Criminal Minds Always Portrays Local Police The Same Way & Fans Are Over It

With a 15-season primetime run, and a game-changing streaming season under its belt, there's very little "Criminal Minds" hasn't done from a narrative standpoint when it comes to the procedural drama formula. Longtime fans of the series might even be quick to argue the "Criminal Minds" creative team has pretty much perfected that formula over the years. But even diehard fans would likely admit the show also leaned pretty heavily on certain narrative tropes along the way. And some of those fans have taken to Reddit-land to skewer the series for its continued mistreatment of small-town police forces.  

That includes Redditor u/bexsapphic, who opened a recent thread with the post, "Every police station after the BAU solves the case by themselves and they just stood there taking notes from the profile for nothing," accompanied by a meme of an upset gentleman with a scrunched face and hands firmly on his hips. It's a hilarious opening post to be certain, and if you call yourself a fan of "Criminal Minds," you know u/bexsapphic has a pretty valid point. 

Indeed, even casual fans of the show can surely attest that any episode that involves the BAU team heading into small town USA to investigate a crime is pretty much guaranteed to end with said team solving said case while local cops stand around with their own hands on hips. And u/bexsapphic is far from the only fan willing to admit it.

A veritable legion of "Criminal Minds" fans promptly chimed in to bolster u/bexsapphic's original position that small-town cops on the series are often portrayed as irrelevant. That includes u/NotDanKentz, who chimed in to lament the depiction of local officers' inability to close a case with the post. "Lol, this always bothered me just a bit. You'd think the cops would solve it at least once," the user wrote.

Elsewhere, u/billcosbyinspace admitted to always getting a kick out of the way local police officers shown handling a "Criminal Minds" crime scene, commenting, "I like the episodes where they visit a small town to discover that the police have somehow destroyed the crime scene, lol." And u/happycharm offered up another hilarious hot take, noting the tried and true trope of the small-town cop who doesn't believe in profiling.

As for u/notapreviousagent, the note-taking by local PD is less of a problem than the bookish way the BAU team runs down a profile for their benefit. "This has always bothered me, lol," the user wrote, adding, "I understand they have to include a scene like this in every episode so that 'we' hear the profile, but it just feels too fake."

Despite their issues with this particular "Criminal Minds" trope, fans expressing their opinions are clearly just taking light-hearted jabs at some questionable things in the show they continue to adore.