Make sure you let your family know how much you care about them. Also make sure they will be taken care of in case you're suddenly gone. Firstly by picking up enough term life insurance to cover your dependents' needs until adulthood. Secondly by writing up a will and giving it to someone you trust. [1][2]
We joke about "getting hit by a bus" and a project's "bus factor"[3] but it really does happen. It could happen to you or to a critically important person on your project team. Make it a policy to have all critical info recorded in some systematic way. You don't have to get all iso9000 but you should, at the very least, have everyone do a brain dump into a wiki once a month and keep it in a central location (along with the password file, list of client info, etc.)
This is a good reminder to always be a defensive and aware pedestrian. Just because you have the light or the right-of-way doesn't mean you are guaranteed a safe crossing of the street. Whenever I cross an intersection as a pedestrian I always look both ways (even on one way streets) and I always keep an eye on cars that are still in motion, especially those that don't appear to be slowing down. It's good to make these sorts of things just an innate habit, it could safe your life one day.
I've grown up in Lebanon -- a third world country still recovering from a 15 year civil war(1975-1990). Traffic lights and rules are merely suggestions to people around here. If something is physically possible, like a car being able to fit in an pedestrian-only paved road or two cars being able to fit in a one-way street you can be sure that people will do it. It becomes an innate habit to always check both ways and never assume that a car will stop or slow down or that the driver has even seen you when you're crossing the road. It's not "you might get hit" if you don't, it's "you will get hit" if you don't. It's sad, but it's true.
As an anecdote, there's a road that ends in an entrance/exit to a freeway that I use pretty frequently when driving from my home to Beirut. Two years ago, because the fact that the road was a 2-way road(people could use it to leave the freeway as well as enter it) was causing a lot of traffic they changed it into a 1-way road you could only use to enter the freeway, you had to leave from an exit further down the line. This reduced traffic jams immensely. However, before that could happen they had to go through several iterations on how to enforce this. First, a simple traffic sign was tried, this was largely ignored. Then they placed plastic barriers(those triangular things that can be filled with sand or water). Every night somebody would stop, get out of their car and move them to pass and things went back to how they were before the next day. Now they've closed it off with concrete barriers. It's working, but occasionally, especially at night, somebody will stop after the entrance, then back up into it and then use it as an exit. I once almost rear-ended someone doing that while I was going onto the freeway.
I highly doubt it. The behaviour has nothing to do with bad drivers, it's mostly because of lack of enforcement. The only thing you can get a fine for is speeding, and even then most speed traps are easy to spot. Otherwise, just do whatever the fuck you want and you won't get a fine. I'm serious, anything goes.
I've seen people burn red lights right in front of police officers and get no reaction. Heck, I've seen police cars burn red lights(for no reason, sirens weren't on, they were driving pretty slow, they just felt like it). I have a friend who got rear-ended by a police car and then verbally abused for being an idiot by stopping at a red light at night.
We didn't use to have speeding tickets a couple of year back. Then they started enforcing speed limits. Lo-and-behold people started paying attention and generally trying not to speed. But going the wrong way(even on a highway, I was once almost killed by a guy doing that because there was a traffic jam at the only exit and he didn't feel like waiting so he just U-turned and went the other way, but that's another story) will not get you fined.
I'm pretty sure that if traffic rules were enforced properly then people wouldn't so easily ignore them. But we don't have the necessary amount of police to even do a significant fraction of what's needed.
A lot of ex-hockey goons are police, three cars go through the red light, people don't signal turns not even police, lines on the road are ignored, people park anywhere, tailgaters everywhere, cars without license plates, road crews make the roads stupid because they can't drive so how would they know a road is wrong and on and on.
> I've seen people burn red lights right in front of police officers and get no reaction. Heck, I've seen police cars burn red lights(for no reason, sirens weren't on, they were driving pretty slow, they just felt like it).
As another commenter says, I've seen both of these things happen in New York City (especially the second).
After being hit by a car when I was young, that's exactly how I navigate traffic as a bicyclist/pedestrian.
Traffic rules create a useful abstraction but, if you want to be safe, the only non-leaky abstraction is seeing traffic as a collection of objects moving at various speeds which can optionally change acceleration or direction based on things like traffic lights / your presence / cats running across the road after the required reaction time has elapsed.
It's a bit less relaxing of a way to travel, but it sure as hell beats waking up in the hospital with brain damage, a leg whose foot no longer points in the direction it should and an arm that's no longer moving or ... not waking up at all.
After living outside the US for many years, I now play the "invisible man game" even in the US. I've taught it to my kids, too.
The rules are: you imagine that you are literally invisible and find a way to cross the road that doesn't rely on the drivers' cooperation with you or the law. The drivers don't know you exist, because you are invisible.
Playing that game allowed me, for example, to jump onto the hood of a car that stopped at a red light briefly then hit the gas just as I walked in front of it. I was playing invisible man, as always, and had imagined what I would do if that guy, who was stopping, decided to take off again just as I got in front of his car. I imagined jumping onto his hood, which I did so quickly when he hit the gas that I landed on his windshield staring in at him with a grin on my face (instead of ending up under his tires.)
You can't protect yourself from everything, but playing the invisible man game each time you cross a street with traffic is a good strategy. I should add that I can't really play it if I'm on the phone, so I pause my call ("oh, um, hold on a second, I'll be right back"), play the game, and resume the call on the other side.
I haven't taken my pedestrian survival skills that far, but I've always felt that if I'd ever be hit, that would be at an intersection. I felt that there are too many moving objects to keep track of at a typical intersection to be able to control your fate.
So, when in developing countries, I prefer to cross the street in the middle of a block (with no alleys in sight). This way there are only two directions I need to be wary about.
Now, that I've taken up road cycling, I'm at the mercy of other drivers and I'm afraid there are no hacks I could use (except of being extra careful at intersections).
As someone who's been hit by a car twice (neither were my fault), it's also a good reminder that cars simply don't belong in urban areas with a sufficiently dense population. I still don't get why most American cities still don't reach a tipping point then go whole hog in making certain parts of cities pedestrian and bike only.
Cars are still often used as a sign of conspicuous consumption, especially among older people who came of age back in the "car era" (the '50s/'60s, when there was an overwhelming sense of the automobile as the "glorious future" of transportation, and before the many problems of mass car usage were clear)—and older people tend to be richer/more influential.
So you get a disproportionate amount of car use by rich/influential people (including many politicians), and they have far more effect on public policy than the average person. Even if the right thing overall is to restrict automobile usage, any politician has to be very careful how he introduces such policies lest he quickly feel the wrath of the well-connected...
Cars are often still used as a method of transportation, especially among people whose life or work happens to fall outside a few dozen cities with dense population and work and stores one can walk to. That guy living in Leader Heights, Pennsylvania, isn't driving from sheer cussedness, he's driving because work is in York, or maybe Shrewsbury or Baltimore, and because the supermarket is five miles away.
If he were richer and more influential, he wouldn't be in Leader Heights, he'd be in Baltimore or Philadelphia.
