History Main / MinorityPoliceOfficer

* ''Series/TheNightAgent'': Erik Monks and Chelsea Arrington are black Secret Service agents, while the director Ben Almora is a Latino. Peter's old friend Cisco is also a state trooper and he's Asian. In a flashback we learn that Chelsea's mom was against her career, believing the US doesn't care about black people, though she supports her daughter nonetheless. Erik and her also know it's harder for them, as black agents, to rise up in the ranks.

* ''Series/Allegiance2024'': The series centers on Sabrina Sohal, an Indo-Canadian police officer who's also a Sikh. Significant attention is given to her status as a minority, with implicit racism as a result along with other issues given this. Her father was also a high-ranking police officer who'd been charged with treason, something that affects Sabrina deeply as she tries to clear his name.

** Garda Reservists who are from religious minorities like Muslims and Sikhs were not allowed to wear any religious clothing on their uniforms, which was challenged in the Equality Tribunal and the High Court by Ravinder Singh Oberoi. The ruling was made in favor of the Garda. It was until 2019 when Garda Commissioner Drew Harris made exemptions for volunteers who are from said religious communities in an efforts to bolster recruitment diversity.

* The UsefulNotes/HongKong Police Force (formerly the Royal Hong Kong Police Force) has made efforts to recruit from the non-Chinese populace in order to combat discrimination made by Chinese officers and/or assist in cases where the HKPF would encounter a case involving a resident due to religious cases since HK has a diverse population. Project Gemstone is the program used to recruit non-Chinese in the force, which was launched in 2013 through the Yau Tsim Police District. As of 2019, four Pakistanis, three Indians, one Nepalese and one Filipino are recruited to the [=HKPF=]. In addition, any non-Chinese officer who served in the former RHKPF has the right to privileges bestowed to them after the creation of the Hong Kong SAR government was allowed to work in the HKPF.

* According to sources, the {{city guards}} in ancient Athens were entirely made up of Scythian slaves. They would patrol the market and other public places, along with pulling citizens into the assembly when the body didn't have a quorum. Why this was isn't clear, but probably due to the fact the Scythians were well-known as a warrior people, with Greeks admiring them for that and so the Athenians believed they would be good at guarding the city.

* ''Series/ClassOf09'':
** Tayo is a black FBI agent who becomes Director by 2034. He relates once to Poet having been wrongly arrested and slapped as a boy by a police officer without having in fact done anything wrong, so he's well aware of how law enforcement's power can be abused. His own father was also a police officer who'd been murdered due to his white colleagues' corrupt indulgence toward the killer, a racist who they gave a pass. Tayo wants to reform the system from within and thus end institutionalized racism.
** Hour is Iranian-American, and her parents had fled Iran due to political persecution. She wants to be a part of a system which won't persecute people simply for dissent, as her father had suffered. However, her parents are displeased at her joining the FBI, as Middle Eastern Americans have born a lot of suspicion in the US. They're afraid Hour will simply help uphold this status quo.
* ''Series/{{Deputy}}'': Several of the LA deputy sheriffs are black, with some Latinos as well. Joseph, who's a black rookie deputy, faces being [[{{Profiling}} profiled]] and threatened by LAPD officers, while also viewed as [[CategoryTraitor a traitor]] by some other black people for being a cop at all. His training officer, herself black, tells Joseph how while on the job fellow black people are only going to see him as a cop.

* ''Series/TheNightAgent'': Erik Monks and Chelsea Arrington are black Secret Service agents, while the director Ben Almora is a Latino. Peter's old friend Cisco is also a state trooper and he's Asian. Though the others' aren't shown as affected by this, it's revealed Chelsea's mom was against her career, believing the US doesn't care about black people, though she supports her daughter nonetheless.

** Chris Alonso is the only female member of the team, as well as being a bisexual Latina. When her team members are angered at her being held to a different standard in a physical evaluation, Chris is so used to it that she just outright expected the examiner to be prejudiced. She tries to use her position to open doors for other women in the police force but admits to worrying that the higher-ups see her as their necessary good deed and won't carry on the progress.

