This Louisiana high speed chase could have ended very badly.
The basics first, via KSLA:
Webster Sheriff Gary Sexton said the events began to unfold when a deputy pulled over the driver of a Toyota Tacoma speeding on U.S. Highway 371.
As the deputy spoke with the driver outside the pickup, the truck’s passenger slid into the driver’s seat and sped off.
Sheriff’s deputies chased Austin at speeds reaching 115 miles per hour. The chase took deputies to Springhill before heading south on Hwy. 371.
And now, since no one died or was seriously injured, here’s video:
Some goshdamn Dukes of Hazardin' right here https://t.co/UaJBBTCL7T pic.twitter.com/2nYYpyRexi
— Bunkie Perkins (@BunkiePerkins) February 28, 2017
That’s obviously insane, and I can’t believe it actually happened. But if you’re like me, you’re wondering why the police would devise a strategy seemingly designed to divert a truck into a parking lot they haven’t cleared of bystanders.
Shrug emoji, I guess?
The truck actually flattened a Corolla, with a woman inside:
And that right there is why, generally speaking, high-speed pursuits are incredibly bad police work. Here’s a USA Today piece from 2015 noting that chases like this one have resulted in the deaths of thousands of bystanders:
More than 5,000 bystanders and passengers have been killed in police car chases since 1979, and tens of thousands more were injured as officers repeatedly pursued drivers at high speeds and in hazardous conditions, often for minor infractions, a USA TODAY analysis shows.
The bystanders and the passengers in chased cars account for nearly half of all people killed in police pursuits from 1979 through 2013, USA TODAY found. Most bystanders were killed in their own cars by a fleeing driver.
And this could have been another one, which would have turned a graphic-but-viewable viral video into a snuff film:
The pickup went airborne and landed on a Toyota Corolla parked at a restaurant.
Barbara Harlon was in that car and escaped unhurt by climbing out a passenger door.
“I felt around to see if I was hurt and could tell that I was okay,” Harlon said. “God was with me.”
That woman was inches from being killed because the police decided that chasing this kid was worth the risk of her life, or of anyone’s life.
The official stance on high speed pursuits, and perhaps the stance you’re thinking right now as well, is that this is entirely the fault of the fleeing suspect, and therefore the police are justified in any and all action taken. And sure, there’s an element of truth to that. That’s criminally reckless behavior.
But the police are supposed to be protecting the public, yet their risk-reward analysis for moments like this seems heavily flawed, with decades of evidence piled up. This isn’t to say that there’s never an instance where a high-speed pursuit makes sense. Just that the practice needs to be studied much more closely, with tactics reviewed and properly deployed to protect the lives of as many people as possible.
Anything to avoid situations like that video. That could have ended so, so badly.
[KSLA]
