MovieChat Forums > Panic (2001) Discussion > The scene with the cop. [spoilerish]

The scene with the cop. [spoilerish]


When the psychologist wisely went in to report his suspicion to the cop/detective, that he was next on his patient's hitlist...

It was realistic, for sure, the way the cop was giving him a hard time about it, quick to want to blow it off and not take it seriously. Some, though not all, police do have this attitude when dealing with mental health professionals. so I like that.

NOT realistic. The cop actually agreeing to trail Macy. Without a straight up threat, I find it hard to believe that they would have invested any time or resources into watching out for the doctor. I mean, you can have a harassing ex and they still have to basically attack you or attempt to kill you before you can even get a restraining order. A psychologist having an unspecified hunch would not get any kind of protection. Even when there IS an obvious threat, the support is quite minimal, dies quickly, that sort of thing.

Anyway. I'm not a cop basher or police hating type person. Their hands may be tied a lot of the time. But just --- yeah. I WISH the police did that much when someone is concerned about their own/someone else's safety.

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I think it depends on the area and the available resources. What may be unseen is the cop doing some digging and corroborating part of the shrink's story. Maybe the cop checked on the father and saw that he had been a suspect in some unsolved killings. I would imagine that a hired killer who had been at it for years would have something on his record. I agree some police departments are quite useless.

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Notice the cop was on his own. I took it as "officially, this gets filed, but personally something about this Doctor makes me take him seriously, so maybe I'll watch the guy he's worried about for a bit just to see what I find"

Essentially, he was doing some casual surveillance on his own time.

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Philo's Law: To learn from your mistakes, you have to realize you're making mistakes.

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