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Again, as someone who has been in a high speed chase,
provoked by the police alone, Im failing to see where my post was
off-topic. This is about police chases, correct ?
We can petty semantisize all day long......you have your opinion
based on your life experiences as I have mine, based on mine.
To touch on few topics.....Police are the 'professionals' in these matters
yet the outcomes of their decision to initiate a high speed chase have too
often proven to be a bad decision as the damage statistics from these
decisions will show. Lets suppose you are chasing a felon, as is always
the presumption...what would this supposed 'felon' have to have done that
would warrant a death or visit this level of danger onto the public ??
A lot of police are in their mid twenties. There is absolutely no way
a mid twenty year old kid has the life experience or decision making
abilities required to make a life/death decision on-the-spot in any
situation. Police chases outdated and a danger to the public they are
paid to protect. If you dont know for absolute certain who is in
a car it shouldnt be chased.
I saw in TV how the police had car-chases against the traffic on freeways etc. as ended in a crash with innocents. Is it that important to catch some crooks so innocents can be sacrified?
Here they have orders to stop it but dont always. On the other hand if crooks know they get free in the wrong lane, its another problem, but rather that than killing others
It wasn't that many years ago that there were folks lining the freeways of California cheering on their hero, O.J. Simpson. Granted, it certainly wasn't a high speed chase, but it doesn't take much of an imagination to think of the risks that evolved my the folks stopping to cheer and take pictures. The analogy I've always used about critics of chases is simple. If it was your wife, husband, child, sister or brother in the trunk of the car that was being chased, what would you want done? Ahhh...the critic says...."How do you know there is someone in the trunk??" That's the point. An officer rarely knows why the badguy is running or what their intentions are. If he or she does, there are many techniques used to mitigate potential harm to anyone. It isn't perfect science (police work, that is) and never will be. Officers do not set out to see anyone hurt, badguys don't care.
Again, as someone who has been in a high speed chase, provoked by the police alone,
Well certainly this alone is enough revelation to give me a sense of why you're so adamant on the issue from the side of the person being pursued. That does certainly lend you perspective from THAT end of the spectrum of opinion. So...
Let's look at what HAS WORKED in the past, before the current problem happening. Before the Rodney King incident, if you ran from the cops and they had to chase you, the fact that you had intentionally SO endangered the public safety meant that even if the cops didn't shoot you, you were going to take a beating when you got caught. That's not making excuses...that was reality in the USA since auto chases began in the 1920's. It was SOP in this country, and what was called a "righteous" or "justified" beating (as opposed to an unlawful beating as in "assault under color of authority" which has never been legal). It was historically viewed as one of the less pleasant things the public tolerated in it's police force but was acknowledged to be necessary. Much in the way that when we sent people to free Europe in WWII, we knew that bombs would fall on children sometimes but the greater mission was regrettably necessary.
So how do we make it better now? Make it harder (more restrictions) to chase, or easier?
While things have changed since the 60's and 70's, past results can have some bearing on future projections and indicate that if punishments were more severe (shootings/beatings) for people who run and endanger the public, less people would run. So as a more genteel nation we don't want to see shootings and beatings...so you then have sentence enhancements. So even if you were only going to get a ticket for suspended license, if you run you should thus get automatic prison time (no pleading down to misd jail time).
We also see the results of having more restrictive policies on police pursuits. There are fewer pursuit-related collisions, but more felons free in those geo-political regions because any felon knows that all they must do is run from the police and they will not be chased. So when I was working saturation patrol, we found that certain areas had more people willing to run from us at the drop of a hat, where in other areas where they KNEW we'd chase them down to the bitter end, people stopped and gave up.
So your personal experience aside, what would you propose to lower the number of pursuit-related injury collisions while not further compromising public safety and not further hampering the apprehension of felons?
