The Grappler Bumper

That's great if they can get close enough.

What about one which can shoot the entangling web over a greater distance.

♪ ♪ Spiderman, spiderman...♪♪

Well the web has to be held against the wheel with some force for a short time until the tire via friction wraps the woven nylon tether around the wheel and locks it in position, at that time the tether can be disconnected from the chase vehicle, the perp is stuck....

There's a different solution in the UK. It's called the "traffic jam". And they are everywhere...

I've seen artificial traffic jams on highways where the police get out and deliberately slow down traffic to create a slow-moving traffic jam at about 30-40 km/hr between two exits on the freeway. The only thing I don't like about that tactic is that it exposes the 'back ends' of innocent motorists to the high-speed fleeing suspect.

Rerun of a Bad Idea

During prohibition, motorcycle cops in North Carolina had a device which would grab the back bumper of a bootlegger vehicle. Bumpers stuck out from cars back then and after locking on, the bootlegger could not outrun the motorcycle cop or crash the motorcycle by cramming on the brakes. Unfortunately, the bootleggers added a lever to their vehicles to abruptly release the back bumper which typically lead to a severe crash of the motorcycle/bumper combination. The practice was discontinued shortly after it began, primarily to end the bagpipe music.

For your hardened criminal who premeditates their own refusal to stop, these mechanisms are an easy opportunity for anarchy. I know motorcycles are far more vulnerable than the big SUVs shown in your video but the fact remains that the officers driving chase vehicles are at significant risk once criminals become annoyed enough by these mechanisms. I will not describe the techniques they might use but you can use your own imagination to understand the disadvantages of snagging something from a car you are pursuing if those pursued are expecting that pursuit. Radios and multiple police cars are classic and superior to this foolhardy technique. It may be difficult to know in advance if you are chasing a cop killer or a teenage spontaneous joy rider just trying to escape capture.

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thewildotter

While escaping capture for profit may generate some ingenious methods of escape, that hardly seems feasible for your run of the mill drunk escaping a stint in jail....Let's face it 99.9% of the time you get caught anyway, this device just makes apprehension safer and quicker...and it's well disguised as the standard police bumper...

Pushing up Daisies

It is not "ingenious methods of escape" that is of interest. It is the vulnerability of the chase car once the device attaches to the pursued vehicle. That attachment places the officers in the chase car at great disadvantage easily leading to their death at the hands of the pursued hardened criminal. You do not get to choose that it is a run of the mill drunk, you have to survive whoever might be in the pursued car and they have potentially had the opportunity to ingeniously prepare exactly how they will kill you once you have established your own inability to easily retreat from a well defined direction and distance from their vehicle. They may somehow later get apprehended but that will provide you zero solace once they are playing bagpipes for YOU and all of the occupants of the chase car.

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thewildotter

The tether can be jettisoned with a push of the button and the police can then position themselves for a confrontation that was coming anyway...Why don't you actually watch the videos before commenting? At the time of this video there had been 30 successful deployments without incident...You can't argue with success

Bootleggers vs Drunks

The motorcycles were successful until the bootleggers rigged their bumpers to release. The bootleggers would hear the clank of the grapple on the bumper. At speed they would make a sharp turn and release the bumper. There was no confrontation. The cop was road kill before he could release the clamp which also had a button. Maybe you like the first 30 drunks as a definition of success. I do not like the idea of getting in a specific position directly behind someone potentially out to kill you who may be the first to adequately prepare to carry it out. It strikes me that the gap between the rear of the car and the back wheels is plenty enough to mount something which would catch in the straps, prevent them from getting to the rear wheels, and take out the SUV that remains attached to the contraption. I grant that early on no one is going to have such a device and that most drunks will never seek such a device. It remains much like the motorcycle scheme with the exception that there are no longer specifically prohibition alcohol bootleggers to spearhead the anti-tech devices. I still CAN argue with success when there are historical failures of the same concept. If you were filling people-carrier balloons with hydrogen, I would not fail to mention the Hindenburg even if your balloons had not yet caught fire and you were not using thermite paint.

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thewildotter

Well the big difference here is that even if the system were to fail, the guy is not going to get away...so what's the point of going to all that trouble...Besides anybody trying to outrun the police in this day and age is not thinking clearly...They just do the pit maneuver or put the spikes down, or run you to ground, this is a case where all roads lead to the jailhouse...

Now it's probably true that you could buy or build one of these and mount it to the back of your car, with perhaps a longer reach, and try to get them before they get you, but this seems like an exercise in futility...because it's a one time shot, and for every one of you there are 10 of them...not to mention they have that helicopter...

Yep. With our better communication the perp's goose is cooked. I was more concerned with survival of the cop. The grapple device puts that in jeopardy just as it did during prohibition. The "safety" of the "apprehension" is weak for dealing with real un-empathetic criminals. Safety is, as you have repeatedly pointed out, better for less determined and less pathological perps. This is, of course, generally true and not limited to the use of this device. I still would prefer technology which does not increase the danger to our public servants especially when dealing with the criminally insane. To make a totally informed safety judgement we would have to integrate results across the entire weighted spectrum of criminals. Cell phone ubiquitous tracking means that criminals will have a harder and harder time achieving any long term immunity to capture unless they religiously avoid tech conveniences. Avoiding ALL of these will sharply become more difficult as they swiftly permeate all of our possessions with the IOT.

