6 family members dead! Enough with these freaking car chases already....

[busterbrown]

In texas they are not suppose to chase unless a felony crime is involved...
My God... a whole family wiped out because of a piece of shit car thief and cops who are probably addicted to the rush of a pursuit...http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/boy-3-lone-survivor-police-chase-crash-article-1.1426355

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/boy-3-lone-survivor-police-chase-crash-article-1.1426355

[gopiscrap]

1. Fucking asshole cops

they need to stop taking all those roids and also to remember the people who pay their salaries!

[flvegan]

7. "roids?"

[mwrguy]

33. steroids

The PD drug of choice.

[kardonb]

16. cops

what on earth is going on here ? All of a sudden all the cops are the bad guys , and the bad guys are saints ? What are police suppposed to do , just say "naughty naughty " , and let wrongdoers get away with crimes ? Get real here , please .

[MillennialDem]

18. No, chasing is pointless. Just follow the car at a distance and arrest the suspect when he or she

stops or runs out of gas. If he or she gets away on foot and abandons the car, dust it for prints.

[Gravitycollapse]

22. You cannot convict someone of a crime because their finger prints show up.

A perfect example of this is in fact the car chase. If the suspect gives chase and exits the vehicle without being observed by the police, they will have a very hard time finding a judge who would uphold any charges.

[MillennialDem]

23. If it's a STOLEN car and you get their prints, then you damn well can convict them. How does

"John Jones" explain why his prints are in "Sally Smith's" car when Sally Smith says she's never even met John Jones?

[Gravitycollapse]

24. He doesn't have to explain why. The state cannot demonstrate he was the one who stole the car.

Finger prints are not magical single evidence tools for conviction. This isn't a movie. The fact that someone's finger prints are on a stolen vehicle merely demonstrates that person laid his or her hand down on the vehicle. It does not prove anything else.

[MillennialDem]

25. If his prints are in the INTERIOR of the car...

[Gravitycollapse]

26. Then it demonstrates that he was, at some point, inside the car. Not that he stole it.

Or even that he was there when the car was stolen.

[MillennialDem]

27. Then he gets charged with breaking and entering, because Sally Smith says she never

met him and never gave him permission to be inside her car.

[Gravitycollapse]

29. Again, fingerprints are not sufficient evidence to convict.

I have been in dozens of houses for parties where the owners would never be able to remember me. They could argue potentially that they never gave me permission to be the in house. That does nothing to prove that my finger prints on the kitchen counter came to be there because I broke into the home.

[MillennialDem]

31. Was there a theft involved at the same time you were in said kitchen, and are your prints near where

said theft took place, and are your prints one of a series of dozens of said prints or just a lone set of prints (other than maybe the residents of the house)?

If some dude took my car, the only prints in it would be his and mine and I could sure as hell say yeah I remember I never let him drive it.

Totally different scenarios.

[Blue_Tires]

38. in theory, cops are supposed to utilize things like radio and a helicopter

since no driver can outrun those....

[ManiacJoe]

50. How many depts do you think have helicopters?

Helicopters are expensive to use and maintain.

[Blue_Tires]

53. All it takes is a call to the state highway patrol...

The DPS Aircraft Operations Division is composed of 48 pilots, 16 tactical flight officers. The Division currently runs a fleet of 14 American Eurocopter AS350 helicopters, one American Eurocopter EC145 twin engine helicopter, seven single engine Cessna airplanes and a twin engine Aero Commander airplane. All of the DPS pilots hold commercial pilot licenses with instrument ratings, and receive recurrent pilot training annually. All DPS pilots are also certified in night vision goggle (NVG) flight operations.

DPS Aircraft Section pilots are promoted from within the Texas Department of Public Safety. The Section responds to a large spectrum of law enforcement support requests including pursuits, manhunts, search and rescue, disaster relief, surveillance, aerial photography, criminal transport, domestic marijuana eradication, and border security operations. The Section supports not only DPS personnel, but also requests for assistance from any law enforcement agency within the State of Texas.

http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/AviationOperationSupport/

[HangOnKids]

49. More classic comedy from you

"wrongdoers" that is priceless.

[Logical]

52. I have no idea if you are even serious.n-t

[erpowers]

2. Shoot Out The Tires

I think the rule should be once a driver starts trying to get away from police that driver's tires should be shot out. I think the real problem comes when the car chases are allowed to go on for a long time.

[Fumesucker]

3. What could possibly go wrong with that?

[erpowers]

4. I Know It Has Its Own Risks

I know shooting out tires has its own risks, but I think it can be done in a safe way that quickly ends police chases.

[Gravitycollapse]

6. In what way is shooting out the gripping aspect of the power train safe?

[Spitfire of ATJ]

13. As cool as that sounds it's really hard to aim in a moving car....

Despite the evidence from Hollywood movies.














.........and roadside signs in the South.

[SeattleVet]

17. Definitely not as easy as it sounds...

in addition to being a big danger to everyone around. You need to have the right angle, and a high enough powered firearm and ammunition, in addition to being an incredibly lucky shot.

The last time I shot at a tire the round bounced right back at me, and I got to hear it whizzing by my ear as it went by; that was with a .30 caliber rifle. Never shot at another tire again.

[MillennialDem]

19. That's far more difficult than it looks.

[Politicalboi]

28. That NEVER works

I love this movie

[kentauros]

42. Radiowaves travel faster than any known vehicle on the planet.

So, cop radios ahead for this fellow officers to deploy one of those tire-shredding strips along with their vehicles blocking the sides of the road outside of the shredding strip. From what I've seen, those things can be deployed fast and are quite effective. Why didn't they do that instead?

