109 Fun Facts About Police

Which British Home Secretary founded London's Metropolitan Police in 1829?

Robert Peel's Metropolitan Police Act of 1829 created the force, whose first constables went on patrol on 29 September 1829; 'bobbies' and 'peelers' both take his name.

How did the Metropolitan Police headquarters get its famous nickname?

From the street its public entrance faced: the first headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place had its public entrance on Great Scotland Yard, and the name became shorthand for the whole force.

Which magistrate and novelist founded the Bow Street Runners, London's first professional police, in 1749?

Henry Fielding, author of Tom Jones, recruited a handful of paid constables in 1749 from his Bow Street magistrate's office; his blind half-brother John carried the force on after him.

Which of Peel's principles is the most often quoted?

'The police are the public and the public are the police' is the seventh of the nine principles, stressing that officers are simply citizens paid to give full-time attention to duties incumbent on every citizen.

The British police custodian helmet was adopted in 1863 to replace what?

A stovepipe top hat, stiffened with cane and leather, was the Met's headgear from 1829 until the custodian helmet replaced it in 1863.

Interpol is headquartered in which French city?

Lyon has hosted Interpol's General Secretariat since 1989, when it moved from the Paris suburb of Saint-Cloud; every member country runs a National Central Bureau.

What was the FBI called when it was established in 1908?

Bureau of Investigation was the original name, formally given in 1909 to the special-agent force Attorney General Charles Bonaparte assembled in 1908; it became the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1935.

For how many years in total did J. Edgar Hoover lead the FBI and its predecessor?

48 years: appointed by Coolidge in May 1924, Hoover ran the bureau under eight presidents until his death in May 1972.

Which is the oldest US federal law enforcement agency, created by the Judiciary Act of 1789?

US Marshals were created by the Judiciary Act of 24 September 1789, the same law that set up the federal courts, and George Washington appointed the first thirteen.

The Texas Rangers trace their founding to a 1823 call to arms by whom?

Stephen F. Austin, leading the first Anglo colony in Mexican Texas, called in 1823 for ten men to 'act as rangers' against raids; the Rangers' museum and Hall of Fame is in Waco.

Which US municipal police department, founded in 1845, is the country's largest?

New York City's police department, created in 1845 on the model of London's Metropolitan Police, has more sworn officers than any other US city force.

The Miranda warning stems from a Supreme Court decision in which year?

1966 was the year of Miranda v. Arizona, decided 5-4 on 13 June; the warning also promises a court-appointed attorney to those who cannot afford one.

In 1920 the Royal North-West Mounted Police absorbed which force to become the RCMP?

Dominion Police, the federal force formed in 1868 to guard government buildings in Ottawa, merged into the Royal North-West Mounted Police on 1 February 1920 to form the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Ireland's police, the Garda Síochána, translate their name as what?

Guardians of the Peace is the sense of Garda Síochána, the force formed in 1922 as the Civic Guard; it is largely unarmed, with only specialist units carrying firearms.

A kōban is a small neighbourhood police station found in which country?

Japan's kōban system puts small staffed police boxes in every neighbourhood; the one at Kameari in Tokyo inspired the long-running manga Kochikame.

The Carabinieri, instituted in 1814, are the national gendarmerie of which country?

Italy's Carabinieri began on 13 July 1814 as the Corps of Royal Carabinieri of the Kingdom of Sardinia; a gendarmerie is a military force with civilian policing duties.

Which US state has the country's second-largest municipal police department, behind New York?

Illinois takes second place through the police department of its largest city, which fields more sworn officers than any other US city force bar one; Los Angeles ranks third.

The first police car, used in 1899 by the Akron, Ohio, police, was powered by what?

Electricity powered the 1899 Akron patrol wagon, built by Frank Loomis for $2,400 and fitted with lights, a gong and a stretcher; its first call was to pick up a drunk.

The world's first traffic lights, installed in December 1868, stood outside which building?