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thewildotter

"I was more concerned with survival of the cop. The grapple device puts that in jeopardy just as it did during prohibition. "

I would argue this device when used properly, gives the police more control over the situation, forcing an end to the chase at the time and location that is predetermined allows more control than letting the situation play out on its own...a controlled stop orchestrated by police is better than the perp plowing into some innocent bystander who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, especially if there are innocent people in the car with the perp...It's safer than the pit maneuver, it's more effective than the spike strips...

TheWildotter - IMO Your conclusion based on this comparison is flawed - the prohibition era grapple did not disable the vehicle it was attached to and it was connected to a much lighter motorcycle. My guess is this grappler will typically be mounted to the big SUV police vehicles and we're not going to see a quick release rear axle on getaway vehicles anytime soon.

The potential for violent confrontation exists in any apprehension so this device does not affect that specific danger either way.

Positional Strategic Advantage

JRiversW: A spinning wire brush hanging low between the rear bumper and the rear tires would eliminate the disable feature by intercepting the belts before they reach the rear wheels. This wire brush assembly would snag the belts and jerk. If mounted with small nylon cable ties the entire motor/wire brush and whatever else(this could be a spike strip or something worse) could detach and become a ground level missile whizzing back at the closely following SUV. QED.

BTW, I abbreviated the historical NC bootlegger story. Prior to the grapple, bootleggers drove convertibles with the back seat loose. A rear passenger would chuck the entire back seat out at closely following motorcycles lofting the motorcycle into the air, making further pursuit depend on someone else. With the grapple attached to the bumper toward the drivers side, the rear seat would hit the motorcycle handle bars and slide off toward the passenger side and leave the cop shaken but not stirred. Once the grapple clamped down the officer could let go of his handle bars and pull out his weapon so the seat stuff was then obsolete. The point of all this is to demonstrate that, given prep opportunity, the lead car has a strategic advantage over any pursuit vehicle which must be close and in a particular direction to exercise its technology. These details give a great advantage to the pursued car regardless of the demonstrated tech abilities of the pursuit car in some staged video against an unprepared perp. Specifically, the perp does not have to invent a quick release axle if the straps never make it to the rear wheels.

This advantage is as old as the strategy of birds of prey. They attack from above as opposed to directly behind for both speed and to avoid the contents of a dumping cloaca. The comparison holds.

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thewildotter

Well there are exceptions I guess, but these always end badly for the perp...

A-Team Episode

I half-way expected some guy in some silly disguise with a cigar to get out of the dozer and say "I love it when a plan comes together." Except for the fact that the damage was real, this was a very entertaining video. It is a shame the perp did not leave a video record of his process of attaching the armor to the dozer to make it completely like an "A Team" episode.

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thewildotter

I'll concede you may have thought of a possible way to defeat the grappler, but what are the real chances of someone actually successfully implementing something like that outside of an A-Team or Fast and Furious script? A criminal smart enough to design and execute your idea would be smart enough to avoid the car chase in the first place.

GA

Plus those sort of "smart" criminals tend to rely on a degree of anonymity: a cursory examination of any vehicle equipped with a "grappler defeater" would immediately put the criminal in law enforcement's spotlight.

I still like my idea of using a james bond type of magnetic attachment device. An efficient way of concluding the issue and little to no paperwork involved.

What about aluminum, fiberglass, and plastic bodied cars?

For special circumstances Alien tape can be used.

I don't think the cops will ever let that thing take their fun away.

Fact: The cops have always loved a good chase, especially more so since Youtube came on the scene so we all get to enjoy the fun of the chase.

There's nothing better than watching some desperate retard being tracked by cars and helicopters meet his or her inevitable end.

There's no way the cops are going to let that piece of junk ruin the fun of a great chase.

Out in the low populated parts of the country where there aren't as many police per square mile as in your picture is where these devices will probably see the most use.

I think a device with a directional antenna could be devised to jam the computer of the vehicle. that is is there is no "lo-jack" type device already installed during manufacture or aftermarket.

If that were possible it wouldn't be a week before people were selling carjacking kits on line...

maybe, but majority of inner city car jacking is done by individuals that are not too internet savvy and certainly do not have a credit card. its a crime of opportunity. will there be upper level criminals that would buy something like that, sure. may already have something just as good.

Great! another wreckless moron on the road. So in the age of surveillance cameras, drones, and radio we still cant seem to escape the He-Man cop mindset. And people wonder why we have problems with out of control law enforcement. Lets stop a dangerous behavior by encouraging even more dangerous behavior.

SMH

Yeah, but you're going to love the video game version....

Grand Theft Auto, Grappler Edition.

Drive it like THEY stole it and you're trying to catch it.