Police firing GPS tracking 'bullets' at cars during chases | Hacker News Reader

Police firing GPS tracking 'bullets' at cars during chases

news.cnet.com

57 pointsfraqed63 comments

I have two brothers in the highway patrol and they believe that it's imperative that they chase anyone trying to get away, in order to make sure that anyone in the future knows that they can't run from the police, despite the risks of collateral damage to innocent people.

On the other hand, high speed chases frequently end up causing car accidents with innocent people, sometimes fatally.

The question becomes, is there a way to still capture the person trying to escape police without putting innocent people in harms way?

I applaud any efforts to eliminate casualties caused by high speed chases.

>they believe that it's imperative that they chase anyone trying to get away, in order to make sure that anyone in the future knows that they can't run from the police, despite the risks of collateral damage to innocent people.

Kinda forgot about the whole "to serve and protect" part didn't they.

Not at all. It's a hard question.

If there is no point in running, way fewer people will run. That could mean net fewer chase-miles, and also fewer crimes committed, because fewer potential criminals would think they might be able to get away with it.

The officers likely believe that serving and protecting requires them to always chase. Whether it's true or not is something that has no obvious a priori answer. It'd be great to find the answer empirically, but until then, I'm inclined to defer to the pros.

Have the number of car chases decreased over time due to all the chases teaching people its not worth running?

You're asking the wrong question. The question is how chase/no-chase policies would trend against a control. These types of social experiments are very hard to conduct, because there are so many confounding variables.

> It's a hard question.

The minute you start considering public safety, is the minute it stops being a hard question. In my jurisdiction (Ontario), cops will not to get into high-speed chases if there's a reasonable chance of injury to assailants or civilians. My cop friend told me they won't even attempt to chase after motorcyclist because the risk to him is just too great. It is a judgement call, and chases still happen, but you always consider public safety first before you engage in a reckless chase.

>The officers likely believe that serving and protecting requires them to always chase.

You know, I used to watch American police car chase shows, where they would show video of police chases. Most of those ended in a car crash, and significant of those ended with the assailant ramming into some civilian car. Great police work guys. You got some two-bit criminal but you killed or engendered an innocent bystander.

I think if you look past a typical "always-get-your-man" cowboy mentality you'd find it's just not worth it in the grand scheme of things.

You could be right. Indeed, were I to lay money down, it'd be on the side of fewer chases. But there are public safety concerns on either side of this, so just citing "public safety" doesn't cut it.

However, the fact that you're citing reality TV as evidence definitely isn't helping your case.

If its such a hard question, I guess everyone country in the world is also struggling, and has equally high death count from car chases.

O wait, they don't. It just easier to photo the license plate, and put down a road block.

Well maybe you could post the stats from "everyone country"? And maybe the study controlling for the factors that make the US different? Hard data would help.

it's not a hard question at all. the cops shouldn't endanger the public just to chase people. It's why they shouldn't also shoot people in crowded areas. these days though the cops shoot first and ask questions later, then get away with it so why not go chasing around like cowboys too, they've already lost any respect I've ever had.

For each individual situation it is probably better to let the suspect get away instead of engaging in a high speed chase. However this makes it so people are more willing to break the law and then just run from police because they know they won't be chased, that makes society as a whole less safe. For example in New York City police will not chase suspects on motorcycles because it is so dangerous. You see groups of motorcycles and ATVs doing high speed wheelies through red lights regularly. So there are two sides to the issue we must look at.

It doesn't have to a be a binary view of either "chase ever time", or "never chase". How about you give yourself some latitude and before you start chasing an assailant take 5 seconds and consider public safety implications. If you're in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, maybe you should make a different decision than if you're in the middle of a city at noon.

>You see groups of motorcycles and ATVs doing high speed wheelies through red lights regularly.

You don't see that, actually. And second, all you have to do is take their licences down and you've got them.

I don't see this as being practical anyway. Once word gets out that the police are doing this, you only have to listen for the THUMP of the tracker hitting your car, wait for the police to fall back, pull over, and either pull it off or attach it to another nearby car.