The Houses of Parliament had the gas-lit semaphore signals outside, at the junction of Bridge Street and Great George Street, installed on 9 December 1868 to protect MPs crossing; they exploded within weeks, injuring the policeman operating them.

Which colour were Glasgow's police boxes, unlike the blue ones everywhere else in Britain?

Red was the colour of Glasgow's cast-iron police boxes, a few of which survive in the city centre; the blue Metropolitan Police design became famous as the TARDIS in Doctor Who.

The UK's 999 number, launched on 30 June 1937, holds what distinction?

World's oldest emergency call service: 999 started in London after a 1935 Wimpole Street fire in which five women died, and the first week brought more than a thousand calls.

The first US 911 call was made in 1968 in Haleyville, in which state?

Alabama's Haleyville hosted the first 911 call on 16 February 1968, placed by state House Speaker Rankin Fite and answered by Congressman Tom Bevill.

The radio code '10-4' reached the public in the 1950s through which TV series?

Highway Patrol, the 1955-59 syndicated series starring Broderick Crawford barking '10-4' into his radio, made the code a catchphrase; APCO devised the ten-codes from 1937 to save airtime.

The Taser is named after a 1911 novel about which boy inventor?

NASA researcher Jack Cover began work on it in 1969 and named it after 'Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle'.

Robert Borkenstein, who invented the Breathalyzer in 1954, was a captain in which state's force?

Indiana State Police captain Robert Borkenstein built the Breathalyzer in 1954; he later became a professor at Indiana University, where Rolla Harger's earlier Drunkometer had been developed in 1938.

The polygraph's 1921 inventor, John Larson, was also an officer of which police department?

Berkeley's police department, under reforming chief August Vollmer, employed John Larson, a medical student who built the first modern polygraph there in 1921.

Who developed Kevlar, the fibre in modern body armour, at DuPont in 1965?

Stephanie Kwolek, a DuPont chemist, discovered the liquid-crystal polymer solution that became Kevlar in 1965; its first commercial use was replacing steel in racing tyres.

Besides his body-measurement ID system, what is French police officer Alphonse Bertillon credited with inventing?

The mug shot in its standard form, a full-face and a profile photograph, was Bertillon's innovation in the 1880s; his anthropometry was later displaced by fingerprints.

The Vucetich fingerprint classification system was developed in which country?

Argentina's Juan Vucetich, a Croatian-born police official in La Plata, devised his system in 1891 and used it in 1892 to solve the Francisca Rojas murder, the first conviction by fingerprint evidence.

DNA profiling was discovered in 1984 by Alec Jeffreys at which university?

Leicester's university is where Alec Jeffreys hit on DNA fingerprinting on 10 September 1984; the technique first cleared a wrongly suspected youth, then caught Colin Pitchfork, convicted in 1988 of murdering two teenagers.

Which dog breed is famed for following human scent days later and is widely used by police?

Bloodhound noses can pick up a trail days old and follow it for miles; US courts have accepted bloodhound trailing evidence since the nineteenth century.

Which of these is NOT another name for a police baton?

Halberd is a medieval pole weapon with an axe blade and spike, not a baton; billy club, nightstick and truncheon all describe the short club, as do cosh and the Indian lathi.

The Pinkerton detective agency was founded around 1850 in which city?

Chicago is where Scottish-born Allan Pinkerton set up his agency around 1850; its 'We Never Sleep' motto and unblinking-eye logo gave English the term 'private eye'.

The world's first private detective agency was founded in Paris in 1833 by which former criminal?

Eugène François Vidocq, an ex-convict who had founded and run the Sûreté, opened his Bureau des Renseignements in 1833; he inspired Hugo's Jean Valjean and Balzac's Vautrin.

Prohibition agent Eliot Ness led a team nicknamed what while pursuing Al Capone?

The Untouchables got their name because Capone's bribes could not buy them; Eliot Ness handpicked the small squad of Prohibition agents to raid the gang's breweries.

What was Joe Friday's badge number in Dragnet?

The syndicated version of the show was even titled Badge 714.