** The main protagonist Sergeant Hondo Harrelson is a Black man, who gets promoted in charge of his own S.W.A.T. team at the start of the series effectively as a PR stunt (his predecessor and friend accidentally shot a Black teenager). Whilst often struggling with balancing his loyalty to both the uniform and his background, Hondo strives to make the best of his position, trying to build trust and improve minority relationships with the police force. Believing its the only way to tackle the underlying issues that ruin so many lives. Hondo likewise admits that he feels the need to always excel so that he wouldn't get passed over because of his race.
** Chris Alonso is the only female member of the team, as well as being a bisexual Latina. When her team members are angered at her being held to a different standard in a physical evaluation, Chris is so used to it that she outright expected the examiner to be prejudiced. She tries to use her position to open doors for other women in the police force, but admits to worrying that the higher ups see her as their necessary good deed and won't carry on the progress.

* ''Series/{{Deputy}}'': Several of the LA deputy sheriffs are black, with some Latinos as well. Joseph, who's a black rookie deputy, faces being [[{{Profiling}} profiled]] and threatened by LAPD officers, while also viewed as [[CategoryTraitor a traitor]] by some other black people for being a cop at all. His training officer, herself black, tells Joseph while on the job fellow black people are only going to see him as a cop.

[[quoteright:350:[[Film/AlienNation https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/alien_cop_5.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:This cop's out of this world... [[HumanAliens literally]].]]

Can result in a WunzaPlot, as that trope usually fits in with this trope perfectly. If they're the first police officer of that group on the force, then it's BreakingTheGlassCeiling. This may cause them to be the TokenMinority. They're also likely to have to face down an IntimidatingWhitePresence. They also have a good chance of [[TokenGoodCop being the only actually decent cop on the force]], especially if the rest of the cops are [[BigotWithABadge dyed-in-the-wool racists]].

Can result in a WunzaPlot, as that trope usually fits in with this trope perfectly. If they're the first police officer of that group on the force, then it's BreakingTheGlassCeiling. This may cause them to be the TokenMinority. They're also likely to have to face down an IntimidatingWhitePresence.

* A recurring trope in the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' novels. Minority races trying to integrate into Ankh-Morpork society often start out by joining the Watch, which is the only place where they're accepted. By the end of ''Literature/GuardsGuards'', Sam Vimes is in charge of the City Watch for Ankh-Morpork, and he's a suspicious xenophobic bastard who doesn't trust any of the non-humans (or the humans) that move into the city. However, he often finds himself hiring minority members to join his police force so that they have enough members to patrol the entire city.
** ''Literature/MenAtArms'': Lord Vetinari has forced Captain Vimes to hire a trio of new recruits: Lance-constable Cuddy (a dwarf), Lance-constable Detritus (a troll), and Lance-constable Angua (a w[[spoiler:erewolf]]). Angua, especially, gets marginalized for being a w[[spoiler:erewolf]], and it's not until TheReveal that you find out it isn't because she's a woman.
** ''Literature/FeetOfClay'': The minority police officers chat about [[WackyFratboyHijinx hazing]] rituals, such as the doggie treats in Angua's locker and the stepstool in Cheery's. By the end of the story, a Golem is added to the force as well.
** {{Literature/Thud}}: Salacia is the first vampire to join the force, over Vimes' vehement objections (he's all for including other species in the Watch, but does not like vampires on a personal level, and it takes the ruler of the city pulling a "because I said so" for him to very reluctantly let her in). Vimes is later vindicated when it turns out Salacia was spying on them for the Low King, but by that point she's proved herself as an officer and Vimes has no intention of letting her go, to her surprise.

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Can result in a SaltAndPepper pairing, and/or a WunzaPlot, as these tropes naturally enough, fit in with this trope perfectly. If they're the first police officer of that group on the force, then it's BreakingTheGlassCeiling. This may cause them to be the TokenMinority. They're also likely to have to face down an IntimidatingWhitePresence.

