Two 10-year-old boys were killed in a rollover wreck after the driver of their vehicle fled a traffic stop and crashed following a police pursuit, authorities said.
This is a terrible tragedy, but the responsibility for it lies with the driver and not the police. The fact is that the police tried to pull over someone with a warrant for arrest and he fled and caused the crash. I don't think it reasonable to say the officers acted inappropriately, unless you think that a gun wielding felons should be left alone by police.
Car chases are bad. Not because people with warrants should go free, but because it puts me needlessly at risk.
We spend a ridiculous amount of money on our police. You're telling me that they can't invest in a GPS tracker to stick to cars at the start of a traffic stop, or a drone to follow someone silently until they stop on their own? It's just about 2024. Surely the Dukes of Hazard style chase is outdated.
The driver knew he had 4 kids in the car. The driver is fully at fault for driving recklessly whilst trying to flee a scene purely for his own benefit.
After reading a lot of people's take on the shootout where the UPS driver hostage got killed (likely by police, as the video doesn't show if anybody even fired from the UPS truck). So many people excused the police and blamed the criminals 100%, even though anybody whose favorite appetizer isn't boot polish could tell you firing into rush hour traffic is incredibly irresponsible.
If it was say, a bank robber shooting at police, yeah. Yes, I'd blame him too. If the police shot unprovoked, no. Of course the police should handle situations like this better - put a tag on the car, call a helicopter, whatever - but at least part of the blame lies with this moron driving around with a felony warrant, no license plate, 4 kids in the car, then trying to run from the cops. For the warrant he already had, he will go to prison for a few years, so I could see why he'd be reluctant to turn himself in. But this sort of stupid shit isn't going to help.
Sure, if we're going to live in a simple universe where only one person is responsible when something bad happens. But that seem limiting to me. It means we can't find creative solutions to problems, since all the solutions devolve into "bad people need to do less bad stuff."
Exactly. When the dude's been stickied with a GPS receiver, dude should know the game is up and he won't have time to take it off before cops are on his ass.
But that requires building a reputation and that requires building some solid AF procedures that cannot be dealt with quickly by an escaping driver.
The cops didn't know who the driver was, and chased the car solely because the driver drive away — not because he was "a gun wielding felon," which they didn't know at the time.