- "You'll regret this, Ted! Harold Lutz, to Mayor Ted Egan for firing him."
- ―Beverly Hills Cop II
Chief Harold Lutz was the overarching antagonist in Beverly Hills Cop II.
He is the incompetent and verbally abusive chief of the Beverly Hills Police Department who frequently clashes with the protagonists throughout the movie.
Biography[]
Harold Lutz is Chief of the Beverly Hills Police Department; the circumstances as to exactly how he attained this post along with his life beforehand is unknown. However, it soon became evident that Lutz chose a new "political" approach of appeasement - mainly to remain on the good side of Ted Egan, the mayor of Beverly Hills, who had hired him for this position, and prevent any "trouble-stirring" in Beverly Hills. For that purpose, in his two months of office, Lutz repeatedly clashed with Andrew Bogomil along with Billy Rosewood and John Taggart on frequent occasions and fired every other cop who served under Chief Hubbard, some of whom had served for decades and were close to a proper retirement.
Lutz was also highly egotistical, refusing to take criticism and good advice and never acknowledging good police work if it left him out of the spotlight. He reacted angrily to when Rosewood contacted the local FBI office about the Alphabet Bandit, suspending Bogomil and putting Rosewood and Taggart on traffic duty as punishment, by using Mayor Egan's political career as an excuse. After Bogomil was shot by Karla Fry later on, Rosewood contacted their friend Axel Foley, who immediately rushed over to look after Bogomil and to take up the case. Because of the lingering threat of Lutz demoting or firing Rosewood and Taggert, Axel agreed to conduct the investigation undercover. In order to avoid any unnecessary interference from Lutz, he posed as a member of a fictional "multi-jurisdictional federal task force against organized crime", with some assistance from Jeffrey Friedman posing as Inspector Todd on the phone. After the robbery was foiled at the Bank depot (which unknown to Lutz was foiled by Foley, Rosewood and Taggert), Mayor Egan got a first glimpse of Lutz's abusive behavior firsthand during the meeting regarding the robbery, citing it was inexcusable and reminding him of the fact the robbery was prevented and the money was saved, before stating they should be focusing on learning where the next Alphabet Crime is going to be before leaving the police station. In anger after Mayor Egan left, Lutz had Foley thrown out since he wasn't really part of their department.
After Charles Cain, the Alphabet Crimes' executive hand and secretly Maxwell Dent's pawn was later found dead at the scene of one of the Alphabet Heists and the code in the letters left at the crime scenes finally appeared to be cracked, Lutz promptly took credit for this "accomplishment" and announced the end of the Alphabet Crimes to the public. However, these letters were decoys to fool Lutz and the police; it was then Foley, Rosewood and Taggert finally uncovered the real motive behind those crimes - a major arms deal between Maxwell Dent and Nikos Thomopolis. After the gun fight and deaths of Dent and Fry, Lutz, arriving on the scene with Mayor Egan, was furious at Rosewood and Taggert for their insubordination and tried to have Foley arrested. However, this time Rosewood and Taggert finally stood up to Lutz, with Rosewood returning Lutz's continued abuse with an angry outburst and leaving Lutz baffled in front of Mayor Egan, who once again saw firsthand evidence of his incompetence by studying Thomopolis' notebook in which the deal was noted down.
Instead of apologizing to Rosewood and Taggert, let alone commending them for their work, Lutz fired them just to be spiteful. But this proved to be the final straw for Mayor Egan, who promptly fired Lutz for jeopardizing the investigation and his abusive attitude. Lutz unsuccessfully attempted to talk his way out of it before Egan made it clear his decision was final, having now regretted making Lutz the Chief of Police in the first place. Lutz bitterly tells Egan that he'll regret it, only to be dismissed for his actions before Egan proceeds to fire Lutz's personal assistant Biddle moments later; Lutz then storms off in a temper tantrum and is followed by Biddle following the latter's dismissal.
Shortly afterwards, Egan rehired Rosewood and Taggert before promoting the recovered Bogomil to replace Lutz as the new Chief of the Beverly Hills Police Department. What happened to Lutz after he got fired is unknown, but it's likely he'll never get work for any police department due to his abusive attitude.