How would you capture somebody in this scenario?

In My Humble Opinion
1

A different take on this thread.

You have just been informed that you are one of twenty-five adults randomly chosen to be a chaser in a game. Another person who is currently within five miles of you has been chosen to be the chasee. They are getting a brief head start. In ten minutes, you will be given their name and address and a picture of them.

If you (or any of the other chasers) capture this person within twenty-four hours, you will win one hundred million dollars. If none of you capture them, they will win the money. For purposes of this game, getting close enough to physically touch the person is considered a capture.

How do you go about capturing this person?

2

I don’t see any realistic way to do so. Assuming they are allowed to use vehicles, by the time I get their name and address and a picture, they could already be anywhere within a 100-square-mile area. And I don’t even get their car picture or license plate.

And I’d have to first check their house address to make sure they aren’t hiding there, even though they’d be foolish to stay there (in fact, do I even get to break into their house?) That would take another half hour. And then they could be anywhere in a 1,000-square-mile area.

There is no public-satellite-image viewing or any other tracking software or tool, as far as I’m aware of, that would give me any realistic surveillance of where such a person might be. Sharing the person’s image with my family and friends and asking them to help (if that’s permitted) would still most likely get me nowhere.

To catch them on vehicle, I’d have to know the exact direction and road that they took, which is highly unlikely. And even if I did know which route they took, I’d still be tens of miles behind them since they had a head start. They could make any sort of detour or change in direction and I’d be none the wiser.

3

I agree that it would be very difficult to do on my own. I’d probably try a crowd funded approach. Get a public message out with the person’s name and picture and offer a million dollar reward for any information that leads to their capture within the time period.

4

Possibly, although this might hinge heavily on whether the person’s license plate is known. The fugitive could simply drive a far distance, sleep in their car, live out of their car for 24 hours (maybe wear sunglasses and a Covid facemask or something to avoid being recognized).

If it were something like one month, it might be harder. But anyone can live in a car for a day.

The challenge might also be tougher if the fugitive isn’t permitted the use of cars.

5

That’s a really good idea.

6

Of course, I’d be more worried about @Snarky_Kong’s realistic scenario in the other thread. Why is it worrisome to hide in your house when in many states in the US, breaking into someone’s home (which is what you’re discussing) puts your at a distinct risk of being shot with few if any questions asked.

As long as the target put’s up a few signs in the 5 minutes, and records themselves warning you, they’re going to have a pretty damn good chance of killing you dead with minimal long term consequences.

Outside the US of course, things are different, but since this is being mentioned as “some person offers”, rather than a government endorsed Running Man / Purge / Etc thing, you stand a great chance of perhaps winning the money, and then getting all of it taken by the target in lawsuits for emotional trauma and gains won by committing illegal acts.

7

I agree with what you’re saying, in theory, but plenty of people don’t own firearms and wouldn’t be able to inflict deadly force on an intruder (or multiple intruders), especially given only 10 minutes’ notice. (Picture some elderly grandmother type of homeowner, for instance.) Those 25 strangers may all arrive within minutes of each other. Without a firearm, the target’s chances of being able to hold them all off would be near-nil (say your best weapon is a baseball bat.)

And even if they did have a gun, the lure of $100 million is strong enough that many strangers may still be tempted to break in anyway and try to win the game. That’s an immense sum of money - so large that it may be impossible to deter many intruders. There are many people in the world who have taken deadly risks and thrown their life away for much less than $100 million, after all.

If it were just $100,000, intruders might be deterred from breaking in. But for a hundred mil, that prize is just too big for deterrence.

8

Too late to edit: I am not a lawyer, but I would also question whether the law would even be on the side of a homeowner in such a scenario, if he were to shoot intruders. Laws will vary by state or nation, but since the intruder only needs to get physically close enough to touch you to win, it stands to reason that the court could argue that everyone involved knew the rules of the game and the intruders did not in fact pose a threat to the life of the homeowner, only a threat to the homeowner’s possible income. (I agree that logic is flimsy, but the courts have taken some pretty arcane stances before.)

In a state like Texas, the homeowner’s rights are broad and could shoot the intruder dead pretty much on the spot. But I could picture many states or nations taking a much more restrictive stance. And in some nations, gun ownership isn’t allowed, period.

