MINNEAPOLIS, MN- According to reports, thousands of drivers are refusing to stop when police attempt to pull them over, with data showing that it happened more than 3,100 times in 2020. New research looks into what is behind the uptick in people not following the law.
Troopers are pulling over so many vehicles for speeding that we are only sharing with you stops for speeds over 100 mph. Not good.
• 130 in a 60 on I-94 in Brooklyn Center.
• 119 in a 65 on Hwy. 371 near Fort Ripley.
• 111 in a 65 near Bemidji. Motorist also intoxicated. pic.twitter.com/Df5xDxlrzM— MN State Patrol (@MnDPS_MSP) November 15, 2021
“Super speeding” is way up in Minnesota, with the Minnesota State Patrol regularly clocking speeds of more than 100 miles per hour. Fatalities are up too and there is something else that is making the roads even more risky. Col. Matt Langer said in a statement:
“People are fleeing from police at a rate we’ve never seen before. This is a huge, huge problem nationwide; it’s just not a Minnesota-specific problem.”
Langer is the state’s top road safety official and he feels the weight of this treacherous trend, adding:
“Twenty-three years ago when I was working the road, a pursuit was an oddity. Today, it’s not uncommon to have two, three in the metro a day.”
One of our troopers in southeastern Minnesota recently stopped a vehicle for going 107 in a 70 mph zone. The driver was also intoxicated and driving without a license. If you spot an impaired driver, immediately call 911.
— MN State Patrol (@MnDPS_MSP) November 23, 2021
For example, Priscillia Roberts, who commutes from Bloomington to North Minneapolis for work, said in a statement:
“You can’t really peg a time, like rush hour or something like that. [It] just kind of seems to be the norm now to go that fast.”
Data from the Eden Prairie Police Department shows 14 people took off during traffic stops in 2020. This year, at least 40 drivers have made a run for it. It is happening in Hopkins too. Hopkins Sgt. Michael Glassberg said in a statement:
“People are being more aggressive and they are fleeing stops. We’ve definitely seen an increase in it.”
A look at the rising issue of speeding on Minnesota roads, including in Eden Prairie: https://t.co/Bpm8xVabuU
— Eden Prairie Local News (EPLN) (@EPLocalNews) September 13, 2021
In Eagan, they are seeing it as well. Eagan Officer Aaron Machtemes said in a statement:
“It used to be very shocking if someone was fleeing in a car. Now, it’s like, ‘OK, they’re fleeing.’ It’s normalized.”
The trend is clearly shown in the data, so why aren’t people pulling over? WCCO at the University of Minnesota campus went in search of the answer. Dr. Nicole Morris is helping lead a research study on the psychology of why people are not pulling over.
One of our troopers stopped 36 speeding vehicles in ONE DAY earlier this month. He issued 27 tickets. This is not OK. Slow down. It could save a life — even yours. pic.twitter.com/H1ajjq0JaJ
— MN State Patrol (@MnDPS_MSP) October 19, 2021
In the wake of the deaths of Philando Castile and George Floyd, the researchers asked if police distrust was a factor. Morris said:
“Certainly there is a stress and fear response when people are being pulled over by the police, but often what we see in the data is that they are fleeing to avoid a greater charge.”
Awful excuse: I was “only” going 90 mph. One of our troopers recently stopped a vehicle for driving 105 in a 65 mph zone near Crookston. The driver stated he was trying to catch up to the vehicle in front of him and thought he was "only" going 90. He was issued a citation.
— MN State Patrol (@MnDPS_MSP) November 6, 2021
The data shows that drivers who take off are primarily in stolen cars, are wanted for assault or have warrants and feel they have nothing to lose. Morris added:
“So, it’s not so much a decision to flee or not flee, but get caught or not get caught. So, they are making a calculated choice to flee to try and avoid a greater charge.”
One thing not shown in most videos is just because the drivers take off, it doesn’t mean that they are getting away. The Minnesota State Patrol is looking for getaway drivers by air and other new technologies and trying to start making more people stop. Langer said:
“There’s no question that police pursuits are dangerous to everybody involved. They are dangerous to the people fleeing, the officer involved and the general public. We need to dig into it as a state, as a profession.”
Editor note: In 2020, we saw a nationwide push to “defund the police”. While we all stood here shaking our heads wondering if these people were serious… they cut billions of dollars in funding for police officers.
And as a result, crime has skyrocketed – all while the same politicians who said “you don’t need guns, the government will protect you” continued their attacks on both our police officers and our Second Amendment rights.
And that’s exactly why we’re launching this national crowdfunding campaign as part of our efforts to help “re-fund the police”.
For those looking for a quick link to get in the fight and support the cause, click here.
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Literally caught… on camera: Fleeing felon drives across the hood of a police vehicle while trying to escape
November 1st, 2021
NEW YORK, NY – The New York Police Department reports that they were attempting to stop a car with three people that were parked in a no-parking zone.
