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Old 02-24-2016, 09:14 AM
Lenny Lenny is offline
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Default Legality of gunfights in movies- eg. HEAT

I was thinking about Heat the other day and the cops opening fire in the street and was wondering- given we have a few members of the law enforcement community on this website- what are you guys thoughts on the procedural and legal issues with certain lauded movie gunfights?

Did the cops in Heat do the right thing? Would Hanna be facing disciplinaries, board hearings and media savagery for the next few years?!

And are there any examples of movies that accurately reflect what it's like for officers engaged in a shooting- both in procedure and comeuppance? (I'm a big fan of Narc and like the fact that it opens with a shooting hearing and a cop dealing with the ramifications of firing wildly in the street.)

Any gross inaccuracies in more 'realist' cop films (Gene Hackman tearing through New York in a commandeered car is awesome, but man, the paperwork!)

Thoughts?

Last edited by Lenny; 02-24-2016 at 09:16 AM.
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Old 02-24-2016, 04:31 PM
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Excalibur Excalibur is offline
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Southland is a good series that follows pretty good procedural cop stuff in my opinion. It has some of the usual TV drama, but the police aspect is fairly accurate.

End of Watch also factors in a scene that involved the cops in a shooting that opened the movie. It went on to mention what the characters had to go through just a little bit.


All cop movies and TV that involve shootings almost always skip out on the massive amount of paper work and hearings and other things related to gunfights that happen.

I remember a funny scene in Bad Boys 2...bad example, where Will Smith joked about just killing a man to save on paper work when reality there's just as much if not more if he had went through with it. I know the character was being sarcastic with his threat.

I think the famous shooting in Heat would of had huge ramifications on everybody involved. Hanna would obviously be called in for his account of what happened and what lead up to it and because a member of his team got killed, it would affect him a lot.
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Old 02-24-2016, 06:57 PM
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funkychinaman funkychinaman is offline
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Not a movie, but I remember a scene in Law & Order where Lt. Van Buren takes an officer's weapon after a shooting.
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Old 02-25-2016, 09:57 PM
Mandolin Mandolin is offline
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There'd be a ton of paperwork after the Heat shootout, but given the robber's massive firepower and how they shot up downtown like they did, I can't see any police officers actually getting in trouble.
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Old 02-26-2016, 10:12 AM
Lenny Lenny is offline
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Thanks all. I was thinking, in relation to Heat, in some ways I agree with Mandolin that given Shiherlis opens fire first- in full auto no less- the response at that point by the police is probably justified and deflect any subsequent backlash for their actions.

But should Hanna have cornered them outside the bank anyway, given his prior knowledge that these guys are heavily armed and ready to 'rock and roll'?! Tracking them to a less populated location before a confrontation would have been a more sensible plan in retrospect.

Also- excuse my ignorance here- can regular detectives quickly equip themselves with rifles and be first responders in such a way? Wouldn't it be a tactical unit's role to turn up with the heavy artillery? I can't recall if there's an explanation why SWAT isn't there.

Nitpicking I'm sure- still an awesome scene in an awesome movie!
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Old 02-26-2016, 11:35 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lenny View Post
Thanks all. I was thinking, in relation to Heat, in some ways I agree with Mandolin that given Shiherlis opens fire first- in full auto no less- the response at that point by the police is probably justified and deflect any subsequent backlash for their actions.

But should Hanna have cornered them outside the bank anyway, given his prior knowledge that these guys are heavily armed and ready to 'rock and roll'?! Tracking them to a less populated location before a confrontation would have been a more sensible plan in retrospect.

Also- excuse my ignorance here- can regular detectives quickly equip themselves with rifles and be first responders in such a way? Wouldn't it be a tactical unit's role to turn up with the heavy artillery? I can't recall if there's an explanation why SWAT isn't there.

Nitpicking I'm sure- still an awesome scene in an awesome movie!
If you recall, Hanna wanted to arrest McCauley's crew earlier, but couldn't hold them for anything bigger than B&E. They had to wait for them to act.
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