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In early scenes of Pulp Fiction, Vince and Jules are in Brett's apartment to confront him. As Jules gets aggressive, he shouts at everyone in the apartment loudly and clearly and then shoots Roger, the guy on the sofa. The gunfire was also loud.

Jules then proceeds to confront Brett, with the confession and the famous Bible verse. So a considerable time has passed since the shouting and the shooting. Therefore, if police were alarmed about the gunfire, they would be around or ideally would have arrived but no one in the neighborhood is bothered?

Did no one bother to call the police about the situation? or even if they did not, why did the police not notice this and arrive at the scene by themselves?

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    Same question goes for Vincent crashing the car in Lance's front yard (just before they resuscitate Mia with the big adrenaline needle). Cops should have been called. Commented Oct 18, 2019 at 14:12
  • Or when Butch runs into Marsellus Wallace and he shoots that woman on the sidewalk. No police, and several people had time to gather around Marsellus at that point.
    – JPhi1618
    Commented Oct 18, 2019 at 18:08
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    I just wanted to mention that even when the police arrive on scene they aren't just going to charge into a high rise apartment building that is almost certainly in a bad neighborhood where everyone is armed and hates police. There will probably be 2-3 cars waiting downstairs for some sort of tactical response team to come and then they have to plan their entry to the building. The cops will probably technically be on scene for 30+ minutes before they ever make it to the apartment in question.
    – jesse_b
    Commented Oct 19, 2019 at 13:17

2 Answers 2

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I don't have anything to back this up, but it probably can be written off as the apartment being in some stereotypical bad neighbourhood, where no one calls the police even if there's a shooting.

Or maybe it's a use of the TV trope Police are useless, since the story would take a boring turn if the cops turned up within 10 minutes and arrested everyone.

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    This trope would be the best thing because in Resevoir Dogs we see that police know about the robbery, and yet let robbers escape. Commented Oct 18, 2019 at 9:41
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    I politely disagree with your last point. It can be quite entertaining if the cops turn up and arrest everyone.
    – BruceWayne
    Commented Oct 18, 2019 at 20:33
  • @BruceWayne I vaguely recall most of the cast of Ocean's Eleven getting arrested at the end of the movie as well.
    – Mast
    Commented Oct 20, 2019 at 16:30
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Who's to say the cops didn't arrive moments after they left? Given that the average response time is 18 minutes to mass shootings, I don't think there is an issue in the movie's reality.

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    Good point. Perhaps we just don't get to see when the cops arrive because it's 20min later into the movie...
    – Luciano
    Commented Oct 21, 2019 at 8:06
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    Beyond which, Vincent lampshades this by admonishing Jules to knock it off for precisely this reason: "Do you wanna continue this theological discussion in the car, or at the jailhouse with the cops?"
    – lly
    Commented Jul 12, 2021 at 4:23

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