did you you it is against the law for a fire truck or an ambulance to speedor break any traffic law.? they are not allowed to go above the speed limit, run red lights without stopping etc.
We had a fire truck hit a guy on a motorcycle here, they had the siren on and proceeded through the intersection.. the guy was damaged badly but lived he sued big and won. yes it is against the law to not stop for a siren or to heed the right of way for an emergency vechicle but I guess this guy didnt have a chance the truck never saw him. they said the fire truck never came to a full stop .
why are the cops allowed? are they or do they just do it anyway?
some place have it outlawed the police can not use speeding to detour or chase criminals.
for the exact reason you claim.
go to your town meeting and have a say or two you may get the laws in your town changed, for the safety of all.
It's a Catch-22. The day it becomes against the law to chase criminals, every criminal is going to step on the gas, and that may put even more people at risk.
We need better means of catching them, and we need much stiffer penalties for those who attempt to run in a vehicle.
If a criminal is in a "shoot out" with police, and suddenly runs into a crowd...the police will not return fire (at least I hope not)...I think police chases are necessary at times but wisdom should be used...
When a car dosen't stop and speeds away when a cop tries to pull them over... How does the cop know that the driver isn't an armed robber, rapeist, kidnapper etc.. but only an idiot speeding away to avoid a ticket?
The answer is, the cop dosen't know.
The police have a difficult job of, when, how or if to persue a speeding vehicle. And yes, sometimes the police make the wrong choice.
One of the basic functions of law enforcement is to enforce the law. Part of enforcing the law is persueing those who break the law.
In some states it is against the law for someone not to pull off to the side of the road when an emergency vehicle (poloce, fire, ambulance) has it's lights and siren on. In short, it's against the law not to get out of the way and stop.
Greater penalities should be levied against those who don't stop when police try to have them pull over...
I dont know how , or if its possible to train police to have common sense in these matters-Some chasing has to be done at times...but it seems that too often in the heat of the chase, something (adrenaline? emotions? pride?) take over and the ensuing chase endangers more people than the criminal would probably hurt otherwise.
Police also have a duty to protect the public.
I think generally chases are a bad idea, but if for some reason they must have them the officers should be very careful not to cross the line into public endangerment.
Well, they have radios and hellicopters in most jursidictions. It would seem that there could be a better way to apprehend somebody than a public display of brute force. With the kind of technology at their disposal, the solution has to be better than chasing somebody through a crowded downtown during rush hour, because of an expired license plate..
But I guess they have to do what they have to do.
Seems there are always better options though.
I have seen cars equipped with a little device, that if you do not enter the proper code, it travels only about a half a mile and then it pretends to break down. If you are stealing a car, and it breaks down, what are you going to do- get out and push it? That would at least take care of a lot of car theft it it was widely implemented..
But what kind of constraint should police show when pursuing nonviolent criminals in highly populated areas?
I could see not backing off if they were chasing an armed robber or a convicted rapist or a murderer.
Well -- I'll admit I don't live in a high *density* population area, but I do have a police scanner sitting here by the computer, that I have on and listen to.
Just last night -- one person was gonna be pulled over for a missing tail-light, and they took off like a bat out of hell, ignoring the lights and sirens behind them.
The ensuing chase didn't go through populated neighborhoods or anything, but when the guy was finally brought to a stop the police found many, many, many items that had been recently reported as stolen.
Like Zshot says -- the cops don't know. And if the person is running, and moving fast, they have reason to suspect anything. And if they do -- fine with me.
It's tragic if something bad happens from the chase -- but they were hired to do a job, and if that involves a chase to check out that which they are suspicious of, so be it.
I would rather lay the blame at the doorstep of the criminals, and not the police.
Those are my thoughts on the subject. If we didn't have dickheads committing crimes, we would have no need for high speed chases by the police.