Which sergeant on Hill Street Blues ended every roll call with 'Let's be careful out there'?

Phil Esterhaus, played by Michael Conrad, closed each morning roll call with the line until Conrad's death in 1983; Robert Prosky's Sergeant Stan Jablonski then took over the roll call.

Peter Falk's Lieutenant Columbo drove which battered French car?

Peugeot 403 convertible, a 1959 model, was Columbo's car, chosen by Peter Falk himself from a studio lot; the rumpled raincoat, cigar and never-seen wife completed the character.

Telly Savalas played which lollipop-loving TV police lieutenant?

Kojak, the bald, sharp-suited lieutenant played by Telly Savalas from 1973 to 1978, made the lollipop and the catchphrase 'Who loves ya, baby?' his trademarks.

HBO's The Wire, created by former police reporter David Simon, is set in which city?

Baltimore, where David Simon spent more than a decade on the Sun's police beat, is the setting; each of the five seasons examines a different institution, from the docks to the schools and the newspaper.

Which actor played Frank 'Ponch' Poncherello in CHiPs?

Erik Estrada played Frank 'Ponch' Poncherello through all six seasons from 1977 to 1983, riding alongside Larry Wilcox's Jon Baker for most of the run.

Which actresses played the title detectives for most of Cagney & Lacey's run?

Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly were the pair from 1982 to 1988, each winning Emmys for the roles; Loretta Swit played Cagney in the pilot and Meg Foster in the first six episodes.

Dick Wolf's Law & Order premiered on NBC in 1990 and completed how many seasons in its original run?

20 seasons: the original run ended on 24 May 2010, tying Gunsmoke's record for a US prime-time drama; NBC revived the series in 2022.

The BBC's Dixon of Dock Green, which ran from 1955 to 1976, was spun off from which 1950 film?

The Blue Lamp, the 1950 Ealing film, killed off PC George Dixon, shot by Dirk Bogarde's young crook; Jack Warner then revived the character for the BBC series.

In the Police Academy films, Steve Guttenberg's Carey Mahoney joins the academy why?

As punishment for offences: after wrecking a rude customer's car at a parking lot, Mahoney is offered the academy in place of jail, betting he will be thrown out; he stays.

Sting, frontman of the Police, got his nickname from what?

A black-and-yellow striped jumper he wore on stage with the Phoenix Jazzmen led bandleader Gordon Solomon to say he looked like a wasp, and the name Sting stuck.

Which fictional detective regularly showed up Scotland Yard's Inspector Lestrade?

Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle's consulting detective of 221B Baker Street, repeatedly beat Lestrade to the solution; Lestrade appears in thirteen of the stories, starting with A Study in Scarlet in 1887.

Australia's largest police force, established in 1862, serves which state?

New South Wales Police Force, formed in 1862 by bringing the colony's separate police bodies under one Inspector General, has more sworn officers than any other Australian force.

The UK's National Crime Agency, sometimes called Britain's FBI, was set up in which year?

2013 saw the National Crime Agency go live on 7 October, replacing the Serious Organised Crime Agency and absorbing the child-protection body CEOP.

The LAPD's motto, made famous by Dragnet-era TV, is what?

To Protect and to Serve won a 1955 contest among LAPD academy recruits, was adopted by the department in 1963 and appears on the doors of its black-and-white patrol cars.

Which post-French Revolution leader reorganised the police of Paris into a Prefecture of Police in 1800?

Napoleon, as First Consul, created the Prefecture of Police by the law of 17 February 1800; the same law gave every commune of more than 5,000 inhabitants a police commissioner.

The Metropolitan Police's first commissioners in 1829 were Sir Charles Rowan and which lawyer?

Sir Richard Mayne, an Irish barrister, served alongside Colonel Rowan and stayed on as commissioner until his death in 1868, the longest tenure in the force's history.

The Peelian principles were distilled into nine points in a 1948 book by which historian?

Charles Reith set out the nine principles in A Short History of the British Police (1948), drawing on the General Instructions issued to every new Metropolitan officer in 1829.

