IIRC, the original method, or an alternative method, was to lay a cable down on the road which was in effect an antenna. As the car in question passed over it the EMP by that cable “killed” the car and isolated the effect to just that car.
Also, IIRC, and I was going to ask my friend but he is not online, I thought the latest versions of the OBD allowed for a remote “kill” switch. But, I am going to double check on that.
Rather like the current ‘spike strips’ that kill the tires?
Except that you see lots of stories about:
I imagine the same could happen with an EMP strip. And if it pursuing police car hit it, replacing all the electronics in it would be a whole lot more expensive than fixing flat tires!
Well, there was Africa’s most wanted terrorist about a week ago. Not exactly a high-speed chase, since they were shot trying to ram through a highway checkpoint. (And neither captured or escaped; just shot dead.)
OTOH, there once was a bank robbery in North Hollywood where the 2 robbers prepared for what they thought would be the worst: a firefight with the police. They wore body armor and carried multiple weapons, and for a while, since they were prepared and the police were not, they outgunned the police. In the long run, it didn’t work; the police broke into a nearby gun shop and grabbed what they needed, but my point is there are criminals who think ahead.
So the EMP won’t affect the cop car detonating it?
See it here. But I don’t think the police “broke into” a gun shop – it was 9:30am, so the shop was open at the time.
I was engaging in a little hyperbole, but it wasn’t like the cops were prepared or had an appointment. It was lucky that a gun shop was close by and someone thought to take advantage of it. Maybe “burst in” would be more correct.
It was the regular patrol cars who went there to get guns – they only had .38 pistols with them.
The LA SWAT team had the same kind of assault rifles that were in the gun shop, but they took over 20 minutes to respond (which seems like a lot, actually).
This did result in some rule changes – patrol cops were allowed to upgrade to .45’s if they wanted, and each sergeant was given an assault rifle.
Any ways, I was wrong about the cable on the ground thing. MY memory of what I had/heard read was either something that had been talked about or some conspiracy theory.
OT, that LA bank heist was impressive. I remember watching that on TV when it happened. Those guys were ready but they obviously did not think far enough to get out of the area fast enough as they ended up in a firefight. The police borrowed high-power weapons from that gun shop, which had little effect. I’d have to look up what they were wearing but it was like a Mark III vest with Mark IV plates. That’s pretty beast.
It took a sniper to get the guy at the nape of his neck. Right under the backside of his helmet, above his vest, there was a small, vulnerable, spot. If you find the uncensored version of the firefight you can see the blood spray out.
That didn’t stop him though; it was basically just a flesh wound in the neck. Though loss of blood would have killed him soon, if it had gone untreated. But he didn’t wait; he shot himself in the head.
The other guy was also stopped by a “small, vulnerable, spot” – his ankles & legs. During the final firefight when he was trying to carjack a pickup truck. a policeman laid down on the street and watched underneath the vehicles, until he was able to fire & hit him in the ankle, which was not covered by bulletproof armor. That wound brought the criminal down, and the cop was able to shoot him again, in the leg. He bled to death from that wound before the ambulance could get there. (The ambulance staff was (understandably) hesitant to enter this battle scene until they were completely sure the shooting had stopped.)
Hey everyone, new user, but I was searching EMP because of what recently happened to me and found this site… So anyway, just recently I had a police car pull up behind me at a red light with no other car around, and my car (which NEVER stalls, before or since) just died like someone turned off the key. I looked at my friend in the passenger seat and said “That cop behind me just killed my car!” To which he said what most of you will probably say. My car started right back up after I re-turned the key, and I drove away knowing those cops just tested something on my car. The car details are not as important to me, but if you want to know, It’s a very clean 91 Dodge Stealth with a healthy dose of go fast mods, but very tasteful and not “Fast and Furious” or “ricer” in any way. But the police do actively test things like this and they did test it out successfully on my car. I wish I could have heard them snickering to each other wishing to hear my reaction. LOL
The thing I always wondered is why the cops didn’t get some kind of HIGH powered rifle in the gun store instead of AR-15s?
Wouldn’t a 300 Win Mag or something along those lines have made short work of those bodyarmored guys?
As I noted in the other year-old “cops and EMP” thread which you resurrected earlier today (both of them started by the same now-departed poster), as I understand it, an EMP would permanently fry the solid-state electronics in your car (i.e., all of the on-board computers, control chips, etc.). If your car had, indeed, actually been hit by an EMP, you wouldn’t have been able to start it back up a few moments later; it would have needed to have all of those now-dead electronics replaced.
As noted by Stranger On A Train in post #19 above:
Maybe the gun shop didn’t have anything more powerful in stock? 
With zombies, it’s all about the head shot.
Plus such an EMP would also have fried all the electronics in the cop’s car – including the expensive radios, radar, computer, dashcam, etc. That stuff is even closer to the EMP than your car was.
[A simpler and more likely explanation is that in your panic reaction to the cop car behind you, you accidentally did something to make your car stall. Note that it didn’t stall untilafter you had noticed the cop behind you.]
Uh, no.
You’re assuming that (1) the police actually have a portable functioning EMP generator that is capable of stopping a car and (2) your car would restart after such a device was used. Neither one of these is true. I can guarantee you that the one thing that didn’t happen was that the police tested out an EMP device on your car.
However, it is possible (though not at all likely) that an EMP of sorts was responsible. The police may have keyed their radio or activated their computer system (possibly scanning your license plate and checking it against their database of stolen cars) and that radio noise could have possibly gotten into your engine computer and confused it. What makes this unlikely is that your engine computer is already shielded against RF noise since it has to be to function properly, otherwise the noise from your own spark plugs could kill it. However, stranger things have happened, and it’s possible that your car’s systems are sensitive to a particular frequency that the newer police radio and communication systems are using.
If this is what happened, though, you can be certain that it wasn’t intentional.
ETA: It’s also quite possible that it’s some of your “go fast mods” that have made your car’s electronics vulnerable to induced RF noise. Automotive systems are designed by teams of experts who go to great lengths to make sure RF noise won’t interfere with their systems. Mods are installed by anyone who thinks they know which end of a screwdriver to use, and they may not necessarily be considering potential RF noise problems when they install new electronics into your car.
t-bonham@scc.net’s explanation that you did something to make the car stall is much more likely, but as an engineer I can’t rule out the RF noise theory completely.