September 5, 2020 • 27 mins
Entire TV shows are dedicated to them and Americans love to watch a live one, but police chases aren't as routine as they seem. While police assert chases are important tools, critics say cops engage in chases too often and too easily. Learn all about the what, how, and why in this classic episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, it's me Josh, your old pal, your old buddy,
and I'm here with another s Y s K Selects
and this week it's all about police chases. We release
this episode back in May of two thousand thirteen, and
it's one of those things where you think you have
an idea about how something works or what something is,
and the more you dig into it, the more you
(00:21):
realize that, like, wow, we've all just kind of been
going along with this thing that probably shouldn't exist. So
it was a real eye opening experience to me. And
I hope even if you've heard the episode before that
you find it an eye opening Again, let's all just
watch our eyes open. If you can do such a thing,
I don't even know if that's possible. Welcome to Stuff
(00:45):
You should know a production of I Heart Radios How
Stuff Works, d do Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, who's uh
do you know? Someone on Twitter said that every time
Chuck Bryant giggles, a baby bunny is born. Yeah, and
(01:08):
they be it to Wow. I love being responsible for
all that joy in the world. You're doing it, man, so,
I guess you just opened the show with you were
being chased by a police car in Great Britain. Just
you did a British Sorry, I guess it was yeah
to do that. In the United States, we have different
sounding sirens. Well, well in these days, it's all kinds
(01:31):
of crazy, like beeps and whistles. It's like that's like
an American police cruiser today. Wow, this is getting off
to a great start. Let's let's try to keep it
on the track, all right, on the U E V
O C track. Yeah, this is what this is in
our long running law enforcement series. You know, it's unequaled
(01:53):
by any other topic except for death. I think you think,
I think death might have it beat. Okay, may be not, though,
we'll find out. All right. Uh I let's go count
them after this, Okay, Chuck. Have you ever been in
a police chase? Um? Have you ever been the object
of pursuit in a police chase? Yeah? I was not driving.
(02:16):
I was in a car one time when my friend
decided to run from the cops. Wow, we lay it
on us. Well, you know, it was just one of
those things. We were in Athens and he made a
very bad decision and uh, we got away with it,
no way. Yeah, we'll see. That's something that I find
extremely interesting because I didn't realize until reading this article that, um,
(02:39):
there are very few circumstances where a cop should feel
justified or would be justified in chasing you. Right. But
that said, there are almost no laws whatsoever restricting police chases.
It's this weird gray area. And I actually found there's
activists online or saying, like say no to police chases,
(03:01):
like restrict police chases, like create laws against police chases
because these things are deadly and dangerous. Yeah. I think
what about a hundred and forty innocent civilians were killed
last year? Yeah, three about a person a day on
average dies from a police chase, and about a third
of those. But yeah, last hundred forty or just innocent bystanders.
Yeah that I mean that happened in Atlanta. That's happened
(03:23):
in Atlanta a couple of times recently. One time the
trainer for the Atlanta Braves his because he lost his
wife to a cop smashing into her. And um, then
again more recently there was another case. I think it
was a kid or something, but it was like it
was sort of in the news lately. Yeah, And I
mean you get the impression that and cops died too,
Like high speed pursuit is their high speed pursuing. That's
(03:46):
dangerous for everybody involved, including the cop. Um, but you
get the impression that, like whatever the circumstances, is just
just not pulling over for being for a for a
cop trying to pull you over is reason enough to
get the cops tackles raised enough to chase you. Yeah,
right off the bat. I think that would be any
cops instinct, is gun it not? Like, well, let me
(04:09):
check into his record and call my supervisor and see
if they allow this, which a lot of times this policy.
Now as we'll see, um, there are procedures in place
to kind of try to tamp down that emotion of
the primary departmental policy. Basically though, like you said, not
law right, So well let's let's talk about this. Um Okay.
When you go through the academy and you um get
(04:31):
all your training, your gun training, you're hanging out with
Tackleberry and you learn how to make cool sounds like
machine guns says or like yeah huh yeah. Um, you
spend about a week, probably a little less learning how
to drive the car. Yeah. Sadly only about two of
those days are dedicated to high speed pursuit. Yeah, which
(04:53):
apparently is an improvement over zero days, which is how
it used to be. And like the forties and fifties. Yeah,
I guess they just said good luck. Right, you should
know how to drive fast, right. You know, if you're
an old country sheriff, you probably ran moonshine exactly, or
your cousin does at least. Um. But there there's a
lot to it. Um. In Ed grab Banowski, the grabster
um points out that you know, in in a high
(05:16):
speed pursuit, UH, cops car can be just as deadly
as a cops gun, and they need to know how
to use it just as well and just as accurately. Um.
Because not only do you not have to know how
to drive, you have to know how to drive fast
while you're also turning on the lights and the sirens
and like calling in something and like all that other
stuff has to be second nature to you so that
you can focus on the driving while using just a
(05:38):
minimal amount of your brain power on the other stuff.
So part of the car training is just that how
to run a police car stuff. Because it's not like
every other car. Right, and if you, um, if you
are being trained to to drive in high speeds in
pursuit of a suspect and they send you to Colorado,
you can be reasonably assured that you're gonna come among
(06:00):
the better trained police in the country because the Colorado
State Police maintain a course, an Emergency Vehicles Operation course
that is the cream of the crop. Did you see
like the aerial view of it. Yeah, I mean they
cover all the scenarios like UM on ramps and off ramps, um,
high speed turns, intersections. They've really got all laid out
(06:21):
there and put you in a scenario where as close
as you could get to like an active street. Right.
