Spanish Cops Stop Motorbike Getaway.

[coolhand]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKN1WlYR19w

:eek:

[trish]

That was pretty nasty. It looked like he landed on his head/neck. I was kind of surprised to see how they handled his body, assuming he wasn't dead. No neck brace, stretcher, or anything like that. Just pick him up by the limbs and toss him in the ambulance. It kind of reminded me of a bike race I saw on Speed a few years back.

[Andrew Longman]

"Because of terrorist attacks police were in no mood to deal..."

Since when is bank robbery a capital crime? Since when does any European nation use capital punishment? Didn't think to use tire spikes. Didn't think to put a teaspoon of gas in the bike. Or install a remote cut off. Far easier to just cut in front of him.

In the US if the cops did that it would be treated as a criminal act.

And if they claim they are too busy fighting terror to deal correctly with a bank robber then the terrorist already won.

[OW]

Viva Espania

[nrc]

"Because of terrorist attacks police were in no mood to deal..."

Since when is bank robbery a capital crime? Since when does any European nation use capital punishment? Didn't think to use tire spikes. Didn't think to put a teaspoon of gas in the bike. Or install a remote cut off. Far easier to just cut in front of him.

In the US if the cops did that it would be treated as a criminal act.

And if they claim they are too busy fighting terror to deal correctly with a bank robber then the terrorist already won.
If the guy can't get three full rotations and stick the landing, the terrorists have already won.

That's just the newscaster making an excuse, isn't it? We can't let the public think that the euros are just has likely to beat the crap out of a criminal who has irritated them as your average American trog with a badge.

It's not just the commission of a capital crime that permits the use of potentially deadly force, it's threat to the public. He just spent 12 hours in a bank threatening hostages with a gun and claiming to have a grenade. Do you let him go and allow that to play out again in the future or do you risk his life to make sure it doesn't happen again?

BTW, here's the BBC's account of this event from 2004:

He jumped onto a motorcycle he had requested and sped off.

But one of the police cars in pursuit knocked him off the motorcycle and onto the ground where an officer arrested and disarmed him.

He was taken from the scene in an ambulance.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3600673.stm

[Insomniac]

That's messed up. I'm not exactly sure how you handle that situation besides pursuing him though. Try to barricade him? Just doesn't seem right to drive into him with a car like that. Give him a bike with a little bit of gas in it?

[Andrew Longman]

nrc, no doubt they guy doesn't deserve much sympathy and he claimed to have a hand grenade, but then why not just shoot him? What they did had about equal odds of killing him. Because the need was to stop him, not kill him.

The cops usually use a manuver with an eluding car to spin it out. They don't force it into a bridge abutment. With a motorcycle, there are ways to force him to lay it down, including bumping him. I don't think they had create an impact with the highest chance of massive injury.

BTW the BBC account is pretty funny if you actually saw what happened

And full disclosure, a kid on a bicycle turned in front of me this morning while I was doing about 50. He just decided to pull a u turn on a country road without looking. Full screaming brakes I stopped 3 feet short of him. He didn't even see me until I was about 10 feet from him. Would have killed him for sure. Also, two 7th grade skateboarders died yesterday in Freehold after getting hit by a minivan. Anyway, I may be a bit overly sensitive at the moment.