Tapsearch Com EditorOn police chases
March 2nd 2007 01:25
This story is about the weakest Fourth Amendment claim I've ever heard about. It does, however, bring up some questions about when and how police should chase fleeing suspects.
A man paralyzed during a car chase -- in which he sped away from police at speeds of 90 mph -- is suing on the grounds that ramming his car was an unreasonable search or seizure and excessive force. (The Fourth Amendment does not contain the words "excessive force" but has been taken to imply them. The implications for police chases are still up in the air.)
Bottom line: When an individual endangers police or others, say by waving a gun around or resisting arrest by driving at 90 mph, police have the right to do what's necessary to apprehend him. They can shoot an armed suspect through the chest, so why couldn't they ram a vehicle off the road that might very well run over a bystander or crash into an innocent person's car? A car is just as dangerous as a gun is. It's disturbing the Supreme Court even took the case.
As a matter of policy it's also quite interesting. Some argue police should not chase suspects, others that chasing is OK up to ramming (this case challenges the ramming legally).
The logic is sound at first: High-speed chases are dangerous as heck. Letting one bank robber/whatever go is a reasonable price to pay for saving lives, cars and injuries. It's just not worth it.
The problem with this line of thinking is that it ignores the future. Once criminals find out about the policy, and they will, they'll start running more. This error has happened before in public policy -- in the New York subway system, police stopped arresting turnstile jumpers because it cost more to write the criminals up than the government earned back in tickets. Turnstile-jumping increased, the subway descended into chaos and it took Rudy Giuliani to fix the mess.
The second issue, that of ramming specifically, is more debatable. The problem with the case at hand is that the paralyzed guy ran from the cops, bringing his injury on himself. I think you would have a decent argument if you could find an innocent person injured by the PIT procedure (hitting a car at an angle to force it off the road) -- I'm not aware that that's statistically common, and I'd doubt it is, but at least I'd feel sorry for the test case.
Hat tip: John Lott.
By Robert VerBruggen
A man paralyzed during a car chase -- in which he sped away from police at speeds of 90 mph -- is suing on the grounds that ramming his car was an unreasonable search or seizure and excessive force. (The Fourth Amendment does not contain the words "excessive force" but has been taken to imply them. The implications for police chases are still up in the air.)
Bottom line: When an individual endangers police or others, say by waving a gun around or resisting arrest by driving at 90 mph, police have the right to do what's necessary to apprehend him. They can shoot an armed suspect through the chest, so why couldn't they ram a vehicle off the road that might very well run over a bystander or crash into an innocent person's car? A car is just as dangerous as a gun is. It's disturbing the Supreme Court even took the case.
As a matter of policy it's also quite interesting. Some argue police should not chase suspects, others that chasing is OK up to ramming (this case challenges the ramming legally).
The logic is sound at first: High-speed chases are dangerous as heck. Letting one bank robber/whatever go is a reasonable price to pay for saving lives, cars and injuries. It's just not worth it.
The problem with this line of thinking is that it ignores the future. Once criminals find out about the policy, and they will, they'll start running more. This error has happened before in public policy -- in the New York subway system, police stopped arresting turnstile jumpers because it cost more to write the criminals up than the government earned back in tickets. Turnstile-jumping increased, the subway descended into chaos and it took Rudy Giuliani to fix the mess.
The second issue, that of ramming specifically, is more debatable. The problem with the case at hand is that the paralyzed guy ran from the cops, bringing his injury on himself. I think you would have a decent argument if you could find an innocent person injured by the PIT procedure (hitting a car at an angle to force it off the road) -- I'm not aware that that's statistically common, and I'd doubt it is, but at least I'd feel sorry for the test case.
Hat tip: John Lott.
By Robert VerBruggen
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Comment by Mark Schultz
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This is one of the stupidest lawsuits I've heard of. Much like the person that sued a trained medic for breaking their ribs while giving them CPR... and hopefully this one get thrown out of court just as quickly.