Have you been chased by cops?

[SoCal Driver]

Live TV.

[scheistermeiste]

you know youre in trouble when..... you have more cop cars behind you than you do teeth

[Don 944 LA]

Damn, they didn't get my good side

Gotta love southern california.... cop chases get so bad cuz they ar afraid of violating the civil rights of the drivers so they just get everyone and everything after them till they run outa gas or are stupid enough to hit a spike strip.


__________________
1984/85 944na
Gold exterior / Black interior
Los Angeles / San Diego
Lookin for ideas etc...

[Blackfoot]

i was visiting my bro in redondo beach summer '99...turned on tv early morning news, copter view of a guy going south on the 5 being chased by many cops.

just before reaching mexico, he ran out of gas in the middle of the highway. cops stopped about 50 yards behind, guy gets out of car with a gun in hand and moves towards cops, he is immediately shot dead in the middle of the 5 on LIVE tv, it was sickening.

_______________
still too many cars

[Brando]

that's SoCal for ya.

COPS... Killing in front of a Live, Televised audience!!!

[flangermog]

Man, your cops are heavy handed!

I'm sure there would be a whole lot less drama if they used a little bit of stealth. OK there's a stolen car heading south on a highway, send half the LAPD after them with flashing lights and sirens? Yeah thats gonna make 'em stop, If I saw that in my rear view and I'd just nicked a car I would think I was in BIG trouble and scarper pronto!

Over here, they get three cars and box in the suspect, gradually slowing them down. I know you guys have the problem that criminals carry guns and they use them but I often see these programs and can't help thinking that half the cavalry are just there for the tv cameras!

They drive so hard at the escaping car on public roads that they usually force the criminal into a mistake and they spin off the highway, often taking innocent members of the public with them.

What gets me is that the criminal gets the blame for causing all this, where in most cases they could have been aprehended with a minimum amount of fuss if they had just been given a little room. Where are they going? they're either going to reach a border (in which case they are nicked by the border cops), return to a hideout (at which point they can grab accomplices also) or just drive until they run out of fuel. I don't condone criminal behaviour or running away from the cops BUT the cops do not help themselves or the public by being heavy IMHO.

Softly softly catchy monkey...?

[bryanthompson]

I think they should just start putting rocket launchers on cop cars. It'd only take one criminal getting blown sky-high for the rest to get the point.

police chases honestly cost tens of millions of dollars per year. And we end up paying for all of it in our insurance and taxes... It should just be a general understand that if you run from the cops, you get your ass blown up.

[SoCal Driver]

flangermog, I truely don't agree with your soft hearted liberal ideas. Was a recent episode of COPS where a female officer that came here from police duty in England said she would never go back to English police duty unless she could take her gun with her.

bryanthompson, I agree with you. I would put mini-guns on police choppers.

By the way they had spiked the drivers side tires, he was running on the rims. The sparks are from the front suspension giving out. The CHP did PIT the guy but he did a 360 and kept going down the freeway. It was a stolen car and the guy was a known puke.

[mrmunky]

They need one chopper to keep tabs on the guy and two cop cars to follow him at normal speeds at a distance of a mile or so. He'll stop and get out eventually, and thats when the squads roll up with the lights on.

I'm sick of police and their tactics though, has anyone else seen the tapes of the raid on the high school in Goose Creek, SC? Turns my stomach.

My .02
Ian

[SoCal Driver]

mrmunky, Bet you are not over 22 years old. Police chases don't work the idealistic way you feel they should. Just wait till someone you know is T boned by a puke in a car speeding away from the cops. You'll be pissed that the cops didn't stop the guy sooner.

I thought that Goose Creek was a little over the top too till I read the whole facts and not what the liberal press wanted you to read.

[Dark Skies]

Originally posted by SoCal Driver
Was a recent episode of COPS where a female officer that came here from police duty in England said she would never go back to English police duty unless she could take her gun with her.