The word 'police' ultimately derives from politeia, a term from which ancient language?

Greek politeia, meaning citizenship or the state, passed through Latin politia and Middle French police into English, where it at first meant public policy or civil order.

Which king's government set up the first centrally organised uniformed police, in Paris in 1667?

Louis XIV's edict of March 1667 created the lieutenant général de police for Paris, an office first held by Gabriel Nicolas de la Reynie, who also brought street lighting to the city.

Which city's High Constables of 1611 were probably the world's first statutory police force?

Edinburgh's town council appointed the High Constables in 1611 to keep order in the burgh, under regulations that dealt with curfews, weapons and theft; the society outlived the city's later professional police as a ceremonial body.

Why was the Metropolitan Police uniform deliberately made blue in 1829?

Red was seen as a military colour, and Peel wanted his constables to look like civilians, not soldiers; they carried only a wooden truncheon and a rattle, and ranks avoided military titles except Sergeant.

Old Kingdom Egyptian law enforcers used which unusual animals on guard duty?

Monkeys and baboons appear in Old Kingdom tomb reliefs seizing thieves in the marketplace; Fifth Dynasty guards armed with wooden sticks patrolled markets and temples with trained animals including dogs.

Which was the first policing service founded in Canada, in 1729?

Royal Newfoundland Constabulary traces its origins to 1729, when the island's first governor appointed justices of the peace and constables in St. John's; it gained the 'Royal' prefix in 1979.

RoboCop follows a murdered police officer rebuilt as a cyborg to patrol which crime-ridden city?

Detroit hands its police department to a mega-corporation in the film, yet the cameras were hundreds of miles away: RoboCop was shot mainly on location in Dallas.

Which rock and roll star asked President Nixon for a federal narcotics agent's badge at the White House?

Elvis Presley set up the December 1970 meeting himself, telling Nixon he could reach out to the hippies and help combat the drug culture.

In the name of the police tactical unit SWAT, what do the letters W, A and T stand for?

Weapons and Tactics was the second choice: LAPD inspector Daryl Gates wanted the letters to mean Special Weapons Attack Team, and his deputy chief turned it down.

In Disney's Zootopia, rookie officer Judy Hopps is the first of which animal to join the police force?

Rabbit recruit Judy Hopps was nearly the sidekick: fox Nick Wilde was the film's lead until the makers swapped the two roles late in production.

The US Secret Service was founded in 1865 to fight which crime, decades before it guarded presidents?

Counterfeiting was rampant after the Civil War, which is why the agency sat inside the Treasury Department until 2003.

Which NBA Hall of Fame center became a reserve officer with the Los Angeles Port Police?

Shaquille O'Neal later trained as a Miami Beach reserve officer too, and chose a private swearing-in so he would not draw attention from the other officers.

Which father of schoolboy Ralph serves as Springfield's chief of police in The Simpsons?

Clancy Wiggum takes his surname from the maiden name of creator Matt Groening's mother, whose parents were Norwegian immigrants.

Gene Roddenberry was the LAPD chief's speechwriter before he created which science-fiction TV franchise?

Star Trek came after years in uniform: Roddenberry started in the traffic division, became the LAPD's liaison to the TV series Dragnet, and resigned in 1956 to write.

Truckers nickname state police after which mascot, who wears the same flat-brimmed campaign hat?

Smokey Bear has worn a campaign hat since his first fire-prevention poster in 1944, and because many state troopers wear the same type of hat, truck drivers call them smokeys or bears.

Chase, the police pup who is second-in-command of the PAW Patrol, belongs to which dog breed?

German Shepherd pup Chase doubles as the team's spy dog, working beside a clumsy Dalmatian who serves as its firefighter and paramedic.

Which comedian plays wisecracking detective Axel Foley in the Beverly Hills Cop films?

Eddie Murphy inherited the part from Sylvester Stallone, whose rewrite had stripped out the humor and turned the script into a standard action film.

On police radio, an urgent alert sent to every officer is an APB, which is short for what?

All-points bulletin is first recorded among American police in 1947, and the same alert also goes by BOLO, for be on the lookout.

Lawman Wyatt Earp fought the gunfight near the O.K. Corral in which silver-mining boomtown?

Tombstone's famous shootout was over in around 30 seconds, and it was not fought in the corral at all but in a narrow lot beside a photography studio.

Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot is a retired police officer and wartime refugee from which country?

Belgium's best-known fictional policeman is the only invented character to receive a front-page obituary in The New York Times, after his last case in 1975.

Which police inspector hunts the paroled convict Jean Valjean for years in Victor Hugo's Les Misérables?

Javert was himself born in a prison, the son of a fortune-teller and a father serving in the galleys.

The FBI Academy, where new special agents train, sits on a Marine Corps base in which Virginia town?

Quantico's present academy opened in 1972, years after the Marines first let agents use their firing ranges there; it now covers 547 acres of the base.

Which sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico, tracked down and killed the outlaw Billy the Kid?

Pat Garrett, a former bartender and cowboy, was waiting in the shadows of a friend's bedroom at Fort Sumner when the Kid walked in around midnight.

Which three-digit number reaches police and other emergency services everywhere in the European Union?

112 is written into the GSM mobile standard, so a compatible handset can dial it even when the phone is locked.

Which actor created bumbling French police inspector Jacques Clouseau in the original Pink Panther films?

Peter Sellers only began developing the exaggerated French accent in the second film, A Shot in the Dark, which came from a stage play that had no Clouseau in it.

Which actor won five Emmy Awards as the jittery deputy Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show?

Don Knotts played a lawman so careless with firearms that Sheriff Andy Taylor made him carry his gun unloaded, with a single bullet in his shirt pocket for emergencies.

The original CSI: Crime Scene Investigation follows police forensic investigators in which city?

Las Vegas rarely saw the cameras: the early seasons were shot in Santa Clarita, California, because the valley there looks so much like the city's outskirts.

Which actor plays family man Roger Murtaugh, partner to Mel Gibson's Martin Riggs, in Lethal Weapon?

Danny Glover was the casting director's idea: she suggested pairing him with Gibson because the script gave Murtaugh no set ethnicity.

Which actress plays detective-turned-captain Olivia Benson on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit?

Mariska Hargitay's Benson began as a detective in 1999, and in 2021 her 23rd season broke the record for the longest-running regular character in American primetime live-action television.

Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry, Inspector Harry Callahan, works for which city's police department?

San Francisco suited the story: the film drew on the real-life case of the Zodiac Killer, with Callahan hunting a similar psychopath called Scorpio.

Which TV police drama's title became American slang for the police?

Hawaii Five-O took its title from Hawaii being the fiftieth state, and when it ended after twelve seasons it was the longest-running police drama in American television history.

Which actor played whistleblowing officer Frank Serpico in Sidney Lumet's film about police corruption?

Al Pacino was playing a real officer, whose reports of corruption during eleven years on the force led to the Knapp Commission investigation.

Which future US president spent two years in the 1890s as a reforming big-city police commissioner?

Theodore Roosevelt made a habit of walking officers' beats at night and in the early morning to make sure they were actually on duty.

Europol, the European Union's law enforcement agency, is based in which Dutch city?

The Hague beat Rome and Strasbourg to host the agency, whose officials have no power to arrest suspects themselves.

Which Jamaican reggae band recorded Bad Boys, the opening theme of the long-running reality show Cops?

Inner Circle got the job by luck: a field producer for the show happened to be a fan, and the 1987 song became a US top-ten hit on its re-release in 1993.

The Keystone Cops, silent film's bumbling policemen, appeared in slapstick comedies made by which producer?

Mack Sennett named the troupe after his Keystone studio, and as early as 1914 he had moved them from starring roles to the background behind comedians like Charlie Chaplin.

Which wartime technology did Connecticut State Police begin testing on speeding drivers in 1947?

Radar reached the roadside through two engineers who had developed it for the military and cobbled their first unit together from coffee cans soldered shut.

