Forget the PIT maneuver; this officer just decided to knock the suspect into next week
Police have a tough job that requires acting quickly under what can be life-or-death circumstances. Sometimes though, they appear to just get fed up with dealing with people’s disregard for safety. In the case of the video below, that seems to be what happened when one Florida trooper rammed a fleeing car to end a chase.
Often when a law enforcement officer contacts a fleeing suspect’s vehicle it’s with something called the PIT maneuver. The pursuing vehicle will use the front quarter panel to press the rear quarter panel of the fleeing vehicle to the left or right. Typically it causes the fleeing vehicle to spin out and the authorities can swoop in to capture the suspect.
During this chase, the suspect fled through various city streets cutting off drivers, dipping in and out of different lanes, and, at one point, making a U-turn over a central median. Most times, police use the PIT once a road is clear and the risk to others is almost zero but not in this case.
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The officer here sees a small window of opportunity and slams into the rear of the suspect’s vehicle, sending it into a parking lot at high speed. The impact is so hard that it almost seems like the officer miscalculated their own speed, couldn’t slow down enough, and then had no other option.
In any case, the vehicle spins clockwise and appears to be disabled. Multiple suspects exited the SUV and ran off. The video description purports to be a copy of the police report and indicates that officers ultimately caught up with the driver after a lengthy foot chase. It also says that authorities found a loaded firearm in the car along with multiple capsules of what might have been narcotics.