Created by Bob Kane
Bill Finger Base(s) Gotham City Creators Bob Kane, Bill Finger | Type of organization Law enforcement agency Publisher DC Comics | |
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Leader(s) James Gordon (Police Commissioner)
Maggie Sawyer Agent(s) Harvey Bullock
Major Crimes Unit |
Batman arkham origins part 7 gotham city police department gameplay walkthrough
The Gotham City Police Department (GCPD) is a fictional police department servicing Gotham City, as depicted in comic books published by DC Comics, in particular those tied into the Batman books.
Contents
- Batman arkham origins part 7 gotham city police department gameplay walkthrough
- Gotham city police department ford crown victoria new york city yellow cab
- History of GCPD
- Current status
- Homicide Division
- Major Crimes Unit
- Quick Response Team
- Former members
- Commissioners
- Non canon
- Alternate Universe
- Gotham City FBI
- Serials
- Batman Anthology 1989 1997
- The Dark Knight trilogy
- DC Extended Universe
- Live action
- Animated
- Batman Gotham Knight
- The Batman
- Beware the Batman
- Batman Year One
- Justice League War
- Son of Batman
- Batman Bad Blood
- Batman 1960s TV show
- Batman 1989 film
- Batman Mystery of the Batwoman 2003 direct to video animated film
- The Batman TV series from 20042008
- The Dark Knight 2008 film
- The Dark Knight Rises 2012 film
- Beware the Batman 2013 Present
- References

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History of GCPD

Acting as both ally and opponent of Batman, the superhero long-established in Gotham, the GCPD has long been steeped in corruption, with numerous officers both high-and-low ranking involved in bribery and even more serious offenses such as drug-trafficking and murder.

The strongest blow against police corruption came when an increasing amount of conspiracy charges against Commissioner Gillian B. Loeb forced him to resign his position, replaced by Peter Grogan. The Falcone crime family, which has had a stranglehold on Gotham's underground for generations, finally crumbled when a series of killings shook the structure of the mafia organization. After the death of Carmine Falcone, the mob lashed out in sloppy, retaliatory crimes which, in combination with rising gang violence, severely crippled organized crime in Gotham City. Simultaneously, the ebbing presence of corrupt police officers allowed James Gordon to become the new commissioner, a man determined to eradicate crime wherever it existed.
The GCPD has had a long love-hate relationship with the city's vigilante known as Batman. Commissioner Gordon went along with him because Batman got the job done. His successor, Commissioner Michael Akins ordered the arrest of Batman and had the Bat-signal removed from the roof of Gotham Central. Corruption and rot within the police department also rose during Akins' tenure as Commissioner.
Current status
As of DC's One Year Later, James Gordon has been reinstated as Commissioner, along with Harvey Bullock. Harvey came back on disciplinary probation after helping expose a criminal drug ring. Relations with Batman, including the Bat-Signal, have been established once more. Other characters from Gotham Central have appeared in the recent Tales of the Unexpected miniseries, featuring Crispus Allen as the Spectre. Thus far, Detective Driver has appeared in a speaking role. It is unknown what has happened to Commissioner Akins, but it is implied that, following revelations of massive corruption within the department, there has been a drastic cleaning-of-house within the department.
Kate Kane referred to Akins as police commissioner in the weekly 52 series, which reveals the events of the missing year. A later issue, however, showed a brief snapshot of Commissioner Gordon's welcome back party. The circumstances of Akins's departure and Gordon's reinstatement have yet to be explained. Maggie Sawyer is still the commander of the MCU department, and has ended her relationship with former lover Toby Raines.
Homicide Division
Homicide Division: The division that handles murders and some of the more serious non-metahuman crimes in Gotham. This is the division Gordon was a part of before becoming commissioner. Former private investigator Jason Bard is now working on homicide cases for this division.
Major Crimes Unit
Major Crimes Unit: Led by Capt. Maggie Sawyer, who previously served in Metropolis in a similar position with that city's police, the MCU deals with the most serious crimes, often involving supervillains or politically sensitive cases. This division is the focus of the comic book series Gotham Central.
Quick Response Team
Quick Response Team: Led by Lt. Gerard "Jerry" Hennelly, the QRT is the GCPD's SWAT unit.
Former members
Note: The following are either deceased or have been dismissed from the Gotham City Police Department.
Commissioners
(In tenure list)
Non-canon
Alternate Universe
Gotham City FBI
The Gotham City Federal Bureau of Investigation field office is also featured in the fictitious Gotham City. The Gotham City FBI personnel are shown using black vehicles with red emergency lights.
