Police officer Alex Murphy is serving with the
Detroit Police Department when its funding and administration is taken over by the private corporation, Omni Consumer Products (OCP). Murphy is a devout
Irish Catholic and a mild-mannered family man, living with his wife, Ellen (Nancy in the television series, Clara in the
2014 remake), and his son, Jimmy (James Daniel "Jimmy" Murphy in
RoboCop: The Series (see ep. 06, "Zone Five"), David in the
2014 remake). Murphy starts mimicking his son's television hero,
T.J. Lazer, who twirled his gun whenever he took down a criminal.
Police file Alex Murphy's police file (from the first
RoboCop film) reads as follows: {{Quote box|width = 50%|align = left|style = padding: 20px 30px 20px 30px|fontsize = 100%|border = 1px|source=—
RoboCop|quote =
OD5839484E09 Murphy, Alex J. 548 Primrose Ln, Detroit, MI Grade: 1 00 33 DECEASED (despite being revived as RoboCop)
Service: 7 Merit: Miranda Award GD Conduct BRVRY Alex Murphy's police file (from
RoboCop: The Series, in episode,
Prime Suspect) reads as follows: {{Quote box|width = 50%|align = left|style = padding: 20px 30px 20px 30px|fontsize = 100%|border = 1px|source=—
RoboCop: The Series|quote =
Officer Murphy, Alex J. -Deceased- OD 5839484E09 548 Primrose Ln. Detroit. MI. Background Education: • Mother Theresa Elementary School • St. John-Paul High School • Holy Trinity College Church: • St. John-Paul Cathedral
Family • Father: Capt. Russell Murphy (Ret.) • Mother: Dorothy Murphy • Married: Murphy, Nancy – Housewife • Children: Murphy, James – H. Ross Perot Junior High
Service Record • Distinguished Service Citation • Citations for Bravery • Civic Duty Award • Wounded in Line of Duty • Purple Ribbon • Miranda Award • D.P.D. Medal for Heroism • D.P.D. Medal of Valour (2) • Marsman Ribbon, Top Gun (B) • Rotary Policeman of the Year ('40) • Meritorious Police Duty – Honorable Mention
Prime Directives RoboCop is programmed to follow three main "Prime Directives" (accompanied by a mysterious fourth) based on the
"To Protect and to Serve" motto of the
Los Angeles Police Department and many other police forces, and which are comparable with
Isaac Asimov's "
Three Laws of Robotics". ;Depiction in original trilogy The
First Directive (Serve the Public Trust) is the
moral directive programmed: it establishes RoboCop as a police civil servant in the series who assumes a subservient contract of "
public's trust", and thereby considered public property. The Second and Third Directives must not conflict with the First Directive; if there is conflict, then the First Directive overrides the Second and Third Directives. RoboCop must help the civilians in any ways possible; and must protect their civil rights to life, privacy, and property from any lethal or non-lethal harm. This disables him from prosecuting, arresting, trespassing or harming innocent civilians without a
warrant or
probable cause, or act in any way against the public's trust. In
RoboCop 3, when he was chasing McDaggett, he had to stop when several children blocked the road in order to prevent any harm. If he detects innocent bystanders, his fellow officers or criminals of minor
misdemeanors are attacked or threatened; it then activates the Second Directive and Third Directive. The
Second Directive (Protect the Innocent) is the
ethical directive programmed: it establishes RoboCop must exercise reverence for life, de-escalation, duty to intercede,
duty to rescue,
non-lethality, and the
presumption of innocence at all times. The Second Directive must not conflict with the First Directive; if there is conflict, then the First Directive overrides the Second Directive. Lethal force is authorized only during life-threatening situations, and only against criminals with a history of serious
felonies (i.e., murder). In
RoboCop 2, RoboCop could not shoot Hob in self-defense by virtue of being a
minor; this activated the Second Directive, as children are automatically assumed to be innocent. The
Third Directive (Uphold the Law) is the
legal directive programmed: it establishes RoboCop as a
law enforcement officer, with
power of arrest, the
legitimized use of force, and the obligation to "protect and serve" as required by law. The Third Directive must not conflict with the First or Second Directives; if there is conflict then the First or Second Directive(s) override(s) the Third Directive. It also forbids
strike action or to request
termination of employment, and disables him from directly
assaulting, arresting, resisting, impeding, or harming a police officer. In
RoboCop, this is specifically what prevents Murphy from killing Boddicker during a drug raid: while Boddicker had been shooting at RoboCop minutes before, he then put his gun away and tried to flee, but RoboCop caught up with him and started severely beating him (based on echoes of memory of what Boddicker did to Murphy). The badly wounded and now unarmed Boddicker begs for his life, pleads that he surrenders, and that RoboCop cannot kill him because he is a police officer – which activates the Third Directive, making RoboCop take him in alive back to the police precinct. In
RoboCop: The Series, RoboCop was able to use the Second Directive to override the Third Directive, when in a conflict whether to remove an item from evidence to save his widow, Nancy, when she was held hostage in the episode
Heartbreakers. The
Fourth Directive is Jones' contribution to RoboCop's psychological profile, deliberately programmed as "hidden" and is inaccessible by RoboCop. The Fourth Directive must not conflict with the First, Second, or Third Directives; if there is conflict, then the Fourth Directive overrides all previous directives. This directive renders him physically incapable of
arresting or injuring any senior OCP employee: "Any attempt to arrest a senior OCP employee results in shutdown." Jones informs RoboCop that he is an OCP product and
private property, not an ordinary police officer. As a result, RoboCop is effectively a slave, unable to act against the corrupt Jones until the Old Man terminates Jones's employment with the company, allowing RoboCop to act against him. At the end of
Prime Directives, all his directives were erased, but RoboCop stated to his son that he would do "What I do: Serve the public trust, protect the innocent, and uphold the law", noting that he would keep his directives by his own
free will, not through the imposition of programming. The sidearm is stored in a mechanical
holster which opens out of RoboCop's right thigh. In Prime Directives, it could fire various types of ammunition which RoboCop could select at any given time. •
Cobra Assault Cannon – The Cobra Assault Cannon used in
RoboCop could fire explosive rounds equivalent to that of a grenade launcher and is based on the
Barrett M82A1 anti-materiel rifle. RoboCop's hands, midsection, and neck armor are black. As demonstrated in
RoboCop, the body armor can sustain thousands of armor-piercing rounds before damage begins to appear on the armor. It is also highly resistant to heat, as in
RoboCop, he was unaffected after being caught in a gasoline station explosion and in
RoboCop 3 when he was briefly set aflame. His visor is made of the same material and a black strip of bulletproof anti-fog glass which protects the
cranium apparatus and eyes. The visor also has an undercloth of Kevlar which protects the neck and covers up any wires etc. It should also be noted that the visor conceals most of Alex Murphy's face, and is attached with screws. When the visor is removed, only Murphy's face (which is grafted onto a completely mechanical skull) from the top of the neck up is exposed. When the helmet is removed, the back of his head exposes part of the metal casing and some minor mechanical elements. In
RoboCop 2, RoboCop's right arm contained a display that alerted personnel to his health status. RoboCop's hands also contain actuators strong enough to crush every bone in a human hand (about 400-foot pounds). His right hand also contains a spike (referred to by fans as a "dataspike" and by production as the "terminal strip") which is used to retrieve or display data from any computer bank with a corresponding port. At the end of the first film, the jack is also used as a stabbing weapon against the antagonist Clarence Boddicker. RoboCop is extremely strong, able to lift the front of the average car over his head with one arm or resist the crushing effort of a car crusher, as seen in the TV series (episodes 5 and 21, respectively). He was designed to be able "to penetrate virtually any building," and breaks locks with ease. In ''Frank Miller's RoboCop
, RoboCop stores his reserve box magazines in his right wrist; this is never shown in the film series. He is seen reloading the Auto-9 in RoboCop 2'' with a magazine already in hand at the start of the scene. In the later television series, the holster area of his left thigh is used to store grenades, though on some schematic drawings the same area is used to store an emergency oxygen tank.
RoboCop implies that only Murphy's face and brain was used in the construction of RoboCop, as Morton states that "total body prosthesis" was an agreed-upon parameter. It is unclear in the first two films whether or not RoboCop's human face is merely a replica of Murphy's, as it contains a scar where Boddicker shot him in the head, though he tells Murphy's wife, in
RoboCop 2, that "they made this to honor him." After touching it, she says, "it's cold." In
RoboCop 3, Dr. Marie Lazarus, RoboCop's chief technician, stated that Murphy's face was indeed transplanted onto a mechanical skull, and that it is not a replica. In the 2014
RoboCop reboot, RoboCop is seen in several bodies. While the original film left it unclear exactly how much of Murphy's body is left after his reconstruction, this film clearly confirms that Murphy's remaining organic parts are his head, his heart, his lungs, and his right hand. While his face and brain appear basically intact, one of his eyes has been replaced with a cybernetic implant, and there are various chips in his brain to compensate for the cranial trauma and help him integrate with his cybernetic components. Initially, he is constructed in a silver body very similar to the one seen in the original films. Omnicorp CEO Raymond Sellars later has marketing executive Tom Pope conduct focus group testing on a number of other designs. One such design features a transformation function, in which RoboCop could switch from his usual, bulky shape into a slimmer, more human-like form for off-duty public relations purposes. Though Sellars rejects this concept, he selects the slimmer "public relations" design as RoboCop's permanent design, albeit painted black to make him more marketable. Following Sellars' death and the significant damaging of this body, RoboCop is rebuilt in his original body by Dr. Dennett Norton. Unlike in the original films, RoboCop's head is contained within a helmet, instead of his face being transplanted onto a metal skull, although it is unclear how much of Murphy's original skeletal structure is still intact. One feature common in every design seen in the reboot film is that the visor, which was screwed onto RoboCop's head in the original films, can move up and down freely, commonly moving over his eyes when his emotions spike and his crimefighting programs activate. In
RoboCop: Creating a Legend, a bonus feature on the
RoboCop: 20th Anniversary DVD, it is stated that Murphy's face was removed from his corpse and implanted on the cyborg's head to give RoboCop a sense of identity. This psychological disruption RoboCop may have experienced is explained from the basis that a person whose memory has been erased would still possess the memory of being human and would suffer a psychotic breakdown if he saw the reflection of a robotic image instead of his original image of humanity. == In other media ==