It's like there's skid plates where the coefficient of friction
is point one five compared Chuck to say, I'm just
staying this off top of my head, a of coefficient
of friction of like point nine five on a dry highway. Yeah,
so that's slick. Yeah, that is slick. They need to
(06:42):
know how to not spin out, basically. Yeah, And that's
I think the exception is a really elaborate course like this.
I think a lot of local police still use the
parking lot in the cones back, which is better than
an orange cone. Your doctor days, you put an egg
on it like a Brady Bump. God. That was one
of the greatest television shows of all time, The Brady Bunch. Yeah. Absolutely. Um,
(07:08):
so let's talk about pursuit equipment. Right, Basically what we
just said was police training. You get a couple of days.
Maybe if you're lucky, you get a few days on
like a really great course, maybe out in Colorado. For
the most part, it's like, you know how to drive,
just drive really fast. Here's your Crown vic Yeah, that
the Ford Crown Victoria's is the most common police car,
(07:29):
although they're using all sorts of different cars today. When
you drive around you'll see like those Dodge Chargers and
like the more souped up I know. Uh, I think
in l A the State Patrol had those Mustangs, like
they really souped up sports cars. Um, apparently they're getting
away from Crown Victoria's because that model of car had
a big problem with it. Whereas if you were rear
(07:51):
ended in a high speed collision, your car blew up. Yeah,
that was that the Pacer that did that. In the seventies,
the Pinto Pinto, the Ford Pinto. Again, Ford had the
opposite problem if you if you um collided with something
on the front end, I thought it was the rear.
I think it was the front. Well let me tell
you this either way. I learned about it from the
movie Top Secret, where a Pinto like just barely hits
(08:14):
a tree and then it's the front and blows up
and then Ford ambulances for a while we're blown up
to Yeah, so forward with the with the police inceptor
crowned vic um created this, uh, this chemical fire suppression
system where right when you're rear ended at a high
enough impact, forceful enough impact, this this fire suppression thing
(08:36):
goes off. So even if there's not a fire, there's
not going to be a fire anyway. Um, but apparently
it's enough that some some people are like, yeah, we're
gonna go with the intrepid. Uh. You see a lot
of crown bicks in Atlanta to like just regular people
driving them. It's like sort of a thing. Now, Yeah,
it is like a little spotlight. Yeah, it's like, man,
don't mess with me like that out on the highway. So, um,
(09:23):
there are some differences of course tween a police car.
If you think it's just a regular Crown Victoria. It
is not or whatever it is. Um. A lot of
times it does have more horsepower in the engine because
they need that kind of juice. Um. And they weigh
more obviously than your standard car. Because there's more guns
and things you're gonna have like metal reinforced seat backs
(09:43):
and things, so like you can't get stabbed in the
back from the back seat you did if you did,
or shootings or anything if you didn't do a good
job of checking for weapons. Um. What else. Extra transmission
coolers and oil coolers. Yeah, because I mean like a
radiator tops. Like they don't turn their car off ever
like that heat heat builds up, so they have like
(10:05):
oil coolers and transmission fluid coolers, bigger alternators to supply
more power up to a hundred and thirty amps if
that means anything to you. And then lights well in
vinyl seats stow in the rear. That's that's important. Yeah,
You're never gonna find cloth interior in the back of
a police car because suspects are dirty. They're dirty, and
oftentimes they will poop and vomit and bleed and just
(10:28):
do whatever whatever. Bodily fluid they can get out in
that police car, they probably will, so they want to
make it uh easily. You just get out the four
nine and the paper towels and just clean it right there.
Um lights Apparently they used to have them on the
fenders and they said, you know what, this is visible,
(10:48):
but it's not as visible as if it were on
the roof. So they created what as the light bar,
and which it was a little more recent than I thought.
It was the seventies that these things made their debut. Yeah,
and I thought back, I was like, oh, yeah, you
never see like cars in the sixties or or even
early seventies with that light bar. So I was born
at about the time the light bar came along. Yeah,
(11:09):
I think, uh, you know, you remember seeing the single
sirens sometimes or the double blue Dirty Harry would put
one do like a UI. Well some some were built
in but yeah, they also had the undercover cars. That
was one of the great parts of any cop movie
was when they got out the siren and put it
on the roof. Um. And now you can get them
at Spencer's Gifts. Summer blue and summer uh, summer blue
(11:31):
and summer red. Though I've never known the distinction. I
always thought ambulances were red and cops were blue, But
in different cities have seen cops have read. I think
it depends on what side of the force you're on.
Oh really yeah, like how your medic chlorine? So one
thing they can do to uh, to prevent the chase
from happening altogether. You've seen the old spike strip. They'll
(11:54):
lay down these rubber mats with spikes all across the road,
or they have them like uh, like an accordion. You
just kind of throw and hang on to one end
and the other. That's the quick version, and so that
will obviously disabled the tires. Um you can the good
old fashioned roadblock that you see in movies actually happens.
They line up cars and except in this version there's
(12:16):
not a conveniently parked tow truck ramp for the criminal
to jump over everybody or bust through. I guess, well,
you have to be careful setting those up because it's
normally going the criminals not going to try to push
through the car, but they may try to go around.
