Some form of spikes / stop sticks / etc have been around for, what, 20 years? This morning a peer told me, in that time, 29 coppers had been killed by suspects when deploying, unknown how injured. Patrol cars frequently get spiked more effectively than the Bad Guys, as do uninvolved citizens.
Why are the collective "we" still using them?
In all honesty, because agency's are unwilling to accept the near mandate of the U.S. Supreme Court to use deadly force or near deadly force (like the PIT) to stop pursuits.Originally Posted by Angus McFee
People run because they know they're a chance they'll escape or the agency will terminate the pursuit. When running has ZERO chance of working and only gets you decades in prison, you'll see a lot less pursuits.
- It's not the odds, it's the stakes.
- If you aren't dry practicing every week, you're not serious.....
- "Tache-Psyche Effect - a polite way of saying 'You suck.' " - GG
Probably the same reason why some officers sometimes use mace or tazers or words when faced with a lethal force situation. Fear that they will be persecuted if they go lethal. Departments training them to take higher risk to themselves just to lower the risk of a lawsuit...That 100K life insurance policy has much fewer zeros than the settlements paid to relatives of assholes. Sad.
This!
The previous three step mental checklist for use of deadly force has been rendered invalid by the existing excessively PC, anti-cop climate.
Existence of lethal threat- Check
Proper tool selected and aligned with threat - Check
Background clear - Check
Now there are a myriad of other considerations that officers are burdened with. Most, if not all, have little to do with addressing the threat and protecting the officer or others. Today officers in some jurisdictions are presented with awards for shirking their responsibility to use the appropriate level of force when confronted with a threat. I am not sure what will bring the return of common sense and law to the judgement of cases in which force is applied.
Not going to get better in the short term. These dim bulbs are an infestation of epic proportions. They are like junkies. You purge one and 10 sprout up to replace. The Progressive idiots have been infesting all levels of government for generations. Will take a long time to unearth and remove them.
I guess my experience with stop sticks is much different then the rest of you. They have worked like a charm for all the uses I've seen and with the way we deploy them there is almost no chance of being hit by the fleeing vehicle. They work great stopping cars going through toll booths on all the toll roads we have here.
Edit: 9 times out of 10 we stop stick and then PIT once the speeds have decreased on the fleeing vehicle slow enough to do so. Obviously the PIT is the first option we teach to use, but that is speed depedent whether it's considered lethal force or not.
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Last edited by PearTree; 11-27-2017 at 10:59 AM.
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