Have you ever seen a chase?

In My Humble Opinion
21

Been in a couple of them. I used to be a cop, and also worked as a private investigator.

I was looking for a runaway girl once and wandered into an apartment complex just in time to see three guys kick in a door and charge inside. A few seconds later, a guy and a girl coming hauling ass out. The guy heads out into the parking lot with the three others on his tail. The girl went the other way, ran into me and asked me for help. I said, “Sure, come on” and we headed to my car. As we were going out, the guy comes running back across the courtyard and into the parking lot on the other side, still pursued by the three others. We got to my car and headed out, and as we turned out onto the street, we could see the three guys kicking the snot out of the fourth. The girl is having hysterics, so I decided to take her home.

Yep. Dumb, damn luck. She was the one I was looking for. She was 15 and had run off with her “true love”. I found out later that Loverboy was a drug dealer and the three amigos were apparently customers he had stiffed on a deal who were looking for some payback. The girl got a big lesson in reality and grew up quite a lot that day. She was really happy to go home. Parents were overjoyed and sent me a fair amount of business afterwards via referral.

22

Car Chase:

I was on the interstate one night, almost at my exit, when a small red sportscar roared by me doing over 100 mph, followed by three Massachusetts State Police chase cars, lights and sirens at full bore.

The sportscar cut in front of me and tried to take the same exit I was heading for, but the driver was going too fast and he lost it on the curve; the car rolled over a few times, bounced over the opposite entrance ramp on the cloverleaf, and wound up on all fours but pretty banged up on the embankment, surrounded by cops.

Foot Chase:

I was sitting outside an ice cream shop in Cambridge with my daughter when we noticed a cop chasing someone on foot down the sidewalk. The guy was carrying a purse, and he was increasing his lead on the cop. Unfortunately, he was running closer to the shops than the street, and I, uh, kinda needed to stretch my legs right then, and the perp wasn’t looking where he was going. He did a faceplant into the pavement, the cop shook my hand, and a woman waiting with another cop two blocks away got her purse back.

I had a pretty cool-looking bruise on my shin for a couple weeks, too.

23

It’s been several years, but I saw a car chase. But it was from quite a distance away and it was on a cross street so all I saw was car-zip-police-zip-police-gone! I later looked for a mention on the news, but there was nothing.

I witnessed a foot chase last December. I had just entered the Target and was wrestling with getting a shopping cart loose from the bunch, when I saw a guy “nonchalantly” edge towards the doors, in that fashion that just screams “I’M NOT DOING ANYTHING SUSPICIOUS – YEA, THAT’S THE TICKET!”. About the same time I spotted him, a security guard came running across the store hell-bent for leather. The first guy dropped the box he’d been carrying (a DVD player, IIRC) and beat it out the door, with the security guard hot on his heels. Later as I was checking out, I saw the guard leading the guy in handcuffs towards the management office.

24

A few months ago, a high speed car chase ended in my front yard.

25

Tail end of one.

When I was… 10? Must have been… A friend of mine were in line to see a movie… either Batman or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when from around a corner a guy came running and was immediately tackled by a cop. Then a cruiser pulled around the corner. The cop handcuffed the guy and tossed him in back. It’s then that the weirdest thing happened… A girl in line ran about half way to the cruiser and then fell to her knees and started wailing.

I guess this was the guys girlfriend? Two other girls then left the line and picked up the girl and left.

I turned to my friend and said “That should be in a movie.”

26

I saw a doozy of a police pursuit on US1 near the U. of Miami many years ago. The perp was headed southbound in a four-door sedan (nothing fancy or sporty) and was followed by what looked and sounded like the entire Coral Gables Police Department. I was in the left lane northbound, so I had a great view of it all as they approached. Fortunately, all the traffic in the northbound lanes had stopped at a point just before an intersection, which the dude hightailed across at a fantastic speed. As the cavalcade was passing by, it hit me that I should’ve been counting the cruisers, just for the heck of it, as there were about a dozen of 'em. I never learned of the outcome of the chase.

27

Foot chase:

  1. I was walking downhill towards the Vine City MARTA station (Atlanta residents will immediately recognize I’m in A Reputably Bad Neighborhood) when suddenly a house door BURSTS open on my right; I turn to see a guy landing ten feet away from the front porch on the lawn in a long distance jumper crouch and then spring to his feet like a leopard, breaking current and future Olympic sprinting records hauling ass. No movement was wasted: I’m watching pure flight-or-fight adrenaline-fueled running, folks, and it’s a different kind of running than the stuff you see in track events. I have just enough time to form the partial thought: “Now what the fu–?” when the door slams open again and four dudes with guns come running out, screaming. A couple of them stop in the middle of the street and shoot – missing, thankfully – then piling into a parked car and peeling off after him.

Car chase:

  1. A guy my mother was dating borrowed her car. He was told he had to be back by 4pm so she could make a 4:30pm doctor’s appointment. 4:45pm comes and goes, and my mother’s very pissed, and me and my brother are standing around on the front porch to be on the lookout. Suddenly her car comes into view – and then speeds away past our house, despite our attempts to flag him down! The car is shortly followed by two other cars and … a police cruiser. My mother was in shock and went off to her bedroom. About an hour later, my mom’s now ex-boyfriend returns the car safely, denying anything had just happened and a lame excuse about needing to help his mother and losing track of time.
28

Laughing my ass off! … The Washington cloverleaf is the most screwed up piece of roadway in the world.