So you have to make sure that if you set
up this roadblock, it's it's not like going to funnel
(12:38):
them into somebody's house. I don't think you do that
in like a neighborhood. That would be a good idea.
You want to do it on a country road. And
then modern techniques, which I think if they bring this
stuff along, that's really where it's at, Like microwave technology
to disable the electrical system of a car, or shooting
a laser high speed avoidance using laser technology HALT system
(12:59):
of course, But they left out a couple of letters there.
H oh, yeah, it should be swa halt. It's not
an acronym if you're leaving out words just to make
it a cute word. All right, Um, so they like
a lay ocean last name if they spelled it out correctly.
So in that case, they're shooting a laser to cut
(13:21):
off your fuel supply. But here's the rub there is
the vehicle that they're shooting it at has to have
a special microchip in it. Yeah. I didn't look into that,
did you. Is it like newer vehicles? All that's my
guess is that they're going to start putting these in
all cars or something like. They make some deal, that
would be fine with me. I mean, it's better than
pursuing somebody. Absolutely you know, um, And then of course
(13:41):
you have air support, either in the form of a
police helicopter or like fifty news helicopters if it's the
police chase out in California, um, or the world's Scariest
police chase helicopter. Yeah. Whoever those guys are. I think
they just get footage from news copters and cop copters.
Do you watch the shows I know I've talked about.
I've seen them before. Yeah, Yeah, they're they're just so
(14:06):
I don't know, I followed. That's one of my guilty pleasures.
Do you watch this still? Yeah? I mean it's not
appointment television. I never know when or where they come on.
But if I'm flipping it around and I'll see a
police chase. I lived in l A. It's sort of
a thing, it is. Yeah, And apparently California has some
of the most um police protective laws as far as
(14:28):
pursuits go. They happen a lot out there. Yeah, and
like the everybody just stops doing what they're doing and
watches the live coverage of it sort of. Do you
remember the guy um who killed himself on live television
after a police pursuit and yeah, showed it on Fox.
I guess I saw that when it happened live. I
was I remember very distinctly. It was like not like
a movie. No, you know, like if you've ever seen
(14:50):
someone shoot their head off with a shotgun in real life,
it's nothing like. It's not some big dramatic movie thing.
It's just sad. Yeah, it really was. It was like
he might have been like making or gami or something like.
It was just that pedestrian or it was just like
he just had the gun and he's pull it up
and shot himself and he hunches over and just falls. Yeah,
(15:13):
it was. It's weird. It was really weird to see.
It was very sad. And of course all the kids
that saw that, that's like it's terrible. Yeah. Um. So, initially,
if someone takes off, like you were talking about, the
police officer that's on the scene has a decision to
make to pursue or not to pursue. Lots of policies.
One thing they want to do is run the tags.
(15:35):
Is it a stolen vehicle where they just in an
arm robbery or is it just somebody who has a
couple of traffic tickets out or nothing at all on
their record. Apparently the pursuit that enjoys the widest support
around the country is if it's a violent criminal, um,
somebody who poses an imminent threat to somebody else, somebody
(15:55):
who's just carried out a violent act and is escaping,
like pretty much, which everybody says, chase that guy. Like
if you said the person has a couple of traffic
tickets or if they have nothing and they're the only
reason to chase them is that they didn't pull over
for you, that is not reason to pursue. And yet
(16:17):
of all pursuits, and I believe two thousand eleven were
for traffic violations. Yeah, I mean, I feel for the
cops has got to be their instinct, like go get
that person. They're fleeing me for a good reason. Yeah,
Like I get it, But there when people are interesting,
people are dying, there needs to be like some policy
in place for sure. And apparently, Chuck, ninety one point
(16:37):
four percent of chases were for non violent crimes. I
believe that. So, um, if the cops says, okay, this
guy's this car just came back stolen, the guy just
waved a gun and it's a very clear case that
he should pursue them. There are other things to consider. Yeah, uh,
what's the what don't get him? What's what's traffic? Like,
what's the word? Are the road conditions? Like it rainy?
(17:00):
Is it dark? A neighborhood, pedestrians everywhere? You might want
to just kind of slowly tail the guy. Well, the
one in Atlanta where they killed the trainer's wife, I
think it was a sort of a busy afternoon in
an urban area, Like they shouldn't have been pursuing anyone
at this point. Do you know what they were pursuing
the person for? No, I don't remember. Um. And then
(17:21):
so if they decide to like go ahead and pursue,
then this this series of um procedures kind of come
into place, like they need to be radio back into
headquarters like immediately right and apparently they're every step of
the way or they just kind of keep the whoever
they're talking to their supervisor posted on what's going on.
(17:44):
And the supervisor's role is to keep a cool head
because they're not the one who the person isn't pulling
over for, so they're they're not mad. Sure, they don't
want to correct heads, you know, UM, so their their
whole role is to to say, you know what, like
we we should You just told me that there's some
pedestrians around. This guy is not a violent offender. You
(18:04):
don't don't complete this pursuit, or we have like we
have chopper coverage, so back off with the cars and
we can still like follow this car from above. Yeah,
you know, like we're still gonna get our guy. Don't
you worry about it? Um. One of my favorite things.
If you watch the show Cops, you're well versed with
the pit maneuver police I'm sorry, pursuit intervention technique also
(18:29):
called the technical vehicle intervention, and that is the famous move.
