Houston — Car Chase Ends in Crash in Northwest Harris County
Posted on Tuesday, January 22nd, 2019 at 8:18 pm
On Saturday, January 19, 2019, a police car chase ensued in northwest Harris County.
The constables involved are from the Harris County Constable Precinct 4, and the precinct reported that the constables tried to pull over a driver for supposedly driving a stolen car in the 5200 block of FM 2920.
However, the driver of the alleged stolen car did not stop, and a chase followed. This chase lasted about 8 miles until it finally ended in the 9700 block of Hufsmith Road near Tomball. The chase ended because the car with the suspected driver flipped, and the constables finally arrested him.
Police chases are not uncommon in the United States; in 2012, an estimate of 68,000 vehicle pursuits was reported. In addition to that, it is also common for police chases to end in death or injury. In fact, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, from 1996 to 2015, an average of 355 people — about 1 person per day — were killed every year in pursuit-related accidents. A third of that number are innocent bystanders, which suggests that police chases kill more people every year than tornadoes, lightning, and hurricanes combined, and a USA Today investigation has reported that chases kill black people – both as innocent bystanders and as the target of the pursuit — 3 times more than anybody else.
Back in 2015, the Washington Post reported that police chases are almost always excessive; about 91% of police pursuits are in response to non-violent crimes, like shoplifting and the like. To explain this, retired police Captain Tom Gleason said that most police chases start just because the officer is incensed by the target, and as a result, he would get into this mindset of “I have to catch him.” This excessiveness of the police chase nature is what moved many police departments to have policies for it, which is great news. Hopefully, the statistics for pursuit-related accidents will now go down.
At least for this particular accident, no one is seriously hurt.
If you are a victim of this kind of accident, or you know someone who is, or you lost a loved one because of this, then don’t lose hope.There will always be help available to you, in the form of the police and personal injury lawyers.