You'd be amazed at how much can be delivered by bike. Go to Brazil and you'll see tons of things being delivered by bike in cities, things like 5-gallon water bottles, Propane tanks, supermarket shopping, etc.
Cars ar comfortable. There's an aspect of control of personal space that you don't get on public transportation.
I've used public transit almost my whole life, but recently I'm becoming seduced by those evil cars. If I take the subway during rush hour, I can barely get enough space to read an iPad. If I don't travel during rush hour, I don't have dinner with my family.
A highly engineered network of lights, signs, warnings, and all other sorts of traffic guidance actually makes pedestrian and vehicle travel less safe. It's a psychological phenomenon - discussed here: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/traffic.html - where the actors stop using situational awareness and total rely on external devices to do their decision making. Safety takes a back seat to obeying the law. Upon removing most of the signage and guidance do humans become more situationally aware, cautious, and more personally responsible for their safety. Believe it or not, the car driving down the sidewalk ultimately makes everyone safer.
There's a difference between a situation where boundaries are not respected (driving on the sidewalk), and a situation where we choose not to orchestrate people's actions (lack of traffic lights).
My rule: if there are cars around, never cross (legally!) unless you have eye contact. That person making a right turn on a red light? They're likely looking left and will you over if you legally start to cross in front of them.
However, I will note: even if you follow this rule, be prepared to jump out of the way. I have to, and often. I walk 4 miles/day in city streets. The number of times I've had to jump out of the way when I had the right of way... ridiculous. Defensive walking or you won't be walking for long.
When my friends and I discuss such things I like to emphasize that even if you as a pedestrian or cyclist have the right of way but you're hit and killed your objection is invalid since you're dead.
I can't tell if you agree or disagree with my statement. I, of course, agree with your statement, and it definitely follows from what I said. Legal right of way means nothing.
This is the only moral I've found in this story so far. It all seems so tragic and arbitrary.
I used to drive through the intersection Andrew Scott Reisse was hit almost every day (until major road construction re-routed me). It's part of what strikes me as so random about this event. Unless he lived in one of the homes in that area, it puzzles me why he was walking through that intersection at that particular time of day. Unless, that is, he just really liked to walk and covered a lot of ground. In which case, this reminder is especially poignant.
My partner and I have a short commute so whenever we're crossing a street (often its one of the same cross-streets Andrew was hit in), I remind her: crossing this street is probably the most dangerous thing you're going to do this week. Put away the smart phone and pay attention like your life depends on it.
I've seen one or two pedestrian crossings which included fast-reacting automatic bollards, similar to ones in [1].
They took maybe 4-5s to raise and lower, and afaik were highly effective at protecting the users. The initial capital costs, maintenance, and throughput disruption if they fail-up make them impractical as a general solution, at least for the time being.
I'm definitely not blaming the victims here. Certainly the fault lies with the drivers who were operating their vehicle recklessly and without regard for human life, I think a charge of negligent homicide or manslaughter is warranted in cases such as this and I think life in prison is likely not too harsh of a sentence. At worst Reisse is "guilty" of nothing other than inattention, which certainly nobody deserves death for.
That said, regardless of the assignment of culpability and wrongdoing I think it is fundamentally important for pedestrians (namely: all people) to understand that it is with in their power to dramatically reduce their risk of injury by developing defensive habits. At the end of the day it doesn't matter if you died noble and innocent, dead is dead.
By the same token, it's not ok to blame children for sexual abuse, but it is smart to educate them about the dangers and to empower them with the skills to be able to avoid it.
It's hard to say without knowing the exact circumstances. Personally I think it would help. If you see a car on the road headed your way as you're crossing the street it's pretty easy to tell how fast it's going, especially 5 mph vs 15 vs 30 vs 60. And if it's going fast your inclination should be to keep a sharp eye on it and maybe try to run out of the way if it appears as though it's not slowing down at a point when it should. But then again there are some intersections where you just can't see or keep track of all the traffic that could be dangerous to you, but on the whole I'd say it's smarter to do so than not, it takes little effort.
Indeed. I once saw a pedestrian step out in front of a moving police car with lights are sirens going. The walk light had just turned green. The police car had to slam on the brakes and lean on the horn to avoid hitting the idiot.
Heck, I would say the same for when you are driving, multi-ton pieces of steel in motion are unforgiving. I have never trusted people to, say, not blow a red light/stop sign, to turn, even if they have their blinkers on, to not try to cram in front of me at the last second on a packed exit even if there is no room, etc.. Obviously it is more important for pedestrians as they are unprotected, but people generally being more aware/defensive while driving would be a good thing.
Same goes for train crossings and green lights. Don't delegate your life to a signal that can break when all you have to do is look both ways as a cross check.
This. I am constantly asked when driving, sometimes walking, "why don't you go" -- the answer is "I'm waiting to see that everyone else has stopped first!" The same is true when crossing through an intersection in your car. Someone rolling up to the stop sign, don't go! Wait for complete stops, always.
After watching police chases on TV my whole life, I really want to know:
What's the logical strategy in a police chase? Just keep driving after each other? It risks the lives of hundreds living and walking in the path of the chase all for the sake of punishing 1 or 2 individuals. It just doesn't seem to add up to me.
What a shame we lost someone so brilliant for nothing.
In New Zealand the police adopted a (highly-publicised) policy of not continuing to chase people who drive away at high speed due to the danger it poses to the public, when it is trivial to just go round to their house the next day and arrest them. The consequences of this have been as follows:
1) Now everybody runs when stopped by Police. OK, not everybody, but the rate has probably tripled.
2) After the police give up the chase, a member of the public is almost invariably killed at an intersection within 30s, since the offender is still driving at high speed but there are no longer any lights and sirens to warn the public.
3) Everyone - Police, media, politicians, the public - is genuinely confused as to why this keeps happening.
I don't know what the official stance here in germany is, but I talked to a member of the Autobahnpolizei (Highway Patrol) and he told me that while they have high powered cars that could follow most cars at high speed they will "give up" when hey feel they pose a danger to other drivers and concentrate on blocking exits etc. . But I have to say I have not seen a police chase in germany my whole life.
I live in Los Angeles, and it happens here all. the. fucking. time. It's a cultural thing, somehow. It a) makes no sense that the criminals are running. They never get away. Were are they going? Bakersfield? And b) A chopper or drone is sufficent 9 times out of 10. Proof- they're televised. From choppers.
Why do people make comments like these when deep down they know it's not true?
>They never get away.
This is false. I've personally watched los angeles based car chases where the person gets away even though there was a helicopter and units on the ground right behind him.
He was able to get underneath a lot of trees in a neighborhood, jump multiple fences in a row, and completely evaded the helicopter and police units on the ground.
Why do people like you make false statements like, "they never get away" when clearly people do? Do you live in some sort movie fantasy world where the "good guys always win"?
Anyways, running makes sense if you already have multiple felonys and/or know your crime is large enough to meet federal prosecution.
Plus, a prevailing ideology is never going to (or back to) jail at all costs, alongside an opinion it belief that any contact with police - no matter how minor or even lawful - carries that huge risk.