If a cop has you know, you'll hear them. They
have to get clearance for the pit maneuver. Even they'll
call it in and say, hey, I think I've got
a chance for a pit Can I take it? And
they'll say, if you feel like, you know, the streets
are clear enough and you know you have to do
it on a turn, you don't just like run up
(18:51):
beside someone and run them off the road. It's it's
when they enter a turn, the cop hits the gas
and hits them on the left rear umper and just
basically spins them out, and uh, it's it works if
done correctly, and they'll train. You know, you get trained
when you get the defensive driving on the pit maneuver
and they just spin out. You can't come out of it,
(19:13):
can't come out of it. Your car spins. And that's
generally on cops at least when the guys will jump
out of the car with the car still rolling and
take off on foot. And then you hear these cops,
you know, with the they're miked up, so all you
hear is like running in the dark with all this
gear on. You're like, man, what a crappy job. Well,
(19:33):
you know, check your heavy breathing just reminded me of something.
Is it that time? It's time for a message break?
(19:57):
All right? Heavy breathing indeed, So you we're talking about
the wildest police chases, that kind of show that you like,
I don't know who would watch stuff like that. Well,
Grabster takes the task, um those kind of shows for
presenting a very um unbalanced picture of police chases. They
don't show the cops backing off of the pursuit becomes
(20:18):
too dangerous. They don't show the cops crashing into an
instant by standards car right. Um. They never say, well,
this cop probably shouldn't have pursued this person because this
is a minor violation. Um. And they they always kind
of tend to present the police in a favorable light. Yeah.
And I think it's more I don't know if they're
(20:40):
out to make Oh maybe they are. I just think
it's better TV obviously, like you would want to show
and they're like, oh no, let's just back off and
get back to get that for sure. Plus also they
want to maintain a um the kind of relationship with
cops police departments that where they'll give them their footage. Absolutely,
you know, now the shows are good for the cops.
I'm sure we hear I don't know if you can
(21:00):
hear this people, it sounds like a police chase is
going on outside right now. I think it is. This
is this is really dramatic footage. Chuck. Um. Uh, do
you remember the O J thing specifically? Yeah? Where were
you then? How's in college? Were in college? I remember too,
of course, so I don't. The chase wasn't I didn't
(21:22):
watch much of the chase, remember the verdict? Yeah? I
remember the chase specifically because they it was during the
Knicks Rockets NBA playoffs and my buddy Justin as a
huge Knicks fan, and he was really upset and he
was just like, do you have to have it on
every channel? And I agreed with This's like, why don't
you know you're going to pre empt the basketball game.
It's on a hundred channels. I can't in there one
(21:46):
person out there that wants to watch the basketball game
put their ratings would have gone through the roof. And
that was a low speech chase. That wasn't even that
was just weird. You know, the well love speech chases
are very weird. I'm a c It's just like, you
know who I am. I'm not gonna pull over. Yeah.
So well, let's talk about the legalities of it, right. There's,
like we said, there's pretty much no laws that restrict
(22:09):
police chases. They have the right to do that in
all cases. Yeah um. And as a matter of fact,
they don't even have to have their lights and sirens
running to engage in pursuit. Yeah um. The there are
department procedures regarding police chases though. But the thing is is,
even if a cop violates department procedure and continues to pursuit,
(22:30):
they're still not breaking any laws. So for example, in Washington,
d C. You can only pursue if the suspect has
engaged in a violent act or um, someone could be
seriously hurt if the suspect were allowed to escape. UM.
In Des Moines, Iowa, no more than three cars can
engage in pursuit. Yeah, that makes good sense. It's a
(22:52):
good rule. And you have to take into account a
m the time of day, road and weather conditions, the
nature of the offense, and a supervisor has to pursue,
has to approve the pursuit. And then in Florida, Orange County, Florida,
that's the Orlando area. Yeah. Are they the ones that
have real restrictive policies. Yeah. And as a matter of fact,
(23:14):
they found that after in the year after they enacted
their restrictive pursuit policies, UM, felonies in Orlando declined. Yeah,
what's up with that. I don't know, one of those
weird things. Uh. There is also something called sovereign immunity UM,
which is a government official is not liable for damages
(23:34):
that occur while they're doing their job. UM. Yeah, that's
like old time common law. Yeah, old school. But these
days there are a lot of municipalities that have overridden
that law with with other laws. Um And like I
think with the Georgia case, I think that cop was
fired and brought up on charges, and I think they
(23:55):
could even sue the police station. Yeah, with the but
not himself in overriding the sovereign immunity laws. Most most
departments or communities protect the cops individually but financially. But
the institution can still be sued, right, but they're not
protected criminally, Like they can still be brought up on charges,
(24:15):
they just can't be sued. I think, gotcha, because I'm
pretty sure this Braves guy, I think he went upon trial.
Well apparently if I'm wrong, then I'm gonna eat crow.