The jails and the prisons are over populated now. Most people don't want to pay the taxes to build bigger facilities to hold the criminals. Meth has made a horrible crime wave in Nebraska. A woman in recovery was featured in the newspaper only to return to using and get cuaght. We had a 15 year old that had the cops chasing her and thank goodness no one got hurt.
It is a bad deal for these high rate of speed car chases.
A really bad deal. I was asking Oak tonight what on earth has happened to people having respect for one another and behaving in a civilized manner. Heck, you can't get people to turn off the cell phones no matter where they are let alone follow the law.
Well, they have radios and hellicopters in most jursidictions. It would seem that there could be a better way to apprehend somebody than a public display of brute force. With the kind of technology at their disposal, the solution has to be better than chasing somebody through a crowded downtown during rush hour, because of an expired license plate..
Mr H -- see my post above. If the *offender* has an expired plate, and is running fast -- there is probably a reason. And in my (IMHO) that person is worthy of pursuit.
Mr H -- see my post above. If the *offender* has an expired plate, and is running fast -- there is probably a reason. And in my (IMHO) that person is worthy of pursuit.
"
I'm so torn on this. I'm sure the mother of the 6-year-old boy who was killed on his way home from school might question that.
I agree with Satori that it's a catch-22. On one hand, you don't want criminals to know that they can speed off and no one will chase them, but is the life of an adorable little 6-year-old boy walking home from school worth a ticket for expired plates?
Sheesh. Can't they shoot out the tires like in the movies or something? Is there no alternative to driving through heavy traffic at 80 or 90 mph and killing innocent bystanders?
Mr. Ham, I think those devices you described should be standard equipment on all cars. That sure should cut down on car thefts and hence on the need to chase after people driving stolen cars.
I'm sure the mother of the 6-year-old boy who was killed on his way home from school might question that.
I sure do...what 'many many stolen items' could be worth that price? Nothing i can think of..
As i said earlier the police's first responsibility is to protect the public-- that's the reason they enforce the law...If enforcing the law endangers the public then they have defeated their own purpose and have to find another way...
They could probably develop some sort of electronic disabling device if they set their minds to it
It is always tragic when an innocent life is taken away.
As reikilady pointed out, there are more criminals than we have jail cells for them. (and why people turn to commiting crimes could be a topic for another thread)
Police are trained in high speed chases. It's the crimminal that is fleeing the police that usually ending up hurting other people.
Mstar brought up one senerio about stolen property.
There are also many other senerio's that the police have to deal with as well...
smuggling people
smuggling drugs
smuggling explosive devices
impaired driver (drugs or alchol)
other criminal activities
We also don't know what criminal activities the police are on the watch for, and a vehicle being pulled over might match a description of a vehicle of that belongs to someone who has commited a horrible crime. (and that could be the reason for the car not pulling over and hence, the high speed chase).
I'm so torn on this. I'm sure the mother of the 6-year-old boy who was killed on his way home from school might question that.
Linda -- I agree totally
100%
Absolutely
Unequivicably (sp?)
But the men/women in the cop car have a job to do.
They have radio and phones, but what they do not have is the pertinent info of whomever is driving that vehicle, and why they choose to flee a pursuing officer.
That being said, (I hope I don't sound callous here), it's a tragedy when accidents happen. Nothing like that has happened in our area, but then again (I think I said this earlier), this town is not as *populated* as Cleveland.
Regardless -- a policeman has a job to do, and if they feel it neccesary to implement a *chase* or whatever they feel neccessary, they would be derelict in duty, if they did not follow through.
Again -- I fault the criminals more than I do the police.
I sure do...what 'many many stolen items' could be worth that price? Nothing i can think of..
And I agree with this statement too. But again -- I will not lay the blame at the doorstep of the police threshold, but rather at that of the person who is suspect.
The *miscreant* is the cause of it all, not the police. Why is that so hard to understand? -->
If a criminal is in a "shoot out" with police, and suddenly runs into a crowd...the police will not return fire (at least I hope not)...I think police chases are necessary at times but wisdom should be used...