So that minor chance of getting away or out of that scenario is mighty appealing, and running could certainly be a reflex for many.
The New Yorker had a great article about this some years ago. Unfortunately its behind a paywall, but one thing that I remember is that guys would deliberately provoke a police chase and then call their buddies who were watching the helicopter footage live on cable news. Sometimes young men will do damn near anything to be "heroes".
For whatever reason German policing seems to be better in general. Pretty much no high speed chases, no "hail of bullets showdowns" and so forth. Iirc the number of bullets fired by the entire German (Germany=population of 80 million) police in a year was roughly the same as two incidents in LA (and most of those were either warning shots or animal kills).
I think it's a cultural issue and criminals in the US are generally more extreme.
I think the official policy in car chases is follow them enough so they'll give up but public safety is always #1. If in doubt abort.
I grew up in North America and now live in Germany, I can tell you what I think it is.
In Germany everyone is required by law to register their address within two weeks of moving. Not registering where you live and accompanying information, etc is illegal. If you move and someone else is now registered where you lived, you are no longer registered. You cannot really do very many things without that piece of paper including getting a SIM card or even renting a car without some difficulty.
So the police identify you and if you do something wrong they can just find you later, it's best if you catch the attention of the police you stop and deal with it. There is a much more relaxed attitude about law enforcement here, it's far more analytical and people generally avoid social disruption for the sake of. Rather than to avoid punishment. So it's social but it's the method of enforcement as well.
This means that the police presence has been cut down substantially, sometimes I can go a month without seeing a police officer.
Thats half-true. Meldeverstöße are not uncommon and rarely acted upon. I was registered at my old flat for quite some time. At some point in time, you will get a nice notice that you have to change your registration. During that time, everything works quite well.
Also, registering stuff like SIM cards on an address you are not registered at is also perfectly fine as that information is stricly for the state. The only interesting value for such companies to get hold from me is the Personalausweisnummer (id card number).
This might differ for outsiders as companies want a valid statement that you have an address here.
However, the german police is very good at finding people (and things), as there is a record on where most of your relatives live... Due to all that being rather complete, it works very well. I had a case where the police called my home number because my brothers car window was wide open on a parking lot in front of his house, 600km away. The police is forced to tow the car in that case, if they cannot reach someone. Also, cars are often tracked by paint. If someone flees in a car involved in a crash, the car can often be found, as paint is very unique to cars and locations (statistically). The databases for this are big and germans are generally okay with them.
There is sometimes a way to put screws on other people where possible. Example speeding: if someone speeds in a car, the registered owner will be asked first, even if the person on the picture is someone else. If the owner is unwilling to identify the person, restrictions might be put on him, e.g. writing a trip journal where he enters each and every trip and driver. Everyone wants to avoid that.
Also, germans prefer to game the system, not to wage war on it ;). Speeding is still rampant and there is a huge number of lawyers specialized on traffic laws that know all tricks to get you out of a ticket. Suing for a 40 Euro ticket is nothing unheard of.
Because open windows are an invitation for thieves. The Germans argue quite sensibly that you have an obligation to your fellow man to keep crime down.
What the hell? So are home alarms (with prominently displayed window stickers) mandatory by law?
What if I leave my cell phone out on the table while I'm eating at a restaurant? By-law infraction?
If you leave your windows open and aren't there then people can easily steal from you and then cost the public money. Nobody was penalised, simply contacted and asked to close the window on their car.
You have been breaking the law before they contact you. They are just sometimes nice like that. In contrast to the
If you want to know the specific part of the traffic law: StVO § 14, 2 (safety when entering and exiting the vehicle) [http://dejure.org/gesetze/StVO/14.html]:
"Kraftfahrzeuge sind auch gegen unbefugte Benutzung zu sichern."
(Vehicles are to be protected against unauthorized use.)
Also, your insurance might not like this ;).
As I said before, the german law is much more build around responsibilities. This is one example.
What do you do about the homeless and the people who live in precarious houses that don't really have an address? Or do they not exist in Germany, via public housing or something like that?
Homeless in Germany are much more rare than in the USA due to the simple fact that we have a government-guaranteed unemployment payment program called Hartz 4.
If you're unemployed for a very long time, you are entitled to these things (if you're unemployed in the short term, you're actually entitled to more than the listed):
* the state will pay your rent, water, heating, trash retrieval, etc. (maximum level of that depends on where in Germany you live)
* the state will pay your insurances for rent, illnesses, accidents and extended medical care
* the state will pay you 374€ per month, which you can use for power, internet, food, etc.
A small note: The mentioned insurances are mandatory in Germany and will be removed along with the tax from your job earnings (as an employee) before the cash is even put into your bank account.
So, to become homeless you need to either choose it willingly, or be in such a mental state that you somehow manage to slip through the social security net, but aren't functioning badly enough that the state hasn't picked you up yet.
You don't have to be registered where you actually live all the time. Most homeless register at one of the homeless shelters, where there is usually someone who handles letters. Homeless do exist, sadly.
Thats the only thing you need is place where official communication with you can happen. In practice, that means that there is some way to deliver letters for you.
Houses without address are pretty hard to find in germany. Building enforcement is very strict and every piece of land is owned and usually has an address before a house is built.
I can confirm that. At least 15 years ago in Bavaria, the official statement was: "If innocents are in danger, abort the chase. Get his licence plates, broadcast his description, and we get him".
Source: Was a cop back then.
@Keyframe: Are you sure Cobra 11 is a documentary series? I am from Germany as well and what can be seen in Cobra 11 is nothing that happens on German Autobahns.
Cobra 11 is actually quite awesome detective series. Considering the budget I believe that everybody contributing does an awesome work. I actually really like the show.
As a disclaimer I like bad shows that they do not take themselves too seriously more than I like your average series.
I would take Cobra 11 over any american police series any day.
> After the police give up the chase, a member of the public is almost invariably killed at an intersection within 30s, since the offender is still driving at high speed but there are no longer any lights and sirens to warn the public.
My perception was that the comment was correct however with a quick skim I cant produce anything more than anecdata. The police do seem to be consistently breaking their rules which dictate that the chase ends when it gets dangerous. However crashes do seem to be happen after the chase has ended rather too regularly - about 30 seconds later. Citation. Here is an editorial on the poor stats we have. An interesting aside - police chases followed by a crash kill far more people here than police guns.
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objec...
>However crashes do seem to be happen after the chase has ended rather too regularly - about 30 seconds later.
I had always assumed this was because it was standard practice to report that they had stopped chasing whenever the crashes occur. That's the rules so that's what you report.
Is the time of the termination of a chase based on a record made by the pursuing officer? Is it also the case that it looks bad for the pursuing officer if a pursuit ends in an accident?
Obviously it doesn't look too good. I am thinking the same though. These crashes that happen 30 seconds after a chase has been halted are probably actually happening 30 seconds before the chase is actually halted; with the officer calling it in that they had quit just before the crash happened.
According to the article they killed a police officer and ran, if you don't pursue them how are you going to catch them? Aftersll, they did murder someone, and apparently they had warrants, so it seems reasonable to assume we dont want them out running around anymore as they sre likely to commit more fiolent crimes. Furthermore, if have a policy to not pursue, then every criminal is always going to run.