But in California, you're basically out of luck if the
cops mess up your storefront with their cars during your pursuit. Yeah,
they their laws very much protect the cops for from
(24:36):
that liability. Insurance would help out though, you would hope,
But I mean then your rates are gonna rise. What
were you doing? Nothing? You just happened to have a
store in the wrong place in l A. So that's
a that's police chase. As you got anything else? I
got nothing else. They seem way more dangerous than I
even thought, and I thought they were pretty dangerous before. Yeah,
don't support those TV shows. People don't listen to me dolorify. Yeah,
(25:00):
to do as he says, not as he does. That's right. Uh,
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(25:46):
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or where ever you listen to your favorite shows. H
Hey, everybody, it's me Josh, your old pal, your old buddy,
and I'm here with another s Y s K Selects
and this week it's all about police chases. We release
this episode back in May of two thousand thirteen, and
it's one of those things where you think you have
an idea about how something works or what something is,
and the more you dig into it, the more you
(00:21):
realize that, like, wow, we've all just kind of been
going along with this thing that probably shouldn't exist. So
it was a real eye opening experience to me. And
I hope even if you've heard the episode before that
you find it an eye opening Again, let's all just
watch our eyes open. If you can do such a thing,
I don't even know if that's possible. Welcome to Stuff
(00:45):
You should know a production of I Heart Radios How
Stuff Works, d do Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, who's uh
do you know? Someone on Twitter said that every time
Chuck Bryant giggles, a baby bunny is born. Yeah, and
(01:08):
they be it to Wow. I love being responsible for
all that joy in the world. You're doing it, man, so,
I guess you just opened the show with you were
being chased by a police car in Great Britain. Just
you did a British Sorry, I guess it was yeah
to do that. In the United States, we have different
sounding sirens. Well, well in these days, it's all kinds
(01:31):
of crazy, like beeps and whistles. It's like that's like
an American police cruiser today. Wow, this is getting off
to a great start. Let's let's try to keep it
on the track, all right, on the U E V
O C track. Yeah, this is what this is in
our long running law enforcement series. You know, it's unequaled
(01:53):
by any other topic except for death. I think you think,
I think death might have it beat. Okay, may be not, though,
we'll find out. All right. Uh I let's go count
them after this, Okay, Chuck. Have you ever been in
a police chase? Um? Have you ever been the object
of pursuit in a police chase? Yeah? I was not driving.
(02:16):
I was in a car one time when my friend
decided to run from the cops. Wow, we lay it
on us. Well, you know, it was just one of
those things. We were in Athens and he made a
very bad decision and uh, we got away with it,
no way. Yeah, we'll see. That's something that I find
extremely interesting because I didn't realize until reading this article that, um,
(02:39):
there are very few circumstances where a cop should feel
justified or would be justified in chasing you. Right. But
that said, there are almost no laws whatsoever restricting police chases.
It's this weird gray area. And I actually found there's
activists online or saying, like say no to police chases,
(03:01):
like restrict police chases, like create laws against police chases
because these things are deadly and dangerous. Yeah. I think
what about a hundred and forty innocent civilians were killed
last year? Yeah, three about a person a day on
average dies from a police chase, and about a third
of those. But yeah, last hundred forty or just innocent bystanders.
Yeah that I mean that happened in Atlanta. That's happened
(03:23):
in Atlanta a couple of times recently. One time the
trainer for the Atlanta Braves his because he lost his
wife to a cop smashing into her. And um, then
again more recently there was another case. I think it
was a kid or something, but it was like it
was sort of in the news lately. Yeah, And I
mean you get the impression that and cops died too,
Like high speed pursuit is their high speed pursuing. That's
(03:46):
dangerous for everybody involved, including the cop. Um, but you
get the impression that, like whatever the circumstances, is just
just not pulling over for being for a for a
cop trying to pull you over is reason enough to
get the cops tackles raised enough to chase you. Yeah,
right off the bat. I think that would be any
cops instinct, is gun it not? Like, well, let me
(04:09):
check into his record and call my supervisor and see
if they allow this, which a lot of times this policy.
Now as we'll see, um, there are procedures in place
to kind of try to tamp down that emotion of
the primary departmental policy. Basically though, like you said, not
law right, So well let's let's talk about this. Um Okay.
When you go through the academy and you um get
(04:31):
all your training, your gun training, you're hanging out with
Tackleberry and you learn how to make cool sounds like
machine guns says or like yeah huh yeah. Um, you
spend about a week, probably a little less learning how
to drive the car. Yeah. Sadly only about two of
those days are dedicated to high speed pursuit. Yeah, which
(04:53):
apparently is an improvement over zero days, which is how
it used to be. And like the forties and fifties. Yeah,
I guess they just said good luck. Right, you should
know how to drive fast, right. You know, if you're
an old country sheriff, you probably ran moonshine exactly, or
your cousin does at least. Um. But there there's a
lot to it. Um. In Ed grab Banowski, the grabster
um points out that you know, in in a high
(05:16):
speed pursuit, UH, cops car can be just as deadly
as a cops gun, and they need to know how
to use it just as well and just as accurately. Um.
Because not only do you not have to know how
to drive, you have to know how to drive fast
while you're also turning on the lights and the sirens
and like calling in something and like all that other
stuff has to be second nature to you so that
you can focus on the driving while using just a
(05:38):
minimal amount of your brain power on the other stuff.
So part of the car training is just that how
to run a police car stuff. Because it's not like
every other car. Right, and if you, um, if you
are being trained to to drive in high speeds in
pursuit of a suspect and they send you to Colorado,
you can be reasonably assured that you're gonna come among
(06:00):
the better trained police in the country because the Colorado
State Police maintain a course, an Emergency Vehicles Operation course
that is the cream of the crop. Did you see
like the aerial view of it. Yeah, I mean they
cover all the scenarios like UM on ramps and off ramps, um,
high speed turns, intersections. They've really got all laid out
(06:21):
there and put you in a scenario where as close
as you could get to like an active street. Right.
