I am aware that we alway treat the police as singular when we refer to it as social instutution. But what about if are refering to police as a group of people who are policemen? For example:
There is/are a lot of police around the crime.
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Dmytro O'Hope
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Note that we *don't* always treat the police as singular when we refer to it [them!?] as a social institution. Google Books has more hits for the police are* an institution* than for the police is* an institution* (where it's only the *institution* that's always syntactically singular, not the *police*). – FumbleFingers Jan 29 '20 at 13:53
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The police were informed about the matter. It is a collective noun like "cattle" and takes a plural verb.
Hunter
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"La police vous parle" - song by Mickey 3d (not relevant really). – Michael Harvey Jan 29 '20 at 13:53