Intervening in a police chase

[Shawn Christ]

Last night after work I was walking out of a local big box store and noticed two police officers standing outside near the door, just waiting. I assumed they were on a call for theft. As I was leaving I drove my car toward them and a young man walked out of the store entrance, saw the officers, and without hesitation took off running right at me. The "alleged" ran behind my car and the officers had to go around me as I was rolling to a stop. Unfortunately I was blocking their path and slowed them down as they took chase. The guy was fast, ran across the parking lot and the officers couldn't catch up. Extremely curious, and feeling guilty for getting in the way, I drove to the end of the parking lot to watch. Soon six squad cars were on the scene but the guy was still running, crossed a 4-lane expressway, and was out of sight.

I posted what I saw on Facebook and three other friends chimed in, they also witnessed the altercation. It seems the guy ran quite some distance, crossed another street and, oddly enough, ran up to my friend's window at a credit union where he was surrounded by officers and arrested. Thankfully they caught him.

As I saw the guy running and the officers unable to catch him, I had this feeling I should have intervened. Or still had an opportunity to intervene. But I know I shouldn't and I'm glad I didn't. I'm curious if anyone else has been involved in a similar incident and if you actually intervened to help the police, either by choice or by coincidence.

[David Falkner]

Haven't been in that situation - yet. Sounds like that young man's running skills could have been put to better use in sports, though.

[Pat Barry]

What were you planning on doing, running him down with your car? I think your natural instincts to leave the situation alone makes the most sense. Who knows what danger you might've place yourself into.

[glenn bradley]

Real life moves a lot faster than T.V. I get that you have thoughts about what you could have done to help or how you might have gotten out of the way faster. I think you did just right; slowed to a stop and remained as predictable as possible so that the officers could get past safely. Hindsight is always interesting and can occupy us in different ways but, I think ya done good ;-)

[Erik Loza]

My brother, who is a deputy sherriff, would probably say, "Be a good witness".

Erik Loza
Minimax

[Wade Lippman]

I have been in similar situations and find it takes 2 seconds to really understand what is going on. By then it is way too late to react, even if you wanted to. And actually helping would have been the wrong move, unless you were trained for it.

[Dan Hunkele]

If you ran him down with the car you would have been sued for his injuries.

[Myk Rian]

Intervening? Heck no. Where did you get that idea?

[Phil Thien]

I agree w/ what has been said above, which is basically to stay out of the way as much as possible.

I think the exception is if you find a police officer actually in distress. In that case, I think stepping-in is the thing to do, until the office has gained the advantage.

[Rich Engelhardt]

My brother, who is a deputy sherriff, would probably say, "Be a good witness". There's your answer.

[Shawn Christ]

I completely agree with everything that has been said. I should also clarify I'm not questioning or second-guessing my decision to not act. I'm wondering what other stories are out there. Who else has found themselves in the middle of a chase and what happened?

[Pat Barry]

About a year ago, maybe two (bad memory), the car ahead of me in the left lane made a quick move into the right lane just before the intersection to pass a car who was waiting for oncoming traffic in order to turn. Before I really new what was happening, although I was conscious enough to slow down, the car that pulled over into my lane was hit in the drivers door by an oncoming car that turned into our lanes (crossing in front of us left to right). I stopped because of the accident to make sure everyone was alright. The guy who got hit asked me to wait for the cops to tell them what I saw. I felt so stupid because in my own mind I don't know who was at fault here, if anyone. It was an accident. I felt like I really should have seen this coming, maybe thats why I slowed down a bit, but nothing really registered with me. Now I can see why people are really poor eyewitnesses.

[Phil Thien]

I completely agree with everything that has been said. I should also clarify I'm not questioning or second-guessing my decision to not act. I'm wondering what other stories are out there. Who else has found themselves in the middle of a chase and what happened?

When I as attending college I was leaving the bookstore one day and saw that the security guard (just another college student) had a guy in a wrestling hold. Probably a shoplifter, I figured. An accomplice was punching the security guard in the back. It didn't look pleasant.

I figured some other male employee of the bookstore would come to the rescue, so I just sort of watched as I finished my transaction. And during that time the only other male employee I could see actually walked at high speed in the opposite direction.

So after buying whatever it was that I wanted, I pulled the accomplice off the security guard and tossed him up against some lockers. He tried to get to the guard a couple more times and I just pulled him off. I didn't hit him or anything, though the 2nd time I pushed him into the lockers it was pretty hard and he fell.

After a minute or two of this, the accomplice started to run but by that time, the campus police were descending on the place and got the guy and brought him back in.

I quietly excused myself and went home. Later that day my brother returned home and I was explaining what happened and my brother laughed and told me the security guard was a friend of his from high school and had also related the story, but had no idea who I was or why I helped.

What a small world.

[Lee Schierer]

It doesn't sound like you gave the police your contact information. They may need you at a future date to identify the guy that they eventually arrest as the one you saw running from the store. If they don't have your information you should give it to them. We all are responsible to stop crime by being willing witnesses.

[Shawn Christ]

It doesn't sound like you gave the police your contact information. They may need you at a future date to identify the guy that they eventually arrest as the one you saw running from the store. If they don't have your information you should give it to them. We all are responsible to stop crime by being willing witnesses.

They got him. He was caught and arrested after a long pursuit .

[Shawn Christ]

... the only other male employee I could see actually walked at high speed in the opposite direction.

So after buying whatever it was that I wanted, I pulled the accomplice off the security guard and tossed him up against some lockers.

