The War Against Police is escalating, and now includes banning or greatly curtailing cops’ freedom to chase suspects on foot. Previously, leftists and the Lügenpresse complained that police arrested too many black criminals after a dangerous car chase, and that sometimes the recklessly driving black criminal injured or killed a bystander. Significantly for VDARE.com readers, this campaign against pursuits includes the U.S. Border Patrol. After one such chase in early January, U.S. Customs and Border Protection released a new pursuit policy [Emergency Driving Including Vehicular Pursuits by U.S. Customs and Border Protection Personnel Directive, CPB.gov, January 11, 2023]. But now leftists and their Mainstream Media Information Ministry are going after foot pursuits too, so we can expect CBP to change that policy also. That’s important, because most pursuits in which Border Patrol agents are involved are on foot.
The reason foot pursuits are under fire is obvious. Too many of them end in the death of black and brown criminals who resist arrest when the cops catch them, or worse, attack the cops with guns or knives.
The Memphis Police Department does not have a policy specifying how officers should handle foot chases, and neither do most American law enforcement agencies. https://t.co/5LzZm2JkKK
— NBC News (@NBCNews) February 12, 2023
“Foot chases have long been a routine and accepted part of what police officers do: When someone runs from an officer, the officer takes off after them,” NBC’s anti-foot-pursuit (featuring two white people in a foot chase) story began:
These chases can end catastrophically, with confrontations in which suspects are more likely than police officers to be injured or killed, research finds. In Memphis, Tennessee, last month, police officers chased Tyre Nichols on foot following a traffic stop, then beat him to death when they caught him. Five officers were charged with second-degree murder.
Yet the Memphis Police Department does not have a policy specifying how officers should handle foot chases, and neither do most American law enforcement agencies.
[Memphis Police Had No Policy on Foot Chases Before Tyre Nichols’ Death, by Jon Schuppe, February 12, 2023]
Only the Lügenpresse could make a controversy about such a necessary and widespread practice as foot pursuits. Of course, “research” finds many foot pursuits end with police using force. A criminal who’s running from the cops is more likely to resist arrest when they run him down, as opposed to a criminal who peaceably surrenders.
Thus, the Ruling Class thinks foot pursuits must end. Too many cops are arresting too many black and brown criminals in way too many cases of habeas grabus.
And, wouldn’t you know it, NBC’s Schuppe just happened to track down the usual former police chief to say, “Why yes, in fact, foot pursuits ARE A MAJOR FAILING OF POLICE.” For this anti-cop propaganda piece, Schuppe found Chris Burbank, former police chief in Salt Lake City, and now vice president at the Center for Policing Equity, which “measures bias in policing.” You know what that means.
“Everyone knows this is a problem,” Burbank told Schuppe, noting that Memphis lacked a foot-pursuit policy.
In fact, “everyone” knows that using force at the end of foot pursuit is not the problem. The problem is low-impulse control black and brown criminals who fight with police, and rapidly rising crime rates that will worsen when foot pursuits are either strongly discouraged or banned outright.
Burbank’s remark shows just how corrupt Democrat-led cities are, and that chiefs like Burbank want to protect criminals.
Here’s what Burbank and his backers won’t tell you: The black or brown criminal is, ultimately, in charge of how much force a cop must use, whether the suspect is Michael Brown, Tyre Nichols, or the infamous Rodney ”Can’t We All Just Get Along?” King.
“Studies in different parts of the country have found that a significant proportion—ranging from 12% to 48%—of police shootings followed foot pursuits,” NBC’s Schuppe continued.
Which is a truism. The mentality of a criminal who flees is of one who does not want to go back to prison, and it is almost always someone with a long record. But sadly, police departments are littered with traitors who blame cops when they use force. The Lügenpresse supports the lies.
