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SYSK Selects: How Police Chases Work · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's me Josh, your old pal, your old buddy,
0:04
Speaker 1: and I'm here with another s Y s K Selects
0:07
Speaker 1: and this week it's all about police chases. We release
0:10
Speaker 1: this episode back in May of two thousand thirteen, and
0:13
Speaker 1: it's one of those things where you think you have
0:16
Speaker 1: an idea about how something works or what something is,
0:19
Speaker 1: and the more you dig into it, the more you
0:21
Speaker 1: realize that, like, wow, we've all just kind of been
0:23
Speaker 1: going along with this thing that probably shouldn't exist. So
0:27
Speaker 1: it was a real eye opening experience to me. And
0:29
Speaker 1: I hope even if you've heard the episode before that
0:32
Speaker 1: you find it an eye opening Again, let's all just
0:36
Speaker 1: watch our eyes open. If you can do such a thing,
0:40
Speaker 1: I don't even know if that's possible. Welcome to Stuff
0:45
Speaker 1: You should know a production of I Heart Radios How
0:48
Speaker 1: Stuff Works, d do Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
0:57
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, who's uh
1:01
Speaker 1: do you know? Someone on Twitter said that every time
1:04
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant giggles, a baby bunny is born. Yeah, and
1:08
Speaker 1: they be it to Wow. I love being responsible for
1:11
Speaker 1: all that joy in the world. You're doing it, man, so,
1:14
Speaker 1: I guess you just opened the show with you were
1:17
Speaker 1: being chased by a police car in Great Britain. Just
1:19
Speaker 1: you did a British Sorry, I guess it was yeah
1:25
Speaker 1: to do that. In the United States, we have different
1:26
Speaker 1: sounding sirens. Well, well in these days, it's all kinds
1:31
Speaker 1: of crazy, like beeps and whistles. It's like that's like
1:35
Speaker 1: an American police cruiser today. Wow, this is getting off
1:39
Speaker 1: to a great start. Let's let's try to keep it
1:42
Speaker 1: on the track, all right, on the U E V
1:45
Speaker 1: O C track. Yeah, this is what this is in
1:48
Speaker 1: our long running law enforcement series. You know, it's unequaled
1:53
Speaker 1: by any other topic except for death. I think you think,
1:57
Speaker 1: I think death might have it beat. Okay, may be not, though,
2:01
Speaker 1: we'll find out. All right. Uh I let's go count
2:04
Speaker 1: them after this, Okay, Chuck. Have you ever been in
2:07
Speaker 1: a police chase? Um? Have you ever been the object
2:13
Speaker 1: of pursuit in a police chase? Yeah? I was not driving.
2:16
Speaker 1: I was in a car one time when my friend
2:18
Speaker 1: decided to run from the cops. Wow, we lay it
2:22
Speaker 1: on us. Well, you know, it was just one of
2:24
Speaker 1: those things. We were in Athens and he made a
2:26
Speaker 1: very bad decision and uh, we got away with it,
2:30
Speaker 1: no way. Yeah, we'll see. That's something that I find
2:33
Speaker 1: extremely interesting because I didn't realize until reading this article that, um,
2:39
Speaker 1: there are very few circumstances where a cop should feel
2:43
Speaker 1: justified or would be justified in chasing you. Right. But
2:48
Speaker 1: that said, there are almost no laws whatsoever restricting police chases.
2:54
Speaker 1: It's this weird gray area. And I actually found there's
2:56
Speaker 1: activists online or saying, like say no to police chases,
3:01
Speaker 1: like restrict police chases, like create laws against police chases
3:04
Speaker 1: because these things are deadly and dangerous. Yeah. I think
3:06
Speaker 1: what about a hundred and forty innocent civilians were killed
3:10
Speaker 1: last year? Yeah, three about a person a day on
3:13
Speaker 1: average dies from a police chase, and about a third
3:16
Speaker 1: of those. But yeah, last hundred forty or just innocent bystanders.
