[MKSixer]

Originally Posted by Salty Dog

So clearly things went terribly wrong here. Having been involved in a great many pursuits and high risk situations I will say that you can have policy and procedures and all the training that there is time for and things still rarely go as you'd predict.

The outcome is often dictated by the suspects as policing is generally a reactionary thing, LEO rarely have the luxury of controlling a situation despite what TV and movies would lead us to believe.

What I see here is a situation that involved a hostage which puts the police in a position of having to attempt to effect a rescue either by negotiations or dynamic rescue, and I suspect that drove the pursuit to a certain extent. The officers using civilian vehicles for cover is a response to self preservation and training as when you are taking fire you go to the closest cover.

I'm not making excuses as there will clearly be a very long and detailed investigation of what went very wrong and what went right. There will likely be policy and procedure changes and training that comes out of this.

The one thing I will say is that it's easy to Monday morning quarterback this and I'm just very happy that it wasn't me in that situation and that there wasn't a greater loss of life.

Many thanks for your input. I was about to PM and ask for it anyway so perfect timing.