How often do people successfully run from the police?

Factual Questions
21

If you’re counting cops breaking up underage drinking parties, especially in the woods, then it happens all the time - they’re not going to call in multiple units and helicopters to track down everyone who ran - as long as they catch a few kids and the booze, they’re generally satisfied.

When I was in high school, we had a designated victim who’d stay behind when the rest of us ran - his dad was a police lieutenant, so as soon as he identified himself the cops would reluctantly release everyone they had caught and had to satisfy themselves with the confiscated booze. Most of which never saw an evidence locker no doubt.

22

And now for one who didn’t get away. If I remember dad’s story correctly from his days as a cop:

Guy beats wife. Police arrive. Knowing it was handcuffs time, rather than sticking around, he runs out the back door, around to the front, and steals the police car. Then begins taunting the police on their own radio (“You’ll never fuckin’ get me, pigs,” and the like - something would tell me that some kind of substance/insanity was involved). The pursuit ends up on the Interstate with wild dodging through traffic. Two tractor trailers join the game by forming a “moving roadblock,” but he just barrels on through in between them. He ends up hitting a few cars (scraping, really). Which in at least one spot caused a brush fire. After about an hour (I seem to remember that there were shots fired by the police at this point), he wrecks the car. Meanwhile, every cop in the world is there (kinda’ like that Blues Brothers scene).

When they drag the badly injured guy from the car, the sergeant (or whatever supervisory rank) breaks his nightstick over the guy’s head (ouch! back in the old days when they were “billy-clubs”) yelling, “you wrecked three of my f*cking cars!”

Dad tells the story better than I do. That story is the sole reason why, to this day, I do not engage in wife-beating or cop car-stealing.

23

I have a good friend who is a police officer, and he says that motorcycles who try to run from speeding tickets get away regularly. The tiny plates don’t hurt either.

I also remember seeing an episode of COPS (from the 90’s) where an older model camaro got away.

24

So the only reason you don’t beat your wife or steal cop cars is because the police will beat you? Good to know.

25

The only time I saw someone get away from the police on “Cops” they caught him later in the episode. It’s almost like the television shows are only given/allowed to air the footage if the police catch the suspect.

26

i am now 17 years old & when i was 15 me and a couple of my friends deceided to come to school & leave during 2nd period (that is because they only take attendence in 2nd period so they wont call our parents about us being absent) we had some weed and there is a ditch a couple of blocks from our school. we left during 2nd period just as planned. when we got off campus without being seen (so we thought) we thought we were all good. it was 5 of us. 3 guys 2 girls. my friend brooke was on my back & we were in a group. a cop car drove by. we saw it but nobody ran because we figured he would have pulled over. brooke got off my back just incase he would have pulled a u turn. he did & everybody scrambled. me and my friend irving were together & everybody stayed with atleast 1 person. we met up at the ditch the cop went after me & my friend but didnt succeed.

& everybody lived happily ever after until the next day when all of us got called to the office but since they didnt know it was us for sure (since we were present) nobody got in any kind of trouble ;):smiley:

27

Something like this happened to me once–I had had a fight with my girlfriend (I was 18 or so) and was speeding without realizing it on a thruway. Cop behind me put on his rollers and I immediately slowed down and started looking for a shoulder to pull over. But then he turned off the rollers and exited. I don’t think it was that he got a higher priority call, because he would have kept his lights on.

As for running from a cop, I’ve never done that, or known anyone to. But the cops aren’t perfect, some criminals must get away.

28

Well, I :confused: this, and am interested in why you say so.

More generally, I have always :confused: the rules of engagement in these situations: the “Freeze” command. When can you shoot a running offender?

I always wished Agent Starling hadn’t said “freeze” to Buffalo Bill.

29

Of course zombies would have the advantage when fleeing from the police on foot - the helicopter’s infrared camera wouldn’t pick them up.

I would like to see a felon on one of those police-chase programmes run into a local gully and smear themselves in mud to hide from the chopper Arnie-in-Predator style.

30

I’m faster than any police officer I’ve seen. In my early teens I ran from about 3 police officers with ease after stealing a large bottle of vodka from a supermarket.

I am not proud of my actions, but I never got caught.

31

A friend of mine is a motorcyclist and had a few speedfreak buddies. Apparently the expert followers of the London Way of Motorcycle Naughtiness rely on having plates which are removable and/or easily covered, and a good knowledge of exactly which roads allow high speed while being in the ATC zones for Heathrow Airport.
Remove/cover plates, indulge in high-speed shenanigans, lose the pursuit in an arewhere the helicopters can’t get permission to fly, reattach/uncover plates and potter sedately home.

32

If the police are after you, don’t try to go on the lam.

It’s far better to simply lie low or stay at the hideout with your gang.