The fault is on the criminals, not on the police trying to apprehend them or the pursuit.
"When officers went to investigate, there was a physical altercation between police and 26-year-old Gerardo Diego Ayala that ended with a fatal officer-involved shooting."
The cops killed one of the suspects then pursued the rest, then a pedestrian died in the chase. But the fricken media did a great job phrasing things so the cops seemed justified, woo-hoo.
I'm more commenting on the number of fatalities. Given how it panned out, it was handled badly. Confrontation there and then was the wrong choice. I don't pretend to have any great solutions, but I'd like to think that any armed confrontation that occurred near me had been done with consideration for what-if scenarios. Confrontation often brings out the worst in people, and it did here.
Wow. So every stage went as bad as it could have. Sure, there is a series to events where more people could have died, and I'm sure this will be brought up. There should be some people doing some pretty hard thinking about how they handled this.
Why do you say as bad as it could have? This is a physical altercation with known gang members (if I'm properly informed). It's not going to go well.
I think the difficulty in handling a situation like that in any way other than immediate armed confrontation must be immense. If somebody tasked me with "handling" a gang member I'm pretty sure I'd want a gun, and I'd want absolutely no restrictions or post-event questioning on its use. Obviously I'm not involved in professional law enforcement in LA but even with training I can imagine it to be an incredibly difficult situation.
I think that the hard thinking to be done should be directed primarily at the underlying issues that result in (and support) organized street crime.
You know, police in EU normally don't chase criminals at high speed and they normally found them easily after the fact (especially if they wound/killed a cop). High speed chases are extremely rare,
there is no rational need for them (and the consequent danger for passers by).
EU is not a country. The police in Finland will almost always chase 'criminals' until they stop. The 'criminals' are mostly people who are drunk drivers or speeding, tough.
Ironically, the reason there's very few chases is that punishments are not severe for crimes. If you are certain that you'll get federal prison in USA for almost any crime, it makes sense to risk it and try to get away.
I don't know enough about all the countries to say either way, but if FI/SE were the only two countries with this policy (not saying they are - I've no idea) then it would still be accurate to say that the opposite is true in the vast majority of the EU.
The way I read it, gang member Gerardo Diego Ayala was killed by a police officer. Then Victor Sanchez and 2 unidentified subjects fled the scene in a car. It's unclear what "officer involved shooting" means, but that's how I took it...
Implying you can spot the drone. Best police drone would simply tag the vehicle and see where it is moving around, then apprehend the fugitive one he settles for a longer period (during the night usually).
Yes, but how are they going to do that if they can't see the drone? How will they know when they have succeeded? Are they just going to continue driving recklessly until they run out of gas?
Driving evasively seems like a very good way to attract the attention of other officers who might not recognize the suspects' car. Once the cruiser is out of sight, the suspects' best bet would be to "act casual." If the drone can see the suspects then it doesn't matter how they drive, and if it can't see them then driving like a maniac only makes it easier to be found.
Really, to "act casual" in areas with lots of tunnels and trees and other cars of similar make and model and color. Or to get off the road quickly somewhere underground (parking garage?) and leave the vehicle, though that has difficulties as well long term (CCTV being a major one).
The logic of it is that the pursuant might shortly commit further crime and not-pursuing endangers others more than pursuing. Additionally, it might serve as a deterrent to crime if criminals know they will be pursued strenuously.
It's not a universally accepted line of reasoning, even in communities across the US. But it's also not one just made up of whole cloth, 'for nothing'.
I believe a lot of departments have moved to giving up those chases for just that reason. I'm sure there are situations where they will/will not pursue though I'm not sure what the criteria are.
the rules all change when one of their own is killed. though it's largely emotional the resulting logic is strong. protection is generated from the fear of an emotional, armed response; so it survives as unwritten police policy everywhere.
just as if for example, we felt the same way the police would be quite scared right now.
I too have wondered this after watching American police car chases. Here in the UK at any time a superior officer, often monitoring the scene, can call off the chase, and call in a helicopter (if one is available) to monitor the situation.
All officers must report how safe the chase is (cars on the road, weather conditions, pedestrians) and lying is a criminal offence. Also, officers who are part of a chase must be pursuit trained.
Here's the de facto manual all pursuit trained officers must be accustomed too:
Example of a pursuit in the UK and notice the shock tactics at the end (smashing the passenger side window, dragging him from the car, etc) this is the to confuse and disorientate the man and makes sure he doesn't have time to get a weapon or destroy evidence.
Most police chases end when the car being pursued stops.
This could be the result of a driver coming to one's senses, an erratic move resulting in a single car accident, or it could be the result of a police blockade with spikes or a PIT maneuver. The last is an example of one technique police departments employ to end police chases more safely.
That the risk of capture is the greatest deterrent to crime, to start? That the culprits being chased are often highly violent criminals who they don't want disappearing into the social noise? In an urban environment the number of branching permutations is enormous, so they can't simply radio ahead at the outset, and "chasing" is often simply keeping an eye on the target while supporting units move in.
There are several comments throughout this story about how police in [various enlightened areas] no longer do chases. It usually isn't so straightforward, otherwise the world's bank robbers and kidnappers will be on their way over, idling car at the standby.
What most police forces throughout the world have stopped doing is chases for trivial things (where the single most serious crime committed is not stopping for police), which has historically led to everyday people panicking when the police turn on the lights after they roll through a stop sign, etc. Police also try to resort to helicopters sooner, and abandon the chase if it's 2pm in a school zone, etc. However the nature of law enforcement means that chases still happen for serious incidents, and they happen around the world, some questionable accuracy claims in comments notwithstanding.
This is a terrible tragedy and it's unfortunate that this armchair speculation has taken the lead so quickly.
A couple of weeks ago, one of the VPs in my company suddenly passed away. A day of vomiting and diarrhea, followed by hospitalization, and shortly after that, gone.
He was 43 years old. Incredibly active, healthy and fit guy. He died of a very rare staph infection. By the time he was diagnosed, it was too late.
I think the lesson is that life is really short, and you never know when it will end. So you better make the most out of the time allotted to you, and the fact that you don't know how long you have left should only fuel your efforts.
It's awful when anyone dies, but I have to confess this seems so much worse to me since he was on the verge of seeing the fruits of his labor result in a historic success.
It was getting hyped up by the tech press and he was doing what he presumably loved right up to the end. I think this was probably a pretty happy point in his life. For me, actually finishing a project like this means a brief rush of satisfaction and then a funk of ennui. I think I'd rather die while I'm still working on something than when it's finished, and certainly it would have been worse to go while the company was still scrounging capital.
Last night, I was walking to the store (the Walgreens next to the Berkeley Bowl, for you Bay Areans) and a drunk driver shot up onto the pavement about twenty feet in front of me. It was mere coincidence that my partner and I avoided the hospital or worse. This is a sobering thing to read the morning after that.