3:20
Speaker 1: Yeah that I mean that happened in Atlanta. That's happened
3:23
Speaker 1: in Atlanta a couple of times recently. One time the
3:25
Speaker 1: trainer for the Atlanta Braves his because he lost his
3:29
Speaker 1: wife to a cop smashing into her. And um, then
3:33
Speaker 1: again more recently there was another case. I think it
3:36
Speaker 1: was a kid or something, but it was like it
3:37
Speaker 1: was sort of in the news lately. Yeah, And I
3:39
Speaker 1: mean you get the impression that and cops died too,
3:43
Speaker 1: Like high speed pursuit is their high speed pursuing. That's
3:46
Speaker 1: dangerous for everybody involved, including the cop. Um, but you
3:49
Speaker 1: get the impression that, like whatever the circumstances, is just
3:54
Speaker 1: just not pulling over for being for a for a
3:57
Speaker 1: cop trying to pull you over is reason enough to
4:01
Speaker 1: get the cops tackles raised enough to chase you. Yeah,
4:04
Speaker 1: right off the bat. I think that would be any
4:05
Speaker 1: cops instinct, is gun it not? Like, well, let me
4:09
Speaker 1: check into his record and call my supervisor and see
4:12
Speaker 1: if they allow this, which a lot of times this policy.
4:15
Speaker 1: Now as we'll see, um, there are procedures in place
4:17
Speaker 1: to kind of try to tamp down that emotion of
4:20
Speaker 1: the primary departmental policy. Basically though, like you said, not
4:24
Speaker 1: law right, So well let's let's talk about this. Um Okay.
4:28
Speaker 1: When you go through the academy and you um get
4:31
Speaker 1: all your training, your gun training, you're hanging out with
4:34
Speaker 1: Tackleberry and you learn how to make cool sounds like
4:36
Speaker 1: machine guns says or like yeah huh yeah. Um, you
4:43
Speaker 1: spend about a week, probably a little less learning how
4:46
Speaker 1: to drive the car. Yeah. Sadly only about two of
4:49
Speaker 1: those days are dedicated to high speed pursuit. Yeah, which
4:53
Speaker 1: apparently is an improvement over zero days, which is how
4:55
Speaker 1: it used to be. And like the forties and fifties. Yeah,
4:58
Speaker 1: I guess they just said good luck. Right, you should
5:00
Speaker 1: know how to drive fast, right. You know, if you're
5:03
Speaker 1: an old country sheriff, you probably ran moonshine exactly, or
5:06
Speaker 1: your cousin does at least. Um. But there there's a
5:09
Speaker 1: lot to it. Um. In Ed grab Banowski, the grabster
5:13
Speaker 1: um points out that you know, in in a high
5:16
Speaker 1: speed pursuit, UH, cops car can be just as deadly
5:19
Speaker 1: as a cops gun, and they need to know how
5:21
Speaker 1: to use it just as well and just as accurately. Um.
5:25
Speaker 1: Because not only do you not have to know how
5:26
Speaker 1: to drive, you have to know how to drive fast
5:28
Speaker 1: while you're also turning on the lights and the sirens
5:30
Speaker 1: and like calling in something and like all that other
5:33
Speaker 1: stuff has to be second nature to you so that
5:35
Speaker 1: you can focus on the driving while using just a
5:38
Speaker 1: minimal amount of your brain power on the other stuff.
5:41
Speaker 1: So part of the car training is just that how
5:44
Speaker 1: to run a police car stuff. Because it's not like
5:46
Speaker 1: every other car. Right, and if you, um, if you
5:49
Speaker 1: are being trained to to drive in high speeds in
5:53
Speaker 1: pursuit of a suspect and they send you to Colorado,
5:57
Speaker 1: you can be reasonably assured that you're gonna come among
6:00
Speaker 1: the better trained police in the country because the Colorado
6:04
Speaker 1: State Police maintain a course, an Emergency Vehicles Operation course
6:07
Speaker 1: that is the cream of the crop. Did you see
6:10
Speaker 1: like the aerial view of it. Yeah, I mean they
6:12
Speaker 1: cover all the scenarios like UM on ramps and off ramps, um,
6:18
Speaker 1: high speed turns, intersections. They've really got all laid out
6:21
Speaker 1: there and put you in a scenario where as close
6:24
Speaker 1: as you could get to like an active street. Right.