I wouldn't place too much authorotaii in anything that cops say on TV documentaries. Put a cop in front of a camera and tell them it's live TV and they just start blabbing any old bollocks like they're seeking to impress.

I saw one of those American cop docs (don't know what it was called but a smarmy bugger with gleaming white teeth and an absurd perma-tan was fronting it) ....

Anyhow this chubby lil donut scoffer was telling the camera how he was called to a domestic and was surprised by the perp waving a gun in his face (a revolver). According to this cop he didn't drop the guy because he could see a pinhole of light down the barrel revealing that the chamber was unloaded. Utter poppycock! Should have double-tapped the bugger right from the get-go. There's no way he could have seen that from a distance of ten foot with the perps body blocking the light.

As for the woman police officer saying she couldn't police in England without a gun ... shows just how much she relies on her piece rather than her brain and the authority of her office. Maybe Brit cops have more wits about them because they face the same hazards day in day out without having to rely on a cannon.

I admit I'm biased though - in my family you do your ten years or so in the army and then go into the police. I would have done too were it not for a lazy left eye (did soco instead).

I've been to the States something like thirty times now and every time I've had dealings with cops (asking directions, visiting courts as part of my degree research or whatever ) it never fails to amaze me as to how unpleasant an attitude they give you. They're always polite but it's always in that hard-stare-behind-Raybans-forced courtesy manner. You get the feeling they'd rather give you a discreet kicking than be helpul. Maybe it's a Cleveland / New York / Washington thing. At least British cops appear to be sincerely polite.

[repoman]

technology to the rescue. an up-coming device is thrown down on road, fires an emr pulse when car passes over it and fries ignition module.

no joke, under development. of course, this will make a thriving black market in pre-electronic ignition retro-fits

[bryanthompson]

this is waaay OT, but since it was brought up....

As far as the Goose Creek raid goes, i'm glad it was done. My highschool had a total of 150 people. Combine that with the fact that we are really in the middle of nowhere, and it's hard to believe there was a drug problem. Most of it was pot, but occasionally people would bring in whatever else they can get their hands on.

anyway, we had suprise drug dog visits about every two months. A few times they found a little bit, but once the searches started the students just kept their stuff in their cars. When they did ours, all students were in the middle of a class, and we were all on'lockdown in those rooms.

In the Goose Creek raid, they probably didn't need to have their guns drawn and whatnot. That may be a little extreme, but i believe in scaring people straight.

Star Telegram:
According to a report by The Post and Courier in Charleston, which reviewed a police video of the Nov. 5 incident, an officer gave the captive students this lecture:

"If you're an innocent bystander to what has transpired here today, you can thank those people that are bringing dope into this school. Every time we think there's dope in this school, we're going to be coming up here to deal with it, and this is one of the ways we can deal with it."

I don't know how Jessie jackson and the ACLU got involved in this thing, but he's a joke anyway. It's not a racial issue, but if he can make a buck off it he will.

Personally, i say test students for drugs. if they test positive, kick them out. My politics on crime are pretty harsh, but i don't play softball with criminals.

[SoCal Driver]

Dark Skies, I've very, very familiar with police work. I've worked with English police that have come over to see the US police tactics. At the end of their sabbatical they all say that the English way of policing is antiquated.

The series I'm referring to is where the camera man rides along with active duty cops and sees everything they do as it happens. Not an edited documentary. Copumentary???

I've seen officers give the puke every benefit. Sometimes to the detriment of the officer. Personally I would have plugged any one raising a gun at me.

Perhaps it's your negativity that colors the conversations with the US police. Then living on an island does keep most of the brits too warm and cozy.

