A guy ran a red light in an Arkansas town. A cop turned on his flashers and siren. The driver sped away. The cop chased him for 1/2 hour, and finally used a PIT maneuver to stop him, at 109 mph. Both vehicles went airborne. The driver was killed, the cop injured. Obviously, a PIT at 100+ mph is very risky. But what should the cop have done? Let him keep going until he killed someone?
It seems obvious that when police pull over someone, they should pull over. But some people decide to run. The drivers most likely to flee are drunk, wanted, or habitual traffic violators who endanger others.
Let’s be clear: This driver’s death was 100% his fault. He tempted fate by doing 109 mph to elude the police. I get tired of people saying the cops should have done this or should have done that, as the woman does in this video, to save law breakers from the consequences of their behavior. (I’m not talking here about police shootings; that’s a different issue. Some aren’t justified, some are.)
The guy should have stopped when he was pulled over. He would have gotten a red light ticket instead of a ride in a hearse to a cemetery. I don’t want anybody doing 109 mph on our public roads. I don’t want to be a driver coming the other way. Or my kid to be on the school bus he might slam into at that speed. The police had to stop him. That’s my opinion.
Remember the scene in the movie “The Unforgiven” when Gene Hackman’s character says, “I don’t deserve to die like this”? And Clint Eastwood’s character replies, “Deserve’s got nothing to do with it.”
There was one thing the cop could have chosen to not do. That is chase the river. Cops have radios, and there are plenty of them out there. They also have computers and can look up plates which will tell them where to find the vehicles owner. This is a controversial policy that some departments have adopted. Typically if the driver doesn’t have the cops in the rear view mirror they are going to slow down, or be abe to concentrate on their driving.