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Same reason that nearly every police response in the US is an armed response. Same reason police kill more Americans than terrorists do. US police culture is to

by Zigurd 1y ago

Same reason that nearly every police response in the US is an armed response. Same reason police kill more Americans than terrorists do. US police culture is toxic and deadly. Several cities tightly restrict high-speed chases. That should be the norm.

adriand 1y ago
My home town of Hamilton, Ontario (population 560k) recently made the news because a guy stole a bus, with passengers onboard, and started driving it through the city. It was newsworthy because he also dropped people off at their stops, and even rejected someone who tried to board with an expired bus pass. But what stood out for me in addition to all that was the police response. They quietly followed the bus, intentionally not using sirens to avoid “spooking” the guy. They waited for the right moment, boarded the bus and arrested him peacefully and without incident. I recognize my little city is not like LA (which I’ve visited twice) - the types of crimes, the types of criminals and the prevalence of weapons are far different, although we also have our share of gun violence and murder. But we have also not militarized our police, and there’s very much a police culture of service to the community. Here, when a cop uses their weapon, it’s seen as a failure. This was a situation handled properly, and it made me proud.
- captainkrtek 1y ago
  I'm Canadian and American, and have lived in both places and seen the stark differences myself. In the US, the police culture is certainly militarized and proud of it. Even in small towns you have days where the police roll out the biggest armored vehicles they have to show off, and that's their idea of a "community event", kids think its cool obviously, but it's really just "lets show off all of our high power toys".
  - vee-kay 1y ago
    Those high-powered toys by the cops are merely for showing off and to victimize the weak. Those toys typically never come into play to protect the citizens. Case in point: during the Uvalde school shooting incident in 2022, when a shooter (Salvador Ramos) went on a killing spree inside the school, then hundreds of cops gathered outside with brand new body armor (gifted to them just months ago) and armed with automatic guns, but they never dared to go inside to tackle the shooter. Not only that, those cowardly cops actively prevented parents and state patrol officers from going in to rescue their kids. The cowardly cops were led by a cowardly police chief, who later gave excuses for the delayed response to the deadly situation and his mishandling of the police force, by claiming to have forgotten his walkie talkie! Ultimately one of the border patrol officers and some US deputy marshalls (who had travelled 70 miles to reach the scene after getting an alert) managed to sneak in to the back, break the locked door, and used a tactical shield to corner and finally kill the shooter, thus ending his bloodbath (19 children and 2 teachers were tragically killed). And if you think arming cowardly showoff cops with guns and armor is useless and potentially dangerous, you should know the Uvalde school shooter was a minor but he managed to buy the guns legally from a gun shop on credit! That's how lax and evil the gun laws and resulting shootouts in USA are. USA has more mass shootings and more school shootings than any other place in the world. No wonder they facilitate and glorify high-speed car chases. It is all a thrillride for these adrenaline junkies high on power.
    - FireBeyond 1y ago
      You forgot the most insane part of this (or at least of the aftermath) - the police chief was re-elected shortly after!
    - T3OU-736 1y ago
```you should know the Uvalde school shooter was a minor but he managed to buy the guns legally from a gun shop on credit!``` That does not appear to be true. The investagiom reporting shows that the shooter bought the guns after he turned 18 - the legal age to purchase them (long guns, aka rifles - different from pistols) in the state of Texas. Buying things on credit seems like a reasonable way to do business in general - are you suggesting that all deadly weapons should be sold for cash to increase the difficulty of legally acquiring them and so lowering the frequency of mass shootings?
- vee-kay 11mo ago
  In my country, no firearm can be issued to any civilian (certainly not a minor), without verification and license from police. In Texas, there is no minimum age for purchasing ammunition beyond federal limits, no requirement for an ammunition seller to keep a record of the purchaser, and no specific license to buy or sell ammunition, according to the Giffords Law Center. https://www.kxan.com/investigations/uvalde-shooter-had-1600-rounds-few-laws-in-texas-limit-bullet-purchases/ https://www.kxan.com/investigations/uvalde-shooter-had-1600-... Salvador Ramos, the Uvalde school shooter, legally purchased two AR platform rifles Ramos got his guns legally through Oasis Outback, a Uvalde sporting goods store and federal firearms licensee, according to published reports. He also purchased hundreds of rounds of ammunition, on his 18th birthday. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/25/us/uvalde-texas-school-shooting-salvador-ramos https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/25/us/uvalde-texas-school-sh... I know the USA has a bad habit of buying things on credit, but firearms & ammo should never be allowed to be purchased on credit. Let it be purchased only after a verification and license from police, and only via debit card or bank transaction with proper legal paper trail, not credit or cash. And any firearm and ammo purchase should be ratified with local police, so they know if someone is making a suspicious purchase.