How do more than 95 percent of American sheriffs get the job?

Elected by local voters, a sheriff also tends to stay put: sheriffs hold office for twice as long as appointed police chiefs.

The term Stockholm syndrome was coined after a 1973 hostage siege at which kind of business?

A bank vault held the four hostages for six days, and criminologist Nils Bejerot invented the term after police asked him to analyze how they had reacted.

Legend has gangster Machine Gun Kelly coining which nickname for FBI agents as he surrendered unarmed?

G-men is short for government men, though the tale of Kelly shouting it at the agents who cornered him in 1933 is probably a fabrication.

Which chemical do crime-scene investigators spray to make hidden traces of blood give off a blue glow?

Luminol reacts with the iron in hemoglobin, and the glow it gives off is faint enough that it has to be viewed in a darkened room.

Which writer drew on his years in Burma's Imperial Police for the essay Shooting an Elephant?

George Orwell sailed out to join the force in 1922 and, after catching dengue fever, resigned to become a writer rather than go back from his leave in England.

Walter Arnold, Britain's first convicted speeder, was chased down at 8 mph by a policeman on what?

A bicycle was all it took in 1896: Arnold was doing four times the 2 mph limit for towns, and he was fined one shilling plus costs.

Police in which Nordic country did not fatally shoot anyone until the twenty-first century?

Iceland's first death in an armed police operation came in Reykjavík, after a man fired a shotgun in his apartment and wounded two officers.

Which word was added to the full name of the US law enforcement bureau still known as ATF?

Explosives was tacked onto the title of a bureau that began in 1886 as a Treasury revenue laboratory, yet it still answers to its three old initials.

Which future president made his national reputation as governor during the 1919 Boston police strike?

Calvin Coolidge backed the police commissioner and rebuked union leader Samuel Gompers, and the fame carried him onto the Republican ticket the following year.

Which Latin phrase names the citizens a sheriff could summon to arrest a felon or keep the peace?

Posse comitatus, Latin for the force of the county, is usually cut to its first word; England's Sheriffs Act 1887 told every person in a county to be ready at the sheriff's command.

Ernesto Miranda, whose case gave police a famous warning, was arrested by officers in which state?

Arizona got the case back for a retrial once the Supreme Court had overturned the conviction, and Miranda was found guilty a second time in 1967.

Which herding dog named after the Mechelen region is a favorite of police and military units?

Malinois comes from Malines, the French name for Mechelen, and the breed now works for the United States Secret Service among other forces.

Which Paris police detective, based at 36 Quai des Orfèvres, did Georges Simenon feature in 75 novels?

Jules Maigret grew out of a 1929 boat tour of northern Europe, during which Simenon wrote three popular novels featuring a police inspector of that name.

Which future US president personally hanged two murderers while serving as sheriff of Erie County?

Grover Cleveland could have paid a deputy $10 to do the job, but in spite of his reservations he carried out both executions himself.

Lester Wire, the police traffic officer credited with inventing the electric traffic light, worked where?

Salt Lake City got his hand-operated wooden signal in 1912, but Wire never patented the idea, and both of his original models had been lost by the 1960s.

Which bamboo stick, sometimes metal-tipped, do police in India carry as their main crowd-control baton?

Lathi gives its name to the lathi charge, the baton rush used to scatter crowds across India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

Good cop, bad cop interrogation is informally named after which early newspaper comic-strip duo?

Mutt and Jeff, Bud Fisher's strip about a mismatched pair, began in 1907 and is commonly regarded as the first daily comic strip.

Crime Stoppers began with a detective in which southwestern city asking local TV to reconstruct a crime?

Albuquerque detective Greg MacAleese was stuck on the fatal shooting of a gas station worker, and he helped design a way for the public to give details anonymously.

Which former Texas Ranger led the lawmen who tracked down and killed Bonnie and Clyde?

Frank Hamer had retired after almost 27 years with the Rangers when the Texas prison system took him on as a special investigator to catch the pair.