Serials
All other depictions of Batman have portrayed the Gotham City Police Department in some form or another. The 1940s Batman serials has actor Lyle Talbot in the role of Commissioner Gordon in each one. No other members of the force are shown. However, his appearance of Gordon having a feather-duster mustache was later adapted to the comics.
Batman Anthology (1989-1997)
All the Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher series seemed to give little depiction on the GCPD at all. In Batman, Gordon is portrayed by Pat Hingle, while the usually corrupt Harvey Bullock is replaced with William Hootkins' Lt. Max Eckhart (who is killed by Jack Napier prior to his accidental transformation). Hingle also appeared in Batman Returns, Batman Forever, and Batman & Robin.
The Dark Knight trilogy
In the Nolan films, the GCPD acts as both an ally and an opponent to Batman, however, they play a much greater pivotal role than other depictions of the force.
In Batman Begins, the GCPD plays a pivotal role throughout the course of the film, as one of the forces against Batman under the direction of the staunchly vigilante-opposed Commissioner Gillian B. Loeb (played by Colin McFarlane). While other members of the GCPD are also present, two well-known detectives among them are featured; James Gordon (played by Gary Oldman) and his partner Arnold Flass (played by Mark Boone, Jr.). While Gordon is portrayed as one of the few honest police officers in the department, Flass is portrayed as being corrupt and dealing extensively with the local mafia and Loeb, though clearly displeased with the arrival of Batman, does not seem to possess any corrupt tendencies evident in the source material.
Considering that the film captures the early appearances of the Batman, there is much fear and skepticism among the rank and file about whether the Batman exists and if he is even human. Gordon, who had met Batman before he had adopted the Batman motif, not only realizes he is human, but recognizes the necessity of his actions. Gordon continues to work with him through his early weeks in operation. Batman, who trusts Gordon, a good cop he met during his childhood after his parents murder, includes him in his plan to save Gotham from the League of Shadows' fear toxin attack on the Narrows. At the end of the film, Batman's actions have sparked a change in the city and the cops' morality, leading to Gordon being promoted to Lieutenant.
In The Dark Knight, Gordon is reassigned as commanding officer of the Major Crimes Unit (MCU), a newly formed division of the GCPD created to combat the Gotham crime syndicates and thwart terrorist attacks. Three detectives of this unit are featured; Gerard Stephens (played by Keith Szarabajka), Michael Wuertz (played by Ron Dean) and Anna Ramirez (played by Monique Curnen), among others.
Relations between the DA's office and the police, especially between Gordon and Harvey Dent, remains tense throughout most of the film, with corruption in the rank and file; and even within Gordon's unit, being a key source of this conflict in The Dark Knight, with Dent suspecting that Ramirez and Wuertz are corrupt (based on his investigations while working in Internal Affairs, immediately before his election to District Attorney). In response to Dent's "attacks" on the police department and the actions of the League of Shadows from the first film, Loeb set up the Major Crimes Unit within the GCPD to counter possible terrorist attacks as well as rid the city of its organized crime. In the Major Crimes Unit, acceptance of the Batman, though reluctant, is growing. By the end of the film, Batman is framed for the violent actions of Harvey Dent and the police force turns against him.
In The Dark Knight Rises, the GCPD has successfully eradicated the city's organized crime under "The Dent Act," as most remain oblivious to Harvey Dent's crimes. Gordon remains in guilt over letting Batman taking the fall for Dent, and waiting for a chance to admit the truth to the city. Rookie MCU detective John Blake (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) becomes aware of the truth, and also has deduced Batman's identity beforehand, eventually becomes a friend and ally of Gordon and Batman, as well as serving as their liaison. Blake is also later promoted from patrol cop to detective after Gordon sees his intelligence and dedication, thus allowing him to report directly to the commissioner. Gordon's deputy commissioner Peter Foley (played by Matthew Modine), though not corrupt, is determined to capture Batman, to the point that when Batman crashes the police chase of Bane and some of his henchmen following Bane's robbery of the stock exchange, Foley issues orders for the police participating in the chase to pursue Batman instead. As a result, Bane ends up escaping while his henchmen are captured.
Bane and the League of Shadows later use explosive-laced concrete to trap most of the force underground for months until they are freed by Batman and his allies. Bane also discovers the truth of the circumstances behind Harvey Dent's death and reveals it to the GCPD and the rest of the city, thus ending the manhunt against Batman. However, this also is used by Bane to break the criminals imprisoned under the Dent Act out of prison and wreak havoc around Gotham, much to both the police and the citizens' misfortune. Eventually, the police department are instrumental of the League of Shadows' defeat, though Foley and many officers are killed in action. The GCPD, with the aid from Batman and his allies, has successfully captured the surviving League of Shadows members and Gotham's criminals, restoring order back to the city.
