This article is about Harrison Yates's police force. For the South Park Police force, see Officer Barbrady.
The Park County Police Force are a heavily featured group within the series, lead by Sergeant Yates, although many other officers appear throughout the series. Introduced in Season Seven, it superseded Officer Barbrady. The South Park Police Chief has since remained the core police force in the series.
The police are portrayed as being incompetent and naive as well as plain stupid at times. In "Cartman's Incredible Gift" it takes Yates a long time to realize that the killer's trophies of hands are in fact the missing ones from murder victims, just they were hung the other way round on the wall. It is also in this episode that reveals the police are persuaded by supposed psychics (including Eric Cartman) and will use them to sometimes assist and solve cases. He is also forced to conduct a series of tests before he realizes the truth.
The Park County Police also appear to be intolerant towards wealthy black people, who Yates speaks of framing throughout his career. When they nearly arrest Mr. Jefferson in "The Jeffersons" (who is actually Michael Jackson) he appears to be a white man. Realizing he nearly arrested a white man, it causes Yates to vomit. They also handle things using a lot of violence as seen in "Chickenlover" where Barbrady knocks out the Chickenlover after catching him (despite him being absolutely harmless to other people) and shoots the killer a number of times
In "Cartman's Incredible Gift" he hires Eric Cartman for his supposed psychic powers but ends up solving the case of the left-handed serial killer Michael Deets by himself.
In "Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy", the cops can be seen eating lunch and commenting with joy how they shot someone, despite the person doing nothing.
In "Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy" they are shown to be jealous of Kyle's brother Ike Broflovski after having a sexual relationship with his teacher Ms. Stevenson whom they all find attractive. Yates even goes as far to exclaim, "Dammit! Where were all these sex-crazed teachers when I was a kid?". The only act on the case when Principal Victoria persuades them to as they don't seem to take much very seriously.
In "Naughty Ninjas", They become a Hula School and refuse to deal with the suspected ISIS soldiers and the homeless problem due to being horribly rejected by the townspeople.
In "The Damned", they visit the Broflovski Residence looking for information regarding Eric Cartman's sudden disappearance from social media in "Skank Hunt".
Trivia
- In "About Last Night...", the police cruisers were remodeled to fit with the new graphical looks. The cruisers now resemble the second generation Ford Crown Victoria, one of the most common vehicles used by American police forces, and have appeared repeatedly in the show since then.
- The South Park Police and Park Country Police are only seen together in "Medicinal Fried Chicken", "200", "201" and arguably "The Coon"
- Their motto mentioned on their squad cars is, "To Patronize and Annoy".
- In "The Return of Chef" there is a detective named Jarvis, although it's not certain if he is with the South Park Police.