U.S. Supreme Court OK's High Speed Police Chases
Let's not mince words here. Your average American loves watching a good ol' red blooded police chase. As entertaining as they are, you've really got to wonder if discretion is the better part of valor when it comes to running Johnny Perp to ground. In " Scott v. Harris," the U.S. Supreme Court didn't seem to think so. The Justices watched this video of police chasing of a 19-year-old man who refused to pull over after being caught speeding. In what Justice Scalia described as, "The scariest chase I ever saw since 'The French Connection'," the teenager led police on a 10-mile plunge down a two-lane highway at night. A police officer ended the chase by ramming the back of the teenager's car at 90 mph, sending the car flying down an embankment, rendering the fleeing teenager quadriplegic. The Court held that the officer's use of deadly force to stop the fleeing speeder (clocked doing 73 in a 55 mph zone) was reasonable– despite the option of calling off the pursuit and tracking down the driver by his license plate. The Court states, "After watching the video, no jury could find the Police Officer's use of force unreasonable." What say you?
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Why damage a cop-car bumper when you can just shoot the guy?