It's like there's skid plates where the coefficient of friction
is point one five compared Chuck to say, I'm just
staying this off top of my head, a of coefficient
of friction of like point nine five on a dry highway. Yeah,
so that's slick. Yeah, that is slick. They need to
(06:42):
know how to not spin out, basically. Yeah, And that's
I think the exception is a really elaborate course like this.
I think a lot of local police still use the
parking lot in the cones back, which is better than
an orange cone. Your doctor days, you put an egg
on it like a Brady Bump. God. That was one
of the greatest television shows of all time, The Brady Bunch. Yeah. Absolutely. Um,
(07:08):
so let's talk about pursuit equipment. Right, Basically what we
just said was police training. You get a couple of days.
Maybe if you're lucky, you get a few days on
like a really great course, maybe out in Colorado. For
the most part, it's like, you know how to drive,
just drive really fast. Here's your Crown vic Yeah, that
the Ford Crown Victoria's is the most common police car,
(07:29):
although they're using all sorts of different cars today. When
you drive around you'll see like those Dodge Chargers and
like the more souped up I know. Uh, I think
in l A the State Patrol had those Mustangs, like
they really souped up sports cars. Um, apparently they're getting
away from Crown Victoria's because that model of car had
a big problem with it. Whereas if you were rear
(07:51):
ended in a high speed collision, your car blew up. Yeah,
that was that the Pacer that did that. In the seventies,
the Pinto Pinto, the Ford Pinto. Again, Ford had the
opposite problem if you if you um collided with something
on the front end, I thought it was the rear.
I think it was the front. Well let me tell
you this either way. I learned about it from the
movie Top Secret, where a Pinto like just barely hits
(08:14):
a tree and then it's the front and blows up
and then Ford ambulances for a while we're blown up
to Yeah, so forward with the with the police inceptor
crowned vic um created this, uh, this chemical fire suppression
system where right when you're rear ended at a high
enough impact, forceful enough impact, this this fire suppression thing
(08:36):
goes off. So even if there's not a fire, there's
not going to be a fire anyway. Um, but apparently
it's enough that some some people are like, yeah, we're
gonna go with the intrepid. Uh. You see a lot
of crown bicks in Atlanta to like just regular people
driving them. It's like sort of a thing. Now, Yeah,
it is like a little spotlight. Yeah, it's like, man,
don't mess with me like that out on the highway. So, um,
(09:23):
there are some differences of course tween a police car.
If you think it's just a regular Crown Victoria. It
is not or whatever it is. Um. A lot of
times it does have more horsepower in the engine because
they need that kind of juice. Um. And they weigh
more obviously than your standard car. Because there's more guns
and things you're gonna have like metal reinforced seat backs
(09:43):
and things, so like you can't get stabbed in the
back from the back seat you did if you did,
or shootings or anything if you didn't do a good
job of checking for weapons. Um. What else. Extra transmission
coolers and oil coolers. Yeah, because I mean like a
radiator tops. Like they don't turn their car off ever
like that heat heat builds up, so they have like
(10:05):
oil coolers and transmission fluid coolers, bigger alternators to supply
more power up to a hundred and thirty amps if
that means anything to you. And then lights well in
vinyl seats stow in the rear. That's that's important. Yeah,
You're never gonna find cloth interior in the back of
a police car because suspects are dirty. They're dirty, and
oftentimes they will poop and vomit and bleed and just
(10:28):
do whatever whatever. Bodily fluid they can get out in
that police car, they probably will, so they want to
make it uh easily. You just get out the four
nine and the paper towels and just clean it right there.
Um lights Apparently they used to have them on the
fenders and they said, you know what, this is visible,
(10:48):
but it's not as visible as if it were on
the roof. So they created what as the light bar,
and which it was a little more recent than I thought.
It was the seventies that these things made their debut. Yeah,
and I thought back, I was like, oh, yeah, you
never see like cars in the sixties or or even
early seventies with that light bar. So I was born
at about the time the light bar came along. Yeah,
(11:09):
I think, uh, you know, you remember seeing the single
sirens sometimes or the double blue Dirty Harry would put
one do like a UI. Well some some were built
in but yeah, they also had the undercover cars. That
was one of the great parts of any cop movie
was when they got out the siren and put it
on the roof. Um. And now you can get them
at Spencer's Gifts. Summer blue and summer uh, summer blue
(11:31):
and summer red. Though I've never known the distinction. I
always thought ambulances were red and cops were blue, But
in different cities have seen cops have read. I think
it depends on what side of the force you're on.
Oh really yeah, like how your medic chlorine? So one
thing they can do to uh, to prevent the chase
from happening altogether. You've seen the old spike strip. They'll
(11:54):
lay down these rubber mats with spikes all across the road,
or they have them like uh, like an accordion. You
just kind of throw and hang on to one end
and the other. That's the quick version, and so that
will obviously disabled the tires. Um you can the good
old fashioned roadblock that you see in movies actually happens.
They line up cars and except in this version there's
(12:16):
not a conveniently parked tow truck ramp for the criminal
to jump over everybody or bust through. I guess, well,
you have to be careful setting those up because it's
normally going the criminals not going to try to push
through the car, but they may try to go around.
So you have to make sure that if you set
up this roadblock, it's it's not like going to funnel
(12:38):
them into somebody's house. I don't think you do that
in like a neighborhood. That would be a good idea.
You want to do it on a country road. And
then modern techniques, which I think if they bring this
stuff along, that's really where it's at, Like microwave technology
to disable the electrical system of a car, or shooting
a laser high speed avoidance using laser technology HALT system
(12:59):
of course, But they left out a couple of letters there.