Who knows these days. That's not what happened when little Suzie Pena in LA was being held hostage by her own father. The little 19 month old baby was shot by police fire. Granted the father was firing at Police. It was a terrible and extreme tragedy. Every time I see that baby's picture on the news, my heart aches. Surely there could have been another way to handle the situation. If I understand the story correctly, the police were there because the father was threatening his family. If police had not surrounded his business (where he had cameras showing him the police surrounding him), he may not have reacted so extremely even if he was under the influence.
It is a Catch-22. I hate to see that children, or any innocent bystanders, get killed or hurt in police actions. Is it always worth getting the bad guy???
The *miscreant* is the cause of it all, not the police. Why is that so hard to understand?
That part isn't hard to understand at all. That's why I said in my opening post: "Of course the car thieves and the kid with the outstanding warrant were ultimately to blame when these tragedies happened."
See, we agree. :-) I didn't start this topic to blame the police.
I'd just like to see some new technology or a new method for determining when and how police chases should be carried out, so that this wouldn't happen so often. There was another incident I didn't even mention that happened a couple months ago in which a mom and her infant were badly injured.
Police departments feel the same conflict & catch-22. They are constantly refining their chase procedures looking for the balance between enforcement & safety. It's a difficult problem and it won't be solved. Refined, improved: yes. Solved: no.
the guy with the baby hostage made me sick as well..
the way I heard it he was firing his gun and an officer was hit that is when they opened fire and killed the baby.
I want to think he would have killed the child with his own gun shooting it off and they had the right call, but I think cops are jumpy esp. whenone of "their own" gets shot.
if they had not returned fire would he have stopped and calmed down when he ran out of bullets I do not know. but either way those cops have a memory I wouldnt want to live with everyday.
if they had not returned fire would he have stopped and calmed down when he ran out of bullets I do not know.
Good point here MJ. Surely the guy couldn't have had an arsenal in his business....but you never know that either. He was under the influence, and he saw the police surrounding him on the monitors of the cameras he had around his building. I know people under the influence make terrible decisions and can be more than delusional. Maybe the Police did get jumpy because of the guy who was shot in the shoulder. There always seems to be an unconditional retaliation by the Police if they are fired at.
It's all just a terrible part of our society these days. There are no real answers because every situation is different. But I would think that if crazy people are provoked even further by guns or chases, maybe some situations wouldn't have ended up so badly. If the crazy gets away, is it worse than an innocent child or adult getting killed? I think not.
I protect me and mine by getting the **** out of the way! Sirens and lights should signal decent folk to get out of the way. How many times have you seen crowds gather along the curb to watch a wreck about to happen?
In every case when a child is killed in one of these tragedies, had their parents or responsible adults got them to safety this wouldn’t have happened. Our police and emergency professionals have their hands tied enough without idiots getting in the way, or in many cases not getting out of the way.
I know of one good cop that died because they were in hot pursuit of burglars in a stolen car and were ordered to stand down. This gave the criminals time to get to an apartment building and lay and wait for the police. Life and death was determined in less them 5 minutes. Beautiful little babies lost their daddy, about made me cry while working on those apartments and the bullet holes were still there 2 years later.
Their jobs are to serve and protect! Why not help them by getting out of the way? Oh, that’s right; what ever we are doing is more important!
Wingnut, nothing pi$$es me off more than people who don't pull over for emergency vehicles. The people who were killed weren't killed because they failed to yield to an emergency vehicle. They were hit by the person who was being chased.
Perhaps you've never been in traffic when all of a sudden a police car comes speeding toward you lickety split and the siren doesn't go on until the car is almost on you. I have. On a crowded city street with both lanes bumper to bumper, sometimes there's nowhere to go!
I think it's ridiculous to blame the innocent bystanders who were killed--not because they didn't get out of the way, but perhaps because they couldn't or because the crook being chased didn't happen to have his siren on!
