I'm a bit confused; after I track down a mugging suspect and hit E to arrest, he complies happily, but at this point the other officers who have randomly joined the pursuit decide to open fire, usually with fairly predictable results. The mugger dropped his pistol shortly after the mugging and was obviously disarmed by the time I caught up to him, so for the other officers to decide that while he was holding his hands above his head would be a good time to fire... well, they're right, but for all the wrong reasons.

Is there any way to tell the other officers I've got this one?

Don't press 3 when you're targeting him.

I don't think I did -- I may have tapped Numpad 3 while searching for buttons that make the talky stuff happen, but as I understand it that's a different boat entirely to "Decimal 3" for the top row. I could be wrong. Lemme try the next foot pursuit by staying well clear of Numpad 3 and I'll post an update.

Yup, sure enough, I guess that *was* the problem. Whoops!

I didn't realise this before while looking at the "speech" buttons but they're all lined up along the left side of the numeric keypad, so your fingers should stay well away from the right side in general.