Seriously: there was nothing I could have done to avoid that. By the time I was reacting, the car was already on the sidewalk. It was luck. Yeah, be careful out there, sure. Can we have self-driving cars REALLY SOON PLEASE? I hear rumors that they work, and don't drink on the job.
I had a similar experience about 20 years ago, except it was a car in front of me that got hit in the side. The occupants were seriously injured (I don't believe either of them died) but it reminded me how random life (and death) can be.
I try to use that memory to motivate me if I'm procrastinating on something.
I don't know why, but I regularly see drivers who are clearly, obviously plastered, weaving about between the Ashby BART and the Shattuck/Adeline split.
Had a similar experience a few months ago while out with my wife in NYC. We had the walk sign at a Y intersection. A driver came through the turn going at least 30 mph. He came within an arm's length of hitting us. I definitely pay more attention now when crossing the road, even if I do have the walk sign.
How can we even judge? The police back off often when they sense that a chase is too dangerous, they make a judgement call. Sometimes they don't have perfect information however, and shit just happens. It is not like the movies.
I'm sure the officers involved are second guessing their behavior now, its not like people die every day like this. But really, its a tough job, we aren't really in a position to judge.
More bystanders are injured or killed during high-speed police chases than by stray bullets. In California, more than 10,000 people have been injured and over 300 people killed because of police chases in the last decade, according to newly released statistics from the California Highway Patrol.
Nationally, it's estimated nearly 300 people die each year as a result of high speed police chases.
> Nationally, it's estimated nearly 300 people die each year as a result of high speed police chases.
That's a huge number. I'd love to know how many of those 300 are innocent bystanders. The fact that people involved in the chase (i.e. those running away) lose their lives seems like it's part of the risk.
Are you seriously blaming the police for the death of that? Surely it is the guy's fault for stealing a car with a child in it and recklessly driving it.
"Blame" might be too far but there's definitely an argument to suggest they caused the baby's death, in that if they hadn't chased then maybe he wouldn't have driven so recklessly. Hence this whole discussion.
"Experts say there are few national figures on police pursuits. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration figures, based on reports from police departments, show that 305 people died in pursuits in 1991.
Of these deaths, 250 were reported to be occupants of fleeing vehicles, 46 were third-party victims in uninvolved vehicles, four were occupants of police vehicles and five were pedestrians."
Unless pursuit deaths rose a magnitude plus, I think you are misrepresenting some facts.
Normally I'd agree, but if you read the entirety of the article (or even half of it) you'll pick up the bit about the fatal shooting at the original scene of the crime (not sure if an officer was killed or one of the alleged criminals).
It's debatable what to do in the aftermath, pursue (the instant gut reaction) or sit tight and hope that other officers in the vicinity can intervene. Usually it's the former, and the consequences seem to involve carnage in one way or another (obviously tragic in this case as an innocent bystander was killed).
Sometimes these criminals have nothing to lose, over even relatively insignificant infractions that will definitely result in life sentences. Not that I'm condoning criminal behavior in any way.
I just wanted to say two things here. One, this is an incredibly damaging tragedy. I truly wish the best for the community, for the Reisse and Oculus VR family.
Secondly, my father has been an officer of the law for more than 25 years -- can we please not turn a thread which is being used to inform the community at large of a tragedy as a way to defame those who wish to do good in their community.
I ask out of respect of Reisse, and my good natured father that we keep at the very least this thread on topic.
>>defame those who wish to do good in their community.
This is an incredible cop-out. No pun intended.
Just because someone wishes to do good in their community does not mean they are immune to being criticized for their actions.
Furthermore, a lot of cops don't give a shit about doing good in their community. They are bullies who have joined the police force to legitimize their violent tendencies.
We need more "good cops" like your father, but let's face it: we will not get them if we do not draw people's attention to the bad stuff a lot of cops do.
So because your father is a cop, you don't even want people to question the actions of the cops in the story? And anyway, so what? It sounds like the gang members were the ones out of control, not the police. If the police had struck Reisse that would be different, but they didn't. But then what if the police had done something reprehensible? Nothing should be said because we need to respect your good natured father? It's not about you or your father.
I'm pretty sure Xanza simply means that Reisse's death is a tragedy, and a conversation about the death of an important member in the developer community is hugely different from an argument about the role of police in our society.
Especially since internet discussions about police often turn into emotionally charged and hateful arguments, I think keeping the discussion focused on Reisse is a very good and respectful request.
Honestly they might as well change the name of HN to Digital Pravda or something. There is practically no story that can hit the HN frontpage now that doesn't turn into bikeshedding about how the U.S. is literally worse than Hitler and how everything is literally perfect in the EU.
I'm not saying that the U.S. is perfect, or that the EU isn't, but does anyone else remember when HN was for NEWS and not just an outgrowth of /r/politics?
I mean, obviously my comment won't change any of that, it's easy enough to see that the interest is there just by comparing comment count. But I do think it's unfortunate how much we have let politics poison the well here.
No, I simply think it's wrong to, in general, generalize. I've read this thread, and see a lot of police bashing, it's wrong. My father is a good man and has done his duty to the State of Pennsylvania honorably and I don't take kindly to anyone who is not in the law enforcement field and criticizes the actions of those who are. Even more so when they're not at all involved in the situation, or the thread in question (discussion?) is intended to inform, not to inspire hate for law enforcement.
To put it bluntly Reisse was hit by an automobile by a criminal. Should the police have pursued the suspect through a crowded city the way that they did? No, however no one here was at the scene; maybe they HONESTLY believed they could end the ordeal without a lengthy chase and without the suspect getting away. That's a judgement call that every law enforcement officer deals with from time to time; with human nature telling us that we can't be correct all the time.
This is a story about the literal intersection of police, guns, gangs, speeding, pedestrian crosswalks, motor vehicle accidents, and the sudden, traumatic, and innocent bystander death of the co-founder of a visible startup. And you guys expect no discussion of politics?
Can you point to a single story since the inception of Hacker News that quite obviously involved the intersection of hacker/startup culture with the rest of society where politics were not discussed? What is any discussion about wealth or economics if not politics? Is it a vanishingly small percentage of PG's essays that express a strong political opinion?
As far as I'm concerned, discussing politics as they relate to hacker culture is on topic. Discussing the Boston Marathon bombing, not so on-topic, but nevertheless people here had interesting things to say from a hacker perspective. I'll be the first to agree that political extremism is aggravating, but the solution to political extremism is not the avoidance of politics altogether.
> I'll be the first to agree that political extremism is aggravating, but the solution to political extremism is not the avoidance of politics altogether.
On the contrary, avoidance of all politics is a wonderful individual solution to political extremism. Which is why so many "normal" people refuse to get involved at all, which is why all of us "normal" people end up so surprised every 2 years over a bunch of reactionary representatives being elected.
At least on HN you were able to have reasoned political discourse, which is far less aggravating. Even where I disagree with others I love being exposed to angles I hadn't considered, cultural nuances that might explain why something would work in the EU that wouldn't work in the U.S. (and vice versa), and all of that.
But from what I can tell even on HN we're shifting farther and farther away from that into the creationist mold of "I have decided what the answer must be, now I need only twist the facts to suit". Even where the answer that's decided on is actually right, that's no way to conduct a 'debate'.
