are conducting into the mass murder that occurred in his jurisidiction.
- Inverted in Beverly Hills Cop III, where Detective Billy Rosewood has been appointed DDOJSIOC (Deputy Director of Joint Special Inter Operational Command), responsible for coordinating the efforts of the various L.A. metro area law-enforcement agencies as needed. At one point he assembles a veritable army of different units and uniforms, including Baywatch lifeguards, to surround and secure a single suspicious van, which proves to be empty; he gets chewed out for it.
- The movie Murder at 1600 has Wesley Snipes as a Washington D.C. police homicide Detective investigating a murder of a secretary at the White House. He has all kinds of Jurisdiction Friction with the Secret Service (which guards the White House). This is also a case of Did Not Do The Research (or maybe They Just Didnt Care) because any murders on Federal property (like the White House) are handled by the FBI.
- In The Negotiator, Samuel L. Jackson's character has taken hostages in the headquarters of the Chicago PD, but the building itself is owned by the Federal Government. The FBI agents agree to let the local authorities handle the situation temporarily, but then later take over. When Samuel L Jackson escapes the building, the local police take over again, because he is now at large in the city, which is not Federal jurisdiction.
- Somewhat subverted in The Matrix, where the local cops sneer at the Agents, who are initially at least apparently FBI.
- Mysteriously avoided in Taking Lives, in which the Sûreté du Québec swoop down in helicopters in front of a train station in Moncton, New Brunswick (somehow managing to get there from Quebec in 20 minutes).
- The Spurbury Police Dapartment and the Vermont Highway Patrol continually clash over jurisdiction in Super Troopers, even leading to an out-and-out brawl at a murder scene. There is a justfication beyond general JerkAssery, though: The state doesn't have the money to maintain both stations, so the Highway Patrolmen need to get big crimes on their record to justify their existence.
- Notably not how things would actually be done in Vermont. The town collects the tax money for police protection, and the town selectboard decides whether to establish/maintain its' own force or contract with State Police or Sheriffs - it's a town matter, not a state one.
- Gone In 30 Seconds has tension between the auto theft unit and the homicide unit of the same department about the Big Bad, who is wanted by both of them. You'd think that being part of the same police department after the same man they'd find it easier to work together to bring him in and simply increase his charge sheet (and thus the likelihood of him being convicted for something), but apparently not.
- Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back has a Federal Wildlife Marshall who shows up at a diamond heist claiming jurisdiction because the criminals also arranged for the animals in an animal testing facility next door to be released at the same time. The local cops resent this... less because of the jurisdiction issue, and more because he's a complete idiot.
- This is shown in The Dark Knight, when Batman shows up at a crime scene and asks Gordon for a couple minutes alone before his men come in and contaminate it. Gordon is happy to oblige, but his officers take offense.
Literature
- In the book Darkly Dreaming Dexter (not sure about the TV series), the Miami Metro PD gets into a jurisdictional tangle when the Ice Truck Killer, who they're investigating, leaves a body in an area under a rival district's jurisdiction.
- Happens in the Dresden Files book Fool Moon, where three FBI agents are investigating a string of murders caused by a werewolf. The Jurisdiction Friction is so bad, they almost come to violence against Murphy while investigating a crime scene. This is because they are the werewolves themselves, in particular demonic-influenced ones, and gradually losing their human minds to the Beast.
- This is addressed in several Vince Flynn books, most notably Transfer of Power. Of course, the different Agencies have it a bit easier than most examples, because their heads know each other personally, but there is still an acknowledged interagency rivalry and pride.
Live Action TV
- Star Trek is not immune to this; the Maquis freedom fighters were attacking Cardassians, but they were technically Federation citizens, making it very testy as to whether Starfleet was gonna stop them, or the Cardassians.
- Speaking of 24, a great many plots and subplots involve Jurisdiction Friction. 24 being the way it is, the conflict spirals way beyond Fed vs. Local. Past conflicts have involved CTU vs. The US Secret Service, CTU vs. LAPD, CTU vs. The Armed Forces, CTU vs. The FBI; it gets pretty interesting. Subverted though, in that in several instances, various organizations will team up to stop their common Big Bad.
- Happens several times in the Law And Order franchise, not only between the NYPD and feds, but between the Manhattan prosecutors and the US Attorney's office. Also the other boroughs, the state government in Albany, podunk towns upstate, the Port Authority, New Jersey, the US military, Canada, and a few other foreign lands. It's one of the writers' favorite ways to disrupt a case that could be a slam dunk by the 45 minute mark. It helps that New York's unique position in geography and politics means it has a lot of overlapping government spheres of influence, second only perhaps to Washington, D.C. In only the first season for example, one of three Federal inmates in a prison van is murdered during transport to court in Manhattan, leading to the detectives and FBI agents bickering over who has the right to even question the other two prisoners while the deceased isn’t even cold.
