TV's Killer Cops Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Shield

Of all the 'bad cops' on TV, Vic Mackey was way up the list of 'baddest'.
He led the Strike Team keeping a lid on lawlessness in gang-torn Los Angeles.
For Mackey, turning a blind eye and accepting a few backhanders was part of the game. If criminals wanted to operate, they did so on his terms.
He carried out at least three killings, two of violent criminals, and one of a Strike Team member, Detective Terry Crowley, who had been sent in to infiltrate their activities.
Another of the Strike Team was murdered by Mackey's closest associate Shane Vendrell.
"The Shield" was a striking cop show that often tested the morality of the viewers. "Was bending the rules, corruption, theft and murder acceptable to keep the law"?, they were asked to consider.
Vic Mackey was played by Michael Chiklis in seven seasons between 2002 and 2008.

Answer: Shades of Blue

Matt Wozniak - "Woz" to his friends - lived on the edge. He led a team of NYPD detectives up to their necks in corruption. They took backhanders and allowed criminals to flourish.
But then the FBI got onto them. They convinced Wozniak's favoured team member, Harlee Santos, to cooperate and spy for them. (Coerced may be a better word.).
But Wozniak suspected that he had a mole in his team and set out to find out who.
His suspicions fell on David Saperstein and he tried to kill him by pushing him out of an upper story window. Sapperstein survived, but Wozniak killed him in hospital.
Ray Liotta played Lieutenant Matt Wozniak and Jennifer Lopez played Harlee Santos in Season One, which aired in 2016.
In some ways, Wozniak was a similar character to Vic Mackey in "The Shield." Both were corrupt, but with the story majoring on Harlee Santos's point of view, there was less room for ambiguity among viewers: Wozniak did not even have the redeeming featuring of seeming to care for the people on the streets.

Answer: CSI: Miami

Horatio Caine was the crime lab leader in the the CSI franchise set in Florida.
He was a former NYPD detective and had a complicated personal background.
Caine often took a personal interest in the cases, and in particular the families of those who died.
He earns his place in this quiz for his actions in the episode "Crowned". The case involved the kidnapping of contestants in children's beauty pageants. After chasing down the kidnapper, Caine found him hanging off a balcony. He could have saved him, but watched as the man plunged to his death.
(In later episodes it was implied that Caine had sanctioned the killing of a gang leader.)
The CSI franchise made for popular television, but did not always get a seal of approval from real police officers or crime scene investigators. They believed the shows made the cases all too neat, and also served to make real criminals more forensically aware and led them to take greater steps to avoid leaving clues behind.
Horatio Caine was a popular character, but personally I got so fed up of his habits of speaking in sentences of fewer than six words and his sunglasses-removal ritual I stopped watching the show.
Horatio Caine was played by David Caruso between 2002 and 2012.

Answer: Criminal Minds

Elle Greenaway was an agent with the FBI's Behavioural Analysis Unit (BAU). This was a team of experts trained to profile and catch serial killers.
She was shot and nearly killed by one of the criminals that the team were tracking. She survived, but experienced emotional trauma as a result.
In an ensuing case, she was given an undercover role to entrap a serial rapist. She panicked and arrested him before any reasonable evidence could be gathered.
After his release, she engineered a meeting with him and shot him dead, all the while claiming he had a gun. Self-defence was accepted.
Elle Greenaway was played by Lola Glaudini in the first season and into the second season, (2005 and 2006) during which her character left the BAU.
This was an interesting plot development, showing how law enforcement officers can be personally affected by some of the more heinous crimes they investigate. It is one reason why many police forces encourage officers to move on from sexual or child crime specialities after set periods of time.

Answer: Person of Interest

Patrick Simmons was a corrupt NYPD officer who was in league with organised criminals. He sided with one crime gang in a turf war against another.
Threats and bribery were among devices that Simmons used and he was implicated in numerous killings and planned killing before he shot and killed Detective Joss Carter, for which crime he was arrested.
Simmons was a bleak character with few, if any, redeeming features
Simmons was played by Robert John Burke in 12 episodes in 2012 and 2013.

