Donut Mess with a Cop



""If you want to find all the cops, they're hanging out in the donut shop.""

- The Bangles, "Walk Like an Egyptian"

In fiction, it's much more probable that you'll see a cop eating a donut than anyone else, except for Homer Simpson. The cop guarding your jail cell will be dunking their donut with pink frosting in their cup of coffee. The cop in the stakeout will have a half-empty box of donuts in their car. When taking a break from driving, they're hanging out at the donut shop.

In more humorous displays, the cop might react to a donut as Scooby Doo would to a scooby snack. It might be the reason for them to have joined the force. Heck, in fact, "Officer Donut" is a casual insult for a cop. In fact, they could be so obsessed, they might be bribed to do anything for donuts.

The reasons for this are actually not all insulting. Cops will usually consume lots of coffee, because it's necessary for them to stay awake during the night, and the donut is usually a sweet to dunk in the coffee or to remove its sour aftertaste. Donuts are also ready-made and stored in boxes - a good food to store in patrol cars for a long time, as they don't melt or get inedible when old. They also tend to be both filling and cheap, and as Donut Shops tend to open early, for a while they were among the few places open for someone working the graveyard shift. Donut shops also tend to give out free donuts to law enforcement.

As donuts are fattening sweets, the cop munching them will usually be a fat, lazy, moustached Obstructive Bureaucrat. (Strangely, they never get glaze or frosting in their moustache...)

As for corrupt cops, just remember that Evil Tastes Good - as do donuts.

While this might be Truth in Television, it could probably be seen today as an Evolving Trope. If anything, a cop might be hesitant in buying donuts because of the inevitable stigma associated with them. On the other hand, The Red Stapler effect comes into play. On their first round, a rookie might buy some donuts, believing all cops love them.

It should be noted that this is primary an American/Canadian based trope as donuts are nowhere near as popular with the police in many other countries.

Advertising

 * A recent AFLAC commercial featured two cops describing AFLAC using an analogy with a donut.
 * Some years back, a local commercial in the Orlando market featured the then real-life Orange County Sheriff and several of his deputies chowing down at a particular 24-hour restaurant. The tag line had the good Sheriff pointing at the repast before him and exclaiming, "This is why cops don't eat donuts anymore!" (The spot was quickly pulled after protests that such a commercial endorsement by a law enforcement official was highly inappropriate.)
 * The Foundation For A Better Life's "Honesty" ad - where a boy appears to steal a purse, but in reality chases down its owner - in the extended version, the cops that he appeared to be running from offer the boy a donut when they see him give the purse back.
 * The infamous "Trunk Monkey" ads have one where the titular critter tries to bribe an officer away from giving a ticket to his owner, first with cash, then with a donut. It doesn't work.
 * In the Chick Tract "Murph", Murph and his partner Donovan are having donuts, and Murph complains about always being called away when he orders one. As Murph is dying from gunshot wounds sustained in the robbery, Donovan brings him a sprinkled donut.

Comic Books
""This is why you gotta love the second shift." "It's why you love the second shift." "You cannot get fresher. The frosting is still cracking." "You are a caricature of a caricature.""
 * Sam and Twitch from Spawn also love Donuts. Especially Sam. But, then again, he loves everything...
 * Harvey Bullock's love of doughnuts (see Western Animation examples below) carries over from his original appearances in the Batman comics.
 * Oddly enough Sergeant Slipper in The Beano can be seen having a donut doughnut.
 * Lampshaded in Ultimate Spider-Man. Peter is chasing Ultimate Carnage across the city, and we cut away to two cops walking away from a donut shop.