[niyad]

5. back in the mid 90's, after several innocent people had died as the result of a number of police

chases of stolen vehicles, the sheriff basically said, "too bad, so sad, but the cars are more important than the innocent bystanders". it was sickening.

[Gravitycollapse]

8. I know many jurisdictions will not allow chases during certain times of the day.

If traffic is too heavy, or if the conditions are potentially dangerous, the police don't generally have the authority to continue a chase.

[niyad]

9. had not ever heard that--certainly was not true in florida. would love to know where such common

sense rules apply.

[Gravitycollapse]

11. I was always under the assumption that such restrictions were applied everywhere.

[Archae]

10. I have my doubts as to that having been said.

I did a Google search for that phrase and came up empty.

As to this chase, there was a felony.
Grand theft auto.

The thug tried to run away after the crash, but was caught.

*HE* deserves to be charged with 6 counts of murder, in addition to eluding and theft.

But what the heck.
The crook drives off, the cops should just let 'em all go.

[nomorenomore08]

12. Letting him get away is sure as hell the lesser evil, compared to killing a family of 6...

nt

[niyad]

34. you may have your doubts, and I clearly indicated it was not an exact quote, but I heard him

and was stunned that anyone could say anything like that.

and yes, I know gta, and nobody said just let the thief go. but nice deflection.

[Archae]

35. So what are the cops supposed to do?

Technology has improved police chases, made them FAR safer than they used to be.

"Stop Sticks," and tactics such as bumping the chasee and spinning them around does work.

In this case you had a vicious thug, (his rap sheet had armed robbery, assault, carjacking, etc,) who was on a tear with that stolen truck.

[niyad]

36. and six INNOCENT people are dead

[dickthegrouch]

37. Shoot ink at the escaping car

If they had the same kind of indelible ink that is used for tracking stolen banknotes, in sufficient quantities, the crook is highly likely to get some on him and be much more easily found. Also makes the paneling of the car useless (not as easily sold or chop shopped).

If it causes the crook to have to stop because he can't see through the windshield any longer it's a win all-around.

[Archae]

40. Except if the crook is blinded he or she is more likely to crash.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

14. This is what happens when you value property over people....

The mindset was to save the car as if that stolen car was the victim.

Not the owner.

The car itself.

[Stonepounder]

15. Again and again I see rush to judgement here on DU.

When cops see a stolen car they have no way of knowing why the car was stolen or what the driver is up to. I would love to see the comments when there is a story where police broke off a chase and the perp turns out to be high on meth and decides to start shooting pedestrians. I suspect we would hear the same railing against the police. Or suppose they broke off the chase and the driver turned out to have just murdered his wife and kids and was heading to his wife's parents house to kill them as well? All I hear here is second guessing without all the facts.

Now, go ahead and scream at me about not agreeing with y'all.

[SharonAnn]

20. He hit a Suburban? A Suburban? With that kind of damage? Wow!

[FarCenter]

51. He was driving a Ford F-250 Pickup

Most likely no one in the Suburban was belted or in child seats, and they were T-boned by the pickup.

However, they couldn't have been hit too hard, since the perp drove away after the collision.

This was down in South Texas, northwest of McAllen in a semi rural area of citrus groves with a rectangular road grid.

[jtuck004]

21. The felony, the stolen truck they were so hot to stop, was a week old, with nothing else

but imaginary might-have-done-or-might-do-something-else to bolster the case for a pursuit.

Don't people understand? If they had let him drive off they might have had to catch him on, say, next Tuesday. Justice demands we kill innocent people to get the bad guy right now, doesn't it? It's not like we have brains that can reason any further than our noses. Besides, we can be sure he would have taken an axe to a bunch of Girl Scouts had we let him get away. We just know he would have.

Anyway, it would be somewhat hypocritical for us to be killing, as we are, hundreds of innocent kids with drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and not do this here.

Meanwhile, we can just add their names to the lists, and recite our favorite excuses...

Oh yeah. Rest in Peace, mom, dad, and kids.

[Warpy]

30. I can see no reason for a high speed chase unless there is a hostage involved

especially a kid in a carjacked vehicle. Low speed tracking is much better.

Just stealing a vehicle and taking it for a joy ride should not provoke a high speed pursuit from the cops. Not ever.

[telclaven]

39. Oh my f'ing God!

People don't steal cars to take joy rides.

[Warpy]

45. Sure they do.

Then they go to the chop shop and get paid.

[telclaven]

46. That's an entirely different connotation

Joy ride implies unauthorized borrowing. Taking to a chop shop is grand theft auto.

[DallasNE]

32. Shabby Police Work Here

The F250 was reported stolen a week earlier. It seems to me that the smart thing to do would have been to set out a spike strip to take out the tires then have a roadblock to finish the job rather than an extremely dangerous high speed chase that all too often ends in disaster, as happened here. But then nobody has accused the police of being too smart lately.

[muriel_volestrangler]

41. How do you get the truck on its own on a road, if you can't chase it?

You have to know where it's going, and you have to have a clear road ahead of it that you can put the spikes on. We know it was not alone on the road - it hit another vehicle at an intersection, with witnesses. How would you sort that out if you don't chase the truck?

[DallasNE]

47. You Radio Ahead

And you follow at a discrete distance with lights and siren off. Standard police work.

[muriel_volestrangler]

48. And when he turns at the intersection?

We know there's an intersection - it's where the guy who stole the truck killed 6 people. Or are you saying you can get police ready with spikes on all the possible routes he can take?

[JVS]

43. Would it help to increase the punishments for stealing cars and leading chases?

Something like 10 years per mile traveled in a chase?

[Ilsa]

44. My God. This is horrific. DPS needs to be

held responsible too, not just the car thief.