So, there are shows on Fox like “World’s Wildest Police Chases”, and while I cannot say I’ve seen a whole lot of it, I don’t think they’ve ever done an episode where the guy the cops are after gets away. I guess it makes sense, they don’t want to encourage criminals to flee from the police in a similar situation, but there must be instances where after some massive police chase, somehow the guy the cops are after manages to ditch them. Right?
Sure it happens, but it’s fairly rare. The police have a huge number of tools and resources at their disposal, like helicopters equipped with IR cameras, and retractable spike strips. Most of the time they get the guy they’re chasing, but yes, once in a while, one gets away.
Ive ran from the cops and gotten away twice!
Of course, this was not of the magnitude you see on TV. If im being bad, see a cop, see the brake lights and subsequent flipping of the b!tch, i just gas it. Once was on a VERY fast sport bike, and another time was in a car at night. I just killed the lights and darted down an alley. Parked and walked away. Hardly worthy of news coverage.
I was watching one on TV where they let the guy go because it was simply to dangerous to continue the pursuit. Lo and behold they got a report of a dangerous driver hours later (same guy), continued the pursuit and nabbed him.
There are cases where police will purposefully stop chasing someone because the risk of a chase outweighs the benefit of catching that particular person. Given the collisions I’ve seen on “World’s Wildest Police Videos,” I can’t say I’m surprised. See this article for what’s going on in Chicago. In rooting around google for this, I found that both Minneapolis and L.A. track the collisions and injuries that have resulted from local police chases.
<uh, ignore the nonsensical title of my post.>
There was an incident somewhere near Canton, OH, 2 years ago. I remember reading about it in the Canton Repository a while back.
It got reported mainly due to one of the officers involved being recorded by a radio operator arguing with another officer about whether or not they had probably cause to stop the guy…
Officer A said he was about to pull the Oldsmobile over for failure to signal, and Officer B was heard radioing that the suspect had used his blinkers properly.
Apparently Officer A later lost control of his vehicle and the cops turned their attention to the wreck they’d been involved in rather than pursuing the suspect.
I’m thinking this was in Massilon, OH, but I could be mistaken. And apparently they believed that the suspect had been retailing unlicensed pharmaceuticals from his vehicle.
I actually wrote an e-mail to Fox requesting that they have an episode of a “worst police chases”-type show with those who got away. Certainly there would be enough for a one-hour show, out of all the chases every year. I think it would be great for ratings, too. Who wouldn’t tune in?
Never got a response (not that I expected to), and haven’t seen any results of my request. Yet!
I was watching one of those “Wildest Police chases” shows and they said that, according to the LA county sheriff, pursuit is called off or the guys get away about 10% of the time. No cites, unfortunately.
One point to consider is that these shows get most of their footage from the police departments whose squad car cameras captured the footage. So it’s hardly likely that the departments would be willing to submit footage that shows the bad guys getting away. Or their officers screwing up in other ways.
Watching World’s Wildest Police Videos is one of my guilty pleasures, but I have to say that a lot of the time it seems as though the cops make a minor problem into a major one. By chasing someone who decides to run for no apparent reason, the cops can endanger the lives of innocent people along the flight path. If they know they’re chasing a bank robber or drunk driver, okay, but launching a 100-mph chase just because someone refused to pull over for a traffic stop is insane.
Well i think the mentality is that, if a guy is that desperate to get away from the cops, he’s probably trafficking drugs or wanted for something else… If someone speeds off for just a traffic stop, and you decide to let him go, you may have just let out a wanted murderer.
Well, sure that’s what they think, but is that suspicion (usually with no evidence) sufficient to justify the risk to innocent civilians? And they often say on the show that the only reason the person fled was because they didn’t have their license with them or they were 15-year-olds with no license, or other relatively minor matters.
Yea, but that’s what they learn after the fact, I think.
commasense is right on the money. People flee for the dumbest reasons. Most of which do not warrant putting people at such risk. It doesn’t make sense but people get scared and just don’t think sometimes.
For what it’s worth, I saw a chase on that show where the bad guy got away. The chase was unusual in that it took place in the middle of nowhere in West Virginia, on a muddy road at like 10 miles per hour. I imagine the main reason the guy got away was that the cop couldn’t call for backup, since the nearest cop was prolly far far away. They said on the show that the driver was still at large.
That’s the point though… After studying the stats, departments have realized that the majority of people flee for very minor reasons, or none at all. Many of the chases end safely, but the public is still put at risk.
It’s not worth it to chase someone who forgot to use a blinker or made a bad Uturn or something.
Thats not been my experience over the last 10 years.
So lets say that was the rule. No more pursuits for traffic violations only. How do you get your cops to enforce traffic laws?
The town I used to live in had a debate about this whole issue of police chases, after one particularly bad accident involving a cruiser.
In the end they concluded that they should continue to pursue fleeing vehicles. The reasoning behind it was simple, and makes sense to me. If you refuse to chase when I flee arrest, all I have to do is floor it briefly, and I’m assured of my escape. If I know that the police are going to give chase, and my subsequent chances of escape lessened by a great deal (100% vs. 10%, as stated above), I will be a lot less likely to go down that particular road, so to speak.
That is the rule with every local agency in my area (Tampa). Any chase for just a minor traffic violation, which is not even a crime its a civil infraction, will be called off if the guy takes off and is running lights and putting the public at risk.
The state does not have that rule. A trooper chased a stolen car full of 15 year old kids last year. They all died in a subsequent crash. Im definitely not blaming the trooper, but hell was that really worth it? A bunch or teenagers being stupid. Is that worth them killing themselves or others?
If that has not been your experience over the past 10 years, then maybe you have a different opinion of ‘minor’. Are stolen cars major to you? Are victimless drug possessions major to you? Worth chasing and having someone die?