Phil, interesting story. I'd day you did the right thing.

[Erik Loza]

Just remembered this: Late 1980's and I was walking on the sidewalk across the street from a strip mall in my neighborhood. In the parking lot of this mall, I heard tires squealing and this compact car goes racing out of the parking lot. At that same moment, an elderly woman is screaming that they stole something (her purse, I guess?) and also at that moment, an elderly man who I assume was her husband, draws a revolver discharges it from waist level a number of times in the direction of the fleeing car!

I doubt it was a blank gun and those bullets went somewhere. Never called the cops or anything, just kept walking but think about the endless number of "perceived" scenarios someone who had not witnessed the entire string of events unfold could have thought if they just walked onot it. They could have thought there was a crazy shooter in the parking lot and what if they acted on that? And what if it was another citizen with a gun (as we do have here in TX...) and that person decided to return fire, thinking they were stopping some crazy lone shooter (which we in fact had here in Austin, recently....)? Too many "what ifs" to get involved.

Erik Loza
Minimax

[Chuck Wintle]

Its better to be a living witness rather than a dead citizen. My personal belief is to let the police handle the situation and stay back. if it happened that I was in a good position to do something then I probably would.

[M Toupin]

"Be a good witness"

Please!

Don't interject yourself into a police situation, seldom is it helpful. Some folks just feel the need to "help" but in the heat of the moment the officers have no idea if you're an accomplice or some other threat. Until they sort it out you're part of the problem.

Mike

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

Back in the 90's I attended a dog sport event that, by some fluke, was held about 10 miles from my property. After the event was over, several out-of-town friends came over to my house for dinner, drinks and conversation. After dusk set in on that warm summer night, it was time for everyone to load up in their vehicles and head out. I walked along the driveway to open/close the gates. As I stood near the entry gate, I could see colored lights flashing on the trees near the main road and step out to see if it was an aid vehicle at the elderly neighbor's house on the main road. My property was located at the corner of a side road & main road.... As I'm standing near the side road signalling to my friends to hold up in the driveway, I start to hear the sirens and racing engines and know there is a high speed chase going on.

I caught a glimpse of a police car on the tail of a speeding vehicle and see 3 police vehicles following behind. As they passed behind my outbuilding near the intersection, I heard metal impact and screeching tires. The lead police vehicle had performed a pit maneuver and the car had spun and ended up across the side road from my property. It was too dark to see anything, but I could hear sounds in the field across the road from me.

None of my friends could leave because the intersection was now a filled with police vehicles & the wrecked vehicle and there was only 1 way out as the road my driveway was on was a No Outlet.

A police officer walked over and advised us they had been in pursuit of someone and he had fled into the field across from my property and they were waiting for the K9 unit to arrive to track the guy. He asked us all to please be patient and they would let my friends pass through when they could get a wrecker out. He assured us that all was under control and not to be worried.

My friends and I were all grinning and looking at each other and trying to stifle our laughing. The officer asked us what was so funny. We told him we were all members of a protection dog sport and were having our Nationals event "down the road a ways" and there were currently 3 tracking dogs and about 1 dozen protection trained dogs "here right now" as well as about two dozen more dogs "down the road" at the local hotel.

The officer couldn't help but laugh too and said something like "Lucky for him he didn't land in your field. Too bad we can't send all the dogs out."

It gave us a good topic to discuss the "what if" we had to send our dogs out to catch a bad guy. We all agreed that while our dogs could do the job, we hoped that day never happens as our dogs our our first & foremost our pets and could suffer injury or death due to a bad guy with a gun.

[Roy Turbett]

Being a good witness necessarily means that you give the police your name. This is especially true in high profile cases where the truth can become skewed depending on ones sympathies.

[Curt Harms]

It doesn't sound like you gave the police your contact information. They may need you at a future date to identify the guy that they eventually arrest as the one you saw running from the store. If they don't have your information you should give it to them. We all are responsible to stop crime by being willing witnesses.

I agree with you but there's a 'culture' which hold that "snitches get stitches" (and worse).

[Bruce Page]

I once followed a vehicle hit & run driver so my wife could get the license plate number. I'm not sure I would do that today.

[Mike Cutler]

Nope, I didn't intervene, I was the one doing the running.:eek: ( It was a much different era in the US 40 years ago. I wouldn't recommend running today.)

[Stan Calow]

I've been told by more than one police officer that if you get involved (unless your life is on the line) someone will likely try to hold you responsible for anything bad that happens after that point. That is, don't take action unless you are willing to risk getting sued for any injuries or damages to anybody that happen.

[Ed Aumiller]

About 6 years ago I had a car stolen from my driveway... Reported it to police... That evening my son & his wife stopped at a Hardee's (similiar to McDonalds) and there in front of him was my stolen car... they called 911 and told the dispatcher where the car was... It pulled out and got on I-81... my son followed it, his wife talking to the dispatcher the whole time... the person who stole it kept going faster and must have realized he was being tailed... they reached speeds of over 90 mph.. finally after about 16 miles the dispatcher asked if they were definitely sure it was my stolen car... when they answered YES, they were told to fall back and when they did, 6 police cars flew past them and pulled the thief over... my son said he had no idea where all the police appeared from so suddenly, but he was watching in front of him and did not see the police behind him until they hit the lights after he fell back
Surprisingly, the police did not say anything to him about the speeding, etc.... but the dispatcher had asked him to keep the stolen car in sight if possible and not to try to interfere or do anything except keep it in sight if safely possible which he did....
His wife was on the phone with the dispatcher the whole time...