""Cops on a donut run. I feel like a walkin' sterotype.""
 * Lampshaded in an issue of Spider Girl:

Film
"Paul Smecker: [enters the police station, packed with cops] First of all, I'd like to thank whichever one of you donut-munching, barrel-assed, pud-pulling sissies leaked this to the press."
 * In an early scene in RoboCop 3, a rather pathetic hoodlum charges into a donut shop to hold the place up, and is suddenly covered in glowing red dots. He looks around in confusion and belatedly notices all the uniformed police officers/customers pointing their laser-sighted guns at him. This was even lampshaded by the clerk sarcastically commenting to the hood, "So what's it like being a rocket scientist?" Then the main plot kicks in, and they leave him just standing there, pleading "Isn't someone going to arrest me?"
 * The police car in Doug's First Movie has a vanity plate that says "DONUT-1"
 * The Boondock Saints:

"Ruby: Bad cop! No donut."
 * Hollywood Homicide:

"Smalls: You wanna find an outlaw, you call an outlaw; you wanna find a Dunkin' Donuts, call a cop."
 * The bank robbers in The Lookout contemptuously refer to the cop who makes coffee runs for Chris as "Deputy Donut."
 * Also from Raising Arizona:

"Clerk: I thought you guys just ate donuts."
 * Die Hard refers to this one as well: Sergeant Carl Winslow Al Powell buys a massive pile of Twinkies for his pregnant wife. The store clerk harasses him about it.

"Zed:I'm now about to teach you the most important thing to know while you're out on patrol. And that is...how to eat a donut."
 * The cop in The Santa Clause had a donut that the elves proceeded to stuff into his mouth after tying him up.
 * In Evil Ambitions (released on DVD as Satanic Yuppies) an obnoxious donut-eating cop attempts to keep Mc Gavin the heroic reporter from the scene of a Satanic sacrifice. When outwitted, the cop takes an angry bite from his donut.
 * During the chase scene finale of Con Air, two Red Shirt cops join in, dropping their donuts to do so.
 * Doyle in The Mask. We also had a warden dunking his donut.
 * Psycho Cop Returns opens with slow motion donut eating.
 * In Whos The Man, Denis Leary attempts to stop Dr Dre from ever eating a donut again.
 * In Blue Streak, Martin Lawrence's character is a jewel thief pretending to be a robbery/homicide detective in order to retrieve a diamond stolen years before and hidden in the building. At one point, he sees a box of donuts and happily grabs one, only to put it back with the words, "I'm not a cop."
 * The Crow: Sergeant Albrecht: "So many cops, you'd think they givin' away donuts."
 * The credits sequence of the first The Naked Gun finishes with the police car stopping at a donut shop.
 * It took the Police Academy series until the fourth film to play this trope.

Literature
""I'll pay you in donuts." "Dresden, you pig. That cop-donut thing is a vicious stereotype." "Donuts with little pink sprinkles." "Professional profiling is just as bad as racial profiling." "Yeah. But you know you want the little pink sprinkles.""
 * In The Dresden Files book Small Favor, Harry requires some donuts to bribe a faerie and asks Murphy to get some. She's offended until he explains exactly why cops eat donuts, pretty much the same as in the page description. She grudgingly accepts this and tells him which car they're in. (She says that she prefers granola bars herself - similar advantages but healthier.)
 * Harry likes doing this to Murphy. In "Something Borrowed," the following dialogue ensues:


 * Once every few novels of the In Death series, someone is bound to bring a box of donuts into "Cop Central." Usually it's intrepid reporter Nadine Furst, who routinely bribes her way into Eve Dallas's office by this method, but sometimes it's just "someone brought donuts."
 * In the Tamora Pierce novel Bloodhound, Beka Cooper, a Guardswoman (or "Provost's Dog"), dines on "fried dough spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg", which she later describes as "dough knots".
 * Rare British example: The Ankh-Morpork City Watch, in the Discworld novels. Captain Vimes has a doughnut at Harga's House of Ribs in Men At Arms (and describes the recipe in full, to express his annoyance at Harga's literal-minded response to his asking for coffee "black as midnight on a moonless night"). In Thud, it's mentioned that Sergeant Colon and the ex-Watchmen who come in to chat with him get through a lot of doughnuts, but it's worth it for the information. And in Unseen Academicals, one character refers to the Watch being annoyed about breaking up a riot because it would be keeping them from the doughnut shop. Of course, while Discworld is a British creation, it takes its tropes from everywhere.
 * Everyone Jo knows from Da Chief to her cabbie buddy Gary knows her favourite types of drink and her favourite pastries from the local donut shop in The Walker Papers.
 * The shtekeleh, a Filipino-style Chinese donut in The Yiddish Policemens Union. Tears come to the detective protagonist's eyes when he realises that nothing in his life is better than eating one of them.

