Hammerspace Police Force

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    You're a criminal in a city who has just committed a crime. The police are on their way, but rather than run, you decide to risk a shoot-out. After all, you have a truly ludicrous number of weapons. Besides, even in a large city, surely the police won't throw more than 50 cars and a couple of helicopters at a problem before trying another strategy, will they?

    A hundred cop cars, 20 helicopters, and at least 300 individual officers later, there still seems to be no end to the rampage. At this point you have to wonder whether or not the police force of this city simply has an unlimited budget.

    This trope is common in any video game where you're acting as a Villain Protagonist. In most games where the police will chase after you, they will continue to send more police cars and helicopters (And whatever other resources they have in that particular game, up to and including tanks; Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas will even hit you with Harrier jump jets) until you evade them in some manner. No matter how many cars and helicopters you destroy, they always seem to have another ready to go.

    This is especially egregious in games that keep track of how much damage you've caused the police. This number will easily reach into the millions, making you wonder at what point it would be more economical for the police to just bribe you to go away.

    A subtrope of Infinite Supplies. Compare to Lemming Cops, where the cops show absolutely no concern for their own personal safety. Contrast All of Them, a Stock Phrase used when a large but finite number all converge on you at once.


    Examples of Hammerspace Police Force include:

    Film

    • Used to hilarious effect in the Blues Brothers movie's climatic action sequence. (According to the article, this movie held the Guinness world record for cars destroyed in a single movie for 18 years, and was then trumped by its sequel.) After Jake and Elwood evade every single member of the Chicago police and the Illinois state troopers, the National Guard gets called in to apprehend them.

    Live Action TV

    • In The Dukes of Hazzard, the Hazzard County Sheriff's Department has an unlimited automobile budget: every week they manage to crash at least a couple but they have all-new cars next week.
      • Possibly partly Justified by the Duke boys not being the only gearheads in the county; it's probably fairly easy to find some good ole boys to help fix up the department's cars.

    Music

    • Implied in the middle verses of "Convoy" by C. W. McCall, particularly the forces assembled in Chicago to stop the titular convoy, which apparently included the entire Illinois National Guard.

    Video Games

    Western Animation

    • SpongeBob SquarePants, episode "Hall Monitor": The moment SpongeBob says out loud that he's the maniac everyone's been looking for, he's instantly surrounded by police officers.
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