What happened next sounds like a scene from a movie.
One of the suspects in the car jumped into the driver’s seat and attempted to make his getaway, by driving over the hood of a New York Police Department vehicle.
The incident started on October 19th around 7 PM when officers approached a white vehicle that was occupied and parked in a no-parking zone at 180 Troy Avenue in Crown Heights.
As officers were at the car, they could smell what they believed to be the odor of marijuana coming from within the vehicle.
So that they could investigate whether the occupants legally had marijuana or not, the officers ordered the people out of the vehicle. The driver immediately complied and exited the vehicle, however, it appears that a passenger in the vehicle had other plans.
The passenger jumped into the driver’s seat and began to move the vehicle back and forth in between others trying to create distance so he could exit.
This caused the New York Police Officer at the window to fire his taser in an attempt to gain compliance, however, the taser had no effect.
The driver of the vehicle, clearly intent on getting away, somehow was able to make the vehicle turn almost completely sideways and up and over the hood of the officer’s car.
Once over the hood of the vehicle, the driver fled in the car and the vehicle was later found roughly three blocks away from the original scene at Atlantic Avenue and Utica Avenue. The male suspect who had been driving the car had fled on foot.
New York Police Sergeant Jessica McRorie said:
“This individual, while fleeing the location, struck two parked vehicles and drove over the front of a police vehicle.”
The New York Police Department reports that police may well have discovered why the man acted in the manner in which he did, it may have had nothing to do with drugs that may have been in the vehicle, rather, it could have had something to do with the fraudulent credit cards that were found inside the vehicle.
The police reported that they were able to seize fraudulent credit cards and a skimming device from inside the vehicle. The owner of the vehicle was arrested and charged with possessing both items.
Fraudulent credit cards are typically created when criminals use stolen credit card numbers they have found through skimmers and affix them to real-looking credit cards.
When this is done, the criminal can place his or her name on the card so if they use it in a business and they are asked for identification, they can literally present their own and the merchant would have no clue that the card was fake.
The New York Police Department has not released any information at this point that would indicate that they have identified the man who drove over the hood of their patrol vehicle.
They have also not commented as to whether the man who was arrested was cooperative and informed them of the man’s identity.
As violence explodes in police-defunded NYC, mayor says NYPD should be about “customer service”
NEW YORK CITY, NY – During a City Hall news conference earlier in September, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said that the NYPD’s latest focus is going to be delivering “customer service” to the inhabitants of the city.
The comments delivered by the mayor come at a time when violent crime in the city is a growing problem.
There’s a common mantra associated with policing that when uttered, most would know immediately the reference – “to protect and serve”. However, the connotation of “serve” in that well-known saying is typically associated serving a greater purpose or serving the community.
Typically, when the term “customer service” is spoken, it’ll often invoke images of someone behind a checkout counter or perhaps the person on the other end of the line from a 1-800 number.
But Mayor de Blasio said during a September 30th news conference that the NYPD is going to be customer service-centric:
“Customer service has to be what the NYPD is about.”
According to the mayor, this “revolutionary” approaching to policing came about after he referenced there being years’ worth of complaints against the NYPD as being sometimes “gruff and dismissive” when interacting with the public:
“So many people who just were trying to exercise their rights to get information or file a concern or complaint, find out what’s happening with a case, they were treated in a way that doesn’t have anything to do with customer service or respect.”
Mayor de Blasio said that officers not delivering proper customer service is “not acceptable and it’s not going to build the bond we need.”
Part of this push for a customer service approach to policing, according to Mayor de Blasio, would entail having a “community guide” in every police station in the city – where part of their responsibilities would be greeting visitors at the door as they enter the police station.
NYPD Chief of Patrol Juanita Holmes expressed support for the mayor’s customer service plan, saying that it will help foster a “warmer, kinder, friendly…gentle environment” within police precincts.
When the New York Post asked Mayor de Blasio during the press conference about whether there should be a more spirited focus toward violent crime rather than customer service, the mayor defended his position saying that police-community relations are “absolutely [a] prerequisite to being as safe as we need to be.”
Chief of Patrol Holmes also chimed in on that matter, saying that the NYPD is “always focused on violence, that’s at the top of the list” but added “if you think we can’t focus simultaneously on gun violence, you’re truly mistaken.”
Police sources spoke with the Post, finding the customer service approach heralded by the mayor as laughable:
“Since when did policing become like walking into a T-Mobile store? Policing is not a pretty business so let’s not pretend that it is.
If someone is coming to a precinct, they have a problem that we need to deal with — not hope they give us a 5-star review on ‘UberPolice.’”
Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Silwa also found the initiative to be silly, calling it the “the Walmart approach to policing” and added that the approach is “maybe the dumbest idea I’ve heard yet of all the dumb ideas that have come out of the de Blasio administration.”
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