Live-Action TV
"Sawyer: A doctor playing golf. What's next, cop eatin' a donut?"
 * Dexter - the title character offers donuts to his coworkers, all cops. They don't last very long. The donuts, that is. This is all part of his "I'm just a harmless nice guy" facade.
 * Mystery Science Theater 3000 ended Experiment 409, "The Indestructible Man" with a pair of police officers instructing the SOL crew to never again make a police/doughnut joke. Joel, Servo and Crow actually signed a contract swearing that the would never make a cop/doughnut joke again. According to the Amazing Colossal Guide, they've remained true to that since.
 * Although in season 10, Servo has a dirty cop refusing to stop at a Krispy Kreme so as not to "advance the stereotype."
 * In Experiment 618, "High School Big Shot" during the short ("Out Of This World," the one where good and evil vie for a breadman's soul) Mike makes a cop/doughnut joke.
 * Possibly a bit of Fridge Brilliance, as Mike didn't sign the original contract.
 * Referenced on NCIS, when McGee and Tony get into a bit of a old school/new school police approach competition. Tony declares himself a winner, and begins asking for a jelly donut.
 * From Lost:

"Female a-hole: [to cop] Can I have one of your donuts? Male a-hole: Yeah, I'll take one with sprinkles. Cop: I don't have any donuts. Male a-hole: [to female a-hole] He ate 'em all, babe."
 * In Heroes, Eden uses her persuasion powers to make Matt sit in his patrol car all night eating donuts, because "That's what you guys do, right?". When his colleague sees him, he complains that Matt is "a walking cliche".
 * In Friends, when a cop asks Phoebe out. Gary says, "Don't worry, I'm not just gonna take you out for donuts." Chandler laughs, and everybody else stares, befuddled. Chan explains that it was a bizarre form of self-defense: "He has a gun!"
 * From the Saturday Night Live sketch "Two A-Holes at a Crime Scene":

"Ken Titus: You built me a cop magnet! I might as well be a black guy driving a large powdered doughnut!"
 * Titus episode "What's Up, Hollywood?"

"Shawn: Ooh. (licks red stuff on hand) That wasn't a jelly donut."
 * In one episode of Good Eats, Alton is trying to smuggle muffins to his incarcerated brother B. A. (who wanted a cake with a file in it, but that's irrelevant) when a cop catches him. Alton distracts him by throwing a muffin, then remarks, "Huh. I thought it only worked with donuts." Interestingly, it doesn't work with English muffins.
 * Hill Street Blues, where Bobby Hill goes to meet an attractive reporter to try to talk to her about her somewhat unfair reporting of their day's shift, which basically showed them every time they had something silly happen or were waiting for something. The two of them end up having sex, and so, then, she feels for Hill, so now, it only focuses on Hill's partner Renko, every time he stopped to buy donuts and left any disparaging video of Hill not used.
 * Then the next time she follows them around, she gets film of Renko running into a burning building to save a child, so she apologizes for her previous reporting on the air, and says as long as he does stuff like that, he's entitled to all the donuts he wants.
 * Used in a teaser for Psych where Gus questions where Shawn managed to find a donut at a crime scene. As Shawn gives less and less probable answers, the camera moves to show a box of donuts that was carried by the covered victim.