- KarlKode 1y ago
  Reminds me of the story where two guys went for a joyride in a Tram in Braunschweig (DE). They boarded a tram during the night, drove for a few stops (including letting passengers board & leave) and left the tram there. The funniest part of the story is that they didn't commit any crime and were let go. Story here (in German): https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/braunschweig-junge-maenner-fahren-mit-gekaperter-strassenbahn-durch-die-stadt-a-b4349985-7c94-4b98-ad26-79b4edeabb5b https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/braunschweig-junge-ma...
Philip-J-Fry 1y ago
Exactly, unless someone is in imminent danger there's basically no reason to do a high speed chase. Get the plate, track it on the thousands of ANPR cameras that exist, look up the owner and just knock on their door later on. Like 99% of high speed chases only end when the culprit crashes their car, and often that's into someone else's car risking harm to innocent civilians.
- tarr11 1y ago
  The cars are usually stolen
boringg 1y ago
That may be - it should be noted that criminals in the US are also much more violent and brazen then most of the rest of the planet. If your criminal population is packing heat the response tends to be much more aggressive. Its a bit cat and mouse.
- Zigurd 1y ago
  Crime is down. Not because we have aggressive cops that shoot people a lot. https://counciloncj.org/crime-trends-in-u-s-cities-mid-year-2025-update/ https://counciloncj.org/crime-trends-in-u-s-cities-mid-year-...
  - notreallytho 1y ago
    That's what happens when cities stop reporting crime statistics https://www.themarshallproject.org/2022/06/14/what-did-fbi-data-say-about-crime-in-2021-it-s-too-unreliable-to-tell https://www.themarshallproject.org/2022/06/14/what-did-fbi-d...
    - Zigurd 1y ago
      Murder is down in line with the rest of crime. What that tells you is that even crime that's hard to fail to report follows the general trend.
      - cavisne 1y ago
        Down from a massive peak in 2020/2021 when cities tried the "lets not enforce crime" approach. Still elevated from pre 2020 levels.
        throw-the-towel 1y ago
        Not trying to dispute your conclusions, but I'd be wary of using the peak Covid years as a reference.
  - closeparen 1y ago
nenxk 1y ago
Restricted high speed chases lead to a lot more crime though there’s some car thief’s I’ve watched on insta and they avoid LA and stick to Oakland because of the chase laws you also have people in New York like squeeze benz, license, doolie, and a lot more who have made entire social media careers driving around recklessly and getting into crashes on freeways because they won’t get chased more than a mile there’s been a huge rise in “cutting up” in nyc because why not if you won’t get chased you can just remove your plate and do whatever.
- unethical_ban 1y ago
  If someone is tiktok famous for filming the evidence of their felonies, that's an enforcement problem.
- jeltz 1y ago
  Not sure why car chases are necessary to solve this problem. Just arrest these people in their homes. Those videos are enough evidence for arrest and conviction.
  - ACCount37 1y ago
    Who do you arrest? An abandoned car?
    - vel0city 1y ago
      Start with the registered owner of the car and investigate from there. Follow it through the network of cameras that are already deployed around the city. If it was stolen from them, investigate the theft. In a large number of these chases the person is operating their own car.
    - victorbjorklund 1y ago
      I’m 90% of the cases the police knows who the driver is.
  - WUMBOWUMBO 1y ago
    add on to the fact that a city like NYC has a vast network of surveillance cameras

by Zigurd 1y ago

adriand 1y ago

My home town of Hamilton, Ontario (population 560k) recently made the news because a guy stole a bus, with passengers onboard, and started driving it through the city. It was newsworthy because he also dropped people off at their stops, and even rejected someone who tried to board with an expired bus pass. But what stood out for me in addition to all that was the police response. They quietly followed the bus, intentionally not using sirens to avoid “spooking” the guy. They waited for the right moment, boarded the bus and arrested him peacefully and without incident. I recognize my little city is not like LA (which I’ve visited twice) - the types of crimes, the types of criminals and the prevalence of weapons are far different, although we also have our share of gun violence and murder. But we have also not militarized our police, and there’s very much a police culture of service to the community. Here, when a cop uses their weapon, it’s seen as a failure. This was a situation handled properly, and it made me proud.