6:26
Speaker 1: It's like there's skid plates where the coefficient of friction
6:30
Speaker 1: is point one five compared Chuck to say, I'm just
6:33
Speaker 1: staying this off top of my head, a of coefficient
6:36
Speaker 1: of friction of like point nine five on a dry highway. Yeah,
6:40
Speaker 1: so that's slick. Yeah, that is slick. They need to
6:42
Speaker 1: know how to not spin out, basically. Yeah, And that's
6:45
Speaker 1: I think the exception is a really elaborate course like this.
6:48
Speaker 1: I think a lot of local police still use the
6:51
Speaker 1: parking lot in the cones back, which is better than
6:54
Speaker 1: an orange cone. Your doctor days, you put an egg
6:58
Speaker 1: on it like a Brady Bump. God. That was one
7:02
Speaker 1: of the greatest television shows of all time, The Brady Bunch. Yeah. Absolutely. Um,
7:08
Speaker 1: so let's talk about pursuit equipment. Right, Basically what we
7:12
Speaker 1: just said was police training. You get a couple of days.
7:14
Speaker 1: Maybe if you're lucky, you get a few days on
7:18
Speaker 1: like a really great course, maybe out in Colorado. For
7:20
Speaker 1: the most part, it's like, you know how to drive,
7:23
Speaker 1: just drive really fast. Here's your Crown vic Yeah, that
7:26
Speaker 1: the Ford Crown Victoria's is the most common police car,
7:29
Speaker 1: although they're using all sorts of different cars today. When
7:32
Speaker 1: you drive around you'll see like those Dodge Chargers and
7:35
Speaker 1: like the more souped up I know. Uh, I think
7:37
Speaker 1: in l A the State Patrol had those Mustangs, like
7:41
Speaker 1: they really souped up sports cars. Um, apparently they're getting
7:45
Speaker 1: away from Crown Victoria's because that model of car had
7:49
Speaker 1: a big problem with it. Whereas if you were rear
7:51
Speaker 1: ended in a high speed collision, your car blew up. Yeah,
7:54
Speaker 1: that was that the Pacer that did that. In the seventies,
7:56
Speaker 1: the Pinto Pinto, the Ford Pinto. Again, Ford had the
8:00
Speaker 1: opposite problem if you if you um collided with something
8:04
Speaker 1: on the front end, I thought it was the rear.
8:06
Speaker 1: I think it was the front. Well let me tell
8:09
Speaker 1: you this either way. I learned about it from the
8:10
Speaker 1: movie Top Secret, where a Pinto like just barely hits
8:14
Speaker 1: a tree and then it's the front and blows up
8:17
Speaker 1: and then Ford ambulances for a while we're blown up
8:19
Speaker 1: to Yeah, so forward with the with the police inceptor
8:23
Speaker 1: crowned vic um created this, uh, this chemical fire suppression
8:28
Speaker 1: system where right when you're rear ended at a high
8:32
Speaker 1: enough impact, forceful enough impact, this this fire suppression thing
8:36
Speaker 1: goes off. So even if there's not a fire, there's
8:38
Speaker 1: not going to be a fire anyway. Um, but apparently
8:41
Speaker 1: it's enough that some some people are like, yeah, we're
8:44
Speaker 1: gonna go with the intrepid. Uh. You see a lot
8:48
Speaker 1: of crown bicks in Atlanta to like just regular people
8:50
Speaker 1: driving them. It's like sort of a thing. Now, Yeah,
8:52
Speaker 1: it is like a little spotlight. Yeah, it's like, man,
8:56
Speaker 1: don't mess with me like that out on the highway. So, um,
9:23
Speaker 1: there are some differences of course tween a police car.