"Bosco: No powdered sugar on your shirt, Sully. What, Krispy Kreme burn down?"
 * Referenced on Third Watch:

"Sledge:I would like to address that particular stereotype if I may. Now, your stereotypical donut is nothing but dough and sugar fried in fat, am I right? Now that fat gums up your arteries and goes to your brain, and you turn liberal. And the next thing you know, Barry Manilow is on the turn-table and you're not going to work and you're voting for gun control. You see what I'm saying? You see the connection? That's why I eat granola."
 * Referenced by Buffy when, on Career Day, various people suggest she could join the police force. She's not enthusiastic.
 * In Law and Order, a pair of detectives were interviewing a donut store owner about seeing a suspect. The owner didn't see anything. Then, they showed an officer who just happened to be eating a donut saying that he saw something.
 * On an episode of Law and Order: Criminal Intent, a group of terrorists left a box of donuts full of high explosives for the cops to find. It didn't work.
 * Mocked on Sledge Hammer!:

"Daniel: I've never been on a stakeout before. Shouldn't we have...doughnuts?"
 * The A-Team: When Murdock and Face are captured, they bluff their kidnappers into choosing a Donut Cafe as a meeting point. Once inside, the two simply get up and walk out of the Cafe, calmly asking the Gangsters what they're gonna do, shoot them in front of all the Cops?
 * Played with on Cold Case as Det. Vera is pissed that someone ate his Tasty Cakes, which are a Hostess-esque brand of snack cakes that are mainly sold on the East Coast and are especially popular in Philadelphia.
 * On an episode of My Name Is Earl, a beleaguered cop explains that his food gets spat on a lot, and it's hard to hide a loogie on a donut.
 * On The Mentalist, it's traditional for Lisbon's team to have either donuts or pizza following the successful closure of a case.
 * In Twin Peaks, the protagonist FBI agent Dale Cooper sees a spread of donuts at the police station and exclaims "A policeman's dream!".
 * In the Murdoch Mysteries episode "Hangman", George and another constable have tea and donuts while on a stakeout. They even have a Seinfeldian Conversation about the origins of the donut.
 * Played with on Stargate SG 1 when the team are helping out in a police surveillance van on Earth.


 * The detective in Blackpool is a Big Eater. Doughnuts feature at one point (he doesn't want icing).
 * In the very first scene of the pilot for CSI, Detective Jim Brass quipped that he wanted to get out of the crime scene quick so he could "catch the first rack at Krispy Kreme".
 * In one episode of Kenan and Kel, Kel got a job at a donut shop. Kenan's father pestered Kel for a free donut until Kel decided to give him one only to activate an alarm and accuse Kenan's parent of donut theft. Kenan's parents were arrested by cops who were there as customers.
 * One episode of Monster Garage involved turning a police car into a rolling donut shop. A police official said that the conversion was a good idea as it would allow officers on patrol to stop for a snack without leaving their vehicles, "but it's still wrong."
 * Once Upon a Time does this, Graham, the Huntsman/Town Sheriff, brings in a box of donuts to Emma, the deputy. Emma gives Graham a flat stare, and he responds "Some stereotypes are true."
 * In Family Matters, Carl is an overweight cop, so there are a few donut jokes now and then:
 * In one episode, a tax audit shows he tried to deduct trips to a donut store as deductibles. "I'm a cop!" he protests, "It's a business lunch!"
 * On another episode, Carl gives directions to avoid a traffic jam caused by a fire, saying a landmark is easy to spot because it's near "a great donut shop" he frequents.

Music

 * Brad Paisley, in his song "Mr. Policeman," taunts the cop chasing him: "There's no way you're keeping up with me / Just go on back to Krispy Kreme."
 * Then there's the line from "Walk Like an Egyptian", quoted above. It might be the Trope Maker.
 * The "Smoked Pork" skit from Body Count's self titled album.
 * House of Pain's "Jump Around" features the line "Feel it, funk it / Amps in the trunk/ And I got more rhymes than there's cops at a Dunkin' Donuts..."
 * The music video for "Sabotage" by The Beastie Boys had a scene where the cops stopped for donuts.
 * Ice Cube's song "Say Hi To The Bad Guy" has a particularly dark take on this trope.
 * The music video for the song "Stylo" by Gorillaz features a donut munching cop giving chase to a speeding car driven by the band members. To be fair, the only reason he stops was because Cyborg Noodle was popping shotgun shells into his police car and causing it to crash through a billboard. Said cop gets taken away by the Boogeyman to hell before he could reach for a nearby box of donuts.
 * A concert poster for the band Cop Shoot Cop depicts two policemen dueling over the last doughnut.

