There are plenty of police procedurals on television with police solving crimes and stopping bad guys in case after case. However, over the years there have been shows where the police officers are less than pure, less than honest, and corrupt by almost every definition of the word.
These TV shows take one of two forms. One is that they present the police officers as the main protagonists of the show, but then show as the series wears on that they might be even dirtier than the criminals they arrest. Another form is to have the police officers as the bad guys in the show, or one a few cases, as accomplices helping out the bad guys. In both cases, these dirty TV cops usually end up falling in the end.
Vic Mackey — The Shield (2002-2008)
One of the best dirty cop TV shows was The Shield, which ran for seven seasons from 2002 through 2008. The main star of the show was Michael Chiklis, who played Vic Mackey, the head of the Los Angeles Strike Team, tasked with taking on the worst criminals.
However, Vic was one of the dirtiest cops on the force, killing a fellow officer in the season premiere to cover up his own crimes and then slowly growing worse as the show wore on. The Shield walked a tight rope, with Vic stopping some really bad guys, but proving untrustworthy and corrupt along the way.
Shane Vendrell — The Shield (2002-2008)
The Shield was loosely based on a real-life police scandal. The Rampart Division police scandal shook up the LAPD and showed corruption throughout the city's police department. The series had a lot to live up to, and while fictionalizing the event, presented some dirty cops that remain memorable.
While Vic was the main character, his right-hand man on The Shield was Shane Vendrell, who learned everything he knew from Vic and became worse along the way. Shane even killed one of their own when he dropped a grenade in a car with his own partner Lem.
Judd Crawford — Watchmen (2019)
Watchmen on HBO was a sequel to the popular movie that itself was based on one of the best graphic novels ever published. This took place years after the events of Watchmen ended in Tulsa, Oklahoma, incorporating the Tulsa Race Riots into the story.
Judd Crawford was the police chief in Tulsa, and he seemed like a good man. He was the mentor to Regina King's Angela Abar and was one of the better men on the police force. However, the story took a dark turn when Judd turned out to be part of the Ku Klux Klan and ended up paying for his crimes.
Nick Armstrong — The Rookie (2018-Present)
When The Rookie began airing, it seemed like a lighthearted police procedural, another chance for Nathan Fillion to show his charisma and deliver a nice series for older audiences. However, the show ended up dealing with some serious issues, including police corruption.
Harold Perrineau showed up in the second season as night detective Nick Armstrong, and he quickly became best of friends with Fillion's Nolan. That made things tough when he turned out to be a dirty cop who was working with the mob and betrayed Nolan in season three.
Ian Buckells — Line Of Duty (2012-Present)
Line of Duty was a British police procedural that ran for six seasons. The series presented the actions of an anti-corruption unit when he refused to cover up an unlawful shooting by another officer. However, when he started work there, he learned his job was to undercover corruption within the Central Police Force.
This led to the overall mystery of Line of Duty, which was the team finding out who the mysterious "H" was, only knowing it was a senior officer running organized crime. That dirty cop turned out to be Ian Buckells, a Detective Superintendent that pretended to be a sloppy investigator who only pretended to be bad to cover up his crimes.
Carson Wolf — The Punisher (2017-2019)
You can't have a Punisher series without some dirty cops. Frank Castle is someone who set out to deliver justice by eliminating the people that the law couldn't stop, and while Punisher mostly refuses to kill cops and soldiers, there are times when they are so dirty, he goes back on that one rule.
On the Netflix series, the worst of them was Carson Wolf. He was Homeland Security's former Special Agent in Charge who sold out to a drug dealer. He used his position to ensure that William Rawlins, the man who killed Franks' entire family, remained protected.
Tammy Hattley — Daredevil (2015-2018)
Tammy Hattley was another dirty cop in the Marvel Netflix show Daredevil, the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI New York Crime Division. When one wonders how Wilson Fisk remains almost untouchable, it is by having dirty cops like Hattley in his back pocket.
Fisk killed one of her children and made it clear he would kill the rest of her family if she didn't help him, which she did for a long time. She protected him in prison. She helped turn Dex Poindexter into Kingpin's pawn and got in deeper and deeper until the NYPD SWAT team busted her and all her corrupt FBI agents when she finally turned evidence on Fisk.
Dexter Morgan — Dexter (2006-2013)
Dexter Morgan is a special case when it comes to dirty cops. He believes himself to be a good man, but at the same time, he is a serial killer. He believes he has no choice but to kill people, as he was born with the demon in him, but he focuses on killing only bad people.
Dexter killed other serial killers and people who did horrific things, but that made him someone who betrayed the trust of his fellow police officers, and this often put those he loved in danger. While a hero in his own story, he was still a dirty cop who murdered people, never giving them a fair trial.
Chief Wayne Unser — Sons Of Anarchy (2008-2014)
Chief Wayne Unser was a dirty cop whose main crime was just looking the other way. There are other cops who commit as many crimes as the people they arrest, but when it comes to Unser, he feels that if he turns his head to some crime, it will keep his town safe from other crimes.
In Sons of Anarchy, he mostly does nothing as SAMCRO runs roughshod and commits just about every crime in the books, from drug running to gun running to murder. All the while, Unser knows there are worse people out there, and he covers up their crimes and ignores evidence every step of the way.
Detective Frank Rourke — Training Day (2017)
Based on the movie with the same name, Training Day presented the same idea. A veteran cop takes a young cop under his wing and then proceeds to prove to his partner that he is not only a dirty cop but that he has to be a dirty cop and take what he feels he deserves.
In the TV series, it is Bill Paxton as the dirty cop, Det. Frank Rourke, and he finds himself the assigned trainer of Officer Kyle Craig. it is Kyle's job to make sure that Frank doesn't take the same path as Alonzo Harris, Denzel Washinton's dirty cop from the movie.