I haven't mentioned it lately on this blog but I have an odd semi-preoccupation in the kind of high-speed car chases that seem to pop up about once a day in Southern California and, obviously, elsewhere. My main fascination is with how the news covers them. A police pursuit is one of the few times that TV brings us something live with no idea what might happen, when it will happen, etc.
On your local news, when the News Director decides to pre-empt regular programming or turn the news telecast over to one of those live events, he or she has no idea how long they'll be locked into that coverage and if it will end peacefully or with someone dying. Many of them lead us on and on and on and then turn out to be not very interesting. Sometimes, they last so long that the TV station has to cut away or their helicopter has to turn back without showing us the resolution.
But I'm also interested in the mechanics of how the police handle such matters. Somewhere back on this blog a few years ago — I can't locate it at the moment — I mentioned a new invention that was being tested out as a way of stopping fleeing automobiles. It's called The Grappler and some police forces around the nation have been using them.
Here's a recent chase in which the car being pursued was stopped by The Grappler — and what happened when the driver being pursued tried revving his or her engine to perhaps break free of that Grapple. There's no audio on this…