Recorded and Stand Up Comedy

 * Gabriel Iglesias was once pulled over by a cop in a Krispy Kreme parking lot for speeding (he was overexcited to get home and eat the donuts on his lap.) The policeman asked the obligatory "You know why I pulled you over?" He answered, "Yeah man, 'cause you could smell 'em!" The cop got enough of a kick out of that to let him go.

Tabletop Games

 * The C.L.U.E. Foundation has featured this trope, at least once, killing a particularly stupid Shadowrun player.

Video Games
"Motorcycle Cop: What a waste of a good donut. OK, let's roll!"
 * Grand Theft Auto: SanAndreas Colon Cancer

"Sergeant: Private! Go get some donuts! Private: Sir, yes sir! CONVOY HALT!"
 * Also, the first two Officer Tenpenny missions have you meeting him at a donut shop.
 * This goes back. In the first Grand Theft Auto game, there was a mission where you had to kill a group of cops who were all parked outside a donut shop.
 * Grand Theft Auto Vice City plays a variation using soldiers:

"Maya: That security lady is in the guard station stuffing her face with donuts! I guess all cops like their donuts! Phoenix: Yeah, and they're soft enough she doesn't need teeth to chew them..."
 * Also, the radio dispatcher on the emergency radio asks "Is there an officer near the Rusty Brown's downtown? There must be."
 * Also in the Half Life expansion Blue Shift you play as a security guard (not quite a police officer, but close enough). At the beginning of the game (where you can wander around some areas of the complex for a bit before all hell breaks lose) one of the scientist NPCs might say "Why are you standing around? Shouldn't you be guarding some coffee and doughnuts right about now?"
 * Before that, you're required to go to the gun range to pick up your side-arm. In the range are two fellow security guards: one using the range for its intended purpose and one who's simply there to eat a donut.
 * In the final showdown in LEGO Island, you need to help the cops catch the Brickster. You can launch donuts at them to give them a speed boost.
 * Wendy Oldbag in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, a security guard. When Phoenix and Maya discover her eating donuts this exchange occurs:


 * Of course it's subverted with Gumshoe. He's far too poor to even afford donuts.
 * Donuts are mine-type weapons in Inner Space, which don't do damage, but cause those who pick them up to spin out temporarily. They're especially effective against the Enforcers, who will usually go out of their way to catch them. In fact, grabbing a donut that an Enforcer is after is actually a crime (albeit a minor one).
 * In the arcade driving game APB, driving your police car over a donut got you extra time.
 * When the former Scrappy Level Faultine of the City of Heroes was revamped to great effect, a donut shop was built with several police cars parked nearby. (and a giant pink donut on top)
 * Hitman: Blood Money extends this trope to FBI agents. A difficult mission that tasks you to assassinate a man under heavy FBI guard (he's in the witness protection program), and by far the easiest way to accomplish this is to plant a pack of donuts injected with anesthetic (or poison, if you're feeling mean) outside the unmarked FBI surveillance-van, knock on the door, and run away. The FBI-agent pops out, goes "Ooooh, donuts! Score!" and then proceeds to share them with his partner... leaving you with a conveniently closeable surveillance-truck where you can check out the cameras, and safely change into your brand-new FBI-uniform.
 * A small lampshade hanging also occurs if you hide at the side of the van, you see a pair of feet below the vans backdoors and hear "Ooooh donuts! Nice... Full disclosure: We're actually FBI".
 * In Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven (or at least in the Xbox port thereof, renamed Return from Darkness), there's an unlockable mission for Rikimaru that involves him going through a portal into the future. Most of the people he's required to kill are cops/security guards, and as they're dying, their last words are, "I see donuts...donuts from heaven."
 * In Postal 2 you could lure cops away by throwing doughnuts at the floor.
 * Also, finding and putting on a cop uniform causes the Postal Dude to say "Someone stole my donuts, and now you're all going to pay!".
 * Sam and Max Freelance Police: While never actually seen eating doughnuts, Sam and Max have a box with one, ancient uneaten doughnut in it. Sam comments that there's a microscopic civilization on there. Eventually one of their "Continents" is blown up with a tiny nuclear missile.
 * In Chaos Overlords, the super heavily armed police that sweep through city sectors that players have overexploited have a stereotypical donut with pink frosting and sprinkles in their auxiliary equipment slot.
 * The So Bad It's Good Transformers tie-in game shows Barricade scanning his alternate mode from a police cruiser parked outside a donut store. (Of note is that you can also throw the giant donut on the roof at the cops. Stuff like that is what makes this tie-in So Bad It's Good.)
 * The tutorial from SWAT 4 is a traditional assault course which ends in a debriefing room... Only, the new team leader (you) has left a box of doughnuts on the table, to the delight of the others.
 * Blast Corps has a level with a donut shop with a police car parked in front of it.
 * In MadWorld, donuts are used to distract the enemies in Area 66, who are essentially sci-fi tinged policemen/security guards. Agent XIII even notes that donuts are the vice of every law enforcement officer.
 * One of the recurring character in the Fuun Series is Gordon Bowman, a fat cop. Nearly every last one of his pre-fight conversations in Savage Reign involve donuts.
 * Carmageddon2: One of the missions has you deal with a whole team of cop cars, because you blew up their favorite donut shop.
 * In one of the Mass Effect games, a Turian C-SEC officer (cop) talks about how much he loves donuts.
 * One of the side missions in Driver: Parallel Lines involves outlasting a police pursuit. How do you initiate this? You guessed it. Ram a donut stand.

Web Comics
"Reno: Oh come on, it was a JOKE. And I had NO idea that you hate donuts. Cop: Your stereotypes only AID the machine."
 * Here Is a Question had this happen when Reno got arrested for murder and learned she got her potential sentence bumped up from five years to twenty-five.

"CPPD Chief: I have NEVER seen so many cops standing around doing nothing since that time the Donut Chariot was an hour late!"
 * Order of the Stick:


 * One strip of PvP has Brent bringing in a police officer as an "expert witness" on whether or not a Bismarck counts as a donut.
 * In Freefall, Sam uses donuts to bribe (or at least pacify) gate guards and everybody else.