Blake resigns himself from the police department following Batman's apparent death and after receiving a set of coordinates left by the Dark Knight, the young detective discovers the Batcave beneath Wayne Manor.
Uniforms
The GCPD in the Nolan films is heavily modeled on the New York City Police Department. Patrol cars are painted in a modified version of a paint job used by the NYPD in the 1980s and 1990s. In a flashback scene shortly after the deaths of Bruce's parents in Batman Begins, Gordon and other officers are shown wearing sky blue uniforms, similar to those worn by the NYPD from the 1970s through the mid-1990s. In all present-day scenes, patrol officers wear black uniforms. The text on patrol officers' shoulder patches, as well as various modified versions of the logo such as the seal used on SWAT trucks, establish the force as being first established in 1820.
DC Extended Universe
The GCPD appears in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
Live-action
Batman (TV series)
The 1960s campy Batman featured Neil Hamilton as Commissioner Gordon and Stafford Repp as Chief O'Hara. Both are depicted as being dependent on Batman and Robin to help solve cases. Gordon even keeps a link to the Batcave called "the Batphone" on his desk. In the early episodes it's implied that they only call them in for the so-called "arch-criminals" as the police can handle the more mundane (murder, burglary, arson, etc.). But as the show progressed, they became even more dependent on them to solve problems. This is most greatly shown in one episode, when Batman appears to be missing, Gordon laments that the police will have to solve a case "ourselves." Commissioner Gordon and Chief O'Hara would always be seen with a bunch of police officers when it comes to arresting the arch-criminals upon their defeat.
Birds of Prey (TV series from 2002–2003)
Gotham (TV series)
In the series, most of the department is corrupt, with very few honest policemen, including James Gordon, Sarah Essen, Renee Montoya, Crispus Allen, and Nathaniel Barnes.
Animated
DC Animated Universe
In the acclaimed animated television series, Batman: The Animated Series, the GCPD characters are given more attention such as in "P.O.V", where the major characters of the force in the series participate in a detailed debriefing of an incident. One of the most important contributions from the animated series to the Batman universe is the introduction of Renee Montoya (first as a uniformed officer, then a detective), which would later become a first-grade character in the GCPD comic books. In the printed DC Universe, her presence was so solidly incorporated that she later retired from the Department to assume the identity of the Question.
In this animated series Batman Beyond, James Gordon's daughter Barbara Gordon (former Batgirl in Batman: The Animated Series) serves as the new commissioner.
Batman: Gotham Knight
Gordon, Ramirez, and Crispus Allen all appear in three of the shorts in Batman: Gotham Knight (which bridges the gap between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight) consisting of Crossfire, In Darkness Dwells, and Deadshot.
Gordon was voiced by Jim Meskimen, Ramirez was voiced by Ana Ortiz, and Allen was voiced by Gary Dourdan.
The Batman
On the animated series The Batman, the focus of the GCPD in the first two seasons is on Detectives Ellen Yin (voiced by Ming-Na Wen) and Ethan Bennett (voiced by Steve Harris) prior to his Clayface transformation. The corruption on the force is attributed to Chief Angel Rojas (voiced by Edward James Olmos in the first appearance, Jesse Corti in later appearances), who appeared often in those seasons. They served as recurrent antagonists in the first two seasons under Chief Rojas' leadership. However, in the Season 2 finale, Jim Gordon (voiced by Mitch Pileggi), recently appointed Commissioner, calls off the manhunt and forms an alliance with Batman to help keep Gotham safe for his daughter, Barbara. Two episodes of the cartoon series featured another detective of the Gotham City Police Department named Cash Tankinson (voiced by Patrick Warburton). Neither Rojas nor Yin has been seen since then, though one episode that take places in the future implies that sometime between now and then, Yin will replace Gordon as Commissioner and Bennet becomes Chief of Police.
Beware the Batman
The Gotham City Police Department appears in Beware the Batman. James Gordon worked as a police lieutenant and was distrustful towards Batman until he helped save his daughter from Tobias Whale and Phosphorus Rex. During the part where the League of Assassins had control over the Ion Cortex and shut down Gotham City's power, James Gordon became the police commissioner when Commissioner Correa was killed by the League of Assassins.
Batman: Year One
The GCPD appear as an opponent to Batman. During the events of Year One, Batman wasn't trusted, he doesn't have a relationship with GCPD and Gotham City doesn't consider him a hero. Although many of the GCPD officers are revealed to be corrupt, Lt. James Gordon builds a partnership with Batman.
Justice League: War
Some GCPD helicopters chase Batman, Green Lantern, and a Parademon but are unable to catch up with the trio.
Son of Batman
The Gotham City Police Department appear in Son of Batman.
Batman Bad Blood
The GCPD make a brief appearance in Batman: Bad Blood.