[plandy]

I am no cop hugger, seen a few good and a few bad ones. Need I say a cop's job is extremely dangerous and stressfull? How many of you loud mouths think you can do better?...be gentler and kinder to criminals who flout your authority and law, ignore your command to stop and speed away like a maniac? After a few sessions with these racing idiots your lucky to find the will power not to blast them full of holes. So easy to pass judgement from the arm chair. And yer damned right the cops are going to shoot anyone approaching them with a loaded gun. Hell I'd shoot! Just about had enough of cop bashing.

Rant mode off

[Dark Skies]

Originally posted by bryanthompson
In the Goose Creek raid, they probably didn't need to have their guns drawn and whatnot. That may be a little extreme, but i believe in scaring people straight.

Reminds me of a near fcuk-up in London when some woman reported seeing a guy wearing a shoulder holster in a cafe. Armed cops were called who, after keeping him under observation for a while, rushed him and brutally wrestled him to the ground at gunpoint , forcing his face into the dirt. He'd just been about to reach for his piece.

His piece turned out to be a mobile phone which he kept in one of those velcro pouch things. I doubt if he was scared straight - more likely scared stupid with an unhealthy disrepect for the police festering away there now. Lucky they didn't top him.

[plandy]

Originally posted by Dark Skies
He'd just been about to reach for his piece. His piece turned out to be a mobile phone which he kept in one of those velcro pouch things.

Yea these things happen, now and then things screw up but not without some help from these "stupid" victims. They "reach" for things when told to FREEZE! We had a similar incidence which made national headlines in fact international. It was a case of mistaken identity the cops following the wrong guy. They cornered this poor bloke in his apt hallway and yelled to him to "freeze". Instead he reached his hands inside his pocket. He ended up with more holes than a pasta sieve. Turned out he was trying to pull out his wallet...perhaps thinking to produce his ID? This was a very tragic incident which saddned me greatly. In hindsight I believe too much force(err bullets) was applied. But the guy should have freezed when 6 cops are all pointing a gun at him! I mean how much brains does it take to figure that out. So people like that as your examples are eliminated by Darwin's natural process.

[bryanthompson]

Originally posted by Dark Skies
His piece turned out to be a mobile phone which he kept in one of those velcro pouch things.

It's easy to find cases where something went wrong. What if that guy actually did have a gun? Would you hear about that case? No. He could've pulled a gun and blown away five or six people. THAT would have been a tragedy.
Eurpoean gun-paranoia leading to a guy getting mistakenly arrested is NOT a tragedy.

[Dark Skies]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by SoCal Driver
[B]Dark Skies, I've very, very familiar with police work. I've worked with English police that have come over to see the US police tactics. At the end of their sabbatical they all say that the English way of policing is antiquated.

I'm very very familiar with police work too (I'm going back a lot of years I'll admit though) I was a fingerprint officer working SOC (like your CSI). I wouldn't say English policing was antiquated I would say it was underfunded. It's hampered by a lot of political correctness too but, having said that, I'd rather the British attitude to police (working with the respect of the community) than the American cop's 'you're all perps until proven innocent' approach.


"Personally I would have plugged any one raising a gun at me."

So would I - because of the possible risk to the officer and the surrounding public. Don't get me wrong - I'm not a bleeding heart - I just expect the rule of law to be applied without over the top attitude.

"Perhaps it's your negativity that colors the conversations with the US police. Then living on an island does keep most of the brits too warm and cozy."

Not at all. Polite is my middle name. I come from a family of cops and don't have an attitude against the law at all. But when I approach a policeman in a government building or whatever I don't see why he needs to adopt an over the top attitude.

I might look a piece of work but I'll have you know that on more than one occasion I've run down a purse snatcher and interceded in an attempted mugging. Seemingly more respectable citizens just stood around and did bugger all.

[tomeiche]

I put my foot down when i saw in my rear mirror a car bearing down on me with one headlamp out.Thought it was a ricer.Flashing blue lights dispelled the thought.Cop told me they had been targeting ricers.Got 3 points(12 and youre out) and £60 fine for excess speed.They loved the car!!I reckon the light was out on purpose.