9:25
Speaker 1: If you think it's just a regular Crown Victoria. It
9:27
Speaker 1: is not or whatever it is. Um. A lot of
9:30
Speaker 1: times it does have more horsepower in the engine because
9:32
Speaker 1: they need that kind of juice. Um. And they weigh
9:35
Speaker 1: more obviously than your standard car. Because there's more guns
9:38
Speaker 1: and things you're gonna have like metal reinforced seat backs
9:43
Speaker 1: and things, so like you can't get stabbed in the
9:46
Speaker 1: back from the back seat you did if you did,
9:49
Speaker 1: or shootings or anything if you didn't do a good
9:51
Speaker 1: job of checking for weapons. Um. What else. Extra transmission
9:57
Speaker 1: coolers and oil coolers. Yeah, because I mean like a
9:59
Speaker 1: radiator tops. Like they don't turn their car off ever
10:02
Speaker 1: like that heat heat builds up, so they have like
10:05
Speaker 1: oil coolers and transmission fluid coolers, bigger alternators to supply
10:09
Speaker 1: more power up to a hundred and thirty amps if
10:11
Speaker 1: that means anything to you. And then lights well in
10:15
Speaker 1: vinyl seats stow in the rear. That's that's important. Yeah,
10:18
Speaker 1: You're never gonna find cloth interior in the back of
10:20
Speaker 1: a police car because suspects are dirty. They're dirty, and
10:24
Speaker 1: oftentimes they will poop and vomit and bleed and just
10:28
Speaker 1: do whatever whatever. Bodily fluid they can get out in
10:31
Speaker 1: that police car, they probably will, so they want to
10:33
Speaker 1: make it uh easily. You just get out the four
10:37
Speaker 1: nine and the paper towels and just clean it right there.
10:41
Speaker 1: Um lights Apparently they used to have them on the
10:44
Speaker 1: fenders and they said, you know what, this is visible,
10:48
Speaker 1: but it's not as visible as if it were on
10:50
Speaker 1: the roof. So they created what as the light bar,
10:53
Speaker 1: and which it was a little more recent than I thought.
10:56
Speaker 1: It was the seventies that these things made their debut. Yeah,
10:59
Speaker 1: and I thought back, I was like, oh, yeah, you
11:01
Speaker 1: never see like cars in the sixties or or even
11:04
Speaker 1: early seventies with that light bar. So I was born
11:07
Speaker 1: at about the time the light bar came along. Yeah,
11:09
Speaker 1: I think, uh, you know, you remember seeing the single
11:12
Speaker 1: sirens sometimes or the double blue Dirty Harry would put
11:16
Speaker 1: one do like a UI. Well some some were built
11:19
Speaker 1: in but yeah, they also had the undercover cars. That
11:21
Speaker 1: was one of the great parts of any cop movie
11:23
Speaker 1: was when they got out the siren and put it
11:25
Speaker 1: on the roof. Um. And now you can get them
11:27
Speaker 1: at Spencer's Gifts. Summer blue and summer uh, summer blue
11:31
Speaker 1: and summer red. Though I've never known the distinction. I
11:33
Speaker 1: always thought ambulances were red and cops were blue, But
11:36
Speaker 1: in different cities have seen cops have read. I think
11:39
Speaker 1: it depends on what side of the force you're on.
11:41
Speaker 1: Oh really yeah, like how your medic chlorine? So one
11:46
Speaker 1: thing they can do to uh, to prevent the chase
11:51
Speaker 1: from happening altogether. You've seen the old spike strip. They'll
11:54
Speaker 1: lay down these rubber mats with spikes all across the road,
11:57
Speaker 1: or they have them like uh, like an accordion. You
12:00
Speaker 1: just kind of throw and hang on to one end
12:02
Speaker 1: and the other. That's the quick version, and so that
12:04
Speaker 1: will obviously disabled the tires. Um you can the good
12:09
Speaker 1: old fashioned roadblock that you see in movies actually happens.
12:12
Speaker 1: They line up cars and except in this version there's
12:16
Speaker 1: not a conveniently parked tow truck ramp for the criminal
12:22
Speaker 1: to jump over everybody or bust through. I guess, well,
12:25
Speaker 1: you have to be careful setting those up because it's
12:27
Speaker 1: normally going the criminals not going to try to push
12:31
Speaker 1: through the car, but they may try to go around.
12:34
Speaker 1: So you have to make sure that if you set
12:35
Speaker 1: up this roadblock, it's it's not like going to funnel
12:38
Speaker 1: them into somebody's house. I don't think you do that
12:40
Speaker 1: in like a neighborhood. That would be a good idea.