Answer: Line of Duty

Danny Waldron was a flawed character. He was the trigger-happy leader of an Armed Response Unit in a British police service.
Waldron had many issues that we did not see. What we did see was him gunning down an unarmed man and then getting his team members to lie to make it look like a justified shooting of a man with a gun. (Waldron planted the gun.)
As the run of season three continued, we learnt more of Waldron's desperation and that the killing was not as random as it first appeared.
"Line of Duty" was one of the most compelling modern-day cop shows on British television. It first aired in 2012 and focussed on a police unit investigating corrupt officers.
Although set in a fictional city, "Line of Duty" was filmed in Belfast.

Answer: Murder In Small Town X

"Murder In Small Town X" is an unusual entry among a list of cop shows. It was a 'hybrid' programme; part reality show, part action show and drama. Eight episodes were broadcast in 2001.
The idea was that 10 "real people" were brought in to a small town to investigate murders. They had a number of suspects, all played by actors.
Someone was murdered each week and the others had to work out who the killer was among the 15 suspects.
In the finale, the murderer was shot dead by the police chief, Dudley Duncan. I m not going to spoil any more by telling you who the killer was, just in case it turns up on some late night TV channel when you are having an insomniac moment.
Dudley Duncan was played by Terence Paul Winter.

Answer: The Bill

Don Beech was a Detective Sergeant with 30 years' experience in the Metropolitan Police.
He was a maverick and a good cop, but also a bent one.
He took money from a gangland boss to lie in court and as eventually investigated by his superiors.
He sought the help of a colleague, Detective Sergeant John Boulton and tried to enlist him in his nefarious activities. Boulton refused to get involved and they fought. Beech got the upper hand and killed Boulton by banging his head against the ground.
Although arrested, Beech escaped from custody and fled to Australia to find a new life there.
Billy Murray played Don Beech in 186 episodes between 1995 and 2000.
"The Bill" was the UK's longest running cop show. It first aired in 1994 and more than 2,400 episodes were broadcast before it was pulled in 2010.
Set in London's fictional 'Sun Hill' police station, it followed the working lives of a shift of officers.
While hailed as a top quality show in its early years, by the end of its run it was tired, cliched and some of plots were branded "absurd" by critics.

Answer: The Mentalist

Not a professional law-keeper as such, Patrick Jane was a consultant to the California Bureau of Investigation. He had skills that made him able to tell when a suspect was lying.
The back story was that Jane's wife and daughter had been murdered by a killer nicknamed 'Red John'. While working on other cases, Jane remained fixated on finding Red John.
In the Season Three finale, Jane confronted a man in a shopping mall who claimed to be Red John. He could, of course have detained him, but instead he shot hm dead. It turned out, though, that it was not the real Red John, but one of the killer's associates. (Jane did get to kill the real Red John during a fight in season six.)
Patrick Jane was played by Simon Baker in seven seasons of "The Mentalist" between 2008 and 2015.
"The Mentalist" was one of several cop shows "with a twist" that became popular - looking for an added spice to dress up the police procedural with an outsider bringing special expertise. "Castle" is another that springs to mind. And funnily enough, both aforementioned shows are high up my list of favourite TV shows.

Answer: Boardwalk Empire

Described as "a puritanical and repressed religious fundamentalist", Van Alden worked for the Bureau of Prohibition, which was established to enforce the US National Prohibition Act of 1919.
Van Alden became consumed with trying to bring down criminal elements in Atlantic City and in doing so crossed the line into corruption and criminality himself.
With the criminals seeming to know too much about the Bureau's activities, Van Alden began to suspect that a fellow agent, Eric Sesbo, was a traitor. He killed Sesbo (I'm not going to tell you how, too many spoilers already) and went on the run.
Michael Shannon played Nelson Van Alden in all five seasons of "Boardwalk Empire", 2010 to 2014.
The show aimed at providing high quality drama and while some critics felt it fell short of the likes of "Breaking Bad" or "The Sopranos", one critic called it "one of the most exceptional, multi-layered television dramas of the past 25 years." [Martin Chilton in the "Daily Telegraph", May 2016.]