Why do the cops on the TV show Cops always tell someone to get on the ground when they are inside a building?

It’s clearly just a generic term, like saying “hit the deck” when they’re not on a boat :¬)

If a cop told me to get on the ground and I was in a building I would say… “Ok, let me go out side”

. LOL

Yeah, it’s like in old westerns when they say “reach for the sky/ceiling”, that’s a little ambitious!

Here is the real answer.

This a defensive move for the police officer. If the suspect has a weapon on his body, he cannot easily access it, while lying on the floor-ground. His arrms are stretched forward and now the officer can handcuff the suspect and safely search him/her.

This is not only on tv shows, but in true reality.

And, would you believe that some people do not know what a floor is?

@john65pennington I believe it. My husband uses only one of the terms, but I cannot remember which right now? I think he uses floor for everything? He understand the other word, but it doesn’t come to his mind when speaking. His reason is English is his second language, but I don’t think you were talking about ESL being the reason some people don’t know what a floor is.

I always hear them saying “down on your knees” and that is universal enough.

@Roby a police team busts in to your apartment and tells you to get on the ground, and you’re going to make sarcastic jokes at them? I find that unlikely. I think it more likely that you’re going to crap your pants.

According to my thesaurus, ground and floor are synonyms:

”she collapsed on the ground: floor, earth, terra firma; flooring; informal deck.”

@Aqua They are not really the same definition. Floor is usually used for inside a structure, ground is outside. Although, if someone lived in a shack with a dirt floor, because it is dirt, ground would be appropriate.

@JLeslie You’re right, they definitely have different meanings in the dictionary, and each is used in slightly different ways. They’re still synonyms, however, and in colloquial situations are used to mean pretty much the same thing.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary doesn’t give ground as a synonym for floor, but it does list it as a related word.

The Oxford English Dictionary gives one of the definitions of floor as:
“A naturally level space or extended surface. Also = the ground”

It also gives one entry for the definition of ground as: “The floor.”

@Aqua And, aside from the dictionary, the way I defined it is how the words are most commonly used, which is almost more important. When someone uses ground inside it is odd, or I would go as far to say sounds wrong. It sounds like one of those things you get corrected on when you are a kid. Or, second language like my husband. Some people go as far as to be more specific about the flooring material: the tile, the carpet, the linoleum. Or, instead of the ground: the asphalt, the blacktop, the grass. Floor is short for flooring from what I would guess. However, if a cop yelled out, “hit the ground,” or anyone said it for that matter, I would not overthink it. That would be a special circumstance. It would make sense also that if that is a common expression used by police officers they might stick to the one phrase for easy understanding and it would be appropriate inside and out.

@JLeslie I agree completely.