I know that if your vehicle is stolen that can be a financial hardship . But is it worth a police chase that ends up in 2 people dying when the thief runs a red light and crashing both vehicles ? I think not. That is what happened just a short time ago in Tulsa , OK . Give the Tulsa police some credit as they did terminate the chase . But the OK Highway Patrol picked it up ( personally I really don’ t think much of them as a group ).
How long before police have the ability to disable a vehicle remotely?
I was under the impression that they already have that capability if a vehicle is equipped with GM’s satellite-linked system, and–possibly–some other systems.
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There is no easy answer. Let em go they get braver, chase em innocent people get hurt.
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Cops see stolen car. Cops can’t chase car.
Cops see speeder. Cops can’t chase speeder?
Cops see car with broken taillight. Cops can’t chase car?
Chasing stolen car is not cowboy mentality.
A burst of machine gun fire from cops is advisable.
Maybe even a bazooka! But then there would be a wrongful death lawsuit, never mind 
I think that you are being too hesitant.
Surely our Boys in Blue should be utilizing nuclear weapons at this point, whenever they think someone is violating a law.
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OBD lll is fully developed. It gives authorities abilities to track and disable cars. Manufactures didn’t want to implement it for fears the public would not like the level of intrusion. Obama signed an executive order mandating OBDlll by a certain year. I don’t remember the year, but it’s well before 2030.
If the police plan ahead, they can station cars ahead of the stolen vehicle to slow it down and stop it. Then they have to chase the thief on foot. The police usually win that race since there are more than one of them. That’s how it works around here, anyway.
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Yesterday a reckless driver in a white sedan fled from an officer, the pursuit was terminated after a short time in the interest of public safety. A few minutes later a crash on a 35 MPH road was reported.
Blame the police or the criminals?
Dang, that happened only a couple miles from a relative’s home in Tulsa.
Here in the St. Louis area there have been multiple times innocent motorists have been injured or killed by fleeing criminals. In some cases there was a police pursuit, other times carjackers are wildly speeding with no police having been in pursuit at all.
Then there are the rolling gun battles and random shootings on the interstates in the metro area…
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The criminals. If they weren’t out there committing criminal acts there would be no need for police intervention.
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Drone strikes.
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More about the truck theft . The truck was stolen by a group of teenagers from a self service car wash about 15 miles from the fatal crash. It seems the the Moron owner of the truck left it running while he walked to a trash can and someone just jumped in and drove off.
The video appears to show that he even left the drivers door open . I would almost think that the insurance should deny his claim because of stupidity.
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@VOLVO-V70
Having worked as a mechanic for a large State Patrol, I can tell you that judging the group by the actions of a few is a mistake.
Most of the troopers I know and knew (RIP) are decent hard working people trying the best to do their jobs. Yes, there are always a few bad apples (just like on this site) but that does not define the integrity of this forum.
All LEO’s are under a microscope and armchair judged buy people not actually in the situation at the time having to make sometimes a life or death decision. Who should draw first, you or your opponent?
Maybe you have done the job, I do not know. Unless you have please don’t judge. Hindsight is 20/20 and it is easy to say what you would have done after the incident, even the officers/troopers re-evaluate every decision they make.
For instance, do you know if that pursuit was stopped would the car have gone on and drove through a crowd killing 10 or 20 people? Maybe the two lives lost saved 18 others. we will never know.
How many pursuits daily do you think end with no fatalities?
The point to my rant is, most LEO get into the job wanting to help “protect and serve”. Yes, some are not right for the job. But most are and we should support the thin blue line.
I do not mean any disrespect, and I will defend the police as a whole.
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There are always going to be stupid teenagers that steal a car for a joy ride. Years ago, a student told me that he had a souped up car, and he would go directly up to a police car and do something crazy to start a police chase.
So, while there will always be criminal idiots, then the ball is placed into the policeman’s lap about what is the appropriate response. That response should be well thought out, and should place human life as a priority over apprehension. Unfortunately, that response will also never be perfect.
Years ago in college me and a friend was leaving the physics department and walked by a nice mountain bike with a lock around a lamp post and the seat post. I told him that someone can take that bike without any tools in 3 seconds. My buddy asked me to show him; and I did by undoing the quick release around the seat post and pulled it out of the bike. I left the bike where it was. But I don’t know if I would pity the bike owner if it was stolen. After taking intro to physics, I would expect the best of the best were studying in that department
They can also get a little grappler thing that fires out the front of the patrol car, goes under the vehicle being chased, and basically lassos it.
I always find it kind of bemusing when people defending police actions use the bad apples reference. The full saying is “one bad apple spoils the bunch,” which would seem to be counter to their argument that most police are good, and instead suggest (accurately) that a few cops start off bad, and the rest of them often do bad things to protect the bad cops.
The better way to say it is that most police would not intentionally engage in criminal and/or abusive behavior, but most police would stand by while other officers did, for a number of reasons. Things like “professional courtesy” which allows officers to get away with minor crimes the rest of us would get tickets for (speeding, etc., and in some cases more significant ones like DUI). Or being understandably nervous that registering a “bad cop” complaint against a bad cop will have negative implications for the career of the officer filing the complaint. Or police unions getting bad cops put back on the job after committing significant offenses. Or at the extreme end, cops being intentionally put in danger by other cops in retaliation for speaking up. See: Frank Serpico.
The problem with police isn’t that all of them are murdering lunatics. It’s that the few murdering lunatics among them are protected by default by a system which should instead be protecting the rest of us from them.
As for police chases specifically, a lot of them are wholly unnecessary. Sure, if a guy just robbed a bank and shot the teller in the head, yeah, you need to chase that guy. He’s dangerous. But there are plenty of cases where the greater public danger is from the chase itself. Like the one in 2016 in Florida, where a teenager stole a car and then ran from cops. They chased him, he ran a red light, and killed a mom who was driving her kid to the dentist. She died over a stolen car, and of course, that car was destroyed. The cops didn’t need to chase there - they could have put out a BOLO for the stolen car and recovered it later, un-wrecked and not having killed anyone.
Or maybe they wouldn’t have recovered it. Maybe it’d have gone to a chop shop and ended up sold off for parts, but the woman would still be alive. That’s still a preferable outcome to killing people.
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@shadowfax
Thank you for your perspective. I agree with some of you points and disagree with others.
A life should not be lost over material property.
Integrity is important in any organization.
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The ability to disable a running car would be useful and maybe save lives. The privacy arguments are fun, but let’s face the facts. If someone is playing in traffic and creating a very hazardous situation they are doing it in public, out in the open for anyone to see and to react.
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