Houston — Minor Crash After Officers Chase 2 People
Posted on Tuesday, January 22nd, 2019 at 7:53 pm
Two Houston police officers got into a minor crash when they were chasing two people in northeast Houston on Tuesday, January 22, 2019.
According to reports, an officer was conducting a traffic stop on Jensen Drive near Turner Drive at approximately 2:30 in the morning when 2 people in a car jumped out and ran off. They then tried to get into a second vehicle.
The officer then called for backup, and just as the responding officers tried to chase the 2 men, they got into a minor crash.
Thankfully, reports say that the two officers are okay, and the suspects they were chasing were now caught.
Police chases are not uncommon in the United States; an estimate of 68,000 vehicle pursuits was reported in 2012. In addition to that, it is also not uncommon 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 nature of police chases 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.
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.
