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Tonight (technically last night), I got stuck with a soup-to-nuts domestic (restraining order, arrest, etc.) right out of roll call, so by the time I actually got out on the street, it was almost 7:30pm. My sergeant has been getting on me to write more traffic citations, so I decided to write one written warning per shift for a few weeks.
Due to the onset of Fall, with dusk coming sooner & sooner, by the time I got done with the domestic, it was dark outside. Therefore, I had to violate my Cardinal Rule of Law Enforcement.....don't make any traffic stops after dark. I was sitting at a red light at a busy intersection when my light turned green. I started to go, then had to jam on my brakes to avoid getting T-boned by a blue Ford Five-Hundred (the replacement for the Taurus) that blew the dead-red light. As the car passed in front of me, I could hear the engine down-shift and accelerate, so the chase was on.
He had a pretty good head start on me, but I was able to keep him in sight as he turned onto a sidestreet off a major road. I was doing close to 60mph down this sidestreet, and the car was pulling ahead, so I would estimate he was doing 70+mph. As we kept going, I started to wonder if this person knew that the street we were on turned into an island-divided, double-wide street. Not only that, the road was stripped for new asphalt, so the traffic island curbs were probably 12 inches high.
Guess what? He didn't know. I suddenly saw the taillights drop as the car went from the regular street to the stripped street, followed by a tremendous crash. When I stopped in front of the island, the granite curbing was broken in two places, where the wheels of the car impacted. The island itself has automatic sprinklers installed, as they're trying to grow new grass, so the soil was very wet. There were two canals where the wheels, or what was left of them, carved into the wet grass. The car itself was probably 25 yards from the point of impact, belching steam, as what was left of the transmission came in contact with the mud. All four tires were blown, and the front passenger side wheel had actually come off. There was a Lake Superior of oil, transmission fluid, and anti-freeze around the car.
The car had plowed itself so far into the soil that I couldn't even open the driver's door. I had to smash the driver's window with my Mag-Lite, drag the operator out of the window, and face-plant him into the mud. My first backup was a K-9 unit, so the passenger lost any thoughts he might have had about running/resisting when the GSD was bouncing off the passenger door.
I thought for sure that the car was stolen, but not so. The driver was a 17 year-old kid from Cohasset, which is a mega-$$$$$ suburb south of Boston. It was Daddy's car, brand-new, with less than 2,000 miles on it. When I asked him why he ran, he replied "I didn't think you could catch me".
The best one-liner of the entire incident was delivered by a guy I work with, who took custody of the driver and drove him in for booking, since I had to do the crash report. All I charged him with was a red light violation, refusing to stop for the police, and operating to endanger, all either misdemeanors or civil infractions. When the cop took custody, I told him the list of charges. The other cop looked at the suspect and said "Kid, you're going to look like the biggest ******bag in the world in court on Monday, sitting next to drug dealers, junkies, and armed robbers".
Due to the onset of Fall, with dusk coming sooner & sooner, by the time I got done with the domestic, it was dark outside. Therefore, I had to violate my Cardinal Rule of Law Enforcement.....don't make any traffic stops after dark. I was sitting at a red light at a busy intersection when my light turned green. I started to go, then had to jam on my brakes to avoid getting T-boned by a blue Ford Five-Hundred (the replacement for the Taurus) that blew the dead-red light. As the car passed in front of me, I could hear the engine down-shift and accelerate, so the chase was on.
He had a pretty good head start on me, but I was able to keep him in sight as he turned onto a sidestreet off a major road. I was doing close to 60mph down this sidestreet, and the car was pulling ahead, so I would estimate he was doing 70+mph. As we kept going, I started to wonder if this person knew that the street we were on turned into an island-divided, double-wide street. Not only that, the road was stripped for new asphalt, so the traffic island curbs were probably 12 inches high.
Guess what? He didn't know. I suddenly saw the taillights drop as the car went from the regular street to the stripped street, followed by a tremendous crash. When I stopped in front of the island, the granite curbing was broken in two places, where the wheels of the car impacted. The island itself has automatic sprinklers installed, as they're trying to grow new grass, so the soil was very wet. There were two canals where the wheels, or what was left of them, carved into the wet grass. The car itself was probably 25 yards from the point of impact, belching steam, as what was left of the transmission came in contact with the mud. All four tires were blown, and the front passenger side wheel had actually come off. There was a Lake Superior of oil, transmission fluid, and anti-freeze around the car.
The car had plowed itself so far into the soil that I couldn't even open the driver's door. I had to smash the driver's window with my Mag-Lite, drag the operator out of the window, and face-plant him into the mud. My first backup was a K-9 unit, so the passenger lost any thoughts he might have had about running/resisting when the GSD was bouncing off the passenger door.
I thought for sure that the car was stolen, but not so. The driver was a 17 year-old kid from Cohasset, which is a mega-$$$$$ suburb south of Boston. It was Daddy's car, brand-new, with less than 2,000 miles on it. When I asked him why he ran, he replied "I didn't think you could catch me".
The best one-liner of the entire incident was delivered by a guy I work with, who took custody of the driver and drove him in for booking, since I had to do the crash report. All I charged him with was a red light violation, refusing to stop for the police, and operating to endanger, all either misdemeanors or civil infractions. When the cop took custody, I told him the list of charges. The other cop looked at the suspect and said "Kid, you're going to look like the biggest ******bag in the world in court on Monday, sitting next to drug dealers, junkies, and armed robbers".
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