You have to wonder about the validity, danger, expense and ramifications of high-speed police pursuits such as this motorcycle chase in Los Angeles, California.
Yes, the guy who is riding is an idiot, especially when he continues to perform stunts right in front of the cops while they are pursuing him.
He also endangers himself and other road users with some of his stunts, riding at more than 160km/h and running several red lights.
However, we have to ask the question whether he would have performed these dangerous stunts had he not been chased, knowing that it would probably end up as a glamorous feature on the 6 o’clock news!
At one stage he stops to put in earplugs and take a selfie, so he’s obviously seeking some glory which the TV coverage gives him – a nice little video keepsake!
Couldn’t the police just check his number plate and pick him up later at home?
The rider is 22-year-old Phillip Resendez who hadn’t committed any crime, except stupidity when the cops latched on to him.
For the next hour, the California police used a chopper, squad cars and motorcycle police to chase him through busy streets, endangering the public and wasting vital and publicly funded resources.
In the end, he gave himself up peacefully in a service station where the frustrated police surrounded him with guns drawn! Was that really necessary? His ridiculous antics show he isn’t fleeing from a violent crime!
Resendez was fined for reckless driving, driving on the wrong side of the road and failure to yield. He was not fined for any crime, he was not in possession of a firearm and he wasn’t riding a stolen bike.
So why did the police take it upon themselves to provide B-grade entertainment for the news networks?
And why do the networks continue to show this sort of material when it only encourages idiots like this to perform stupid stunts?
Are we (MotorbikeWriter.com) also guilty of being hypocritical and just as much to blame for showing this video?
With the advent of number-plate-recognition cameras in most police cars, why is there any need to perform police pursuits?
Thankfully some jurisdictions have axed police pursuits, except in dangerous situations. That’s fine, but don’t turn a stupid stunt into a public danger.
What do you think of police pursuits and media coverage of the chases?