12:42
Speaker 1: You want to do it on a country road. And
12:44
Speaker 1: then modern techniques, which I think if they bring this
12:47
Speaker 1: stuff along, that's really where it's at, Like microwave technology
12:51
Speaker 1: to disable the electrical system of a car, or shooting
12:54
Speaker 1: a laser high speed avoidance using laser technology HALT system
12:59
Speaker 1: of course, But they left out a couple of letters there.
13:03
Speaker 1: H oh, yeah, it should be swa halt. It's not
13:08
Speaker 1: an acronym if you're leaving out words just to make
13:11
Speaker 1: it a cute word. All right, Um, so they like
13:15
Speaker 1: a lay ocean last name if they spelled it out correctly.
13:18
Speaker 1: So in that case, they're shooting a laser to cut
13:21
Speaker 1: off your fuel supply. But here's the rub there is
13:24
Speaker 1: the vehicle that they're shooting it at has to have
13:26
Speaker 1: a special microchip in it. Yeah. I didn't look into that,
13:28
Speaker 1: did you. Is it like newer vehicles? All that's my
13:31
Speaker 1: guess is that they're going to start putting these in
13:33
Speaker 1: all cars or something like. They make some deal, that
13:35
Speaker 1: would be fine with me. I mean, it's better than
13:38
Speaker 1: pursuing somebody. Absolutely you know, um, And then of course
13:41
Speaker 1: you have air support, either in the form of a
13:44
Speaker 1: police helicopter or like fifty news helicopters if it's the
13:47
Speaker 1: police chase out in California, um, or the world's Scariest
13:51
Speaker 1: police chase helicopter. Yeah. Whoever those guys are. I think
13:55
Speaker 1: they just get footage from news copters and cop copters.
13:59
Speaker 1: Do you watch the shows I know I've talked about.
14:01
Speaker 1: I've seen them before. Yeah, Yeah, they're they're just so
14:06
Speaker 1: I don't know, I followed. That's one of my guilty pleasures.
14:09
Speaker 1: Do you watch this still? Yeah? I mean it's not
14:11
Speaker 1: appointment television. I never know when or where they come on.
14:14
Speaker 1: But if I'm flipping it around and I'll see a
14:16
Speaker 1: police chase. I lived in l A. It's sort of
14:19
Speaker 1: a thing, it is. Yeah, And apparently California has some
14:23
Speaker 1: of the most um police protective laws as far as
14:28
Speaker 1: pursuits go. They happen a lot out there. Yeah, and
14:30
Speaker 1: like the everybody just stops doing what they're doing and
14:33
Speaker 1: watches the live coverage of it sort of. Do you
14:35
Speaker 1: remember the guy um who killed himself on live television
14:38
Speaker 1: after a police pursuit and yeah, showed it on Fox.
14:41
Speaker 1: I guess I saw that when it happened live. I
14:44
Speaker 1: was I remember very distinctly. It was like not like
14:47
Speaker 1: a movie. No, you know, like if you've ever seen
14:50
Speaker 1: someone shoot their head off with a shotgun in real life,
14:53
Speaker 1: it's nothing like. It's not some big dramatic movie thing.
14:56
Speaker 1: It's just sad. Yeah, it really was. It was like
15:00
Speaker 1: he might have been like making or gami or something like.
15:02
Speaker 1: It was just that pedestrian or it was just like
15:08
Speaker 1: he just had the gun and he's pull it up
15:10
Speaker 1: and shot himself and he hunches over and just falls. Yeah,
15:13
Speaker 1: it was. It's weird. It was really weird to see.
15:15
Speaker 1: It was very sad. And of course all the kids
15:17
Speaker 1: that saw that, that's like it's terrible. Yeah. Um. So, initially,
15:22
Speaker 1: if someone takes off, like you were talking about, the
15:24
Speaker 1: police officer that's on the scene has a decision to
15:28
Speaker 1: make to pursue or not to pursue. Lots of policies.
15:32
Speaker 1: One thing they want to do is run the tags.