And yes, I too have expenaced navingating the South Bronx while making
my way back to Westchester because the highways were parking lots from
…what is it like 60,000 people all trying to leave Yankee Stadium at once!

29

Woohoo, I get to be the first to admit that … well, I’ve actually been the chasee.

(Choie takes a deep breath.) More years ago than I should readily admit, I was 18 and driving a friend home to Bayside, Queens. Since my friend had to stop at a laundromat on the way, I agreed to make the stop, wait for him, and then continue onwards. When I dropped him off, however, I decided to drive around the block rather than double-park on the street. Truth is, I was still relatively inexperienced as a driver, and also a bit intimidated at the thought of driving in NYC (I was a suburb gal).

Of course Bayside isn’t exactly Manhattan, and the area I was driving in was pretty quiet and residential. But I was a skittish little thing back then, so I figured I’d rather drive around and around the block rather than hang out alone in my car, annoying people by double parking.

I drove to the end of the block and turned left (it was a one-way street), then headed to the end of the second block to a stop sign. Since there was a car to my left that wanted to go straight (while I was making the left turn), I waited politely for the driver to move forward. At that point I turned left and continued on my way. Simple, right? Except about halfway down the block I caught a glimpse in my rear-view-mirror of the aforementioned car making a sharp u-turn, complete with burning rubber and squealing wheels, before zooming towards me at full speed.

At first I just frowned and figured the guy had missed his destination and was doubling back. But when the car kept on getting closer and closer with no sign of slowing down, I felt my heart seize with fear. I mean, I was in Queens! Alone in my car at night! A young woman driving alone in her car at night in Queens! Did I mention I was alone? (And oh yeah, I was also kinda paranoid.)

So I slammed my foot on the gas and tore ahead to the end of the block, this time making a right turn (rather stupidly) only ‘cause I knew it’d be faster than going left. At this point, honestly, I expected the car behind me to stop, or to make a turn that took him off my path, or take some other action that would explain the weird behavior. I couldn’t fathom that this was really a bleedin’ car chase, y’know?

But to my horror, the car whipped around the corner in hot pursuit. Of me. I was definitely being chased by some freak in an ugly old brown car!

Now I didn’t know Bayside very well, and my only desperate thought was to get back to Northern Boulevard and more traffic. But my panic was such that I lost track of where I was, and I just couldn’t seem to find a more populated area. And the goddamned car was still racing behind me, honking its horn and doing its best to push me over to the side of the street. The worst part was when I took another look in my mirror and didn’t see him – because the car had managed to pull up alongside me! As we zoomed down the street in parallel like we were two 1950s teens racing for pinks, I took a hasty glance out my side window and saw the driver holding something metallic up at me.

My eyes focused on the object and, considering how incredibly crazily the guy was driving, I instantly made the logical connection that it was a weapon – a gun, a knife, cripes he could’ve been a one-armed guy with a hook far as I could tell. I didn’t know and I didn’t want to know. I just floored it and managed to pull ahead once more.

Finally I ended up at Northern Boulevard (a major street with plenty of traffic), and had to stop at a red light. I felt safer, at least until I saw the car pull up behind me with a screech, the door open, and a huge mofo guy stalk up to my window. My heart nearly broke my ribs, it was pounding so freakin’ hard.

That’s when he shoved the metal-something up against the glass, causing me instinctively to flinch backwards before getting a look at what he was holding.

What was it, you may be wondering? A badge. A police badge. The guy was a plain-clothes cop.

Dazed, I rolled down the window. He glared at me. “Do you know you made a left turn on a no-left-turn corner? Didn’t you see the sign?”

Somehow my mind registered what he was saying despite the blood pounding in my ears. Literally shaking with residual fear, relief, and now anger, I shouted at him: “That’s why you were chasing me? Because I made a wrong turn??”

“Uh, yeah.” His voice wasn’t quite as forceful now. “Couldn’t you see my badge?”

Now, I’d never spoken to a cop before – or since – and at that point in my life I’d never met an adult or authority figure who couldn’t intimidate me into utter shyness and compliance. But, fellow Dopers, at that moment I was so shaken with righteous indignation that I found my voice for the first time in my life.

“No I couldn’t see your badge!” I was practically crying. “I thought it was a gun! You didn’t have a siren or lights or anything, I had no idea why you were chasing me … and it was 'cause of a stupid left turn? For that you acted like you were on Starsky and Hutch?”

(Yes, I actually said that.)

I think he saw for the first time that I was young and, quite obviously, scared almost to the point of collapse. And the guy seemed to realize he’d kinda over-reacted, at least considering he was in an unmarked car and I’d had no way to know who he was or why he was chasing me. At least I assume he realized this, because instead of yelling at me for evading him or giving me a ticket (one I deserved, after all), all he did was back up a few steps and say in a kinda murmur, “Well … sorry. Look, just watch where you’re driving next time, okay miss?” And then he walked back to his car.

I sat and stared at my steering wheel for what felt like ages before somehow remembering my friend with his dry cleaning. He was pretty pissed off with me for making him wait. Fortunately, I had a pretty good excuse.

(Whew! Sorry for the length here…!)