So basically I feel the same way, having had several HN accounts over the years, and feeling totally disenfranchised as a voter, except that I think if more normal people said more normal, boring, nuanced, middle of the road type things about politics then the people having fights with each other wouldn't be so annoying, because they are a tiny fraction of the population. I understand this is a bit of a pipe dream, and it's frustrating when that tiny fraction dominates the conversation. It's just difficult to want to participate at all when people prioritize winning an argument over understanding the issues at hand.
I'm quite interested, and in my own way, involved in politics. I also follow bicycle racing with a passion, for that matter. But I don't think either one belongs on this particular web site.
This site has been a great resource for me in terms of startup material, also a good place to learn new things about 'computer stuff', and also occasionally read something genuinely new and interesting. I hate to see it dragged down into the mud of political debate, which tends to wreck communities such as this.
Ok, agreed more or less, and the mud slinging is terrible, but by political debate, what exactly do you mean?
I don't think you mean simply election politics, so my assumption is that you mean any kind of debate over government policy. In this example it would be a debate over the US government policy of pursuing suspects in high speed car chases.
I can understand how these kinds of things are off topic in the general case (Istanbul protests, Boston marathon, etc.), but are you saying they're still off topic when there's a fairly clear connection to a hacking / startup story? Are the discussions about rent control in SF off topic, for instance?
My belief is that there's a grey zone where considered discussion of the pros and cons is okay, even good. For instance, I wasn't even aware that there were debates about high speed chases at all, so for me this was something new and interesting. Most of the community wrecking I've seen has happened due to in-fighting and drama, but yes political mud fights are a common enough precursor to that, because they encourage people to hold grudges and take sides, at least in my experience.
> My belief is that there's a grey zone where considered discussion of the pros and cons is okay, even good.
Considered discussion is welcome on HN. Unfortunately there are some topics where considered discussion is unlikely. Abortion; circumcision; Israel / Palestine; gun control; etc etc. It'd be fantastic if there was a site like HN where these topics could be discussed, especially if that site fostered calm rational discussion.
But these discussions too often deteriorate into noise, and worse into wider ranging down-voting and derailments in other threads.
Well there's lesswrong I suppose, although I'm not a member. I strongly believe that if PG changed the policy from upvote agreement, downvote disagreement to upvote civility, downvote incivility, the quality of discussions would improve. For example, I was not particularly civil in the comment that started this sub-thread, but nevertheless I got 42 upvotes.
I'm totally fine with not denigrating the cops that actually care about doing good in their communities. I'm just not convinced that all of them share that sentiment.
Tragedies are and should be a time to re-examine our policies, and try to prevent them happening again. Whether there should be a policy against police engaging in these kind of pursuits (and with the understanding that police do so with best of intentions) is absolutely on topic.
No - I was remarking that my father was a good man and police officer, and I didn't appreciate the police bashing going on in a thread on HackerNews that served to inform the public at large of a devastating blow to the tech community.
I ask out of respect of Reisse, and my good natured father that we keep at the very least this thread on topic.
Except there's no point in this story if it's not turned into some general political discussion about random aspect of society.
The template of these types of headlines is "Random incident happened to semi-famous tech dude". Therefore it's going to turn into some kind of "Let's discuss policy surrounding random incident".
I've not been following the Oculus Rift very much, other than waiting for its release and keeping an eye on which games might support it once it's released. So I don't really know much of the history or the company.
Can someone share how Reisse was involved w/ the Oculus Rift? Looking at the company's profile[1], it makes no mention of Reisse, and lists Luckey as the "Founder".
Even searching their site[2] makes no mention of Reisse, other than a recent discussion[3] about his untimely death. And those discussions seem to only refer to him as an "employee".
Is calling him "co-founder" in the title truly accurate?
Many early employees are truly better called founders, just ones that didn't officially work at the company until after it's founding.
He could have been moonlighting for them, he may have helped come up with the original idea, or work with the company to solve some of the core design challenges.
Just because his title wasn't co-founder doesn't mean he wasn't as important as any other founder or early employee.
I agree, and I wasn't trying to diminish his role. I was just trying to understand where the "co-founder" in the title came from. How did the submitter know he was truly a co-founder?
I couldn't find mention of this anywhere, so I was assuming the submitter knew some history of him that I couldn't find on their site.
I was about to lament how reckless the police were to be in a high-speed pursuit, but it's hard to fault them when this began with a fatal shooting of an officer at the beginning of the encounter.
Doesn't seem to me like the police were the ones who hit Reisse:
> Investigators allege 21-year-old Victor Sanchez and two
> other suspects then took off in a Dodge Charger. With
> Sanchez at the wheel, the Charger slammed into two
> vehicles during the pursuit before hitting Reisse, police
> said.
The argument is that the police should never be involved in a high-speed chase because it threatens the safety of the general public and often ends in tragedy like this.
People are missing the main point here. This was a terrible, but not a senseless, tragedy, and there is an important lesson to learn.
It's not "be more careful when crossing the street". Being a super-defensive pedestrian might have saved Andrew Reisse, but that's not the main point. It's not "don't have high speed chases". Perhaps different police policies might have averted this tragedy, but that's not the main point, either.
The main point is that roving paramilitary gangs rule large swathes of Santa Ana, California, and virtually every other big city in America. These gangs have not been broken because the police lack the mandate to break them. (My father consulted for the Santa Ana police department for nearly 30 years; they feel powerless against the gangs.) The gangs probably wouldn't last a week against a vigorous application of military-grade force, but such an application of force is politically untenable at present. This means that the current political system itself is complicit.
Don't blame the pedestrian or the police. Blame the gangs and the system that protects them.
You don't go into neighborhoods, kicking in doors with guns blazing. They recently did that in Detroit to serve a warrant. Post Mortem: 1 dead 6 year old girl, 1 injured 72 year old grandmother, 0 arrests.
Think of it this way...
For every enemy, or (gang member), you kill, you create one. For every innocent you kill in pursuit of a gang member, you create 10 enemies. (Keep in mind, the people in the neighborhood KNOW who is innocent, even if you don't.)
These are hard problems. They defy simple solutions. In fact, the application of simple solutions to this PARTICULAR class of problems only creates more problems.
It describes the code (developed by Prussian jurist Francis Lieber) used by the victorious Union to suppress armed opposition ("insurgency") in the defeated Confederacy after the end of the American Civil War. If you compare its prescriptions to those in the "modern" counterinsurgency manual you linked to, you will see why the Union succeeded where present efforts fail.
You don't go into neighborhoods, kicking in doors with guns blazing. They recently did that in Detroit to serve a warrant.
No, you start by declaring martial law and enforcing a curfew. Santa Ana's gangs are a military problem, and they demand a military solution. If you're serving warrants, you've already lost the battle.
I understand that this is off the political map. That's the point. The kinds of policies needed to successfully defeat these gangs are anathema to prevailing civil libertarian views. But civilized 4th Amendment–style liberties only work when basic conditions of law & order hold; they don't work in a war. Indeed, when applied in a war, they only make things worse. This is why the present system, which serves warrants to soldiers in the opposing army, is complicit in their crimes.
