Police car chases are notoriously dangerous, resulting in hundreds of fatal accidents every year. And while the Department of Justice and national law enforcement experts recommend that police officers not pursue fleeing suspects, some departments are instead experimenting with new toys that seem to be a direct imitation of video games where the number of deaths and property damage increases the number of points.
A recent example is a video proudly posted on Facebook by the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office in Washington. It shows a sheriff’s deputy engaging in a high-speed chase after the driver of a suspected stolen car refused to pull over. The chase ends when the sheriff’s deputy launches a bumper-mounted net that can be slid under the rear wheels of a car, causing the getaway car to leave the road, cross a chain-link fence and crash into a tree. The driver allegedly fled, but was later caught and arrested.
Videos using the grappler have become a social media trend for police departments and local television news stations across the country. But the device has also been documented to cause accidents in which people have been killed and injured.
In one well-known case, Border Patrol agents in Arizona fired a Grappler at an SUV on the highway, causing the vehicle to crash into an oncoming tractor-trailer and catch fire. Three people were killed and eight injured. In another case, the Grappler caused a police car to roll over, and the suspect managed to escape.
Grappler’s inventor, Leonard Stock, said he came up with the device after watching a TV show about a police chase and “woke up in the middle of the night with this idea.” Stock, who worked as a roofer, “welded the design to the front of his truck and convinced his wife Frances to drive the getaway car… That day, the concept was proven.”
In a grant application to pay for the Grappler systems, the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office wrote that “having access to technology like Grappler can prevent and minimize deaths and injuries to suspects and innocent bystanders, as well as protect law enforcement officers themselves.”
An investigation by the San Francisco Chronicle found that between 2017 and 2022, 3,336 people were killed in police pursuits and another 52,600 were injured.
A 2023 report by the Department of Justice and the Police Chiefs Research Forum recommends that police agencies limit the situations in which they engage in pursuits and instead favor using technology such as drones or helicopters to track fleeing vehicles or apprehend suspects they can identify by license plates or other means later.
