Cops taser JCB thief in 'slowest police chase ever' A Surrey man who stole a JCB, provoked the "the slowest police chase ever", shrugged off a tasering and was cuffed only when the mechanical digger shed its tracks was earlier this week convicted of the vehicle's theft and dangerous driving, the Surrey Advertiser reports. William Smith, 29, of Nutfield, made off with the JCB …
I've often wondered why police helicopters weren't armed with TOW missiles, which could bring most car chases to a rapid and successful conclusion. The use of a non-lethal weapon in this case, though, is interesting and probably more acceptable to the lilly-livered-liberals, together with the AA and other roads lobbyists. Extrapolating the situation up to a faster-moving perp vehicle and closed windows complicates things somewhat, but I'm sure there are technical solutions out there somewhere.
"Pc"
Why? You do realise it's an acronym, don't you? PC = Police Constable. "Pc" would generally mean "piece" (ref: "pcs", pieces).
As for the JCB man, he tried to defend himself by saying the police distracted him? Did nobody think to ask why the police officer was there in the first place? Circular logic. Deserves what he gets.
I just linked to the JCB song and realized it's an ASBO song.
1. "I'm glad I'm not in school" = truant
2. "Holding up the bypass" = inconsiderate driving
3. "Sitting on the toolbox" = passenger without seatbelt
4. "the prosession of cars behind are getting all angry but we don't mind..." = creating road rage
5. "and pull off again speeding"... speeding? That's a caning!
6. "transforming into a tyrannosaurus rex and eat up all the bullies", = cannibalism!
7. "with Bruce Lee's num chuks" = possession of deadly weapons!
OMG! Jackie quick pull some knee jerk law out of your ass and ban it... just like you usually do!
I thought tazers were to be used instead of guns.
Would someone making a very ... slow ... getaway ... ("we'll never catch them, who's up for a beer?") be deserving of a gunshot?
No?
THEN WHAT THE FUCK WAS THE TAZERING FOR???
Because the pissant little fairies in blue may have got a hurty wurty?
"Because the pissant little fairies in blue may have got a hurty wurty?"
Because anyone else could have got hurt by the bloody great monstrosity, perfectly capable of driving over a car? It's a danger to the public.
Or would you prefer it for them to have tried to climb inside a large moving vehicle and to struggle theatrically with the driver?
They should have used a real firearm.
I was wondering that too, so I checked with wiki<youknowwhere>
"JCB, or J. C. Bamford (Excavators) Ltd. as it is more properly known, is a family business named after its founder J. C. Bamford, producing distinctive yellow-and-black engineering vehicles, diggers ("Backhoes"), excavators, tractors, and diesel engines. In the UK, the word "JCB" is sometimes used colloquially as a genericised description for any such type of engineering vehicle, now appearing in the Oxford English Dictionary, although it is still held as a trademark. JCB now makes over 300 types of machines for construction, industry, and agriculture. In 2007 the company's turnover was £2.25 billion."
Proably in this case it's a mini-excavator. "the mechanical digger shed its tracks " but since the PC was able to attempt to taser the thief, it sounds like they were at a level, which a full sized excavator would not be the case.
How about the risk to THE PUBLIC (whom they serve in public trust) when a JCB is driven by an unconscious man?
If they wouldn't use a gun to stop him (and they wouldn't) but they WOULD use a tazer, then the tazer, unlike the promises made, are not a replacement for guns, they're a replacement for dealing with the problems.
Different places have different brands then, I guess. It's only big international brands (think Hoover, Xerox or Viagra) which become known by everyone. Back here we all grew up knowing just exactly what a JCB was - although I must admit, I never actually bothered to find out what the letters stood for!
Right...it should have been a shiny metal one and do up the job right.
Let's see...11 priors. Oh yeah, career crim here. Let's just slap him on the wrist and turn
'im loose on society to do more mischief. Maybe a fitting with one of those exploding neck
collars would do the trick.
To add to the terminological discussion here, in Australia we also call these vehicles "Bobcats" (small wheeled diggers) and "Caterpillars" or "Cats" (tracked bulldozers / backhoes; bulldozer is often shortened to "'Dozer"). "Front-end loader" is also quite common referring to front-bucket diggers. "Grader" is a long wheeled vehicle with a diagonally-positioned blade in the middle, used for leveling road surfaces.
Bobcat and Caterpillar are both the names of companies that build these vehicles, hence the common naming between here, Canada and the US. I've never heard the term JCB before now though, even though I was born in the UK and lived there for the first 7 years of my life (late 60s - early 70s). As a kid, I heard these vehicles called "diggers" and "bulldozers" but I don't recall them being referred to by a brand name at that time.
Why send an ARU?
It depends on the force area I guess, but in most they double as traffic units since they are usually pursuit trained and the cars are up to it. Since they often have a lower workload it makes sense rather than having them sat around the station waiting for a comparitively rare (in most areas compared to traffic) firearms incident.
As for the tasering, I'm curious as to how you'd have attempted to stop a JCB. It's not like a tactical stop is going to work, or stingers, or boxing it in. And it would be too dangerous to jump into the cab - all it would take is a size 10 in your face to throw you onto the tracks. It's probably got a decent sized fuel tank so can keep going for a reasonably long time, and if the drivers already swerved at the copper, who's to say he won't start swerving at pedestrians or drive into someones house? The officer was probably hoping that once he'd been tasered he'd have given up. It's a logical assumption.
And of course tasers aren't replacements for firearms - they have an effective range of around 5 meters. They fill a similar role to the H&K Baton gun but on a more general issue, IE they provide a less lethal option for use generally on suspects armed with a weapon other than firearms, who would previously have been shot. However the intention is clearly to slot them below this even - Baton guns require you to be firearms qualified and then (in the MDP at least) do an additional course to qualify on the Baton Gun itself.
I'm assuming the officer believed that after being tasered the driver would give up. It's not an unreasonable assumption in my mind - if someone shot me with a taser and I knew they could do it again and again, I'd stop what I was doing and comply. Wouldn't you?
I think the police did alright !
Common a digger can cause some serious damage,
and as for an uncocious man at the wheel, well its sounds like they wernt exactly in the middle of the city if he stuck in a field !
So before we condemn the police for tazering somebody when we dont know the situation fully !!!
Anyway he said the guy swerved at him, damn i would tazer somebody just for tailgating me !!!
This:
"Common a digger can cause some serious damage,"
does not align with this:
"and as for an uncocious man at the wheel, well its sounds like they wernt exactly in the middle of the city if he stuck in a field !"
The problem here is that the police LIED.
Tazers are NOT being used instead of guns.
I think the issue here is not the use of the taser per se. It was probably the most obvious choice under the circumstances. However, when they were introduced, it was said they would be used only when the only other alternative is to open fire with live ammunition. i.e. immediately below firearms. Therefore, use in these circumstances was not within their original stated case.
So, just like in the US and elsewhere, tasers are going to become more and more common and used more and more in any situation even remotely dangerous. You only have to look at the US to see what will start happening here. Drunk and a bit stoppy, that'll be a tasering for you.
Paris - Cos she knows what a policemans real weapon should be line - a truncheon.
I wouldn't mind if electronic ignitions could be told remotely to stop putting petrol in the engine. As long as it's done slowly, this doesn't endanger a genuine mistake (on the motorway, someone's wireless PDA confuses your engine and things it should stop in the motorway) yet also would stop cars whanging about for half an hour before pranging into a tree/house/car/....
Professional criminals would remove it, but then again, most car crime is someone nicking a car for a one-off job or for joyriding. No time to remove this.
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