15:35
Speaker 1: Is it a stolen vehicle where they just in an
15:37
Speaker 1: arm robbery or is it just somebody who has a
15:40
Speaker 1: couple of traffic tickets out or nothing at all on
15:43
Speaker 1: their record. Apparently the pursuit that enjoys the widest support
15:48
Speaker 1: around the country is if it's a violent criminal, um,
15:52
Speaker 1: somebody who poses an imminent threat to somebody else, somebody
15:55
Speaker 1: who's just carried out a violent act and is escaping,
15:59
Speaker 1: like pretty much, which everybody says, chase that guy. Like
16:02
Speaker 1: if you said the person has a couple of traffic
16:04
Speaker 1: tickets or if they have nothing and they're the only
16:10
Speaker 1: reason to chase them is that they didn't pull over
16:12
Speaker 1: for you, that is not reason to pursue. And yet
16:17
Speaker 1: of all pursuits, and I believe two thousand eleven were
16:20
Speaker 1: for traffic violations. Yeah, I mean, I feel for the
16:24
Speaker 1: cops has got to be their instinct, like go get
16:26
Speaker 1: that person. They're fleeing me for a good reason. Yeah,
16:30
Speaker 1: Like I get it, But there when people are interesting,
16:32
Speaker 1: people are dying, there needs to be like some policy
16:34
Speaker 1: in place for sure. And apparently, Chuck, ninety one point
16:37
Speaker 1: four percent of chases were for non violent crimes. I
16:41
Speaker 1: believe that. So, um, if the cops says, okay, this
16:45
Speaker 1: guy's this car just came back stolen, the guy just
16:48
Speaker 1: waved a gun and it's a very clear case that
16:51
Speaker 1: he should pursue them. There are other things to consider. Yeah, uh,
16:55
Speaker 1: what's the what don't get him? What's what's traffic? Like,
16:57
Speaker 1: what's the word? Are the road conditions? Like it rainy?
17:00
Speaker 1: Is it dark? A neighborhood, pedestrians everywhere? You might want
17:03
Speaker 1: to just kind of slowly tail the guy. Well, the
17:06
Speaker 1: one in Atlanta where they killed the trainer's wife, I
17:09
Speaker 1: think it was a sort of a busy afternoon in
17:12
Speaker 1: an urban area, Like they shouldn't have been pursuing anyone
17:16
Speaker 1: at this point. Do you know what they were pursuing
17:17
Speaker 1: the person for? No, I don't remember. Um. And then
17:21
Speaker 1: so if they decide to like go ahead and pursue,
17:25
Speaker 1: then this this series of um procedures kind of come
17:30
Speaker 1: into place, like they need to be radio back into
17:33
Speaker 1: headquarters like immediately right and apparently they're every step of
17:38
Speaker 1: the way or they just kind of keep the whoever
17:41
Speaker 1: they're talking to their supervisor posted on what's going on.
17:44
Speaker 1: And the supervisor's role is to keep a cool head
17:47
Speaker 1: because they're not the one who the person isn't pulling
17:50
Speaker 1: over for, so they're they're not mad. Sure, they don't
17:52
Speaker 1: want to correct heads, you know, UM, so their their
17:55
Speaker 1: whole role is to to say, you know what, like
17:58
Speaker 1: we we should You just told me that there's some
18:01
Speaker 1: pedestrians around. This guy is not a violent offender. You
18:04
Speaker 1: don't don't complete this pursuit, or we have like we
18:07
Speaker 1: have chopper coverage, so back off with the cars and
18:12
Speaker 1: we can still like follow this car from above. Yeah,
18:15
Speaker 1: you know, like we're still gonna get our guy. Don't
18:17
Speaker 1: you worry about it? Um. One of my favorite things.
18:21
Speaker 1: If you watch the show Cops, you're well versed with
18:24
Speaker 1: the pit maneuver police I'm sorry, pursuit intervention technique also
18:29
Speaker 1: called the technical vehicle intervention, and that is the famous move.