H oh, yeah, it should be swa halt. It's not
an acronym if you're leaving out words just to make
it a cute word. All right, Um, so they like
a lay ocean last name if they spelled it out correctly.
So in that case, they're shooting a laser to cut
(13:21):
off your fuel supply. But here's the rub there is
the vehicle that they're shooting it at has to have
a special microchip in it. Yeah. I didn't look into that,
did you. Is it like newer vehicles? All that's my
guess is that they're going to start putting these in
all cars or something like. They make some deal, that
would be fine with me. I mean, it's better than
pursuing somebody. Absolutely you know, um, And then of course
(13:41):
you have air support, either in the form of a
police helicopter or like fifty news helicopters if it's the
police chase out in California, um, or the world's Scariest
police chase helicopter. Yeah. Whoever those guys are. I think
they just get footage from news copters and cop copters.
Do you watch the shows I know I've talked about.
I've seen them before. Yeah, Yeah, they're they're just so
(14:06):
I don't know, I followed. That's one of my guilty pleasures.
Do you watch this still? Yeah? I mean it's not
appointment television. I never know when or where they come on.
But if I'm flipping it around and I'll see a
police chase. I lived in l A. It's sort of
a thing, it is. Yeah, And apparently California has some
of the most um police protective laws as far as
(14:28):
pursuits go. They happen a lot out there. Yeah, and
like the everybody just stops doing what they're doing and
watches the live coverage of it sort of. Do you
remember the guy um who killed himself on live television
after a police pursuit and yeah, showed it on Fox.
I guess I saw that when it happened live. I
was I remember very distinctly. It was like not like
a movie. No, you know, like if you've ever seen
(14:50):
someone shoot their head off with a shotgun in real life,
it's nothing like. It's not some big dramatic movie thing.
It's just sad. Yeah, it really was. It was like
he might have been like making or gami or something like.
It was just that pedestrian or it was just like
he just had the gun and he's pull it up
and shot himself and he hunches over and just falls. Yeah,
(15:13):
it was. It's weird. It was really weird to see.
It was very sad. And of course all the kids
that saw that, that's like it's terrible. Yeah. Um. So, initially,
if someone takes off, like you were talking about, the
police officer that's on the scene has a decision to
make to pursue or not to pursue. Lots of policies.
One thing they want to do is run the tags.
(15:35):
Is it a stolen vehicle where they just in an
arm robbery or is it just somebody who has a
couple of traffic tickets out or nothing at all on
their record. Apparently the pursuit that enjoys the widest support
around the country is if it's a violent criminal, um,
somebody who poses an imminent threat to somebody else, somebody
(15:55):
who's just carried out a violent act and is escaping,
like pretty much, which everybody says, chase that guy. Like
if you said the person has a couple of traffic
tickets or if they have nothing and they're the only
reason to chase them is that they didn't pull over
for you, that is not reason to pursue. And yet
(16:17):
of all pursuits, and I believe two thousand eleven were
for traffic violations. Yeah, I mean, I feel for the
cops has got to be their instinct, like go get
that person. They're fleeing me for a good reason. Yeah,
Like I get it, But there when people are interesting,
people are dying, there needs to be like some policy
in place for sure. And apparently, Chuck, ninety one point
(16:37):
four percent of chases were for non violent crimes. I
believe that. So, um, if the cops says, okay, this
guy's this car just came back stolen, the guy just
waved a gun and it's a very clear case that
he should pursue them. There are other things to consider. Yeah, uh,
what's the what don't get him? What's what's traffic? Like,
what's the word? Are the road conditions? Like it rainy?
(17:00):
Is it dark? A neighborhood, pedestrians everywhere? You might want
to just kind of slowly tail the guy. Well, the
one in Atlanta where they killed the trainer's wife, I
think it was a sort of a busy afternoon in
an urban area, Like they shouldn't have been pursuing anyone
at this point. Do you know what they were pursuing
the person for? No, I don't remember. Um. And then
(17:21):
so if they decide to like go ahead and pursue,
then this this series of um procedures kind of come
into place, like they need to be radio back into
headquarters like immediately right and apparently they're every step of
the way or they just kind of keep the whoever
they're talking to their supervisor posted on what's going on.
(17:44):
And the supervisor's role is to keep a cool head
because they're not the one who the person isn't pulling
over for, so they're they're not mad. Sure, they don't
want to correct heads, you know, UM, so their their
whole role is to to say, you know what, like
we we should You just told me that there's some
pedestrians around. This guy is not a violent offender. You
(18:04):
don't don't complete this pursuit, or we have like we
have chopper coverage, so back off with the cars and
we can still like follow this car from above. Yeah,
you know, like we're still gonna get our guy. Don't
you worry about it? Um. One of my favorite things.
If you watch the show Cops, you're well versed with
the pit maneuver police I'm sorry, pursuit intervention technique also
(18:29):
called the technical vehicle intervention, and that is the famous move.
