A known criminal steals a car, drives erratically, law enforcement gives chase. One minute later three innocents are dead.
One minute after a Minnesota State Patrol trooper began to chase an erratic driver early Sunday, the suspect’s car slammed into two others in north Minneapolis, killing a mother and her two young children.
Two thoughts come to mind in light of this tragedy. First, are police chases and the risks they pose to the public worth it? I’ll pass on that for now (but feel free to run with it in the comments section).
Second, can law enforcement equate a criminal failing to stop with the same individual pulling a gun in a robbery?
In fact, if someone, anyone, were to brandish a handgun and start waving it around in a public place would law enforcement be faulted if deadly force were employed to neutralize the situation with due warning?
What’s the difference? Both are wielding deadly weapons and threatening the public.
How many times have you heard a police chase, sometimes for the most minor of offenses, result in the injury or death of bystanders?
Innocent bystanders account for one-third of those who are killed in high-speed police chases, a USA TODAY review has found. The deaths have several communities around the USA wrestling with whether to restrict pursuits only to suspects in violent crimes.About 360 people are killed each year in police chases, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
So here’s where I’m going with this: if a perpetrator runs, why aren’t the good guys given the authority to stop the chase by putting a bullet through the back of the f*cker’s head? (I recognize by the way that in this particular case, there was not enough time for anyone to alter the outcome)
Discuss.
A number of years ago, Newark police were forbidden from attempting to apprehend car thieves by giving chase. The result? Newark became the car theft capital of America.
Roosh whats the difference if a Criminal steals a gun then runs from the police? Cars and guns are both deadly weapons. Should the police refrain from pursuit if the Criminal has a gun?
I’m not against giving chase. I’m just wondering how long they need to go before law enforcement ends them with deadly force?
Shooting at a moving vehicle from another moving vehicle sounds like a recipe for disaster. Better would be fire from above, missed rounds would go into the ground first rather than into other vehicles, houses, or people.
But there shouldn’t be any question that a knuckle head fleeing in a vehicle poses every bit a much danger (maybe more) to the general public as a gang banger with a gun. The big difference is merely that most people are far more familar with cars than they are with guns.
Bad idea on so many levels.
1. Hitting a moving target from a moving platform is very, very difficult. Hitting a kill zone between two moving vehicles, especially considering that the kill zones are protected by metal and glass (and windows will deflect 9mm bullets enough to spoil aim) is the kind of thing that’d make Annie Oakley go “Gook Luck, Podner”. And if you’re doing that, you’re neither concentrating on driving nor aware of what your backstop is; a missed shot is likely to sail into another car, a bystander or any house alongside the road. Bad idea.
2. Let’s say you manage to bank a shot through the back window and hit the perp in the back of the head. You now have an uncontrolled vehicle, possibly with a dead weight on the gas pedal, hurtling down the road.
I say keep doing the police chases. If you stop, then the criminals know that all they have to do is speed to get away. Then they will commit more crimes. I’m more then happy to take a chance that I will get hit by a criminal fleeing police, knowing that said chases will decrease crime in the metro area.
Keep chasing, and use the tire strips and barricades instead of bullets. There is a functional difference between stopping a tank and a car.
Police have multiple options. Radio allows them to coordinate a chase. they have helicopters. I have watched many police chases on TV, and cops have down to a science. You aren’t getting away.
Chuck,
Then criminals will switch to tanks.
People run when they have nothing to lose. They lack self-esteem. If we could just divert some of the monies being spent on evil police cars and put them towards education and school lunches, we could buy some self-esteem for these poor, underfunded young thugs, er, wayward souls. Then they wouldn’t speed into society running away, but running towards their true potentials as willing participants in a harmonious, peaceful coexistence.
I just made myself gag.
Better would be fire from above, missed rounds would go into the ground first rather than into other vehicles, houses, or people.
Given Obama’s obsession the current administration would be going with Predators, but I think that just a few videos of Spooky (aka Puff the Magic Dragon) going after runners would stop anybody from running from cops.
Why chase at all? Why not mobilize all the tax collectors sitting by the side of the road, doing whoknowswhat in the bushes, and use a radio to apprehend the culprits. Ahh, but then g*d forbid we put those tax collectors to work actually protecting the citizenry.
You people have way too much faith in the myth of “professional” coppers, IMO.
A lot of these guys go fucking apeshit when the adrenaline kicks in and the brain turns off, as is illustrated in the countless instances of cops jumping out of their squads and proceeding to beat the holy living shit out of the guy (or gal) once he (or she) pulls over.
There may once have been a pool of mature, well adjusted adults from which we could hire people trustworthy enough for the job, but picking up a newspaper from Anytown USA these days leads one to conclude that if they ever did exist, those days are long, long gone.
Personally, I’d rather file an insurance claim to replace my car than get it back with pieces of someone’s mom hanging off the bumpers.
But that’s just me.
swiftee Says: “Personally, I’d rather file an insurance claim to replace my car than get it back with pieces of someone’s mom hanging off the bumpers. But that’s just me.”
Very well said, I’m with you swiftee. The preventable death of three innocents seems like a hell of a price to pay for a property crime.
The result? Newark became the car theft capital of America.
Puhleeze. Newark has proudly served as the armpit of America since NYC shit it out.
Anyone that drives their car to Newark deserves to have it boosted.
‘“professional” coppers”
Ha ha, good one Swiftee, ha ha ha.
What’s the difference between a criminal and a copper?