Vote for our school to get the Dell SuperProm

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Chase Case


Did police use deadly force when they pushed a 19 year old off the road during a high speed chase?



How are both sides using the constitution to help their case?


Why was a trial by jury not permitted in this case?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Supreme Court Justices Back Police in Chase Case.

I don't think people should be able to speed in a car, it's a crime.
If I was in a car, and I saw the cops behind me, I would stop.
The boy in the wheelchair did it to himself. It was raining and that means that the road is slippery he should have stop.
When I saw the video tape I saw how dangerous the kid was being, especially when people were coming the other way at night. I am glad the Supreme Court sided with the police.

Anonymous said...

In this situation the police did what they had to do. Even though the 19 year old man says that they did not abide by the 4th ammendment of the constitution by crippling him he should not have ran. If the man was to pull over immediatley instead of speeding up and causing the cops to engage in a high speed persute he would not have caused the situation he did, and the outcome would of been just a speeding ticket. This is what happens when you try to run from the law. Just becasue he wasnt giving up doesnt mean the cops should have to fall back. If we let everyone go that was attempting to run we would have a lot more problems. Imagine if cops were told that if someone was going over 90 to fall back. Every person hiding something or someone in their car would just speed up instead of pull over. If you dont pull over you obviously have something to hide.

Anonymous said...

Both sides are using the constitution to help their cases

Because they both kind of have a pull on the law from

Different ends. One way could be weather or not this 19

Teen year old man lead on the car chase. His life does

Not deserve to change in such a drastic way. He is right the

4th amendment does back up his side. Since we are going

By law isn’t the law to abide by the amendments. How

Could the cops expect to completely ignore that but expect

Their laws to be in forced and abided by?


Of course they don’t want a jury because they don’t

want to risk it being mothers or women period. Any mother in

that jury would have of course felt for the kid’s life. The

first thing they would most likely think of is their child in

this situation. There is no way shape or form that will make

the parents agree that is ok. I do agree that somebody has to

be the example of how the law is being in forced as we

disused in class. But do we really want to have the example

this serious. Do you really think that parents want to be

siding at home thinking. About weather or not their child was

just like this kid a nervous teenager just to scared to do the

right thing. Then messes around and gets bumped off the

side of the road. Nobody wants to have to think about that

just because your child has a car. I just feel the police and

the judge knew that the people period of the jury would

have decided with the other side. Then they have to

worry about. Now that this child got away with it will the

law start to be taken as a joke. They need to invest in some

of the new technology that we have because in New

York City or Los Angeles there has never been a case like

this. So if it’s worth some bodies life its worth up grading to

newer technology. To simply avoid situations and painful

Memories like this.

Anonymous said...

Reading the article and watching the video tape of the pursuit in class opened my eyes to the world of the power of a police officer. I understood that the young man driving his car was scared, but he should have slowed down instead of speeding up on a highway. The police officers at that point had to make a call on what to do, to stop this chase from going on any longer. I agree with Michael because I too do think that the police officers were right in bumping the car off the road because that car would have created more problems in the long run by possibly hurting others in the area. The teen should have known that driving late at night on a wet road after it rained was already dangerous to begin with, that once he stepped into the car he put himself in danger/ at a risk. He again decided he was going to put himself into more danger by driving above the speed limit, and starting a car chase with the police. If the teen would have slowed down or stopped, they could have just given him a ticket and he could have been on his way or they could have took down his license plate and got him later, in the event that if they backed down the young man would have eventually slowed down because he wasn’t being chased anymore. When the police couldn’t catch the teen, they had nothing else to do to enforce the laws, than to ensure the safety of the people around to make sure no one gets hurt by the chase. The police had to do the right thing to stop the chase, and it sadly ended up in the boy becoming a paraplegic. If the boy was never speeding in the first place, this wouldn’t have happened but since he was he got a raw deal and had to deal with the consequences of driving fast and not obeying the rules. I don’t think that the courts were right in not giving the young man a jury because the tapes can only see one thing, but they don’t ever show a reason or give the benefit of the doubt of why these actions are happening. I think everyone has their right to a jury no matter how horrible the crime, even if guilty is written all over the situation. Once you have rights no matter who you are, you cant have them taken away from you or infringed unless you are in trouble, or until you have been proven in trouble. I don’t think the teens family should be suing because of their son getting hurt, because it was their son in the first place making trouble, and doing something wrong.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Michael 100%. The cops chased the 19 year old boy because he wanted to keep speeding and not give up. If cops are following you, you pull over. Simple as that. What makes anybody think just because you are speeding up the cops should just decide to give up and let you speed all you want and god forbid you end up hurting or killing somebody else. This kid could have been up to anything. The condition he is in now is his own fault. Yes it’s unfortunate and yes I feel bad but he made the mistake off speeding in the night while it’s raining with the chance of hurting others. So if the cops would have let this kid speed off and end up killing someone else or doing something illegal it would have been the cops fault?
Anybody and everybody with a job or responsibility should understand this is not the cops fault what so ever. When you have a job you have procedure to follow and you do what is right. Cops didn’t spend all their time trying to be a cop for nothing. Just because someone keeps speeding away doesn’t meant the cops are going to stop their job and let him go about his business.
I think this boy is so stupid to sit and try to sue the cops for his idiotic mistake. Grow up, your paying for your mistake. Not to sound cruel I don’t think he deserved what he got but once again nobody but him got himself in this condition. What kid of excuse is being nervous? Obviously you weren’t that nervous to be speeding so fast in your car considering the weather and cop cars chasing you!!! I understand the parents are hurt and a lot of mothers are hurt by this but you can’t look to blame something or someone else just because you’re in pain. It’s not right somebody else has to pay for your actions because you ended up being in a terrible situation.
From this situation everybody needs to learn it’s not okay to speed away from cops the way this boy did. This should be a lesson learned. If you break the law you have to suffer and nobody else. If this kid can get away with blaming the cops for his actions then this would make everyone think its okay to do what he did and that is not the case.

Anonymous said...

This article really upset me. I understand that the kid was speeding and it is just protocal for a police officer to tap the back of a speeding vehicle, but this is obvioulsy a dumb protocal. Of course, the driver should be held responsible for not pulling over once he saw that he was being asked to, but the force was excessive. If the driver was not suspected for commiting a crime, why use such force in these weather conditions? Now if he was going for miles and miles and happened to hit other cars along the way, I could understand this type of force being used but that was not the case. Now this 19 year old has to live the rest of his life as a quadriplegic, while real criminals are able to get away with just speeding tickets. The police could have got the number on his license plate, met him at his house and then issued him a ticket, or arrested him then. The effects of this would have been months, day even. The effects of this poor choice will have to be lifelong.

Anonymous said...

This boy has no case, simply because of the fact thathe was speeding in the first place making himself a danger to others. The police saw him as a danger and proceeded to try to get him to stop at any means possible. The only problem is they were going at such high speeds that when the car was bumped on the side it crashed and tipped. He is now in a wheel chair, while this is unfortunate the blame rests entirely on the 19 year old boy. He did this to himself because he said he was scared, that is not what in actuality happened, he probably did not want to get a ticket or was under the influence, it does not matter, now for his carlessness he spends the rest of his life in a wheelchair. I don't think that he should win this case because then it is telling cops that let the bad guy go even though he is a danger, because we may get sued for saving the lives of others.
Michelle Asciote