Article about Police Chases-new tracking device

[Lucky]

Darts may ground high-speed chases

By Richard Winton

Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES — Question: "Chief, you said Los Angeles is the car-chase capital of the world. What makes it that way?"

Answer: "There are a lot of nuts here."

With that piece of street-cop psychology, Chief William Bratton on Thursday unveiled a new and decidedly strange weapon in the Los Angeles Police Department's effort to halt high-speed pursuits.

It is an air-propelled miniature dart equipped with a global positioning device. Once fired from a patrol car, it sticks to a fleeing motorist's vehicle and sends back a radio signal to police.

Bratton hailed the dart as "the big new idea" and said that if the pilot program is successful, it could make Los Angeles' daily TV fix of the police chase a thing of the past.

"Instead of us pushing them doing 70 or 80 miles an hour ... this device allows us not to have to pursue after the car," Bratton said. "It allows us to start vectoring where the car is. Even if they bail out of the car, we'll have pretty much instantaneously information where they are."

Bratton said Justice Department officials suggested that the StarChase system, the brainchild of a Virginia company, be tested in Los Angeles. A small number of patrol cars will be equipped with the compressed air launchers that fire the miniature GPS receiver in a sticky compound resembling a golf ball for four to six months as a trial.

There were more than 600 pursuits in Los Angeles and more than 100,000 nationwide last year. Critics have long questioned the wisdom of the chases because they can put the lives at risk.

Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company




I still think LA will still be the police chase capitol of the world but this will put a new twist on it. How long before the chasees figure this out and dump the glue covered golf ball sized tracking device?

[GTS Dean]

What will all the other patrol cops do with their spare time? Surely not anything so mundane as neighborhood patrol and arresting people for B&E.

[Hog Whisperer]

Originally Posted by GTS Dean

What will all the other patrol cops do with their spare time? Surely not anything so mundane as neighborhood patrol and arresting people for B&E.

Yeah, we sure can't have that! Everyone knows that the real police work is on the roads passing out traffic violations and endangering the lives of the public by engaging in high speed pursuits! All the rest of that police work is just 'filler' for the slow traffic times.