The Flying Squad is a branch of the Serious and Organised Crime Command within London's Metropolitan Police Service. It is also known as the Robbery Squad, Specialist Crime Directorate 7, SC&O7 and SO7. It is nicknamed The Sweeney, an abbreviation of the Cockney rhyming slang "Sweeney Todd".
The police procedural, police show, or police crime drama is a subgenre of procedural drama and detective fiction that emphasises the investigative procedure of police officers, police detectives, or law enforcement agencies as the protagonists, as contrasted with other genres that focus on non-police investigators such as private investigators.
William John Burns was an American private investigator and law enforcement official. He was known as "America's Sherlock Holmes" and earned fame for having conducted private investigations into a number of notable incidents, such as clearing Leo Frank of the 1913 murder of Mary Phagan, and for investigating the deadly 1910 Los Angeles Times bombing conducted by members of the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers. From August 22, 1921, to May 10, 1924, Burns served as the director of the Bureau of Investigation (BOI), predecessor to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Frederick George Abberline was a British chief inspector for the London Metropolitan Police. He is best known for being a prominent police figure in the investigation into the Jack the Ripper serial killer murders of 1888.
The Philadelphia Police Department is the police agency responsible for law enforcement and investigations within the County and City of Philadelphia. The PPD is one of the oldest municipal police agencies, fourth-largest police force and sixth-largest non-federal law enforcement agency in the United States. Since records were first kept in 1828, at least 289 PPD officers have died in the line of duty.
Walter Sydney Vinnicombe was an English actor and comedian. He worked in film, television and theatre.
Lexow Committee was a major New York State Senate probe into police corruption in New York City. The Lexow Committee inquiry, which took its name from the committee's chairman, State Senator Clarence Lexow, was the widest-ranging of several such commissions empaneled during the 19th century. The testimony collected during its hearings ran to over 10,000 pages and the resultant scandal played a major part in the defeat of Tammany Hall in the elections of 1894 and the election of the reform administration of Mayor William L. Strong. The investigations were initiated by pressure from Charles Henry Parkhurst.
The Adolf Beck case was a notorious incident of wrongful conviction by mistaken identity, brought about by unreliable methods of identification, erroneous eyewitness testimony, and a rush to convict the accused. As one of the best known causes célèbres of its time, the case led to the creation of the English Court of Criminal Appeal in 1907.
Charles Frederick Field was a British police officer with Scotland Yard and, following his retirement, a private detective. Field is perhaps best known as the basis for Inspector Bucket in Charles Dickens's novel Bleak House.
Sir Edward George Clarke, KC was a British barrister and politician, considered one of the leading advocates of the late Victorian era and serving as Solicitor-General in the Conservative government of 1886–1892. His legal career included representing Oscar Wilde in his disastrous prosecution of the Marquess of Queensberry for libel, and representing the plaintiff in the "baccarat case", during which Sir Edward cross-examined the Prince of Wales. He was a member of the anti-women's suffrage movement.
Detective Chief Inspector Walter Dew was a British Metropolitan Police officer who was involved in the hunt for both Jack the Ripper and Dr Crippen.
Frederick Porter Wensley served as a British police officer from 1888 until 1929, reaching the rank of chief constable of the Scotland Yard Criminal Investigation Department (CID). Serving in Whitechapel for part of his career, he was involved in street patrols during the investigation of the Jack the Ripper murders, details of which he would later publish in his memoirs in 1931. He was one of the 'Big Four', a nickname given to the four Superintendents in charge of the Metropolitan Police CID, with his murder investigations regularly published in the press. The leading prosecuting barrister Sir Richard Muir referred to him as "the greatest detective of all time".
Chief inspector is a rank used in police forces which follow the British model. In countries outside Britain, it is sometimes referred to as chief inspector of police (CIP).
William Taylor CBE QPM is a retired British police officer.
Detective Inspector Jonathan "Jack" Whicher was an English police detective. He was one of the original eight members of London's newly formed Detective Branch, which was established at Scotland Yard in 1842. During his career, Whicher earned a reputation among the finest in Europe.
James William Humphreys was an English businessman and criminal who owned a chain of adult book shops and strip clubs in London in the 1960s and 1970s. He was able to run his business through the payment of large bribes to serving police officers, particularly those from the Obscene Publications Branch (OPB) of the Metropolitan Police. His diaries—which detailed meetings he had held with police officers, the venues of the meetings and the amounts of bribes paid—provided evidence for the investigation by anti-corruption officers of the Metropolitan Police.
Charles Kingston O'Mahony, who wrote as Charles Kingston, was an Irish journalist and author in England during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction of the 1920s and 30s. Many of his novels were set in London, including a seven-book series featuring the fictional detective Chief Inspector Wake of Scotland Yard. His work has been described as more competent than cutting-edge, but showing a clear familiarity with the criminal underworld in London.
Graham Wyn Jones is a former British police officer.
Frederick Guy Browne (1883–1928) and William Henry Kennedy (1891–1928) were two career criminals who were executed in Britain in 1928 for the murder of George Gutteridge (1891–1927), an unarmed policeman in the course of his duties, whom they shot in both eyes.