- The Wire features this in season 2, with McNulty trying to prove that the deaths of 14 murdered women occurred in Rawls' jurisdiction.
- This trope is actually subverted somewhat in The Wire as the heroes, members of the Baltimore PD, frequently must go to the Feds begging for help. The Feds frequently refuse because their focus, post-9/11, is on terrorism cases.
- It's also Subverted in that virtually all of the friction occurs because the agencies are trying to dump the cases on others, not claim them for themselves. It's Baltimore. There are enough murders to keep everyone busy.
- Subverted in Reno 911! where the clearly-more-competent FBI comes to town to investigate a serial killer and the local crew try desperately (and fail) to (in the words of Lt. Dangle) "not seem like dicks" to them.
- Played for laughs on another occasion where the Reno sheriffs' drug sting operation (posing as a buyer) nets-a DEA sting operation (posing as the seller), after both go through a Long List of humorous drug euphemisms.
- This has happened in real life more the once sadly...
- On Law And Order SVU, Dr. Huang (an FBI profiler) often acted as a mediator between the squad and the feds. One gets the feeling during the times he actually takes the FBI's side, he does so not because he thinks they're right, but because he doesn't particularly like
Stabler most of the SVU team.
- Another episode featured Benson and Stabler going up against the FBI when one of the key participants in their case was revealed to be in the Federal Witness Protection Program as a witness to a key Federal case. Subverted, in that Benson and Stabler's interference in the Federal case merely ended up getting the guy killed and screwing up both the FBI and NYPD investigations.
- Largely averted in Criminal Minds: the FBI main cast won't get involved in a case until the local authorities ask for help, since they don't want the locals to stop asking. This was a minor problem in one episode until an agent notices that a letter from the unsub was sent from a different state, giving the FBI jurisdiction anyway.
- Stargate SG 1 bristles when it comes to the NID, but it all gets really simple once they turn out to be the Bad Guys anyway.
- Averted in CSI, in which the titular forensic technicians have apparently unlimited authority to interrogate suspects, pursue fugitives, engage in gun battles, make arrests, and cut deals. In the real world, their obviously massive share of departmental funding alone would make the normal cops psychopathically jealous - but the eager and justifiable use of the Law Of Conservation Of Detail makes many a Fan Dumb believe that in the CSI-verse the normal cops are useless.
- Parodied on Psych when the Treasury Department horns in on a case. Naturally, they have their own Federal psychic consultant.
- And used again when Chief Vick (police) and her sister (Coast Guard) get in a fight over which of them has jurisdiction over a case.
- Comes up frequently in NCIS. Is the dead body of the week a matter for NCIS, their counterparts in the Army, the FBI, or a local enforcement agency? Sometimes, characters on all sides get so snappy about jurisdiction that it seems they're more interested in having cases on their records than catching the bad guys... and the main characters are not above playing some dirty tricks in order to keep control of an investigation, such as when they agree to hand over a corpse to the FBI but put one of their own (live) agents in the body bag instead.
- Built into The Closer, given that Brenda Leigh Johnson, a detective with the LAPD, is married to an FBI agent.
- The Dukes Of Hazzard occasionally saw this, when Hazzard's Sheriff Rosco Coltrane clashed with Sheriff Little of neighboring Chickasaw County.
- Inverted in Homicide Life On The Street, when a detective takes a corruption case involving a judge and local drug dealers to the local office of the FBI and the friction comes from the fact that the FBI don't seem interested in taking the case or what the cop has to say. Disgruntled, the cop leaves, but one of the agents corners him and explains off-the-record that they're already investigating the case; official policy is not to let on to the locals, hence their apparent lack of interest. Satisfied, the cop agrees not to let on that he talked to them.
Real Life
- Real life example: The Waco Siege in 1993, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) tried to raid a compound, and made a complete mess of things. The FBI steps in, takes over, brings in a friggin tank, and makes an even BIGGER mess of things. The two agencies have been at odds ever since.
- Margaret Garner, when cornered by slave catchers, killed her children rather than let slavers take them back with her. This produced a legal discussion as to whether the Federal Fugitive Slave Act trumped mere State murder charges. It did so she had to flee.
- This troper has heard that in countries that have a gendarmerie (regular soldiers trained as cops who enforce the law among the civilian population) there is often a rivalry between the gendarmerie and the local police.
Web Original
Western Animation
- South Park, in an episode parodying 24: Kyle's attempt to track down a terrorist cell through social networking websites is taken over in sequence by the FBI, Homeland Security, the CIA, the Secret Service, and the NSA, all within less than two minutes. Kyle then takes it back by just saying so.
NSA Agent: All right, we're in charge now!
Kyle: Not any more, you're not!
NSA Agent: Oh, snap.
- This was also parodied earlier when the boys were playing cops, and had their game taken over by a bunch of kids playing FBI. Later, real cops are taken over by the real FBI in exactly the same fashion.
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