1y ago

Over broken taillight, Texas cops chase pickup into wreck; 6 people hospitalized including a 3-year-old

1ft.io 16-year-old driver charged after leading police on chase, sending 6 people to the hospital including a 3-year-old

A teenager is now facing multiple charges after he reportedly injured six people while leading police on a high-speed chase in northeast Harris County.

Original link

Every police chase is a danger to innocent people's lives. Some chases are necessary, but a broken taillight is not worth that risk.

60 comments

it's really not worth it... they have the license plate and can just go to their house later...
the driver is still a piece of shit for also endangering people's lives (and the three year old)
- The three year old is also a piece of shit?
  
  No they're not saying that
  They're saying three-year-olds aren't people
  
  I mean, have you been around any toddlers lately? Absolute monsters! 😛
  
  Correct.
- So when someone is evasive to police we should just go to their house later? It's called probable cause and you don't know if the people in the car are dangerous. I'm not a great supporter of the police but the hot takes in this thread are disappointingly dumb.
  
  yawn
  
  Yeah let's just make assumptions and put even more people's lives in danger
- I take serious issue with delivering tickets at home later. The fact that it's your car is circumstantial. No way to prove you were driving.
  You most likely know who was driving your car, and if it wasn't you, you could identify who it was, but frankly, I don't like it... Not for a traffic ticket where you're presumed guilty and have to prove you don't owe the state the fine... I don't think it's a great idea sending cops to a registered owners house in that context... Not with the current standards police are demonstrating.
  Edit- don't chase either... Minor speeding, taillight, ranva stop sign... Let it go ffs
  
  In my country the rules are simple. It's your car, so you're responsible.
  The owner should've fixed the broken taillight, not the current driver.
  
  Its the owners car. Either they say who was responsible for that ticket or the owner is getting fined themselves.
  And to be fair, these tickets are delivered by post. Only if you then didnt pay or show up to a hearing will you get into more serious trouble.
  Assuming the courts work (much better than police either way), you get a fair process there. (of course, circumstances can be fabricated, but thats then up to the court, not much you can do really apart from forcing them to have video evidence in such easy things)
  
  So... Don't chase them. And don't serve them a ticket at home.
  What's your solution?
  
  with the current standards police are demonstrating, im not okay with them doing anything...
  i meant more, "in a perfect world" kinda sense...
  with parking tickets they can't prov who drove either, so really the car gets the ticket...
  the owner has to pay it to keep registration, though...
  
  So what would you do then? Cause obviously the coppers didn’t do very well here.

Every police chase is a danger to innocent people's lives. Some chases are necessary, but a broken taillight is not worth that risk.
Absolutely. I'd go so far as to say that the vast majority of police chases are unnecessary.
- To a lot of cops, the occasional high-speed chase is one of the job's best perks, right up there with beating people up.
  
  Yeah, media portrayals and other cops keep attracting adrenaline junkies and people who want to control other people to the job and that's two of the absolute WORST traits a cop could ever have.
- If you know that a light is broken you have a number plate which means that you can just send a ticket to the owner. At least that's how it works here in Germany. If the owner didn't drive then they're welcome to tell police who drove, unless they reported the car as stolen they're on the hook.
  Oh and German police don't chase pretty much ever and definitely not on the Autobahn. That's what helicopters are for.
  
  That's how it is here in Denmark too. As usual, us Nordics do it the common sense way while US cops are pretty much as idiotic as they're malicious, making them doubly dangerous to themselves and especially others.
  Not saying that German and Danish cops don't have their ACAB moments, mind you, but they ARE less awful (in part due to more and better training) and our systems constrain them much more effectively than the insane pro-cop US one.
  
  That's what helicopters are for.
  I'm just imagining German police choppers fitted with big ol' electromagnets, snatching suspects off the Autobahn and lifting them into the air.
- It's actually why police deaths have gone down a bunch recently. It's also why they die more by felonious assaults now than anything else.
  Most police departments don't chase unless the person they're chasing has done something felonious like robbery, threaten to harm, etc.
  In almost any town you'll see people bitching about them not pulling people over anymore because a good chunk of people WANT them to do this still. It surprises me every time.
  https://leb.fbi.gov/bulletin-highlights/additional-highlights/crime-data-law-enforcement-officers-killed-in-the-line-of-duty-statistics-for-2021
  https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices/dallas/news/press-releases/fbi-releases-statistics-for-law-enforcement-officers-assaulted-and-killed-in-the-line-of-duty
  
  Let the typical traffic stops run. LET THEM. Radios operate at the speed of light. Cars do not.
  (I'll admit I did get away once. 1987, 16-yo, Tulsa OK, smack in the middle of the city. I was speeding like hell, cop was stuck in traffic, other lane. He lit up, I lit down and dodged into an industrial park. Still can't believe that worked. Probably get SWAT after me today.)
  
  Are you comparing police chases to enforcing traffic laws? One may lead to the other but you can't just stop enforcing laws because some people run. Also, if they do run I suspect they'll just get a ticket in the mail or the cops show up at their house. I know some people drive unregistered and uninsured but that's an even smaller portion still.

Reminds me of the cop who pit maneuvered a pregnant lady because she was uncomfortable pulling over on a highway at night.
They're literally trigger happy toddlers
- That's not fair to actual toddlers. Their mental abilities haven't peaked yet.

Each time the public asks for an exercise in discretion, the pigs go and show us why it's not a good idea.

You should see what they do to jaywalkers
- A jaywalker killed by a speeding cop is the next story I'm posting.
- Does it include resisting arrest and knees on the neck?

Blaming the police for this seems like a real stretch...
It is 100% the drivers fault for running away, as implied by the article, to try to his illegal firearm.
- It's not a zero sum game, I'd give both 100% blame.
- So the police have no agency? They are required to make no decisions on whether what they are doing is worth it?
  What about if they just started shooting at the car and hitting bystanders? Would that be 100% the driver's fault, too?
  Much like firing a weapon in a crowded area, a car chase is inherently dangerous and I would say any sane person in the vicinity of a cop trying to pull someone over for a broken tail light would prefer that person go free than to have their lives put in danger for a ticket for a broken tail light.
  
  People often don't act in their best interest or the best interest of society.
  I currently live in a US city where the police haven't enforced traffic laws since the mid 2010s. It has by far some of the highest accident rates in the country. Not just accidents, the "mad max" level shit that goes on like roving bands of dirt bikes is insane (like 20-30 together). It has become such a huge issue, it is destroying businesses, tourism, home ownership, etc, in the city.
  To further expand, although you didn't mention it. People in this thread say just get them later... How exactly? Probably a 5th of the license plates in this same city are fake. People are literally just printing fake temporary tags.
  And no I'm not exaggerating about my examples, if anything I'm understating the problem for this particular city.
- People foam out of the mouth here any time someone says "someone that's not a cop made a bad decision".
  The cops abuse their power plenty, but if you're running from the cops in your pickup with your kid in the car, you chose violence here. Blaming solely the cops here is idiotic and implies that the driver of the pickup has no agency.
  
  Look, nobody is saying the person who ran isn't wrong. It's a given, though. Nobody is saying the driver bears no responsibility for the outcome.
  People foam at the mouth when others give police a complete pass for endangering the public. Criminals don't work for us. Criminals aren't supposed to be protecting us. Police are. So when they behave in a way that increases danger to us, of course we take issue with someone saying they're blameless because a criminal did a crime.

60 comments