The Keystone Cops of TV: Law Enforcement at Its Worst

With the onslaught of law enforcement series abundantly available, we commonly see characters who use their position of power for personal advantages.

Many of TV’s worst law enforcement officers aren’t afraid to break the rules they’re supposed to uphold if they gain something from the situation.

Whether it’s trying to keep their corruption secret, avoid going to jail, or get information, these corrupt cops have been known to break the law.

Check out our fanatical picks on the dirtiest law enforcement officers on TV.

Then, be sure to join the conversation in the comments section and tell us who best depicts law enforcement at its worst. Bonus if it’s someone we didn’t list!

TV’s Worst Law Enforcement Officers

We have a range of options when it comes to TV law enforcement shows, from series with comedic nuance, such as Reno 911 or Brooklyn Nine-Nine, to darker shows like FBI, Law & Order, and Blue Bloods.

Many of these shows tend to create storylines and character developments influenced by real life. And a common theme is police corruption.

TV shows generally exaggerate things, allowing us to ignore the guilt of rooting for dirty cops because it’s fantasy. With that in mind, here are some of TV’s worst law enforcement officers that we hate to love.

Hank Voight – Chicago PD

Throughout the twelve years that Chicago PD has been on NBC, Hank Voight (Jason Beghe) has toed the line between corrupt cop and brilliant detective.

He’s less crooked than other law enforcement officers on this list. But many times, we saw him doing things that put him on the wrong side of the law.

If it weren’t for him being a cop with loyal officers on his team, he’d have been behind bars long ago. But while his methods were often unorthodox and illegal, we usually agreed with them.

Sometimes, bad guys need a taste of their own medicine to persuade them. Voight isn’t scared to deliver said medicine or drag his team with him.

His corruptness often rubbed off on the other members of the Intelligence Unit, including his former partner Alvin Olinsky (Elias Koteas), Jay Halstead (Jesse Lee Soffer), and Hailey Upton (Tracy Spiridakos), who just left at the end of Season 11.

Ian and Robert Ferguson – Mayor of Kingstown

If you’ve read our Mayor of Kingstown reviews, you’ll know we have some major dislike for a couple of the Ferguson brothers.

Mike McLusky is the Mayor of Kingstown and does many bad things — and usually not for a good reason, as we’d expect from our favorite vigilantes. But he’s an ex-con, so no surprise.

But his three cop brothers don’t have that luxury or excuse to throw out in response to their dozens of illegal actions. Luckily, only two of the three brothers are dirty beyond redemption.

This viewer still has a thorn in her side on Ian’s impulsive decision to kill serial killer Charlie (Kenny Johnson) to cover his ass. We’ll have to tune in next season to find out if Ian gets brought to justice for his crimes.

And I’ve been over Robert’s narcissistic, sociopathic wrath of horrors since Mayor of Kingstown Season 1. While I’ve been gung ho about seeing him off the show from the beginning, I didn’t want to see him shot by brotherly fire.

It’s always aggravating that the bad guy wins, even when he doesn’t. Kyle did the right thing and shot Robert to keep him from killing innocent civilians. But Robert survived, and now Kyle’s under arrest for his attempted murder.

Vic Mackey and Shane Vendrell – The Shield

I was in high school when The Shield aired on FX, and it was the hardest show I’d ever seen — until I watched Nip/Tuck shortly after.

The gritty police drama lasted seven seasons and introduced us to Vic Mackey and his band of dirty but effective police officers in the Los Angeles Strike Team.

Mackey (Michael Chiklis) led the team focused on capturing the worst criminals. To get the bad guys, you sometimes have to think and act like them.

No one did that better than Vic (Fantastic Four), starting from episode one when he committed the biggest crime a cop can commit — killing one of their own.

We constantly saw Vic engaging in illegal activities for personal gain and public good, making it tricky to decide whether we could excuse his behaviors.

Vic wasn’t the only dirty cop in his division. His friend turned enemy, Shane Vendrell (Walton Goggins), was every bit as bad — if not worse than Vic.

He even killed his partner, Detective Curtis “Lem” Lemansky (Kenny Johnson), by throwing a grenade into his car. And he ended the show with an emotionally traumatic murder/suicide of his entire family.

Dexter Morgan from Dexter

Not all law enforcement officers are police officers. Some people work for the police department in other categories, such as Dexter Morgan, a blood analyst with the Miami Police Department.

By day, he solves crimes and brings criminals to justice. By dark, he serves his form of justice through death for the most vile criminals he locates.

Who knew viewers would love a series about a serial killer who murders other killers? But it worked awesome for the original Dexter series from 2006 to 2013.

The original show’s success inspired a mini-series spinoff, Dexter: New Blood, that picked up ten years after Dexter faked his death in Miami and relocated to Upstate New York.

Our favorite killer serial murderer is coming back once more with another spinoff prequel, Dexter: Original Sin, and another sequel, Dexter: Resurrection.

So, while we constantly root for our favorite law enforcement officer to rid the world of humanity’s worst, he’s the worst criminal.

Wayne Unser (Sons of Anarchy)

The biker gang show Sons of Anarchy captivated users with its mature audience scenes and gritty storylines surrounding a criminal biker gang.