Lastly, even if the homeowner could still sue and win big money by doing so, there’s no real reason why they should or would take this approach when the “get in car and start driving” option is far more preferable and easier. It avoids any PTSD from having killed someone, and you win the money in a much more straightforward way. If you try to make your home a fortress, you’re also forcing yourself to stay awake for 24 consecutive hours to keep watch. You don’t have to do that when you’re a hundred miles away and know with near-certainty no one can find you.

9

I was careful to state the concerns of the law vary by state, and certainly outside the US.

But, speaking to this thread, we’re in the position of attacker. We are committing an illegal act (B&E) in an effort to secure money, with full premeditation - we’re going to get limited sympathy, so let’s hope and pray that this goes on in a less permissive state.

Second, again specific to THIS thread, is that as an attacker, I want 100 Million badly, granted, but I think you underestimate the dissuading factor when the first person to break in gets shot and I get covered with their blood and see the body writhing on the steps next to the broken door. I strongly suspect that the homeowner in this scenario is going to need to have enough guns and bullets to stop all of the 25.

Lastly, in the second scenario, they’re all fucked - in that scenario they’re working TOGETHER, and in most jurisdictions, that means any crimes that occur by one or all in the conspiracy to the greater crime (B&E again at a minimum) are going to apply to all. So every single person is liable (again, depending on jurisdiction) for conspiracy to commit a crime in which one or more of their members are killed in the committing of said crime.

Note, I don’t say that it will/won’t happen, or that all of the randomly chosen 25 will be on board with such an action, but outside some dystopian scenario that I mentioned to modify the hypothetical, -MY- risks as an attacker are intense, and I’m a lot better in pursuit than doing the Breaking and Entering check.

I mean even some of the less risky choices (calling in a random domestic violence claim to the residence) put you at risk of jail time, and loss of your winnings due to gains from an illegal act.

On your last point, in this country, I strongly suspect that if you won $100 million (this is going to come up in discovery you know) and decided to break into the house and got shot, that there’s going to be plenty of reasonable doubt and minimal sympathy from the jury, I think the odds are VERY good for a dismissal of any criminal charges against the target and a LARGE settlement for them from the sponsor and participants.

And no matter what, that money is going to locked up in the courts for a long time while you are paying for some high dollar lawyers who are going to take half that money if you’re not independently wealthy enough to afford such a defense on your own.

So, long and short of it is that the risks aren’t bad for the target, but the risks for the ones attempting the capture may be intense.

But repeating my prior demurral, all of this is going to vary dramatically depending on location in the US, much less in almost any other nation. Which I stated explicitly before.

10

Those are all good points. I think you have the legal stuff all covered better than me.

That being said, however, I’m presuming that the OP of this thread, and that thread, all intended this game - if it ever happened in real life - to be a fully legal, with-consent exercise. I’m going to assume that participation in this $100 million game is going to be just like Fear Factor, The Amazing Race or any similar TV show or game event - that everyone knows what it involves, agrees, and probably has to sign a dozen contracts or waivers in order to play.

11

Oh, granted. I (and many others) made similar/identical points in the parent thread, or presupposed some sort of dystopian Running Man state-sponsored variant. But the OP hasn’t really come in to qualify how the whole thing is ‘supposed’ to work.

12

I have been chasing someone with a 100 yard head start and lost them. The scenario mentioned is impossible. If you had access to NSA level facial recognition and the ability to tap into cameras, real time bank records, automatic plate readers and had the personnel to converge on a hit then you could possibly do it. Or someone could just go into the woods randomly and stay there for 24 hours. Unless the weather is extreme it’s not too hard.

13

You can get pretty damn far in 10 minutes with a 5 mile head start.

14

The only way I can see it being remotely possible is if the chasee doesn’t have access to their car. They don’t have a phone to call and get picked up or Uber. The chaser knows the exact starting location and does have a car and can close the five mile gap at vehicle speed. The chasee isn’t near a large wooded area. It’s daylight when this starts.

15

I have their name and address. That gets me their cell number without too much difficulty. 1 quick call: “Hey, $50 million guaranteed is better than maybe getting $100 million. Meet me at this location and we’ll split the haul.”