Description
Commandant Eric Lassard decides that the police force is overworked and understaffed, so he comes up with the idea of recruiting civilian volunteers to work side by side with his officers in a program called "Citizens On Patrol" (COP). Carey Mahoney and his friends Moses Hightower, Larvell Jones, Eugene Tackleberry, Zed, Sweetchuck, Laverne Hooks, and Debbie Callahan are in charge of training the civilians. The civilians include the enormous Tommy "House" Conklin (who Hightower used to babysit), gung-ho senior citizen Lois Feldman, Tackleberry's own father-in-law, and skateboarding delinquents Kyle and Arnie. The latter pair were caught by Capt. Harris, and the judge was about to throw the book at them until Mahoney speaks to the judge to let Arnie and Kyle join the COP program as alternative punishment. The judge agrees to this, and the boys are joined by their unsuccessful attorney, Butterworth.
Captain Thaddeus Harris believes "the concept of citizens doing police work is asinine" and is determined to see the COP program fail and take over Lassard's job at the academy. When Lassard leaves on an overseas conference, Harris, along with his right-hand man Lt. Proctor, are put in charge of the academy and Harris immediately plots to make the COP volunteers quit and leave the police work to the officers. The volunteers, however, do well in their training. Mrs. Feldman excels in firing Tackleberry's .44 Magnum, and the two find a friendly bond in each other (given that she reminds Tackleberry of his mother). In training for water safety and drowning victim rescue, Zed "rescues" a cadet but experiences a personal loss of his no longer functioning Mickey Mouse watch, saying it was the last thing he ever stole before joining the academy. Through his loss, Zed gains a love interest, Laura, a reporter/photographer who has come to the academy to view Lassard's COP program and becomes attracted to Zed. Unfortunately Harris ruins the moment and insults Zed and Laura, which causes Zed to replace Harris' Right Guard deodorant with mace, which burns his armpits. Despite the pranks played upon him during the various training exercises the volunteers take, Harris, nevertheless, is still determined to make the Citizens on Patrol program fail.
Jones learns that volunteers House, Kyle, and Arnie believe themselves ready to go out and arrest criminals, so Jones, Mahoney, Hightower, and Tackleberry play a prank on the boys, locking the boys in a prisoner transport van with Hightower, who is posing as a Voodoo practitioner who reanimates his "dead" brother, played by Tackleberry, as a Jason Voorhees-esque maniac with a chainsaw to make them take their training more seriously. Later, after being yelled at again by Captain Harris and being called a disgrace, Zed is comforted again by Laura, who says she thinks he is perfect.
After several volunteers accidentally foil an undercover police sting, the Citizens on Patrol program is suspended, much to Harris' delight. Mahoney believes that he did that on purpose to shut down the COP program and pays him back by putting superglue on the mouthpiece of Harris' bullhorn, causing the mouth guard part to get stuck on the rims of his mouth. Sometime later, Harris gives some prominent citizens a tour of his precinct when Proctor messes up and is tricked into releasing every inmate at the precinct 19 jail, including a team of ninjas, and special guest Randall "Tex" Cobb. After the criminals imprison Harris and his guests, they make their escape from the precinct, only to run into Mrs. Feldman, who wastes no time informing the Lassard academy.
When Lassard's officers hear of the jailbreak, the COP volunteers are dispatched along with the regular officers to catch the escaped felons. After stopping a robbery and a high-speed air balloon chase, the felons are all recaptured. Meanwhile, House, Kyle, Arnie, and Butterworth save Harris and Proctor from drowning in a river after the latters' attempt (and failure) to participate in the chase, and Zed impresses his girlfriend Laura by saving Sweetchuck's life after they both fall out of a plane in mid-air. Several of the police chiefs who had gone to witness Lassard's program in action congratulate and compliment Lassard on his program and his officers, much to Harris' dismay.