Half the audience hoped to glimpse Jax Teller’s (Charlie Hunnam) sexy behind, but the other half enjoyed the crew’s sense of family, duty, and camaraderie.

It would be hard for the outlaw motorcycle gang to get away with their illegal doings if they didn’t have a cop to cover their butts and look the other way when things blew up. Often literally.

Unser started as the Charming Chief of Police and looked the other way from the first episode. He wasn’t always complacent about committing crimes, but he did nothing to stop them.

Over time, his involvement became deeper, especially once he started having personal feelings for Gemma, Jax’s mother.

He ended up committing a lot of gnarly crimes under the name of friendship, even abandoning the law to align his loyalties to the club.

Daniel Hersl (We Own This City)

Law enforcement shows based on real events hit a bit differently. We Own This City was a limited series on Max that spent six hours wildly exaggerating the true events of a corrupt Baltimore police division.

The series covered the inappropriate wrong-doings of the GTTF (Gun Trace Task Force) as the team of elite plainclothes officers went on a path of corrupt terror.

This book-turned-series (We Own This City: A True Story of Crime, Cops, and Corruption) demonstrated the massive scandal of the different officers involved.

Josh Charles (The Goodwife) played the role of Daniel Hersl, a newer member of the GTTF who ended up with over 50 public complaints of misbehavior, abuse of power, and violence.

But Hersl wasn’t the only crooked cop on the show. It was about the entire team, and each of the eight members was crooked somehow.

Elizabeth Keane (The Blacklist)

The Blacklist‘s Elizabeth Keane (Megan Boone) was destined to be a crooked cop born as Masha Rostova to a double-agent Russian mother, Katarina Rostova, and criminal mastermind Raymond Reddington (James Spader).

When she was four, she shot the real “Red” to defend her mother. Her mom sent her to grow up in America under the parentage of Sam Scott. He changed her name to Elizabeth Scott and inspired her to join the FBI.

After spending time with Reddington, the FBI’s most wanted fugitive, working on she learned how to be the perfect criminal, from cleaning a crime scene to disposing of a body.

By the time the series killed off its main character in The Blacklist Season 8, Keane had become the very thing she’d spent her career trying to stop. The criminal leader of a major crime syndicate.

Fans hated Elizabeth so much they took to Reddit to bash her character development, even years after she left the show to do other stuff.

Nick Armstrong (The Rookie)

When a show finds long-running success, it’s normal for cast members to come and go. The Rookie is no exception as it enters its seventh season.

One of the biggest cast shakeups happened with LAPD Detective Nick Armstrong (Harold Perrineau). Armstrong joined The Rookie in the second season and made quite a mess before exiting at the end of the season.

While only briefly on the show, Armstrong’s deep corruption nearly ruined the careers of John Nolan (Nathan Fillion) and Detective Nyla Harper.

Most viewers didn’t even see the secretive corruptness hidden beneath Armstrong’s suave, friendly demeanor. He seemed so legitimate and good at his job.

Until we discovered he was working with a local gang, feeding them department information to keep them out of trouble. He also murdered another police officer to keep his corruptness a secret.

The show writers punished Armstrong properly after trying to frame — and kill — Nolan. He got caught in the crossfire of the gang he helped as they tried to shoot John per his orders.

Armstrong wasn’t the only crooked cop on The Rookie. We also saw rookie Jackson West (played by Titus Makin) have problems with his own dirty officer.

Training Officer Doug Stanton was racist, corrupt, and a violent cop against civilians and other officers, like Officer West.

It took some time and a near brush with death before Sergeant Grey (Richard T. Jones) had enough evidence to end the dirty cop’s career. We’re still seeing the effects of West’s brutal attack a few seasons later.

Jackie Rohr (City on a Hill)

Jackie Rohr (played by Kevin Bacon) is a dirty FBI agent, burnt out from his exposure and dealings with some of Boston’s most violent and awful criminals.

Assistant District Attorney Decourcy Ward wants to change how the city handles its criminals, including addressing government corruption.

While Ward and Rohr strike a semblance of partnership, Ward is still very much aware of all of Rohr’s inappropriate behaviors, from dependence on cocaine to bribes from some of Boston’s worst criminals.

Rohr is no better as an honest husband than he is a veteran FBI agent, often having extra-marital affairs and problems with his marriage.

Despite his failings, Rohr does help ADA Ward put away some bad people and solve gnarly cases, even if he’s a hypocrite for arresting people for doing the same illegal, immoral things he did.

These Keystone Cops of TV Set the Bar Low

Despite police officers taking an oath to do no harm and not break the law, many cops find themselves bigger criminals than the bad guys they chase.

This list of TV’s worst law enforcement officers demonstrates what happens when the good guys turn bad.

Now that we’ve told you our favorite dirty cops, it’s time for you to tell us yours. What corrupt police officer made the most impact on your memory? Do you have a bad law enforcement officer who acts corrupt, but you love them anyway?

Drop your thoughts in the comments section. And be sure you’re following TV Fanatic on social media and join our newsletter for all the latest news delivered to your email.