18:34
Speaker 1: If a cop has you know, you'll hear them. They
18:36
Speaker 1: have to get clearance for the pit maneuver. Even they'll
18:39
Speaker 1: call it in and say, hey, I think I've got
18:41
Speaker 1: a chance for a pit Can I take it? And
18:44
Speaker 1: they'll say, if you feel like, you know, the streets
18:46
Speaker 1: are clear enough and you know you have to do
18:48
Speaker 1: it on a turn, you don't just like run up
18:51
Speaker 1: beside someone and run them off the road. It's it's
18:54
Speaker 1: when they enter a turn, the cop hits the gas
18:57
Speaker 1: and hits them on the left rear umper and just
19:00
Speaker 1: basically spins them out, and uh, it's it works if
19:05
Speaker 1: done correctly, and they'll train. You know, you get trained
19:07
Speaker 1: when you get the defensive driving on the pit maneuver
19:10
Speaker 1: and they just spin out. You can't come out of it,
19:13
Speaker 1: can't come out of it. Your car spins. And that's
19:15
Speaker 1: generally on cops at least when the guys will jump
19:19
Speaker 1: out of the car with the car still rolling and
19:22
Speaker 1: take off on foot. And then you hear these cops,
19:25
Speaker 1: you know, with the they're miked up, so all you
19:27
Speaker 1: hear is like running in the dark with all this
19:31
Speaker 1: gear on. You're like, man, what a crappy job. Well,
19:33
Speaker 1: you know, check your heavy breathing just reminded me of something.
19:37
Speaker 1: Is it that time? It's time for a message break?
19:57
Speaker 1: All right? Heavy breathing indeed, So you we're talking about
20:01
Speaker 1: the wildest police chases, that kind of show that you like,
20:04
Speaker 1: I don't know who would watch stuff like that. Well,
20:06
Speaker 1: Grabster takes the task, um those kind of shows for
20:09
Speaker 1: presenting a very um unbalanced picture of police chases. They
20:14
Speaker 1: don't show the cops backing off of the pursuit becomes
20:18
Speaker 1: too dangerous. They don't show the cops crashing into an
20:21
Speaker 1: instant by standards car right. Um. They never say, well,
20:25
Speaker 1: this cop probably shouldn't have pursued this person because this
20:27
Speaker 1: is a minor violation. Um. And they they always kind
20:33
Speaker 1: of tend to present the police in a favorable light. Yeah.
20:36
Speaker 1: And I think it's more I don't know if they're
20:40
Speaker 1: out to make Oh maybe they are. I just think
20:42
Speaker 1: it's better TV obviously, like you would want to show
20:44
Speaker 1: and they're like, oh no, let's just back off and
20:47
Speaker 1: get back to get that for sure. Plus also they
20:49
Speaker 1: want to maintain a um the kind of relationship with
20:53
Speaker 1: cops police departments that where they'll give them their footage. Absolutely,
20:57
Speaker 1: you know, now the shows are good for the cops.
20:59
Speaker 1: I'm sure we hear I don't know if you can
21:00
Speaker 1: hear this people, it sounds like a police chase is
21:02
Speaker 1: going on outside right now. I think it is. This
21:06
Speaker 1: is this is really dramatic footage. Chuck. Um. Uh, do
21:12
Speaker 1: you remember the O J thing specifically? Yeah? Where were
21:15
Speaker 1: you then? How's in college? Were in college? I remember too,
21:20
Speaker 1: of course, so I don't. The chase wasn't I didn't
21:22
Speaker 1: watch much of the chase, remember the verdict? Yeah? I
21:26
Speaker 1: remember the chase specifically because they it was during the
21:29
Speaker 1: Knicks Rockets NBA playoffs and my buddy Justin as a
21:33
Speaker 1: huge Knicks fan, and he was really upset and he
21:35
Speaker 1: was just like, do you have to have it on
21:38
Speaker 1: every channel? And I agreed with This's like, why don't
21:41
Speaker 1: you know you're going to pre empt the basketball game.
21:42
Speaker 1: It's on a hundred channels. I can't in there one
21:46
Speaker 1: person out there that wants to watch the basketball game
21:48
Speaker 1: put their ratings would have gone through the roof. And
21:50
Speaker 1: that was a low speech chase. That wasn't even that
21:53
Speaker 1: was just weird. You know, the well love speech chases
21:55
Speaker 1: are very weird. I'm a c It's just like, you
21:59
Speaker 1: know who I am. I'm not gonna pull over. Yeah.