captainkrtek 1y ago
I'm Canadian and American, and have lived in both places and seen the stark differences myself. In the US, the police culture is certainly militarized and proud of it. Even in small towns you have days where the police roll out the biggest armored vehicles they have to show off, and that's their idea of a "community event", kids think its cool obviously, but it's really just "lets show off all of our high power toys".
- vee-kay 1y ago
  Those high-powered toys by the cops are merely for showing off and to victimize the weak. Those toys typically never come into play to protect the citizens. Case in point: during the Uvalde school shooting incident in 2022, when a shooter (Salvador Ramos) went on a killing spree inside the school, then hundreds of cops gathered outside with brand new body armor (gifted to them just months ago) and armed with automatic guns, but they never dared to go inside to tackle the shooter. Not only that, those cowardly cops actively prevented parents and state patrol officers from going in to rescue their kids. The cowardly cops were led by a cowardly police chief, who later gave excuses for the delayed response to the deadly situation and his mishandling of the police force, by claiming to have forgotten his walkie talkie! Ultimately one of the border patrol officers and some US deputy marshalls (who had travelled 70 miles to reach the scene after getting an alert) managed to sneak in to the back, break the locked door, and used a tactical shield to corner and finally kill the shooter, thus ending his bloodbath (19 children and 2 teachers were tragically killed). And if you think arming cowardly showoff cops with guns and armor is useless and potentially dangerous, you should know the Uvalde school shooter was a minor but he managed to buy the guns legally from a gun shop on credit! That's how lax and evil the gun laws and resulting shootouts in USA are. USA has more mass shootings and more school shootings than any other place in the world. No wonder they facilitate and glorify high-speed car chases. It is all a thrillride for these adrenaline junkies high on power.
  - FireBeyond 1y ago
    You forgot the most insane part of this (or at least of the aftermath) - the police chief was re-elected shortly after!
  - T3OU-736 1y ago
```you should know the Uvalde school shooter was a minor but he managed to buy the guns legally from a gun shop on credit!``` That does not appear to be true. The investagiom reporting shows that the shooter bought the guns after he turned 18 - the legal age to purchase them (long guns, aka rifles - different from pistols) in the state of Texas. Buying things on credit seems like a reasonable way to do business in general - are you suggesting that all deadly weapons should be sold for cash to increase the difficulty of legally acquiring them and so lowering the frequency of mass shootings?
- vee-kay 11mo ago
  In my country, no firearm can be issued to any civilian (certainly not a minor), without verification and license from police. In Texas, there is no minimum age for purchasing ammunition beyond federal limits, no requirement for an ammunition seller to keep a record of the purchaser, and no specific license to buy or sell ammunition, according to the Giffords Law Center. https://www.kxan.com/investigations/uvalde-shooter-had-1600-rounds-few-laws-in-texas-limit-bullet-purchases/ https://www.kxan.com/investigations/uvalde-shooter-had-1600-... Salvador Ramos, the Uvalde school shooter, legally purchased two AR platform rifles Ramos got his guns legally through Oasis Outback, a Uvalde sporting goods store and federal firearms licensee, according to published reports. He also purchased hundreds of rounds of ammunition, on his 18th birthday. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/25/us/uvalde-texas-school-shooting-salvador-ramos https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/25/us/uvalde-texas-school-sh... I know the USA has a bad habit of buying things on credit, but firearms & ammo should never be allowed to be purchased on credit. Let it be purchased only after a verification and license from police, and only via debit card or bank transaction with proper legal paper trail, not credit or cash. And any firearm and ammo purchase should be ratified with local police, so they know if someone is making a suspicious purchase.
KarlKode 1y ago
Reminds me of the story where two guys went for a joyride in a Tram in Braunschweig (DE). They boarded a tram during the night, drove for a few stops (including letting passengers board & leave) and left the tram there. The funniest part of the story is that they didn't commit any crime and were let go. Story here (in German): https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/braunschweig-junge-maenner-fahren-mit-gekaperter-strassenbahn-durch-die-stadt-a-b4349985-7c94-4b98-ad26-79b4edeabb5b https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/braunschweig-junge-ma...

