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The criminals must be to blame when police car chases cause damage to others.

Our society has a bias against police and tend to blame them more then is strictly necessary when things go wrong. Even the title of this debate shows the societal bias against police. This could have just as easily have been titled "When damage is caused by criminals fleeing the police, who is to blame?". Police should be held to a high standard but in order to do their job they have to have the ability to do what is necessary.

If criminals know that they will be chased and caught every time, that police will not abandon the chase when it gets over a certain speed or for some other arbitrary reason, fewer criminals will tend to run. In the long run if police can reduce the number of total chases then fewer people will be at risk.

The key to this is that the person running is the one who initiated the action and as a result is the one who is responsible for any damage that follow. Another key point to this debate is that someone who is willing to run from the police has very little care for the harm that they cause society, this type of person is the type that we should most care about getting off the streets for the safety of the populace.

One would be more likely to blame the police if they allowed a suspect to get away because they were worried about a chase getting out of hand and that suspect later harmed someone. As a policeman one would feel more at fault if by inaction someone was hurt then if someone got hurt in the pursuit of a criminal.

Police should use every means at their disposal to be safe when pursing criminals, at the same time we must put the blame in the correct place on the criminals when someone does get hurt or property is damaged. Let's not let a lingering suspicion of authority cause us to blame the very people who are there to protect us from the acts of criminals. Police have to feel that they will be supported when they make split second decisions because either choice they make could turn out badly. The criminals must be blamed for all damage that follows when they run from the police.

Learn more about this author, Odin Kyle.
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