Naturally, Schuppe pushed a propaganda line from Burbank’s pro-criminal Center for Policing Equity:
More than a decade ago, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department became one of the first in the country to create a policy on foot chases after coming under heavy criticism for a high number of deadly shootings. Hoping to avoid a federal investigation, the agency sought help from police reform experts at the Center for Policing Equity and the Justice Department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. The experts found that a disproportionate number of use-of-force incidents occurred following foot pursuits, Burbank said.
The Las Vegas department’s new foot chase policy requires officers to consider the risk to themselves and the person they’re pursuing, and to seek alternatives, such as calling for backup to surround the person. The policy also requires a supervisor to review what happened. The new policy was among several changes credited with helping the department reduce its use of force. [Emphasis added]
(Vegas cops, by the way, frequently shoot suspects, but have a reputation for better than average accuracy, and for the shootings to be good ones; i.e., justified.)
And led by the ghoulish lesbian Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Chicago banned foot chases last year except for “a valid need to detain the person” that “outweighs the threat to safety posed by pursuit” [New Chicago Police Department policy bars officers from chasing a person simply for fleeing, by Tom Schuba, Chicago Sun-Times, June 21, 2022].
Remember, in the 1980s the Lügenpresse sent the nation into a moral panic over choke and carotid artery holds. Result: in 2014, the Lügenpresse claimed that New York City policeman Daniel Pantaleo used a “choke hold” on loosie-cigarette peddler Eric Garner, a 350-pound behemoth with asthma and heart disease. But Pantaleo did not “choke” Garner, and instead used the approved and directed ineffective replacement, which is more akin to a judo throw than a hold.
For those who want to know why banning choke holds is a bad idea, remember Rodney King. The Los Angeles cops who beat him with batons had no other way to restrain him because the department banned choke holds [Police weigh revival of chokehold, UPI, September 3, 1991]. But that’s just another item on the long list of unintended consequences when the Lügenpresse makes law enforcement policy. California banned all police agencies in the state from authorizing choke and carotid holds in 2020 after St. George Floyd died of a fentanyl overdose while Milwaukee police officer Derek Chauvin restrained him.
One purpose of the lies spread about law enforcement tactics is to protect U.S. criminals. But I predict that the Two-Minutes Hate on foot pursuit will, eventually, adversely affect immigration enforcement, too. Already, again, thanks to illegals who flee from border agents, the Biden Regime’s CBP released a new 28-page directive [PDF] on vehicle pursuits.
The Border Patrol also pursues illegals on horses, a method most recently attacked in the infamous Whipgate Hoax, while the Lügenpresse also spreads notorious lies about the Border Patrol’s use-of-force and shootings.
Undoubtedly, it won’t be long before an illegal alien loses a fight with a border agent who pursued him on foot and the inevitable cry to “reform” foot pursuits begins.
Here’s why that’s important.
Easily, 99 percent of immigration arrests, especially at the border, are made after a foot pursuit. While many are like the Tyre Nichols case in Memphis—a chase on foot after an illegal bails out of his vehicle—a significant number are long ones over rough desert terrain after an illegal climbed a border fence. The Border Patrol trains agents in cutting sign [Sign Cutting and Tracking Methods Employed by the US Border Patrol, by Jose J. Soto, Imminent Threat Solutions, April 18, 2012]. Agents might follow an illegal for hours or days.
The Great Replacers that Traitor Joe is importing have made the southwest border region dangerous enough for the Americans who live there. Many of the illegals whom agents arrest are rapists and murderers. Now imagine what will happen when Traitor Joe and his coconspirator Alejandro Mayorkas, the Homeland Security secretary who somehow escaped indictment for visa fraud, end foot pursuits by the Border Patrol.
Americans on the border, and those in the cities those unpursued criminals colonize, will face ever-mounting peril.
The blogger Federale (Email him) is a 4th generation Californian and a veteran of federal law enforcement, including service in the legacy Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Department of Homeland Security, and other federal law enforcement agencies.
Federale’s opinions do not represent those of the Department of Homeland Security or the federal government, and are an exercise of rights protected by the 1st Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