Philip-J-Fry 1y ago

Exactly, unless someone is in imminent danger there's basically no reason to do a high speed chase. Get the plate, track it on the thousands of ANPR cameras that exist, look up the owner and just knock on their door later on. Like 99% of high speed chases only end when the culprit crashes their car, and often that's into someone else's car risking harm to innocent civilians.

tarr11 1y ago
The cars are usually stolen

boringg 1y ago

That may be - it should be noted that criminals in the US are also much more violent and brazen then most of the rest of the planet. If your criminal population is packing heat the response tends to be much more aggressive. Its a bit cat and mouse.

Zigurd 1y ago
Crime is down. Not because we have aggressive cops that shoot people a lot. https://counciloncj.org/crime-trends-in-u-s-cities-mid-year-2025-update/ https://counciloncj.org/crime-trends-in-u-s-cities-mid-year-...
- notreallytho 1y ago
  That's what happens when cities stop reporting crime statistics https://www.themarshallproject.org/2022/06/14/what-did-fbi-data-say-about-crime-in-2021-it-s-too-unreliable-to-tell https://www.themarshallproject.org/2022/06/14/what-did-fbi-d...
  - Zigurd 1y ago
    Murder is down in line with the rest of crime. What that tells you is that even crime that's hard to fail to report follows the general trend.
    - cavisne 1y ago
      Down from a massive peak in 2020/2021 when cities tried the "lets not enforce crime" approach. Still elevated from pre 2020 levels.
      - throw-the-towel 1y ago
        Not trying to dispute your conclusions, but I'd be wary of using the peak Covid years as a reference.
- closeparen 1y ago

nenxk 1y ago

Restricted high speed chases lead to a lot more crime though there’s some car thief’s I’ve watched on insta and they avoid LA and stick to Oakland because of the chase laws you also have people in New York like squeeze benz, license, doolie, and a lot more who have made entire social media careers driving around recklessly and getting into crashes on freeways because they won’t get chased more than a mile there’s been a huge rise in “cutting up” in nyc because why not if you won’t get chased you can just remove your plate and do whatever.

unethical_ban 1y ago
If someone is tiktok famous for filming the evidence of their felonies, that's an enforcement problem.
jeltz 1y ago
Not sure why car chases are necessary to solve this problem. Just arrest these people in their homes. Those videos are enough evidence for arrest and conviction.
- ACCount37 1y ago
  Who do you arrest? An abandoned car?
  - vel0city 1y ago
    Start with the registered owner of the car and investigate from there. Follow it through the network of cameras that are already deployed around the city. If it was stolen from them, investigate the theft. In a large number of these chases the person is operating their own car.
  - victorbjorklund 1y ago
    I’m 90% of the cases the police knows who the driver is.
- WUMBOWUMBO 1y ago
  add on to the fact that a city like NYC has a vast network of surveillance cameras