RadPig94

It's not fake. What they do is they do a ride-along for several weeks/months and film pretty much anything that happens. Then they edit out the parts that are boring (paperwork, giving out tickets to "normal people" etc). COPS is a realistic show, but they don't show all parts of policework. They can also re do some segments if the sound during a interview was bad. An example for this is when the show starts, there's always a small interview with the officer(s) before they respond to a call. This is most likely redone sometime.
COPS is there to entertain a audience (you). They need to edit it so people will watch it. Another thing to note is that everyone (officers and other participants of the show) must sign a document which shows that they agree to release the videos of them.

I'm pretty sure after ~453 hours of the program aired to the viewers, and which was recorded in public view for much longer than that, they would have been caught

I don't buy into that at all, dude. You can't fake pursuits on public roads, or officer involved shootings caught on dash cam, or a dying child with lungs too big for its body, etc. And most actors I know of wouldn't volunteer to be pepper sprayed or tased falling onto some parking lot pavement. A person registered on this forum who's a Sheriff's Deputy had the COPS crew ride along with him, and he said that they record things as they're supposed to, but they reverse the order of the 'personal story' clips that are shown before a callout, and the actual callouts themselves. They also obviously have to edit a lot of footage to compress things into a half hour worth of programming.

the last one got me :D

Wow, that's a tough act to follow! Those were hilarious!
 
Here is a random Cyanide & Happiness comic: