Maybe also a silent reminder that many police officers will abuse every inch of power they're given?

Not in Canada, though. They use the metric system.

On a more serious note, I am surprised parking on sidewalks is a thing over there. It really is a massive problem here in Bulgaria. Has been for decades at this point

I've actually heard that this is a gang surveillance tactic. The police will act in car pairs to shadow a gang's car from a block over. And not use their sirens or lights to not alert the criminals.

Or maybe that's just conjecture.

What you describe sounds like an amateur hour Keystone cops level of surveillance. Or some dirty cops doing some shady stuff. A real surveillance would be so much more professional. Depending on the budget/case/interest, they use multiple cars in the pursuit. Some cars are in front, some are behind the subject. They rotate positions so that the same car isn't in the same position all the time. There are so so many other techniques available as well that isn't just conjecture.

Yes, that's what I'm describing. Except sometimes the cars get behind. So to catch up they blow intersections without lights.

However I'm quite uninformed about it. Just raising the topic :)

A well-intentioned version of this is just having a couple of the overhead lights on - not strobing, and not running red lights.

It's called patrol lights.

They went out of fashion as police departments transitioned from "visible deterrent presence" to "haha gocthca, now pay up you filthy peasant" business model over the course of the war on drugs.

I think Hawaii and Connecticut still do them though.

TIL there's a name for that. I guess it makes sense that there would be, I just had no idea.

Anecdotally speaking I've seen them in Pennsylvania and Maryland, but super uncommonly.

They leave the blue lights on almost all the time in Washington DC as well.