For instance... let's say you have a curfew... well gang members already ARE indoors by curfew! Minding their drug dens, which get maximum business during evening, (curfew), hours. In fact, drug gangs would LOVE martial law... because it would rid them of their chief competition... the low level, open air, street drug dealer. Currently, the only way they can get rid of those guys is through targeted violence. Which brings them trouble. Your recommendations would actually CEMENT the gang's hold on a given drug market.
You approach what you see as a war... but everyone else sees as a business. The police are having a lot of success right now disrupting business. The core of the strategy in NY was not "quality of life", as so many people parrot. Rather it was "disrupt business" wherever you see it. Even the "Squeegee-men" were targeted. And the results have been fantastic.
Now, are innocent people still getting hurt? Of course. But collateral damage is nowhere NEAR the level it was during the crack wars of the 80's and 90's. At the same time, violence is WAY down relative the crack wars. That's because we have gotten MUCH smarter. Well... most of us. Violence is down in places like NY, LA and even Chicago relative the crack wars. But places like Detroit persist with old tactics and have not made as much headway. Many of the "squeegee-men" equivalents still operate with impunity in Detroit. Which tells you that Detroit is not serious about cleaning up it's city. They only care to crack down on gangs with military zeal. Which is why they have the problems they do.
Using the Lieber Code (http://www.civilwarhome.com/liebercode.htm), the victorious Union effectively suppressed armed resistance in the old Confederacy—including a former army of highly trained, experienced, and motivated soldiers. The 3rd St. Gang in Santa Ana is a ragtag group of dudes with pistols and the occasional submachine gun. They rule their little patch of Orange County, but they have never faced a disciplined, military-grade opponent with the will and right to crush them. They would wilt like a daisy.
Maybe it would take a month or two to break them instead of a week, but the point remains—such a gang could be crushed on a timescale tiny compared to how long they've existed. The key would be to use, not "modern" counterinsurgency theory, but rather forgotten tactics that actually work.
Thats interesting reading, thanks. The problem is your scenario is still unworkable.
How would you handle the following?
A mentally ill resident wanders down the street during curfew, and is shot by a sniper. Video of the killing is distributed on the internet.
A pregnant woman dies giving birth because of the curfew and travel restrictions.
An individual-scale altercation between occupying soldiers and residents escalates. The soldiers taze or shoot some of the residents. A mob forms, and the soldiers are locally outnumbered 10 to one. Video of all of this is recorded and distributed.
African-American and Hispanic soldiers are reluctant to enforce martial law on a community that they have more visceral sympathy for.
Think of it this way -- they guys you're fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq are basically more heavily armed gangs, and even with the huge US presence and relative lack of publicity for harsh tactics they're able to melt away.
This so called "bus factor" has always bugged me. Documentation is good, but talk of untimely death by bus is silly.
The reference to untimely death by bus strike is an example of macabre geek humour; not a serious suggestion that the greatest threat to developers is posed by motorized mass transportation.
Most often developers leave projects -- and especially open source projects -- for far more banal reasons: They move to a different position and don't have the time or inclination to continue maintaining their old code.
Can someone else get access to all the company-owned code the developer was working on? Is someone insisting that the developer doesn't keep three months of work on a laptop? Who else can get access to the passwords and keys for company-owned servers and services maintained by the developer?
Not really. "Key developer gets a new job" means they are still available for you to ask questions to, get help locating passwords/keys from, and so forth. In the "key developer gets hit by bus" scenario, you don't have that luxury.
The idea isn't so much about being hit by a bus as "what would we do if a key contributor were to vanish off the face of the Earth with no notice or warning?" If the specific idea of the Death Bus seems too grim, feel free to replace it with another deus ex machina that would have the same effect (alien abduction, Christian rapture, surprise release of a new season of Firefly, etc.).
This reminds me of something my dad, a minister of religion, used to repeat constantly "No-one is promised tomorrow". I'm pretty sure he was trying to impress on a given audience "Repent now, you may not get another chance".
I tend to approach it from a different angle. Be brilliant and live your life now, you may not get the chance to do so later. It sounds like he was doing awesome things, so one can only hope that his work lives on.
The HN headline's grammar is ambiguous and could be improved. It could be read to mean "The co-founder was killed by a gang while he (the cofounder) was trying to escape police," or it could mean "The co-founder was killed by a gang while they (the gang) were trying to escape police." (According to the article, the latter meaning is intended.)
The HN headline is still many times more informative than the linked article's headline, "Santa Ana police chase: Pedestrian identified." Even considering the newspaper's audience (who, unlike HN, might not know or care enough about Oculus Rift to merit its mention by name in the headline), the fact that the pedestrian was killed by a gang while the gang was trying to escape police would presumably still be of interest.
My co-worker and I were talking about the Oculus Rift only a few days ago. We finally got our hands on the Leap motion device and were thinking up wondrous mashups with the Oculus Rift. What a terrible tragedy. Such a pity he can't be there to witness the Rift's success.
This is sad. Condolences to the friends and family. I do hope that this won't kill the momentum behind the Oculus Rift - seems like amazing piece of tech and will be sad to be lost because of that.
It's so easy to focus on the bad in a situation like this but I wonder how many successful police pursuits that resulted in lives being saved. It reminds me of airbags, if they save 99% of lives but end up causing 1% of deaths then it is seen as a bad thing, but in reality it is really saving lives. It's just a terrible situation that's hard to understand, there is no black in white right answer.
You can be a defensive pedestrian, but that's not always going to work. Something like this, a police chase, it defies predictability. It could happen so fast that it doesn't matter if you're completely present and aware, you could still get hit.
This is really sad and a great loss to the community over in Santa Monica. With this sort of thing happening so infrequently in tech, it makes events like these all the more of a loss, for our entire industry.
This happening so infrequently in tech makes it less of a loss. There are communities terrorized by criminal- and police-related violence, that lose so much more. Events like this should be a wake up call to be aware that tragedies happen all the time outside our bubble. And what can we do to prevent them?
This is horrible. The Oculus is just gearing up to be something great.
It is kind of morbid, but This is going to turn into an interesting case study on how a company stays afloat when a major influence is removed from the picture.
It's always sad when someone brilliant loses life at such a young age. It's even worse that it was at the hands of a piece of shit criminal trying to save his own skin and is still alive.
I totally agree. It's the fact that a degenerate like that can end the life of someone awesome--the asymmetry--is what is really curse-worthy hard to understand.
Just because he wrote some code that was used so widely doesn't make him more significant than a janitor who cleans after you, or the "gang" member who was evading the brutal cops for a chance for his freedom. The sooner we realize people are equal because they're human fucking beings the greater hope for humanity to avoid its imminent demise.
It's like asking what makes 5 greater than 5. Humans are all significant simply because they have rational minds and are rational beings. A human being cannot impose on others a value or worthiness, because we are rational beings and have independent minds. As you probably have noticed by now this is not me saying these things, it's from Immanuel Kant. I found these lectures on the topic absolutely amazing to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBdfcR-8hEY
It's worth mentioning that all humans are -humans- just like 5 == 5.