Western Animation
"Ace: So what do they teach you at the academy these days? Dash: Uh, I, uh... could we get some donuts? Ace: Heeey, that's what they taught me, too."
 * Chief Wiggum in The Simpsons. But, then again, donuts are popular with other characters as well. Still, he's the only one who threatened someone with violence because of some donuts that fell in the sewer.
 * In one of the Treehouse of Horror episodes, Homer - due to an encounter with The Devil - has his head turned into a four-foot-wide donut. As a result,the Springfield Police Department lays siege to his house, cups of coffee in hand, waiting for him to emerge.
 * Wiggum is also known to eat a stack of donuts off his gun, often without the safety on.
 * In the episode where Marge becomes a cop, she's seen having coffee and a donut for breakfast while her family eats more regular breakfast fare.
 * American Dad - Roger wonders if there's a donut shop nearby when a bunch of cops appear. Stan doesn't get it.
 * Happened in The Powerpuff Girls.
 * One episode has a fat and lazy cop sitting in his patrol car eating donuts and bragging about what a great cop he is while his partner is across the street foiling a bank robbery. On the way back to the station, he got donuts from practically every donut shop he found, including one that also sells Chinese food. And he's still eating donuts back at the station when Da Chief gives him the Turn in Your Badge speech. The cop then hands over his gun, which Da Chief tells him to keep as a "souvenir"...and asks for his donut instead.
 * The movie has all the cops portrayed in a lazy and incompetent light. Before the girls came along, crime was rampant, and we see the reason...during every crime, the police were at the DONUT SHOP.
 * Subverted in Sealab 2021: Quinn tries to get a cop to leave a crime scene by throwing a donut away from it, even speaking to him like a dog ("go get, get it!"). The cop then tells he's diabetic, so Quinn just tasers him.
 * Harvey Bullock from Batman: The Animated Series's love of donuts goes without saying. There's one scene early in the show's run where most of the police rush out of headquarters in response to some emergency and he lingers to grab one.
 * Also, the episode with Tim Drake's origin story begins with him stealing a whole box of them from an elderly cop, then using them as improvised weapons against Two-Face's thugs.
 * While the main food of the Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers episode "Short Order Crooks" is Cheddarhead Charlie's Cheese Chowder, an early scene has Officers Kirby and Muldoon picking up a box of donuts at the diner. Ma's donuts are highly praised, though Ma suspects they just come there because it's conveniently next door to the station.
 * In Courage the Cowardly Dog Courage once distracted a cop from his evil package by throwing a donut down the subway train.
 * Creep in to the donut stop, sneak and tiptoe past the cop...
 * Gargoyles has some of the cops use this trope. The cops are eating donuts, see the monster, and blame the donut's sugar.
 * Lucky Piquel of Bonkers sure loves his pastries.
 * In one episode of Funky Cops, Ace gets a new partner, a fresh academy grad, when Dick is incapacitated.


 * In an episode of Dan Vs., a cop eating a donut watches Dan and Chris chasing a little boy down the street. He continues to eat his donut, then realizes, "Oh yeah, I'm a cop!" and goes after them.
 * One scene from the Pixar animated short Tokyo Mater involved Mater luring a Japanese police car into a donut shop while attempting to beat the villain to the top of Tokyo Tower as part of a drift race. Since the characters are cars, the donuts are of the stunt variety.
 * On The Amazing World of Gumball, the cop is a donut.
 * Subverted on an episode of Birdz. Officer Pigeon buys a box early in the episode, but admits that he doesn't eat them because "they're bad for you".
 * In Osmosis Jones, Ozzy tells Drix he has police work to do. The next scene, he orders donuts(?) (one glazed, and one with a jelly-filled nucleus) from a cell that has a donut for a face  The white-blood-cell precinct is also right next to the donut shop.
 * An episode of Oh Yeah Cartoons called "A Cop and his Donut" revolved around a cop who's partners with a talking donut.
 * A Cow and Chicken episode featured the Red Guy as an orthodontic policeman forcing everyone he meets to wear huge braces. One of his victims is a cop who laments being unable to eat donuts because of his braces.
 * In The Mighty Ducks, the hero's cop ally, after being knocked out, is able to revive and get the drop on the bad guy... after a donut rolls by his nose.
 * Subverted in Harley Quinn; in the second season finale, Gordon brings vegan donuts to a planning meeting, and the cops who eat them get sick.
 * Beetlejuice; in one episode, the title character is able to distract two Netherworld cops by conjuring up a donut stand and yelling "Free donuts!" Unfortunately, the donuts he has are the type he likes, dirty and covered with bugs, so it doesn't distract them for long.

