Quote:
Originally Posted by speeder
I respectfully disagree with Higgins about the helicopter noise, when they are flying low overhead with buildings creating echos, you cannot hear yourself think. I’ve often thought that LAPD overuses them and the noise creates this exact situation, where you can’t hear the cops yelling commands.
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Granted, I have never been personally involved in a situation like this, but like many of us, I've watched plenty of news footage after one has taken place. What I see is the helicopter maintaining some altitude while they are still searching for the suspect. Doing so takes advantage of the very reason they use them - sight lines. These increase with altitude. They are not "on the deck" while still searching, that would defeat the purpose of them being there in the first place. They would have no better visibility of the area than those on the ground. Yes, they get in pretty close when they have a suspect pretty well cornered, but I get the impression that they had not done so prior to the engagement under discussion. That, and beyond being likely several hundred feet up in the air, we do not know how how close the helicopter was in terms of distance on the ground. It could have been blocks away. That is, of course, speculation, but I believe the altitude it would have been holding while still in "search mode" would have been sufficient to allow the officers' voices to be heard.