[jfinnery]

The way US cops talk is a whole thing. It’s one of the most-distinctive job-related American English variants. Even more so than white-collar “business English” (“let’s take this offline and circle back to it, as per my prior email”)

Some of it’s weird posturing (I’d put the “sir” thing in that category) and a bunch of it’s a combination of actually-effective and folk-supposed-effective ways of speaking to dazzle jurors, plus probably some other motivations and influences thrown in (some Hollywood-military turns of phrase and vocabulary, certainly)

[anthk]

In Spanish the Police/Civil Guard (militarized police) does the same, they will address you like "Disculpe, caballero" - excuse me, (Gentle) Sir. They will address you very formaly, and you might shit bricks on the road in case you messed up something or have a faulty light.