Mr H -- see my post above. If the *offender* has an expired plate, and is running fast -- there is probably a reason. And in my (IMHO) that person is worthy of pursuit.
Yep. And then I figure they've got to do what they've got to do.
Probably a lot of what they do is written in a standard operating procedure somewhere too.
Just personally, I think a little more stealth would go a long way. But who knows- maybe the criminals would cry foul because the cops wouldn't be playing fair..
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mj412
did you you it is against the law for a fire truck or an ambulance to speedor break any traffic law.? they are not allowed to go above the speed limit, run red lights without stopping etc.
We had a fire truck hit a guy on a motorcycle here, they had the siren on and proceeded through the intersection.. the guy was damaged badly but lived he sued big and won. yes it is against the law to not stop for a siren or to heed the right of way for an emergency vechicle but I guess this guy didnt have a chance the truck never saw him. they said the fire truck never came to a full stop .
why are the cops allowed? are they or do they just do it anyway?
some place have it outlawed the police can not use speeding to detour or chase criminals.
for the exact reason you claim.
go to your town meeting and have a say or two you may get the laws in your town changed, for the safety of all.
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satori001
It's a Catch-22. The day it becomes against the law to chase criminals, every criminal is going to step on the gas, and that may put even more people at risk.
We need better means of catching them, and we need much stiffer penalties for those who attempt to run in a vehicle.
Other than that, I don't know.
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GrouchoMarxJr
If a criminal is in a "shoot out" with police, and suddenly runs into a crowd...the police will not return fire (at least I hope not)...I think police chases are necessary at times but wisdom should be used...
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Zshot
When a car dosen't stop and speeds away when a cop tries to pull them over... How does the cop know that the driver isn't an armed robber, rapeist, kidnapper etc.. but only an idiot speeding away to avoid a ticket?
The answer is, the cop dosen't know.
The police have a difficult job of, when, how or if to persue a speeding vehicle. And yes, sometimes the police make the wrong choice.
One of the basic functions of law enforcement is to enforce the law. Part of enforcing the law is persueing those who break the law.
In some states it is against the law for someone not to pull off to the side of the road when an emergency vehicle (poloce, fire, ambulance) has it's lights and siren on. In short, it's against the law not to get out of the way and stop.
Greater penalities should be levied against those who don't stop when police try to have them pull over...
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mstar1
I dont know how , or if its possible to train police to have common sense in these matters-Some chasing has to be done at times...but it seems that too often in the heat of the chase, something (adrenaline? emotions? pride?) take over and the ensuing chase endangers more people than the criminal would probably hurt otherwise.
Police also have a duty to protect the public.
I think generally chases are a bad idea, but if for some reason they must have them the officers should be very careful not to cross the line into public endangerment.
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Ham
Well, they have radios and hellicopters in most jursidictions. It would seem that there could be a better way to apprehend somebody than a public display of brute force. With the kind of technology at their disposal, the solution has to be better than chasing somebody through a crowded downtown during rush hour, because of an expired license plate..
But I guess they have to do what they have to do.
Seems there are always better options though.
I have seen cars equipped with a little device, that if you do not enter the proper code, it travels only about a half a mile and then it pretends to break down. If you are stealing a car, and it breaks down, what are you going to do- get out and push it? That would at least take care of a lot of car theft it it was widely implemented..
There are dozens of these kind of ideas.
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coolchef1248 @adelphia.net
the police are here to serve and protect
and for the most part i think they do
but as far as a high speed chase i think a little wisdom goes a long ways'.
any police here care to commet?
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dmiller
Well -- I'll admit I don't live in a high *density* population area, but I do have a police scanner sitting here by the computer, that I have on and listen to.
Just last night -- one person was gonna be pulled over for a missing tail-light, and they took off like a bat out of hell, ignoring the lights and sirens behind them.
The ensuing chase didn't go through populated neighborhoods or anything, but when the guy was finally brought to a stop the police found many, many, many items that had been recently reported as stolen.