That part is just a slogan that sounds nice. It's probably not actual department policy, and it's definitely not a legal obligation.

maybe the LAPD should get their vehicles repainted then. it's like "2 hour dry cleaning" that actually means next-day service.

But "we murder black people with your tax dollars" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

> Kinda forgot about the whole "to serve and protect" part didn't they.

Hasn't been true for a while.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia

>"I have two brothers in the highway patrol and they believe that it's imperative that they chase anyone trying to get away, in order to make sure that anyone in the future knows that they can't run from the police, despite the risks of collateral damage to innocent people."

In my experience (I've worked and lived with local, federal and state cops), this idea what law enforcement is one huge slippery slope that leads directly from status quo to anarchy is a popular one.

It's silly.

>"On the other hand, high speed chases frequently end up causing car accidents with innocent people, sometimes fatally."

If high speed chases only came about in direct response to violent offenses this seeming trade off would be easier to understand.

When they escalate from traffic stops it's recklessness.

>"The question becomes, is there a way to still capture the person trying to escape police without putting innocent people in harms way?"

It would be nice if we had some data on arrests after non-chases, but it's going to be hard to gather as long as the guys in the cruisers insist there's no other option.

Is an aborted pursuit really going to have that much of an impact on the public's assessment of the viability of evading arrest by fleeing?

More importantly, is that cost not worth bearing if a policy of aborting pursuits in certain circumstances — where weather conditions are poor, the suspect is driving particularly recklessly, etc. — significantly reduces the number of innocent civilians killed or seriously injured in the course of police chases?

There's another problem with this system: they do not keep visual contact with the chased car. So the driver could easily jump from the vehicle at a red light in a densely populated area and disappear in a crowd.

Surprisingly, police in China are not allowed to chase cars. That being said, there are lots of high speed cameras on highways.

>The system costs $5,000, and each bullet sets the taxpayer back $500.

That's surprisingly not bad. $500 to stop a crazy-dangerous chase? Definitely worth it if it works. I'm used to things sold to governments being a few times more expensive.

Yeah, I was expecting him to say at least a 5-figure number for each system and something about one-time-use.

If the round is still good, then getting it refurbished is only $250.

Or if a couple kids at MIT put the system together it would cost 10x less, be 10x more efficient and have been developed in 10x less time.

Well sure. But they wouldn't have won the contract.

I imagine that in practice two or more would be fired in a single chase, just to be safe. Even so, pretty cheap.

That's pretty cool. GPS jammers are relatively easy to make however. Funny how hacking skills are quickly becoming the most powerful skills in meatspace as well.

Yes, but I expect the vast majority of chase targets were not planning to be chased, and would thus not have counter measures ready.

All you need is any electronic devices - FAA Spokesperson

Don't forget about cell signal jammers! Surely it uses CDMA or GSM.

Links:

http://www.starchase.us/d/

http://www.starchase.us/d/2D.php

http://www.starchase.us/admin/

Your link points to a login screen I think it should have been this http://www.starchase.com/howitworks.html

Wouldn't a GPS jammer be relatively easy to locate or follow?

Wouldn't a device that mimicked a tracked GPS symbol be more useful?

GPS jammers are easy to track. A GPS spoofer, on the other hand, is more difficult to pin down and can cause at least as much havoc on the unencrypted (civilian) GPS.

If gps jamming becomes an issue, using some anti jamming(using spread spectrum or frequency hopping) transmitter together with few drones over the city to do signal localization isn't the complicated.

Jamming this technology is much harder and usually emits large radio signals which isn't useful if you want to hide.

> Jamming this technology is much harder and usually emits large radio signals which isn't useful if you want to hide.

This is true. If jamming became commonplace, then it's just a matter of following the broadcast.

Possession of a signal jammer is a felony.

If you're in a high speed police chase, I have to imagine you've already racked up a few of those

If only it were possible to instantly acquire a jammer on demand right at the beginning of a police chase.

If you have one that's turned off, it's going to be quite hard for them to find out you have it...

That's what I was thinking as well. If this sort of thing becomes commonplace, you would just take a jammer or scrambler with you and turn it on after you see them give up the chase.

