New Year, Same Crime

Street "takeovers" still happening it seems (story and video over at CWB blog):

• Chicago police arrested two people during a street “takeover” in the Loop early on New Year’s Eve. But a driver who nearly struck an officer while fleeing the scene got away.

  A video posted to the Citizen app showed two cars spinning donuts in the intersection of Wacker and Franklin around 3:30 a.m. A couple of passing motorists stopped on the Franklin Street bridge and joined another 60 or so spectators, forming a circle around the performance.

  The footage shows the crowd breaking up quickly as police units arrived.

  When you watch the video, keep an eye on the two officers who get out of the first squad car on the scene. They walked over to the intersection and prepared to deploy stop-sticks to keep one of the cars from leaving. The driver sped away and, at the 34-second mark, nearly struck one of the cops.

So are we actually deploying the sticks or just brandishing them around. Because the way to end up with this shit completely out of control is to wave the stop sticks around....and never use them. Once they figure that out, it's going to be like the pursuits. In fact, responding officers terminated (were ordered to terminate?)  pursuit of a car that just attempted to run over, injure and kill cops.

They KNOW we don't pursue, so what do they do? Drive off, taunting us to chase.

They KNOW we don't foot chase, arrest or prosecute for shoplifting, so what crime goes through the roof? Shoplifting.

They KNOW no one is arresting them for blocking the expressways by the airports, so....you get the idea?

Until you deploy the only authorized method of stopping the "takeovers," it's going to rapidly devolve into something else.