Risking Safety of an Infant to Pursue Litterer (VIDEO)

The Carrollton Police Department posted a video today bragging about their new body cams, and used this video of a chase to pat themselves on the back apparently. While I’m sure many people will praise be to God the greatness of the Carrollton police for their actions here, even while risking the life of an infant.

Supposedly, one of our bicycle patrol officers saw one of these suspects throwing a beer bottle behind a senior center. While we have seen the ways the CPD will bend the laws and/or truth to identify people (like  THIS or THIS or one of MANY of THESE), lets just give them the benefit of a doubt that they actually did see one of these guys toss a beer bottle. Not what anyone would consider big time capital crime type of thing, right? Well, if you were watching this without any context, you might think Carrollton had found El Chapo himself.

Clearly, the bicycle cops didn’t really take control of the scene here. They sure seemed to miss the large parcel in the back seat that most certainly would have changed the way all of this continued. The suspects were tense, but they still allowed one of them to jump into the driver’s seat unabated. He puts it into drive, and it’s on….package and all.

Let’s make one thing clear, nobody is rooting for the suspect here, or even saying he made ANY wise choices. He didn’t. For this story, we are focusing on the reaction by the Carrollton Police Department over a guy who allegedly threw a beer bottle behind a building. Something I wouldn’t think would justify reckless abandon, and an apprehend at all cost pursuit.  But it did.

When the suspect took off, it appears they were in the heart of Carrollton. Throughout the course of events, they ended up some 15 miles away in Dallas, a good 10-11 miles outside Carrollton city limits. Over the 17 minutes of aggressive pursuit, they went through some of the more congested, construction laden roads around the northern part of the Dallas area. Not the best environment for risky driving or expecting others to maneuver around you.

While watching the video, you will no doubt see a number of dangerous situations occur. Running lights. Jumping curbs. Racing through parking lots, and apartments. Maneuvering around unaware drivers. Putting other drivers at great risk forcing them to get creative in order to avoid a dangerous driver and/or the police SUV pursuing him.

At the end of the pursuit, we find the most innocent potential victim in all of this is the very young infant found in the back of the suspect’s vehicle. While this Carrollton cop was pursuing this notorious bottle thrower (all he knew at the time), there was no consideration for all the other dangers in the process. Dangers that were clear and obvious, or unseen dangers like the baby in the car the whole time.

We have to assume that he was unaware of the infant in the back seat, but it really begs the question…was this all worth it? Where do you draw the line? Did this cop take more risks with this guy because he fled one of his buddies? Would he have done the same thing if the bottle thrower had done the same thing to a civilian?

I know there will be plenty that applaud this cop’s actions purely because he “got his man”, but I wonder if they would have felt the same if the infant had been injured due to the carelessness of this whole thing. Would they have just blamed the idiot that ran, and given the cop a pass because he was saving us from bottle throwers everywhere? Would they completely dismiss the officer’s responsibility in all of this.

Again, we’re not supporting the suspect or dismissing anything he did. We just question the amount of danger so many people were put in over something that seemed to be as innocuous as a guy running after being asked to identify himself. Including an innocent infant that was very lucky things didn’t turn out worse than they did.

Source Article from http://www.copblock.org/160666/carrollton-police-risking-life-of-infant-over-beer-bottle/

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