Again, as someone who has been in a high speed chase, provoked by the police alone,
was there a thread deleted or something that explained how this is possible? I've been pulled over for plenty of reasons I personally felt were BS, BUT, I always pulled over.. The day law and order becomes optional is the day I start looking for somewhere else to live..
What could possibly be the reason for starting a high speed chase? If you aer pulled over, you're allowed to proceed to a location you feel is safe and I'm pretty sure you could drive to the nearest police station if you wanted. Just follow all traffic laws, signal and all that and you should be fine. Might want to also call 911 and have them tell the cop that's behind you what your plans are..
I'm seriously wanting to know how the police provoked a chase though.. did they car jack you and start running away from themselves???
Its a situation that unfortunately I can offer no
opinion on what would make it better. A lot of people
run because they are scared. Google New Jersey state
police and minority profiling just to get a perspective on
why people might run. An environment has been created
that people would rather take a chance on running because
they are genuinely scared of what will happen in custody.
How has this happened ? What series of events have put this
fear in people ?? I know what mine are.
Infrastructurally speaking, most places are very different now than
they were even 15 years ago......There are tenfold more cars on
the road, everywhere. Its insanity to initiate a chase on I-95 during
rush hour or any populated area unless its a known assassin or terrorist.
There will be other days with less dangerous methods of catching
the felon. They do eventually always get caught.
In my case, it was more than obvious the policeman wanted
nothing more than to harass us or he would have entered the
parking lot, but as you would know, rules are different for
police on private property than on a public roadway. Would I
do it again....no, but back then after a summer of harassment
designed to keep bikes out of the town I lived near, I just said
"No" to being humiliated on the side of the road yet again.....
We had a mile of straight-a-way and bikes that could go 155 mph in
about 20 seconds....My decision making process told me if this gentleman
had any real issue with us he would have expressed it to us while we
were parked and just standing there. When it was determined that
his intentions might have only been to see how any bikes he might
be able to get towed, we made a group decision to say "No".
I see you are from the MidWest...I am from the East Coast. I am
not proud of the stuff I just wrote but things are very, very different
here than there, I can assure you. If I was not genuinely concerned
for my own well being I would have pulled over.
<snip>...... A lot of police are in their mid twenties. There is absolutely no way
a mid twenty year old kid has the life experience or decision making
abilities required to make a life/death decision on-the-spot in any
situation. Police chases outdated and a danger to the public they are
paid to protect. If you dont know for absolute certain who is in
a car it shouldnt be chased.
wrongo sir. Many if not most of these officers in this age range have come from a military background with PLENTY of life and death experiences. If they can handle the stress and strain of critical decision making while under fire in combat I feel damn comfortable with them patrolling the streets of America. There are ZERO excuses for running from a law enforcement officer that is attempting to pull you over. Driving an automobile upon the highways of this country is a privilege not a right. Obey the laws and you should have no problems or contact with law enforcement. Make a mistake and get lit up, pull over and take your licks. The idiot that runs is solely responsible for any death or injuries caused to innocent folks. Personally I wish the SOP was a .223 round to the grape asap with these dirtbags.
If there is any doubt about the stuff I write, this should dispel it.
This pretty much sums up the reason people feel the
way they do.
yes it does. You see my only sibling lost his wife and three year old daughter in a broadside wreck caused by some idiot that was running from the police because he was working his ohhh about tenth deuce. This scumbag was driving down the road bouncing off of parked cars when a SO unit spotted him after several 911 calls. It was around 10:30am on a Saturday and the gals were on their way to the grocery store. Dirtbag sees cop at the same time cop sees dirtbag and dirtbag floors it. Lights and sirens and the chase was on for about two blocks. Dirtbag plows through an intersection against a red light and it's all over for two members of our very small family.
Would I rather have seen a rather large exit wound on the side of this dirtbag's head instead of two closed caskets at the funeral? Hmmm. Yes I would have. I won't even go into the details of this piece of craps background but suffice it to say my sister in law and niece were worth a whole lot more to this planet than him.
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