It wouldn't be for your run-of-the-mill stupid criminal, but for the ones who think ahead.

I'm at that point in my life where I'm making decent money without working a job, and heavily debating just completely recessing into an apartment and surrounding myself with all sorts of electronics and software. Learning the ins and outs of everything.

Supplement to this device: A 1-watt IR LED beacon that strobes a few times a second, and a fleet of small foam/electric flying wings that will track that beacon from 400 foot altitude at high speed (much cheaper to use CMOS sensors and a beacon than something FLIR could provide for engine heat).

The current arrangement is vulnerable on two fronts - GPS jammers, which could be extremely disruptive to modern society, and jammers on whatever frequency is used to transmit position (GPS itself is a passive receiver technology).

They called it a "bullet" about eight times in that article.

The thing is the size of a bloody coffee cup.

In all fairness Bullet Bill is half the size of Mario and has Bullet in his name.

http://www.mariowiki.com/Bullet_Bill

I recall seeing this in Ghost in the Shell, as well. It's not surprising, but it is somewhat disappointing: a GPS tracing bullet sounds like it would still be quite dangerous if it were to miss.

Based on the video, the bullet seems fairly large and soft, and the reporter refers to it as derived from a t-shirt cannon. So, dangerous[1] but not stray bullet dangerous.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JgRXOmZkSo

It's about the weight of a softball and travels at ~32mph. It hurts but probably won't cause serious injury. You're much more likely to get injured by the vehicles that would presumably be driving at roadway speeds if you were close enough to be hit by the round.

Does the gun use less of a charge when the police car is at speed?

If not, it will often be going faster than ~32 mph.

Oh that's an easy one, make it a self-steering bullet[1] too. After all, it can already GPS track.

[1] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/26/darpa_gps/

This only tells where the car went and may not implicate the real criminal. Imagine a someone borrowing a car, fleeing from the police, getting tagged, and then returning the car to its origin.

The tag may help stop the police from engaging in dangerous driving, but what about the driver of the tagged car? If the driver knows the car is tagged, perhaps the driver will still drive dangerously? I suspect the action of tagging a car still encourages the police and the accused to behave dangerously. What if an occupant of the car returns fire?

i am surprised this has taken so long, considering it's been going on in movies for quite a while.

Spider-Man has been doing basically this since the 60's!

I really like this idea.

A common tactic for people being chased by the police here in the UK is to head for the most densely populated areas they can. This will most likely cause the police to refrain from the pursuit due to concerns of collateral injury.

With a GPS gun they could fire a tracker at the car, let them travel through the town and head them off as they exit. There's always a chance of them bailing but that was always a risk anyway.

These require Probably Cause, right? I'd assume so since they also seem a bit dangerous if they hit a human.

IANAL but evading/fleeing the police is unlawful in most US jurisdictions (if not all, and there's a felony variant in most) which sounds like it meets the bar for probable cause (though I'm not sure probable cause is required for use of this in all UW jurisdictions, hasn't there been very recent activity on vehicle tracking devices in appelate courts?)

It's not fleeing or evading if they're not trying to detain you, which itself "requires" "probable cause."

Why would they fire bullets at you if they aren't trying to detain you?

To me, that speaks less of "Sir Please Come With Us Quietly" and more of "This Ain't Working, Let's Cut Our Losses And Try To Disable Their Escape"

Why would they fire real bullets at people they're not trying to detain? It's a good question, but they definitely do.

What exactly is the fear here, they are going to accidentally hit a different car? Not really a big deal, considering during normal chases they accidentally hit other cars... with their car. Is the fear that they are going to sticky innocent law-abiding drivers on purpose? Well they already follow people and pull people over without reason, so I'm not seeing this as something new in that regard.. though this of course leaves a better audit trail.

That they're going to use this for illegal purposes, just like all of their other equipment.

Right, I'm getting that, but what exactly is the fear? Can you give me a specific scenario?

Anyone fleeing the police in a news-worthy chase is actively committing a number of fairly grave crimes. Usually excessive speeding (5mph over isn't grave, but 60mph over is), reckless driving, willful endangerment of others... you don't need "probable cause" when it's happening right there in front of you.

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