SHOOT THE BASTARD!

The other day, another innocent driver died when a young car thief sped through a stop sign while being chased by the police and crashed into the victim's car. Now the victim's family is considering a law suit against the City of Houston and its police department. With respect to car chases, the police are damned if they do and damned if they don't. Nationwide, there have been numerous deaths and injuries of innocents that have resulted from police car chases.

Call me "Attila the Hun" if you like, but I have a simple solution to this problem - shoot the drivers who flee from the police!

Then what about the lawsuits that are sure to ensue? Oh well, the cities will just have to chalk them up as the cost of doing business.

The courts have ruled that a police officer cannot shoot at a fleeing suspect unless that person offers an immediate threat of serious bodily injury or death to the officer or another citizen, or that by allowing him to get away, the public will be placed in serious jeopardy.

According to those court rulings, if a fleeing suspect has a dangerous weapon in his possession and presents an imminent threat to the life of a citizen, an officer would be justified in shooting the bastard.

There is not a more dangerous weapon than a car that is being driven at a reckless high speed by a driver fleeing from the police who weaves in and out of traffic and disregards intersection stop signs and traffic control lights. So, shoot the bastard before he kills some innocent driver and/or his passenger(s) with that dangerous weapon.

Now right away someone is going to ask, what about some poor teenager that is fleeing from the police. Tough shit! If he gets killed, that is sure a lot better than some innocent citizen. The driver who was killed in Houston the other day, left behind a wife and two children. A passenger in his SUV was seriously injured.

I realize that if a fleeing driver were to be shot to death by the police, he would leave behind a grieving family, and his loss would be especially hard when it is the family of a teenager.

This brings up the question of whether or not the police should chase a fleeing car in the first place when they do not know for sure if the driver has committed a felony. If an officer has good reason to believe that the driver is not intoxicated and is only trying to escape from getting a traffic ticket, then don't chase him. Otherwise, shoot the bastard - he has a very dangerous weapon in his hands.