Always makes me laugh when I hear it in films but wondered if police really shout it? If not what do they shout?

We all know Magnum gives that look and all criminals stop lol

When you attempt to take and hold somebody at gunpoint, it's important to establish domination. Part of that process employs "command voice". Command voice in part, results from using harder sounding consonants to begin the sentence/command. "Don't move!" spoken forcefully, with a deeper voice comes across much more effectively than "Freeze!" The "F" doesn't have the same impact as "D" (or even the "m" in move).

That pretty much sums up how Ayoob taught it, anyways. "Don't move!" "Drop the weapon!"

The most common police phrase is 'what happened?'.

2nd most common is 'hey dickhead!' which is spoken to other cops.

The Quebec police version is far more efficient:

Bang!Bang!Bang!Bang!Bang!Bang!Bang!

"Alright, now don't move..."

Followed in court by:

"No your Honour, I don't know what happened, the gun simply went off."

I don't want this going into PWEC, just wanted to know after watching films etc

I don't know, but my first guess is they would say "Police" to identify themselves. That would me stop what I was doing if I heard it.

Yep... "Police! Let me see your hands" 90% of the time... we identify ourselves then follow with a simple order, usually to see the hands because the hands are what kills... then usually follows by a series of commands for control, IE: "Get down on the ground", "against the wall" etc etc or "stop resisting" if already hands on.

Were trained to say those things not only for basic police work but in the day and age of video cameras in cop cars, on cops, or at least audio...and/or our fine citizens who want to help us catch the evidence on tape (ya right, hoping for a awesome police brutality moment, lol). We want all that recorded... if they have a weapon "drop the gun" "knife"... etc etc

I knew you wouldn't say freeze! Thanks

Hands? we don't need no steenking hands!

Mine was "Police" first, because I didn't wear a uniform 21 out of the 25 years I was working.
Followed by "Don't move"...."Let me see your hands".
But looking back...it wasn't always the same, the situation dictated the verbal exchange.

Working on habitual offenders the last 10 years of my career, we pretty much knew the people we were arresting. So much of it was personal, most times I had already interrogated the subject a few weeks earlier....so we knew each other. Sometimes using the perps name was helpful...calmed him down. Many of the arrests we made were inside a home, during the home invasion, or if it was going down peaceful, we waited till they were on the way out.
Touchy situation. They'd never allow that now days....too many legal problems.
It was different, I didn't work uniform much. But we 'always' had uniforms with us, during the arrest. And the surveillance crew. We would just overwhelm them with manpower. Didn't have to say much.

IIRC during my first years on the street, working uniform, I just yelled "let me see your hands"....if it was a felony arrest...maybe "don't....move". Making it very clear.

Agree with my other brothers in Blue

Usually for me its "Police Show me your hands."

My first response is, Go ahead...

For me it's always"citizens arrest", drawn out to something with 3 syllables, like a reaust.

I use Freeze Sucker in my big black man voice. Works very time.

"Freeze" seemed to be what coppers said on the television box in the 1970's, except on The Electric Company, where the short female cop yelled "HEYYY YOU GUYYYS!!!"

I think that the British equivalent during the same period was "'Ello, 'ello, 'ello, what's all this then?" as used by Monty Python's Graham Chapman.

here's Jack Webb and Harry Morgan for comparison.

I've used "Freeze" twice one duty. Once just to say it, the other as I wanted a free dinner from a bet! My normal is "don't move."

-Jenrick

What about 'Reach for the sky!'?

I've heard "DONT F&^#ing MOVE" a few times myself (never directed at me though thankfully).

I've had 4 guns pulled on me, 3 were by cops,twice in the states and once in Canada, the Canadian cop pulled a magnum revolver on me and said " Don't even think about it, this is a small town". The American cops were just relieved I wasn't a gang banger and Just a paralytic drunk dumb ass gravel belly lol.The forth time was a freedom fighter who was going to shoot me in the chest whilst I lay on a road trying to sleep,but that's another story.