Basic Trope: Employing a Wounded Gazelle Gambit against authority figures to avoid punishment.
- Straight: Carol scratches her face and accuses officers Alice and Bob of assaulting her.
- Exaggerated: Carol attempts suicide to frame Alice and Bob for murder.
- Downplayed:
- Carol makes wild accusations of police brutality at her trial, which might sway the jury even if they can't be proven.
- Carol was hit by Alice and Bob, however Carol hits herself a few times to make the attack seem more brutal then it really was.
- Justified:
- The Tropeville police force has a bad reputation which Carol was planning to exploit from the beginning.
- Carol knows she's screwed and is employing this as a last resort.
- Inverted: Alice and Bob fake injuries while they're interrogating Carol so they can charge her with two counts of assaulting an officer.
- Subverted:
- We are lead to believe that Carol was lying, but then she shows footage proving that Alice and Bob did indeed abuse her.
- While Carol did inflict the injuries herself, it was not done as a calculated ploy. Rather Carol has numerous psychological issues and tendencies towards Self-Harm, and Alice and Bob make her incarceration as miserable as possible knowing what she will do to herself.
- Double Subverted: "Alice" and "Bob" were actually two of her minions disguised as the 2 officers.
- Parodied: Carol rips her mattress tag off and claims that Alice and Bob ripped it off.
- Zig Zagged: Some criminals hurt themselves, some others commit suicide, and others worsen their injuries, and they frame the 2 officers for assault/murder/worse assault than they actually commited.
- Averted:
- Criminals are shown as actual victims of Police Brutality.
- The possibility is never mentioned.
- Enforced: The writers want to get the Bob in trouble, but they don't want to make him unsympathetic so they write an arc revolving around him being framed.
- Lampshaded: "See, this is why we need to get a camera for the damn interrogation room!"
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: Carol plans to discredit the police force by pretending to be the victim of Police Brutality, allowing her gang to commit crimes more easily.
- Defied: All interrogations are filmed, with sound, and watched by independent witnesses to prevent foul play on either side.
- Discussed: "Why's he injuring himself?" "So he can get the charges dropped and a free lawsuit."
- Conversed: "I heard Carol's going to break her arm and say the police did it if she's arrested."
- Deconstructed: Criminals end up dying from self inflicted injuries, exposing the scam.
- Reconstructed: Families of the criminals try to accuse Alice and Bob of murder.
- Played For Laughs: Carol is the Lovable Rogue, putting one over on the clueless Alice and Bob.
- Played For Drama:
- After Carol's scheme is exposed, courts become less receptive to claims of brutality, meaning a lot of abusive cops end up getting away with their behavior.
- Da Chief decides that whether or not Carol's injuries were self inflicted, she should to be taken to the hospital, where her men are waiting to break her free.
Quick! Get back to Police Brutality Gambit! I'm being assaulted!