33

German extortionist Arno Funke (aka »Dagobert«) had a number of close escapes from the police. In one famous incident, Funke, riding on a bicycle, was pursued by a SWAT police officer on foot who was about to grab the bad guy when the law enforcement officer slipped and fell to the ground (at the time, it was widely reported the policeman slipped on dog poop).

34

Running away from armed officers is extremely easy If you’re in even half decent shape, cos generally they will have all the gear on.

I ran away from 2 armed officers at a train station for not having a valid ticket, after the fake details I gave them didn’t check out, I bolted and hid in a backyard for a few minutes, gapped them by about 40 metres in 300 metres of running. Usually officers are quite fat of big, and aren’t really fleet of footed, something to bear in mind;)

35

Okay, now that this thread is alive again and we’re all talking story . . .

I saw two car chases in 2005 on LIVE TV thanks to modern Action McNews helicopters that had interesting outcomes (in both cases, they got caught):

(1)
Some crazy wild chase. As one might expect the McCopters didn’t get there right at the start of it. But it was wild: On freeways, partly in a semi-rural area; into the outskirts of a city; circuitous route on major thoroughfares in heavy traffic. Just like you see on TV (well, it was on TV) with crazy driving through busy intersections, dodging cars all around, while other cars skidded and swerved to avoid hitting it and each other. We viewers were of one opinion: Damn, that driver is good!

Eventually the guy turned into a smaller side street, where the McCopter view was obscured by an adjacent multi-story structure. Cops were about two blocks behind, trying to drive safely. McCopter hovers over side street — but the car never came out the other end of the block, and there didn’t seem to be any car in that block either! WTF? It just vanished.

Turned out, that multi-story structure was a parking garage. Apparently, the driver turned into the garage and just blended into the traffic there, and parked somewhere. Then, the occupant(s) got out and casually wandered into an adjacent department store.

Somehow they got recognized in the store, and were arrested. That came out on a later newscast that evening.

(2)
Car chase on some sort of highway in a sort of up-scale-looking semi-rural-looking area (think, something like a country club community or something like that). Car eventually turns off the road and ditches. Literally, into a ditch. Property on other side of ditch is fenced. Driver jumps out, climbs over fence, onto adjacent property. Cops, a little bit behind, do likewise.

Meanwhile, about that fenced property: It was a large park-like area with a lawn. Maybe a church grounds or a country club area. Guy was running across lawn, with cops chasing. Also on grounds was a small grove of palm trees, and another grassy area on the other side of that. There was a gazebo there and a smallish crowd of people, seemingly paying attention of some event going on. (We guessed, maybe, a wedding?)

Three people in that event audience took off after the running guy. (They were well dressed, like white tuxedos or something like that.) They were closer to him than the cops were. They caught up with him, tackled him, and took him down. Then the cops caught up and got him.

36

Back in the day, when this thread started, our city had no legal places to skate. And we discovered that when cops decided to do a sweep of the popular skateboarding/rollerblading/stunt bike spots, it was much more efficient to just take off the second you spotted them coming. And run flat out through back yards and alleys, over fences, through buildings.

The poor rollerbladers couldn’t do that, and soon found that attempts to skate away were futile. So they got good at cajoling and begging, while the 'boarders got some great aerobic exercise.

37

You don’t have to be faster than the police, you just have to be faster than your co-defendant.

38

I’ve never outrun the actual police, but in high school we had a school resource officer who was very overweight and would cruise around campus in a minivan, rarely emerging. A friend and I were going to visit a teacher we liked during lunch and as we were walking outside to get to his classroom this guy in the minivan kept shouting at us to stop, that we were in trouble, etc. We just kept walking and as he wouldn’t leave the minivan it was pretty easy to lose him by simply walking into the building.

My mom told me that in college she outran the cops by getting off at an exit and they never followed. She was speeding.

39

Not exactly chases but you have to figure chases were involved in some of these cases. From Yahoo:

"Overview
Nationwide in 2006, 44.3 percent of violent crimes and 15.8 percent of property crimes were cleared by arrest or exceptional means.
Of the violent crimes (murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault), murder had the highest percentage of offenses cleared at 60.7 percent.
Of the property crimes (burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft), larceny-theft had the highest percentage of offenses cleared at 17.4 percent.
Eighteen percent of arson offenses were cleared by arrest or exceptional means.
Nationwide in 2006, 40.2 percent of arson offenses cleared by arrest or exceptional means involved only juveniles (individuals under age 18), the highest percentage of all offense clearances involving only juveniles.
Source(s):
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2006/offenses… "

40

After all, what are the odds that if you are in the biggest manhunt Massachusets has ever seen, and you get into a high speed chase and explosive firefight, you just drive away and then run, that the police will simply lose track of you and even think you’ve left the town?