However, the fact humans are humans doesn't make them equal. Unlike a number humans have dimensionality. They can be taller, shorter, stronger, weaker, smarter, dumber, richer, poorer etc. Along with any number of other attributes like job, geographical location, father, mother etc.
Equality is a very precise thing and humans are anything but equal.
You need to read some more philosophy (or, I guess, watch some more.) By asserting unconditional equality, you deny the existence of the will. That position can be defended, but I'm skeptical that you're up to the task at the moment.
Because life is random and stochastic. The sooner you realize that your very existence was simply a roll of the dice, the more liberated you will become.
Don't be too sure - some of histories supposedly greatest people have also been mass killers. Your views on them largely just depend on which side of the conflict(s) you were on and what time you are in. To take a fairly simple example, Churchill. Lots of good, lots to admire. But plenty of dark decisions and many deaths attributable to these.
Too sad. What a loss. Condolences for the poor family. We never know the day or the hour when death will come, which is something to be mindful of. I have found this an interesting site to reflect on our eternal destiny: http://needgod.com/
I haven't read it since it came out in 2006, but suffice it to say that the Los Angeles area has vastly more police chases per capita than the rest of the United States, and therefore if something like this was going to happen it's statistically unsurprising that it happened near LA.
From that article: "In 2004, California led the nation with 7,321 pursuits, and the majority of them-5,596-took place in L.A. County". Google cites approximately 10 million population for LA County and 38 million for California, so if my math is right that's roughly 56 car chases per 100,000 population in LA County versus 6 per 100,000 in the rest of the state. (Population figures are 2011 for LA County, 2012 for California, versus 2004 for the chase stats, but it should be pretty close.)
That doesn't answer why the police chase, because obviously it's done far less elsewhere, though it does happen. In Austin, Texas, my wife was overtaken on the highway by a car being chased by the police, and in order to avoid getting rear-ended by the chasee who was going very fast she side-swiped the vehicle next to her and substantial damage was done. Some day if that criminal strikes it rich she's theoretically got victim's compensation due to her. We're not holding our breath. They ended up catching the guy on foot after he exited the highway.
> That doesn't answer why the police chase, because obviously it's done far less elsewhere, though it does happen.
From the article:
> The L.A. freeways are its public stage, its Colosseum. Pursuits are L.A.'s ultimate reality show,
I'm not some scholar on Los Angeles, but it really seems to be part of the culture there to watch car chases, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if there is positive feedback encouraging criminals to get their 15 minutes of fame.
After all, if you've just held up a 7-11 or something and you didn't get away cleanly, why not have a little fun before you get thrown in jail, possibly for the rest of your life ?
While that may play some role, I'd argue that LA being a massive sprawl has more to do with it. Simply identifying the car and "silently following it until it stops" may not be so easy, at least not without a helicopter.
> That doesn't answer why the police chase, because obviously it's done far less elsewhere, though it does happen.
I'd suggest trying to correlate average vehicular speed with frequency of car chases. My guess is that certain cities are built for high-speed car transit and thus lend themselves towards this kind of thing.
Because it's more fun for them if they chase. Really, very rarely should it make sense for cops to endanger countless civilian lives to catch a criminal.
It very rarely does make sense for police to endanger bystanders with high-speed chases, which is why most departments heavily restrict them. Friends of mine whose parents are officers have always told me their parents were more or less forbidden from ever initiating pursuit.
You can search for "[name of city] police general order pursuit", or some variant thereof, to get the policy for your local district.
Most cities do not allow cops to conduct high speed chases in populated areas. But it happens and innocent people die, because the cops are on a righteous mission and shall not be deterred.
I watched a 25 year old woman die on the pavement at 16th and Dolores in San Francisco, hit by a car running a red light, being chased by cops. Apparently the car had been reported stolen.
Not a worthy mission, in my opinion.
Note: of course it's the chasee's fault. But cops know exactly what happens in these situations, and cannot be excused.
If you're a patrolman then a car chase is probably one of the more exciting things you'll do, and it's a scenario that comes to mind when you first think of "this is what police do". In reality, you probably spend a lot of time checking mundane things, pulling people over (perhaps to meet a quota), and lots of paperwork and bureaucracy.
Even if it is scary, I think it's possible that some officers won't back down from a chase. And this involved a chase of someone believed to be a public menace.
(Sorry, not justifying the actual chase. Just pointing out that it's not strange that it occurred, given the status quo there)
Depending on the offense, there are reasons to do it. If there are not officers immediately behind the perps wherever they stop, they can quite easily disperse into the city or go into a building and take innocents hostage. I don't think the other hypotheses offered in this thread(15 minutes of fame, it's LA's reality show, etc) have quite so much to do with it, especially when you consider how vast LA is.
I think that having them disperse is the whole point of not chasing them. As far as taking hostages, I just don't think what you suggest makes any sense. The ONLY way I would consider taking hostages for any reason and making a stand against the police force would be if I had no other choice.. ie. the police won't stop chasing me.
There has got to be a better way. Here in AZ they have limited this due to accidents and death of innocent bystanders. Maybe there is a way to pin the car and catch them more silently, with all the tech we have maybe the cops can get some sort of GPS/trackable weapon. Of course they have to be close enough or have it already installed. Either that or a better notification system where vehicles may be so people in that area are on the lookout and the road clears almost like the O.J. chase.
yeah, why the police bothers trying arresting criminal...
can't they stay in their office eating donuts ?
...
They risk their lives to keep yours safe.
And on the other side you have criminals. And you ask why police chase them and not why they ran away ???
Seriously ?
I'm guessing you think a police officer was killed, because of the ambiguous (I would say misleading) wording of the article. Or are you saying you want the name of the officer that killed Gerardo Diego Ayala?
I believe if I remember correctly, LAPD had a stand down on high speed chases years ago due to the property damage and personal injuries of innocent bystanders.
The police have a job to do, but in some areas, the level of aggression with which they pursue their duties is beyond reasonable and seems like adrenaline addiction.
Given that happened in California, in an area where none but the rich and famous can legally carry guns in any manner, you're basically wrong (I grant that criminals have an easier time getting guns here, but they don't have much difficulty in many countries where guns are banned).
Make sure you let your family know how much you care about them. Also make sure they will be taken care of in case you're suddenly gone. Firstly by picking up enough term life insurance to cover your dependents' needs until adulthood. Secondly by writing up a will and giving it to someone you trust. [1][2]
We joke about "getting hit by a bus" and a project's "bus factor"[3] but it really does happen. It could happen to you or to a critically important person on your project team. Make it a policy to have all critical info recorded in some systematic way. You don't have to get all iso9000 but you should, at the very least, have everyone do a brain dump into a wiki once a month and keep it in a central location (along with the password file, list of client info, etc.)
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[1] DIY will: http://www.wikihow.com/Write-Your-Own-Last-Will-and-Testamen...
[2] Reasonably priced template: http://www.legalzoom.com/legal-wills/wills-overview.html
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor