History Main / TheBadGuysAreCops

* In ''Film/{{Searching}}'', [[spoiler:Detective Rosemary Vick is working to obstruct David's search for his daughter Margot because her son Robert was responsible for Margot's disappearance and would face prison time for involuntary manslaughter if he's caught]].

If the bad guys are only pretending to be cops, that's ImpersonatingAnOfficer. Compare SecretPolice, who are similarly bad guys but usually a step above the cops. Unfortunately, too often TruthInTelevision [[CrapsackWorld in a lot of countries]] (and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACAB some would say]] in ''all'' countries), so '''Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease'''

* ''VideoGame/LifeIsStrange2'' is a {{Downplayed}} example: The real villain of the game is systemic institutional racism in the USA, with the police force (and associated forces like border patrol) being the most obvious human avatars of the problem, but far from the only ones. The game actually goes out of its way to make the point that the police officer who fatally shoots Esteban at the start of the story ''wasn't'' a DirtyCop, and that his actions were just a sadly all-too-ordinary product of poor safety training and racial bias (perhaps even of the unconscious variety).

* ''VideoGame/LifeIsStrange2'' is a {{Downplayed}} example: The real villain of the game is systemic institutional racism in the USA, with the police force (and associated forces like border patrol) being the most obvious human avatars of the problem, but far from the only ones. The game actually goes out of its way to make the point that the police officer who fatally shoots Esteban at the start of the story ''wasn't'' a DirtyCop, and that his actions were just a sadly all-too-ordinary product of poor safety training and dangerous cultural assumptions.

* The 2007 ''Film/{{Transformers}}'' film does it with a twist - the Decepticon Barricade has a police car as his alternate mode.

* The 2017 film ''Film/TheHouse'' has a cop as one of the 2 BigBad characters.

Often involves at least one DirtyCop by necessity, may include a RabidCop, and will certainly occur if there's a case of BadCopIncompetentCop. Can result in a HaveYouToldAnyoneElse from the bad cops if someone comes to them in search of a HopeSpot. PoliceBrutality may also transpire. If the corruption extends to the legal system as a whole, that's LegalizedEvil.

* The BigBad of one season of ''Series/DesperateHousewives'' was a cop who was harassing his ex-wife and daughter, and even boasted that since most of the force were his friends there was nothing that his ex could do to stop him from killing her. [[spoiler: The housewives put a quick end to his schemes with some creative lying.]]

* On ''Series/PersonOfInterest'' HR, an organization of {{dirty cop}}s, is a recurring villain and a major source of Numbers for the heroes to protect. They control crooked judges and prosecutors and have major ties to the Italian and Russian mobs. Even a major crackdown by the FBI does not stop them, and they even go as far as recruiting actual mob members into the NYPD to bolster their ranks.

* In ''ComicBook/{{Runaways}}'', the cops in Los Angeles are all on the Pride's payroll, and thus antagonize the Runaways. Even after the Pride is defeated, the cops ''still'' come after the Runaways, because in the second series, the Runaways are considered fugitives. And then, towards the end of the second series, the team travels back in time to get away from the fallout of ''ComicBook/CivilWar'', and ''still'' have to fight cops, because they end up in Manhattan in 1907 and are seen by the local police as dangerous hooligans.

* Episode 3 of ''Fanfic/SherlockSeason4'' ends with several police officers capturing the Joker. You find out soon afterward that the police are "acutllay corupt [sic] cops who were working with Joker and are going 2 come back in next episode".

* Fairly early on in Creator/NaokiUrasawa's ''Anime/{{Monster}}'', Tenma runs into a couple of cops who work with/for Johan 'The Monster' Liebert. He doesn't know who else might be, and thus gets really paranoid about talking to the police... rightly so, since shortly afterwards, he gets framed for murder.
* Creator/NaokiUrasawa's ''Manga/TwentiethCenturyBoys'' features this as a HopeSpot: the young detective hero has [[BringNewsBack successfully contacted]] an influential ally in the upper echelon of the police force with his information on TheConspiracy. Surely things will turn better from there on, right? Wrong — the police is already in the bad guys' pocket and you have just doomed everyone by revealing your hiding place.

* In ''Film/{{Renfield}},'' it's established fairly early on that a lot of the New Orleans police department is on the take from the Lobo gang, and most of the rest let them get away with their criminal enterprise because they don't want to put a target on their backs, which is what happened to [[GoodCop Rebecca's father.]] [[spoiler: It crosses the line fully into this trope when it's revealed that, aside from Rebecca, ''every single cop in the precinct'' is on the Lobo's payroll, and they try bribing her to join in on TheConspiracy. From that point on, the police in the film are just mooks to be slaughtered alongside the Lobo gangsters.]]

* In ''Videogame/SouthParkTheFracturedButWhole'', the South Park PD are even more explicitly evil than they were in the show (where they were merely just racist thugs). Not only are they under the payroll of the main villain but they're also revealed to be a cult worshipping Shub-Niggurath.