* ''Film/SuperTroopers'' has AmbiguouslyBrown Vermont State Trooper Arcot Ramathorn on the force; sometimes, other police officers think he's Mexican, while at other times they think he's from Afghanistan (the actor playing him, Jay Chandrasekhar, is of Tamil Indian descent)

* ''Series/TheBorder'':
** Immigration and Customs Service has Sergeant Layla Hourani, formerly of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. She's a Muslim Canadian woman who gets called in whenever an ICS case involves the community at large. The show implies that her Farsi language skills, aside from her surname, pegs her as of Iranian heritage. After her death at the hands of mobsters, Special Agent Khalida Massi from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service is assigned on a full-time basis as an ICS officer. She, like Layla, is from an (unnamed) ethnic minority.
** Acting Inspector Darnell Williams is assigned to ICS from CSIS and is an African-Canadian.
* The third season of ''Series/TrueDetective'' has Wayne Hays as one of the few African-American officers in the Arkansas State Police. This was used to his advantage when he goes to interview African-American [=POIs=]. This was inspired by Mahersala Ali providing photographic evidence that his grandfather was a state police officer in the 1960s.

* ''Series/OctoberFaction'': Gina Fernandez, a Latina, is the sheriff of Barrington-on-Hudson, a small mostly white town in upstate New York. Years before her, Deloris' father, a black man, had held the post.
* ''Series/TheMurders'':
** Kate is a biracial detective in a nearly all white police department. Her father (who's dead by the time of the show) was black and a fellow police officer. Kate's mother is white and currently running for mayor, with a part of her platform being to foster greater diversity in the force, with Kate being in a photo op by her side. This annoys Kate, seeing it as her mom just using her to score some points as her biracial cop daughter. She later apologizes however. When talking with her mom too the latter notes that black people often dislike them being in the police force, as Kate's father had also experienced when serving.
** Kate works under Bill Chen, a Chinese-Canadian detective.
* ''Series/ClassOf09'':
** Tayo is a black FBI agent who becomes Director by 2034. He relates once to Poet having been wrongly arrested and slapped as a boy by a police officer without having in fact done anything wrong, so he's well aware of how law enforcement's power can be abused. His own father was also a police officer who'd been murdered due to his white colleagues' corrupt indulgence toward the killer, a racist who they gave a pass. Tayo wants to reform the system from within and thus end institutionalized racism.
** Hour is Iranian-American, and her parents had fled Iran due to political persecution. She wants to be a part of a system which won't persecute people simply for dissent, as her father had suffered. However, her parents are displeased at her joining the FBI, as Middle Eastern Americans have born a lot of suspicion in the US. They're afraid Hour will simply help uphold this status quo.

** Tayo is a black FBI agent who becomes Director by 2034. He relates once to Poet having been wrongly arrested and slapped as a boy by a police officer without having in fact done anything wrong, so he's well aware of how law enforcement's power can be abused. His own father was also a police officer who'd been murdered due to his white colleagues' corrupt indulgence toward the killer, a racist who they gave a pass too. Tayo wants to reform the system from within and thus end institutionalized racism.

* As part of the policing reforms undertaken after the Northern Ireland Peace Agreement was implemented, the Police Service of Northern Ireland tried to recruit an equal number of Catholic and Protestant officers, and promote more Catholic officers to senior positions. There's also recruiting non-Caucasians from the African and Asian communities in and around Northern Ireland and in the rest of the UK.

* As part of the policing reforms undertaken after the Northern Ireland Peace Agreement was implemented, the Police Service of Northern Ireland tried to recruit an equal number of Catholic and Protestant officers, and promote more Catholic officers to senior positions.

* ''Anime/{{Metropolis}}'' features "Pero", a robot detective/police liaison; in this society, robots are so heavily discriminated against that they aren't even allowed ''human names''.

* Meanwhile, in the Republic of Ireland, the Gardía Síochána is trying to recruit non-white recruits to serve in the GS as part of the ''Diversity Strategy & Implementation Plan'' paper implemented due to the growing ethnic diversity in Ireland; as [[https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/just-one-in-240-garda%C3%AD-from-a-minority-background-1.3513045 a 2018 article from the Irish Times]] points out, only 0.4 percent of Gardaí are non-white.