… Waukesha County Sheriff Eric Severson called the crash “horrific” but “preventable.”
“The fact that two children lost their lives this morning as the result of really bad decision-making is very saddening to all of us,” he said. …
… The preliminary information shows that the sheriff’s deputies involved did not violate any laws and “did their job right,” he said. …
Car chases are bad. Not because people with warrants should go free, but because it puts me needlessly at risk.
We spend a ridiculous amount of money on our police. You’re telling me that they can’t invest in a GPS tracker to stick to cars at the start of a traffic stop, or a drone to follow someone silently until they stop on their own? It’s just about 2024. Surely the Dukes of Hazard style chase is outdated.
The driver knew he had 4 kids in the car. The driver is fully at fault for driving recklessly whilst trying to flee a scene purely for his own benefit.
“Criminals are fully at fault when police randomly shoot at them and hit civilians behind them”
Is that the same kind of logic you’d have?
After reading a lot of people’s take on the shootout where the UPS driver hostage got killed (likely by police, as the video doesn’t show if anybody even fired from the UPS truck). So many people excused the police and blamed the criminals 100%, even though anybody whose favorite appetizer isn’t boot polish could tell you firing into rush hour traffic is incredibly irresponsible.
All that to say, I wouldn’t put it past them.
If it was say, a bank robber shooting at police, yeah. Yes, I’d blame him too. If the police shot unprovoked, no. Of course the police should handle situations like this better - put a tag on the car, call a helicopter, whatever - but at least part of the blame lies with this moron driving around with a felony warrant, no license plate, 4 kids in the car, then trying to run from the cops. For the warrant he already had, he will go to prison for a few years, so I could see why he’d be reluctant to turn himself in. But this sort of stupid shit isn’t going to help.
Sure, if we’re going to live in a simple universe where only one person is responsible when something bad happens. But that seem limiting to me. It means we can’t find creative solutions to problems, since all the solutions devolve into “bad people need to do less bad stuff.”
No one is saying the driver isn’t at fault. But car chases can make suspect drivers panic, and panic makes bad drivers out of all of us.
Better for them to realise that escape is futile even if they do dodge that one police car, and just surrender at that point.
Better for the driver to figure that out before he decides to take off at high speed with 4 kids in the car.
Exactly. When the dude’s been stickied with a GPS receiver, dude should know the game is up and he won’t have time to take it off before cops are on his ass.
But that requires building a reputation and that requires building some solid AF procedures that cannot be dealt with quickly by an escaping driver.