Like Zshot says -- the cops don't know. And if the person is running, and moving fast, they have reason to suspect anything. And if they do -- fine with me.
It's tragic if something bad happens from the chase -- but they were hired to do a job, and if that involves a chase to check out that which they are suspicious of, so be it.
I would rather lay the blame at the doorstep of the criminals, and not the police.
Those are my thoughts on the subject. If we didn't have dickheads committing crimes, we would have no need for high speed chases by the police.
David
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reikilady
The jails and the prisons are over populated now. Most people don't want to pay the taxes to build bigger facilities to hold the criminals. Meth has made a horrible crime wave in Nebraska. A woman in recovery was featured in the newspaper only to return to using and get cuaght. We had a 15 year old that had the cops chasing her and thank goodness no one got hurt.
It is a bad deal for these high rate of speed car chases.
A really bad deal. I was asking Oak tonight what on earth has happened to people having respect for one another and behaving in a civilized manner. Heck, you can't get people to turn off the cell phones no matter where they are let alone follow the law.
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dmiller
Mr H -- see my post above. If the *offender* has an expired plate, and is running fast -- there is probably a reason. And in my (IMHO) that person is worthy of pursuit.
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Linda Z
David said:
"I'm so torn on this. I'm sure the mother of the 6-year-old boy who was killed on his way home from school might question that.
I agree with Satori that it's a catch-22. On one hand, you don't want criminals to know that they can speed off and no one will chase them, but is the life of an adorable little 6-year-old boy walking home from school worth a ticket for expired plates?
Sheesh. Can't they shoot out the tires like in the movies or something? Is there no alternative to driving through heavy traffic at 80 or 90 mph and killing innocent bystanders?
Mr. Ham, I think those devices you described should be standard equipment on all cars. That sure should cut down on car thefts and hence on the need to chase after people driving stolen cars.
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mstar1
I sure do...what 'many many stolen items' could be worth that price? Nothing i can think of..
As i said earlier the police's first responsibility is to protect the public-- that's the reason they enforce the law...If enforcing the law endangers the public then they have defeated their own purpose and have to find another way...
They could probably develop some sort of electronic disabling device if they set their minds to it
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Zshot
It is always tragic when an innocent life is taken away.
As reikilady pointed out, there are more criminals than we have jail cells for them. (and why people turn to commiting crimes could be a topic for another thread)
Police are trained in high speed chases. It's the crimminal that is fleeing the police that usually ending up hurting other people.
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Zshot
Mstar brought up one senerio about stolen property.
There are also many other senerio's that the police have to deal with as well...
smuggling people
smuggling drugs
smuggling explosive devices
impaired driver (drugs or alchol)
other criminal activities
We also don't know what criminal activities the police are on the watch for, and a vehicle being pulled over might match a description of a vehicle of that belongs to someone who has commited a horrible crime. (and that could be the reason for the car not pulling over and hence, the high speed chase).
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dmiller
Linda -- I agree totally
100%
Absolutely
Unequivicably (sp?)
But the men/women in the cop car have a job to do.
They have radio and phones, but what they do not have is the pertinent info of whomever is driving that vehicle, and why they choose to flee a pursuing officer.
That being said, (I hope I don't sound callous here), it's a tragedy when accidents happen. Nothing like that has happened in our area, but then again (I think I said this earlier), this town is not as *populated* as Cleveland.
Regardless -- a policeman has a job to do, and if they feel it neccesary to implement a *chase* or whatever they feel neccessary, they would be derelict in duty, if they did not follow through.
Again -- I fault the criminals more than I do the police.
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dmiller
And I agree with this statement too. But again -- I will not lay the blame at the doorstep of the police threshold, but rather at that of the person who is suspect.
The *miscreant* is the cause of it all, not the police. Why is that so hard to understand?