Real Life
"Cop: Excuse me sir, your eyes are bloodshot. Have you been drinking? Driver: Officer, your eyes are glazed over. Have you been eating donuts?"
 * "Bad Cop, No Donut" adorns many a T-Shirt of anti-authority youth.
 * This also exists as a bumper sticker, popular on pickup truck rear windows, where a cop can't see it.
 * They also make ones that say "Police Headquarters" in the orange-and-pink Dunkin' Donuts logo font.
 * A regional joke in Western Massachusetts revolves around the fact that Dunkin Donuts - any Dunkin Donuts - is the worst place to rob after a gun shop. A Starbucks, on the other hand, is a good target. (The joke is that the cops are mainly from working-class backgrounds and hang out at DD, while Starbucks is seen as the place where college kids with lots of money and other snobs go.) Ironically, most W. Mass cops just get coffee these days and avoid the donuts.
 * Not to mention Starbucks isn't actually that expensive especially if all you want is regular coffee and there is no reason cops should actually detest the idea of being in the same room with college kids who don't always have all that much money anyway.
 * This troper's brother actually saw an arrest take place within the local donut shop.
 * Amusing subversion in a few of Detroit's nicer suburbs (Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills): the cops all hang at Starbucks, despite the presence of several Dunkin Donuts and Tim Horton's within the city limits or the next suburb over.
 * It's also worth noting that, traditionally, Dunkin' Donuts had a reputation for having just about the most awesome coffee in the universe, even if you weren't buying any donuts. Granted, that may be less true these days since specialty coffee shops have become so popular.
 * A 1994 MIT "hack" had some students secretly place a fake police car on the top of the Great Dome on campus. Inside, a mannequin dressed as a campus cop had a box of donuts nearby.
 * A T-Shirt guide shows that the best way to avoid a cop is to throw a donut at him.
 * There's been at least one real-life case where the attempted robbery of a doughnut shop has been thwarted by a cop who just happened to be there purchasing doughnuts at the time.
 * Which is how this trope got started. Dunkin' Donuts decided that to keep their employees safe during the Grave-yard shift, they would offer cops free donuts and coffee. For one reason or another, they don't do it anymore, but this example is the reason why the trope got started.
 * While they may not be allowed to offer free coffee and food anymore, places like Dunkin' Donuts and Waffle House continue to be popular with cops on overnight shifts because they generally have reasonably clean bathrooms (necessary after that fifth cup of coffee on a shift) and a nice-sized table that makes it much easier to spread out and work on paperwork there than trying to do the same in a squad car.
 * There's also this joke:


 * In Michigan, a Police Station had bought and run a donut shop that was on the verge of closing down. They called it, "Cops & Doughnuts". Link
 * In the 90s, Atlanta-area radio DJs Randy and Spiff had a "contest" called "Cop In, Cop Out", wherein they scouted a donut shop, then challenged the caller to guess whether there was a policeman in the store or not. Saying "Cop In" was pretty much a sure thing.
 * This article for those that didn't click it, it's a story about a donut delivery truck being hijacked and chased by a minimum of nine officers from four agencies in a half-dozen cruisers! Also, the company donated the stolen donuts to the arresting officers.
 * A joke once detailed that when a Cop goes to Hell, he must make a decision: Bullets or Donuts.
 * An Alberta city in the early 90s saw an internal police memo leaked to the press where, to avoid people believing this trope by seeing the Tim Horton's parking lot full of police cars, officers were asked to park down the street and walk.
 * This picture.
 * A small arcade in Marina Del Rey, CA had a recurring problem with gang fights, so the strip mall's proprietors designated parking space for police vehicles. Unfortunately, they chose the one directly in front of the adjacent donut shop, making it a local Running Gag for years.
 * Subverted in many communities where breakfast tacos are a favorite treat; breakfast tacos also taste delicious with coffee and there are many opportunities to grab a taco anytime, day or night (and they taste as good at 10:00 PM as they do at 10:00 AM), so tacos are the cop's best friend there.
 * Tim Hortons, far and away from the largest coffee, baked goods and fast-food chain in Canada, was founded by the hockey player Tim Horton, but his first investor and franchisee were Ron Joyce, a police constable who frequented Horton's shop on his beat. After Horton's death, Joyce took over the chain and expanded it into the empire it is today.
 * Instead of paying for security, Tim Hortons offers free menu items to members of Law Enforcement, encouraging police to frequent time.
 * "Happy International Donut Day!"
 * A Wisconsin thief opted to steal a random automobile to make a getaway. His choice... a truck with donuts. It was even featured on World's Dumbest....
 * When a truck of donuts in Kentucky was destroyed by fire, the police were left "in mourning". it went viral.