Have Cake, Eat It Too, Mope Dept. 1
The police say that they called off the chase before the accident.
Michael Jones claims the Vineland officers were negligent in chasing him at high speeds. He blames them for the March 30 accident that left him injured and killed an 81-year-old man.
I would consider that he was negligent in ripping off the vehicle in the first place, but that’s me.
Most police departments in the Mid-Atlantic part of the country–I don’t know about the rest–have policies to minimize high-speed chases. They have found that the odds of their ending without injury or death, often to bystanders as happened here, are slim, while the odds of catching the mope later are fat high.
This looks to me like a case of creative defense attorney. It will be interesting to see where this one goes (though I suspect the outcome won’t be widely reported).
Which leads to the question: In English idiom, why isn’t the opposite of “slim odds,” “fat odds”?
June 28, 2010 at 9:46 am
Stright from the horse’s mouth:
Not only will the COPS tv show come back to Denver, because they aren’t allowed to follow them into businesses or houses, but they (Denver PD) will not undertake a high speed chase. Too much damage & I’m sure the decision was a purely financial one, as well.