Brickbat: Hot Wheels

Dustin Bates suffered fractured ribs, a broken right leg and a fractured spine when he was struck by a Lake Worth, Texas, police SUV while fleeing from cops on foot, according to a lawsuit he has filed. Bates was later charged with evading arrest and drug possession, but those charges were dismissed by prosecutors. Lake Worth Police Chief J.T. Manoushagian said an investigation found officer Jonathan Granado chased Bates, who had crashed a motorcycle he had been riding but continued running away on foot, into a field, where Granado's vehicle slid on wet grass when he braked and struck Bates at about 45 mph. A Tarrant County grand jury declined to indict Granado. The Department of Justice also declined to take action against Granado.

Comments

[sarcasmic]

Cop didn't get QI and still nothing happened.

[Chumby]

Some enjoy playing Grand Theft Auto to run over pedestrians. Those with small penises find out there is an actual career path for this.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

45 mph? How far away was this cop when the motorcycle crashed and the guy took off on foot, to be able to get going that fast in a field? The article is only partially readable unless I sign up or something.

No indication what the initial chase was about. Failed traffic stop? Bank robber?

Not much of a story.

[mad.casual]

How far away was this cop when the motorcycle crashed and the guy took off on foot, to be able to get going that fast in a field?

Seems like a bit of a misconceptualization, but I could be wrong. Like the suspect fled into a field but only got about 75 ft. before the officer's vehicle, which had just departed the highway, struck him. The officer didn't get the vehicle up to 45 in the field, it was doing (say) 65 on the road when it left, possibly already breaking, and struck Bates at 45 mph.

[Bubba Jones]

>Granado's vehicle slid on wet grass when he braked and struck Bates at about 45 mph.

Sounds more like an accident than an assault.

[Rossami]

I was ready to agree until I saw that the estimated speed at impact was 45 mph. That's pretty clearly "too fast for conditions" when you're a) not on the road and b) chasing down a pedestrian.

[Vesicant]

Yeah, it's not like the cop was trying to catch up to the "pedestrian" or anything. Everybody knows you don't need to catch up to a fleeing suspect, you just drive 1 mph slower so they can eventually get away.

[Agammamon]

Yeah, except the part where a cop chasing down a suspect on foot hit him *at 45 mph* - which supposedly was after he tried to brake from the even higher speed he was going.

[mad.casual]

Not that I like the way the law is written for cops or civilians but, I agree.

The arguments about the *estimated* speed are somewhat amusing. Like it would've been OK to hit him at an *estimated* 40 mph, fracture his ribs and legs, but not 45.

[Brandybuck]

Running across a field. Who was he a danger to?

I'm not going to side with the defunders, yet, but I do think it's time we took a hard look at our law enforcement culture here in the United States. Time we stopped blindly defending the police.

[mad.casual]

Running across a field.

Not across a field, into a field. Again, I wasn't at the scene but if the guy was struck running *into a field* 30 ft. away from where the bike was laying, I can understand that this definitely wasn't a homicide and, even by civilian standards, doesn't even rise to vehicular assault.

[MatthewSlyfield]

"Not across a field, into a field. Again, I wasn't at the scene but if the guy was struck running *into a field* 30 ft."

where Granado's vehicle slid on wet grass when he braked and struck Bates at about 45 mph.

They were well past entering the field when the police vehicle struck the suspect.

[Rubbish!]

Ah, but it doesn't say how fast he was running. Dude could have been running 44 mph so 45 not so unreasonable, per the union rep.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Meh. Call us when we can watch it on video.

[mad.casual]

Granado turned on his overhead lights, signaling he was pulling over Bates for a traffic stop because of the license plate issue.

Bates did not pull over, and he accelerated and drove away from the Lake Worth officer.

After a brief pursuit, Bates exited the highway, but he lost control of the motorcycle, which went down in a grassy area.

Bates stood up and began to run into a field as he saw the Lake Worth officer approaching at a high rate of speed.

According to the lawsuit, Bates said he was moving to get out of the way of Granado’s vehicle.

“I was just trying to get out of the way of the patrol car,” Bates said in an August interview with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “And now I’m in pain every day.”

Granado’s dash camera video showed that Bates ran across a road into a field. and Granado turned his vehicle into the field as he tracked Bates.
...
After the incident, Bates told Lake Worth Officer James O’Bannon that Granado hit him with the car, and O’Bannon responded, “Probably shouldn’t have run. A lot of people think we can’t chase motorcycles. That’s wrong. We can and we will. Welcome to Lake Worth,” according to the lawsuit.

So, the plates on the bike don't match the bike and the officer lights you up. Rather than pulling over, you gun it. When you crash the bike in the median or easement and the officer pulls off to apprehend you, you claim you were just getting out of the way of the vehicle?

Everyone is idiots, stupid prizes (Granado resigned) all the way around.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Chasing a person on foot doing 45? To be fair, though, you don't get a cop body by doing a lot of unnecessary physical exertion so remaining in your vehicle for as much of your job as possible is SOP.

[Malvolio]

The video does not make things clear, but at the least, Officer Granado was being very incautious. I would call it negligence, and I think a jury would too.

The biker Dustin Bates however is clearly lying about seeking safety. He was running from the cops. He fled at high speed on the highway, and then, when he dumped his bike, he ran across the off ramp, all in the hopes of evading legal consequences. I have no personal sympathy with him, but I think he is probably legally entitled to damages.