Did Internal Affairs investigate Officer Austin after the events of Terminator 2?

To us, Officer Austin is the mimetic polyalloy Skynet prototype T-1000, sent back to kill the leader of the Human Resistance, John Connor.

To the denizens of Los Angeles, Officer Austin is a public menace, with no regard for life, property or basic police procedures. Just off the top of my head, here's a few reasons I.A. may look into his goings-on:

1. Throwing a tow truck driver out of his tow truck and stealing/destroying his truck in high speed pursuit of a minor on a dirtbike.

2. Shoving kids around in an arcade.

3. Possibly stealing a fellow officer's bike then launching it out of Cyberdyne Systems building, crashing it into a police helicopter, then proceeding to shoot the shit out of a SWAT van and then destroying said helicopter.

4. Murdering truck driver then trashing his liquid nitrogen truck.

These are just a few examples. There are many more I'm not even mentioning. So, do you suppose Internal Affairs was busy after Officer Austin's rampage? Also, being an infiltration unit, do you suppose Austin filled out paperwork for his superiors? What are your thoughts?

 

Hasn't it been suggested that typically an infiltration Terminator's first act is to terminate the person they're impersonating? If so, this seems like a dead end. Pun intended.

 

The first time we see the T-1000, it already looks like Robert Patrick, but is naked. It kills the human Officer Austin and copies his uniform, but NOT his face. Physically, they looked nothing alike.

Any surviving witnesses would bear this out. IA would learn that there was some psycho going around wearing Austin's uniform, but they'd know it wasn't actually Austin.

(In the novelization, OTOH, the T-1000 does indeed copy Austin's face as well as his uniform.)

I highly doubt that the T-1000 actually tried to assume Austin's identity. Meaning, it didn't do any real police work or anything like that. Austin was just an excuse so the 1000 could drive around and look like a cop. It didn't care who.

 

I'd love to see that. (Alongside a web series about the T-800 working construction on the Cyberdyne building, as referenced in Terminator Genisys.)

 

I'm pretty sure it doesn't actually specify that. The "New" Austin is said to be wearing Austin's uniform and badge, but it doesn't say exactly whose face it is wearing. (Admittedly due to the book using tricky language to help save the reveal of what the T-1000 is, but still...)

 

Actually, yeah, the novelization does make it a point to say that the T-1000 copied Austin's physical appearance as well as his uniform.

In the novel's version of events, the T-1000 is a faceless humanoid blob of liquid metal when it kills Austin. In the movie, it's already Robert Patrick when it does this.

 

It implies things, with words like "gleaming" but doesn't say anything about it being a faceless blob. It also describes the T-1000s face after he gets into the car, but never specifically says that it is Austin's face.

 

I'm actually a bit flummoxed as to why the T-1000 even needs to do this in the first place. It's obviously smart enough to imitate human behavior, yet it doesn't know what a simple policeman's uniform looks like? It should already know enough to imitate a cop without having to go through the trouble of killing one.

 

What cop uniforms would it have had contact with in 2029? Killing the cop also allows it to use his car and gun. And the T-1000 has no qualms about killing people just because it's an easy solution. (Such as the Cryoco truck driver.)

 

The 1000 should have already had that information in its database. If it knows enough to ACT human, it should already know how to LOOK like one.

Especially since (in the film) it already looked human before it killed Austin.

Yes, the 1000 has no reservations about killing people when necessary, but I doubt it would kill when it was NOT necessary. That would be (from the 1000's perspective) an illogical waste of effort.

If the 1000 killed Austin simply for his vehicle and weapons, though, I can understand that, as IIRC the 1000 series can't imitate complex machinery like firearms although it can replicate stabbing weapons.

 

The T-1000 wasn't designed to travel back in time, it was a prototype pressed into service as a last-minute plan. Plus, if you want to be technical...we don't actually know it couldn't "do" a cop uniform without sampling. Just that it didn't do it right away.

 

I figured the T-1000 first appeared naked because, due to the nature of the time travel technology, it still needs to mimic organic tissue in order to make the trip. Then, when the cop appeared, he just decided to dress like whoever he saw first. (Good thing he didn't pop up in Dame Edna's dressing room.) Similarly, the T-X seemed to basically just pick the first outfit that she saw in a shop window and kept mimicking it for the rest of the movie in T3.

 

IIRC, she actually copied the clothing of the woman she killed and took the car of.

 

You're probably right but I feel like I should confirm it for myself. Dammit! Now I have to watch T3 for some reason!

 

May be that I'm misremembering, but didn't the movie tell us that the T-1000 could only mimic things it had physically come into contact with? I could have sworn that was the case.

 

The movie says that the T-1000 can imitate anything of comparable size that it samples by physical contact. But it doesn't say specifically that it can only imitate things that it has touched. It mostly sticks to stuff that it is introduced to on screen (such as a knife-arm after chopping vegetables with one, not wearing a motorcycle helmet and jacket until after meeting a cop wearing them) but there are some things we don't specifically see it encounter, like the Robert Patrick face, and the pry-bar arms.

...And the three arms it uses at once when flying the helicopter.

 

And didn't the T-1000 copy a security officer before touching him?

 

No, the guard walked across the T-1000 (while it was being floor) beforehand.

 

Pretty impressive, it being able to mimic a whole guy just from a fleeting impression of the bottom of his shoes.

 

Maybe it uses some kind of ultrasound scan to make a 3D map of whatever it's touching.

Or it has sophisticated facial recognition software.