22:02
Speaker 1: So well, let's talk about the legalities of it, right. There's,
22:06
Speaker 1: like we said, there's pretty much no laws that restrict
22:09
Speaker 1: police chases. They have the right to do that in
22:11
Speaker 1: all cases. Yeah um. And as a matter of fact,
22:13
Speaker 1: they don't even have to have their lights and sirens
22:15
Speaker 1: running to engage in pursuit. Yeah um. The there are
22:20
Speaker 1: department procedures regarding police chases though. But the thing is is,
22:25
Speaker 1: even if a cop violates department procedure and continues to pursuit,
22:30
Speaker 1: they're still not breaking any laws. So for example, in Washington,
22:36
Speaker 1: d C. You can only pursue if the suspect has
22:39
Speaker 1: engaged in a violent act or um, someone could be
22:42
Speaker 1: seriously hurt if the suspect were allowed to escape. UM.
22:47
Speaker 1: In Des Moines, Iowa, no more than three cars can
22:50
Speaker 1: engage in pursuit. Yeah, that makes good sense. It's a
22:52
Speaker 1: good rule. And you have to take into account a
22:55
Speaker 1: m the time of day, road and weather conditions, the
22:59
Speaker 1: nature of the offense, and a supervisor has to pursue,
23:02
Speaker 1: has to approve the pursuit. And then in Florida, Orange County, Florida,
23:09
Speaker 1: that's the Orlando area. Yeah. Are they the ones that
23:11
Speaker 1: have real restrictive policies. Yeah. And as a matter of fact,
23:14
Speaker 1: they found that after in the year after they enacted
23:17
Speaker 1: their restrictive pursuit policies, UM, felonies in Orlando declined. Yeah,
23:23
Speaker 1: what's up with that. I don't know, one of those
23:26
Speaker 1: weird things. Uh. There is also something called sovereign immunity UM,
23:30
Speaker 1: which is a government official is not liable for damages
23:34
Speaker 1: that occur while they're doing their job. UM. Yeah, that's
23:38
Speaker 1: like old time common law. Yeah, old school. But these
23:41
Speaker 1: days there are a lot of municipalities that have overridden
23:45
Speaker 1: that law with with other laws. Um And like I
23:49
Speaker 1: think with the Georgia case, I think that cop was
23:52
Speaker 1: fired and brought up on charges, and I think they
23:55
Speaker 1: could even sue the police station. Yeah, with the but
23:59
Speaker 1: not himself in overriding the sovereign immunity laws. Most most
24:05
Speaker 1: departments or communities protect the cops individually but financially. But
24:10
Speaker 1: the institution can still be sued, right, but they're not
24:13
Speaker 1: protected criminally, Like they can still be brought up on charges,
24:15
Speaker 1: they just can't be sued. I think, gotcha, because I'm
24:18
Speaker 1: pretty sure this Braves guy, I think he went upon trial.
24:22
Speaker 1: Well apparently if I'm wrong, then I'm gonna eat crow.
24:25
Speaker 1: But in California, you're basically out of luck if the
24:29
Speaker 1: cops mess up your storefront with their cars during your pursuit. Yeah,
24:33
Speaker 1: they their laws very much protect the cops for from
24:36
Speaker 1: that liability. Insurance would help out though, you would hope,
24:40
Speaker 1: But I mean then your rates are gonna rise. What
24:42
Speaker 1: were you doing? Nothing? You just happened to have a
24:44
Speaker 1: store in the wrong place in l A. So that's
24:48
Speaker 1: a that's police chase. As you got anything else? I
24:50
Speaker 1: got nothing else. They seem way more dangerous than I
24:53
Speaker 1: even thought, and I thought they were pretty dangerous before. Yeah,
24:55
Speaker 1: don't support those TV shows. People don't listen to me dolorify. Yeah,
25:00
Speaker 1: to do as he says, not as he does. That's right. Uh,
25:03
Speaker 1: if you want to learn more about police chases, you
25:06
Speaker 1: can type those words into the search bar. How stuff
25:08
Speaker 1: works and us and so I said, search par what
25:11
Speaker 1: is it? Chuck? Is the time for listener mail? It
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25:15
Speaker 1: mail prepared. Instead, we are going to uh have a
25:18
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25:35
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25:38
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25:41
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25:46
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