-->
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Nottawayfer
Who knows these days. That's not what happened when little Suzie Pena in LA was being held hostage by her own father. The little 19 month old baby was shot by police fire. Granted the father was firing at Police. It was a terrible and extreme tragedy. Every time I see that baby's picture on the news, my heart aches. Surely there could have been another way to handle the situation. If I understand the story correctly, the police were there because the father was threatening his family. If police had not surrounded his business (where he had cameras showing him the police surrounding him), he may not have reacted so extremely even if he was under the influence.
It is a Catch-22. I hate to see that children, or any innocent bystanders, get killed or hurt in police actions. Is it always worth getting the bad guy???
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Linda Z
That part isn't hard to understand at all. That's why I said in my opening post: "Of course the car thieves and the kid with the outstanding warrant were ultimately to blame when these tragedies happened."
See, we agree. :-) I didn't start this topic to blame the police.
I'd just like to see some new technology or a new method for determining when and how police chases should be carried out, so that this wouldn't happen so often. There was another incident I didn't even mention that happened a couple months ago in which a mom and her infant were badly injured.
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TheEvan
Police departments feel the same conflict & catch-22. They are constantly refining their chase procedures looking for the balance between enforcement & safety. It's a difficult problem and it won't be solved. Refined, improved: yes. Solved: no.
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mj412
the guy with the baby hostage made me sick as well..
the way I heard it he was firing his gun and an officer was hit that is when they opened fire and killed the baby.
I want to think he would have killed the child with his own gun shooting it off and they had the right call, but I think cops are jumpy esp. whenone of "their own" gets shot.
if they had not returned fire would he have stopped and calmed down when he ran out of bullets I do not know. but either way those cops have a memory I wouldnt want to live with everyday.
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Nottawayfer
Good point here MJ. Surely the guy couldn't have had an arsenal in his business....but you never know that either. He was under the influence, and he saw the police surrounding him on the monitors of the cameras he had around his building. I know people under the influence make terrible decisions and can be more than delusional. Maybe the Police did get jumpy because of the guy who was shot in the shoulder. There always seems to be an unconditional retaliation by the Police if they are fired at.
It's all just a terrible part of our society these days. There are no real answers because every situation is different. But I would think that if crazy people are provoked even further by guns or chases, maybe some situations wouldn't have ended up so badly. If the crazy gets away, is it worse than an innocent child or adult getting killed? I think not.
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wingnut
I protect me and mine by getting the **** out of the way! Sirens and lights should signal decent folk to get out of the way. How many times have you seen crowds gather along the curb to watch a wreck about to happen?
In every case when a child is killed in one of these tragedies, had their parents or responsible adults got them to safety this wouldn’t have happened. Our police and emergency professionals have their hands tied enough without idiots getting in the way, or in many cases not getting out of the way.
I know of one good cop that died because they were in hot pursuit of burglars in a stolen car and were ordered to stand down. This gave the criminals time to get to an apartment building and lay and wait for the police. Life and death was determined in less them 5 minutes. Beautiful little babies lost their daddy, about made me cry while working on those apartments and the bullet holes were still there 2 years later.
Their jobs are to serve and protect! Why not help them by getting out of the way? Oh, that’s right; what ever we are doing is more important!
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Linda Z
Wingnut, nothing pi$$es me off more than people who don't pull over for emergency vehicles. The people who were killed weren't killed because they failed to yield to an emergency vehicle. They were hit by the person who was being chased.
Perhaps you've never been in traffic when all of a sudden a police car comes speeding toward you lickety split and the siren doesn't go on until the car is almost on you. I have. On a crowded city street with both lanes bumper to bumper, sometimes there's nowhere to go!
I think it's ridiculous to blame the innocent bystanders who were killed--not because they didn't get out of the way, but perhaps because they couldn't or because the crook being chased didn't happen to have his siren on!
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Ham
Yep. And then I figure they've got to do what they've got to do.
Probably a lot of what they do is written in a standard operating procedure somewhere too.
Just personally, I think a little more stealth would go a long way. But who knows- maybe the criminals would cry foul because the cops wouldn't be playing fair..
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