If a cop has you know, you'll hear them. They
have to get clearance for the pit maneuver. Even they'll
call it in and say, hey, I think I've got
a chance for a pit Can I take it? And
they'll say, if you feel like, you know, the streets
are clear enough and you know you have to do
it on a turn, you don't just like run up
(18:51):
beside someone and run them off the road. It's it's
when they enter a turn, the cop hits the gas
and hits them on the left rear umper and just
basically spins them out, and uh, it's it works if
done correctly, and they'll train. You know, you get trained
when you get the defensive driving on the pit maneuver
and they just spin out. You can't come out of it,
(19:13):
can't come out of it. Your car spins. And that's
generally on cops at least when the guys will jump
out of the car with the car still rolling and
take off on foot. And then you hear these cops,
you know, with the they're miked up, so all you
hear is like running in the dark with all this
gear on. You're like, man, what a crappy job. Well,
(19:33):
you know, check your heavy breathing just reminded me of something.
Is it that time? It's time for a message break?
(19:57):
All right? Heavy breathing indeed, So you we're talking about
the wildest police chases, that kind of show that you like,
I don't know who would watch stuff like that. Well,
Grabster takes the task, um those kind of shows for
presenting a very um unbalanced picture of police chases. They
don't show the cops backing off of the pursuit becomes
(20:18):
too dangerous. They don't show the cops crashing into an
instant by standards car right. Um. They never say, well,
this cop probably shouldn't have pursued this person because this
is a minor violation. Um. And they they always kind
of tend to present the police in a favorable light. Yeah.
And I think it's more I don't know if they're
(20:40):
out to make Oh maybe they are. I just think
it's better TV obviously, like you would want to show
and they're like, oh no, let's just back off and
get back to get that for sure. Plus also they
want to maintain a um the kind of relationship with
cops police departments that where they'll give them their footage. Absolutely,
you know, now the shows are good for the cops.
I'm sure we hear I don't know if you can
(21:00):
hear this people, it sounds like a police chase is
going on outside right now. I think it is. This
is this is really dramatic footage. Chuck. Um. Uh, do
you remember the O J thing specifically? Yeah? Where were
you then? How's in college? Were in college? I remember too,
of course, so I don't. The chase wasn't I didn't
(21:22):
watch much of the chase, remember the verdict? Yeah? I
remember the chase specifically because they it was during the
Knicks Rockets NBA playoffs and my buddy Justin as a
huge Knicks fan, and he was really upset and he
was just like, do you have to have it on
every channel? And I agreed with This's like, why don't
you know you're going to pre empt the basketball game.
It's on a hundred channels. I can't in there one
(21:46):
person out there that wants to watch the basketball game
put their ratings would have gone through the roof. And
that was a low speech chase. That wasn't even that
was just weird. You know, the well love speech chases
are very weird. I'm a c It's just like, you
know who I am. I'm not gonna pull over. Yeah.
So well, let's talk about the legalities of it, right. There's,
like we said, there's pretty much no laws that restrict
(22:09):
police chases. They have the right to do that in
all cases. Yeah um. And as a matter of fact,
they don't even have to have their lights and sirens
running to engage in pursuit. Yeah um. The there are
department procedures regarding police chases though. But the thing is is,
even if a cop violates department procedure and continues to pursuit,
(22:30):
they're still not breaking any laws. So for example, in Washington,
d C. You can only pursue if the suspect has
engaged in a violent act or um, someone could be
seriously hurt if the suspect were allowed to escape. UM.
In Des Moines, Iowa, no more than three cars can
engage in pursuit. Yeah, that makes good sense. It's a
(22:52):
good rule. And you have to take into account a
m the time of day, road and weather conditions, the
nature of the offense, and a supervisor has to pursue,
has to approve the pursuit. And then in Florida, Orange County, Florida,
that's the Orlando area. Yeah. Are they the ones that
have real restrictive policies. Yeah. And as a matter of fact,
(23:14):
they found that after in the year after they enacted
their restrictive pursuit policies, UM, felonies in Orlando declined. Yeah,
what's up with that. I don't know, one of those
weird things. Uh. There is also something called sovereign immunity UM,
which is a government official is not liable for damages
(23:34):
that occur while they're doing their job. UM. Yeah, that's
like old time common law. Yeah, old school. But these
days there are a lot of municipalities that have overridden
that law with with other laws. Um And like I
think with the Georgia case, I think that cop was
fired and brought up on charges, and I think they
(23:55):
could even sue the police station. Yeah, with the but
not himself in overriding the sovereign immunity laws. Most most
departments or communities protect the cops individually but financially. But
the institution can still be sued, right, but they're not
protected criminally, Like they can still be brought up on charges,
(24:15):
they just can't be sued. I think, gotcha, because I'm
pretty sure this Braves guy, I think he went upon trial.
Well apparently if I'm wrong, then I'm gonna eat crow.
But in California, you're basically out of luck if the
cops mess up your storefront with their cars during your pursuit. Yeah,
they their laws very much protect the cops for from
(24:36):
that liability. Insurance would help out though, you would hope,
But I mean then your rates are gonna rise. What
were you doing? Nothing? You just happened to have a
store in the wrong place in l A. So that's
a that's police chase. As you got anything else? I
got nothing else. They seem way more dangerous than I
even thought, and I thought they were pretty dangerous before. Yeah,
don't support those TV shows. People don't listen to me dolorify. Yeah,
(25:00):
to do as he says, not as he does. That's right. Uh,
if you want to learn more about police chases, you
can type those words into the search bar. How stuff
works and us and so I said, search par what
is it? Chuck? Is the time for listener mail? It
normally would be, but I do not have a listener
mail prepared. Instead, we are going to uh have a
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couple of things that help us out people in our
(25:22):
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(25:46):
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(26:48):
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