Officer Sweet
"We have warrants for a search of the premises."
-Officer Sweet moments before being shot dead.
Status: Deceased
Cause of death: Shotgun blast to the chest by Frank Palancio.
Weapons: .357 Magnum Colt Python, Smith & Wesson Model 29 (.44 magnum)
Sweet was one of the rookie vigilante cops and one of the four secondary antagonists of the second Dirty Harry film, Magnum Force.
Sweet was first introduced in the firing range alongside Davis, Astrachan and Grimes. This is where they first meet Harry, who lets Sweet shoot his .44 Magnum for target practice. Sweet managed to hit five out of six rounds into the target under five seconds, though he said it might've been a bit too heavy for him since he missed a shot. Nevertheless, this impressed Harry and he grew to like the rookie cops.
Later, when a well known pimp, J.J Wilson is killed by Officer Davis, Sweet reported it to keep suspicions away from Davis. It is likely Sweet had killed more criminals off screen, this would make sense since when Callahan and Briggs are at the morgue, there are alot of dead criminals that seemingly were killed off screen.
However, after awhile Callahan grew suspicious of him and the rest after matching a bullet that was used to kill fellow Officer Charlie McCoy to Officer Davis' revolver after the annual shooting competition. While at the shooting competition, Sweet congratulated Harry for having the best score before being beaten by Davis.
After this, Harry was assigned to arrest criminal Frank Palancio as it was claimed by Lt. Briggs that he was responsible for the killings. Harry requested for both Sweet and Davis for backup as he knew they were good shooters. Sweet was killed by Palancio in the shoot out by a shotgun blast in the chest while Davis watched in shock. Sweet was "sacrificed" (though unintentionally) to start a shootout to get Harry and Palancio killed, though the latter was killed in a car crash. Sweet was the first of the death squad to die.
Sweet was played by actor Tim Matheson, who was known to voice Jonny Quest. He has also starred in comedy movies such as Animal House and Black Sheep, and made an appearance in the horror remake Child's Play.
Trivia
- Sweet is the only rookie vigilante cop not to be killed by Harry Callahan. Had he not been killed by Palancio, he more than likely would've been killed by Harry in the end.
- Sweet was seemingly the most friendly out of the death squad since he and the rest of them had taken a liking to Harry. He was still however secretly malicious much like his friends.
- Sweet is one of the two vigilante cops (alongside Grimes) not to be at the final battle with Davis and Red.
- It is very likely he killed more criminals off screen.
- It has been said that Phil Sweet was the one that murdered the pimp, however evidence points more towards Officer Davis considering the officer can clearly be seen with blonde hair. It is more than likely Davis had Sweet report the murder to lower suspicions. Although as said before, It is still very likely however that Sweet was killing criminals off camera.
- Two deleted scenes help explain why Harry grows to suspect Sweet and his pals with the after examining the bullet from Davis' gun at the combat championship range, one of which had to do with Harry looking over old issues of a police magazine, in which are articles condemning the revolving door justice allowed by liberal politics - articles authored by the four rookie cops. These scenes were deleted presumably because they were judged to be "padding" and not necessary to establishing Harry's suspicion of the four rookie cops.