At some point watching two cops tear down an undivided two-lane road, crossing the double yellow and hitting highway speeds in pursuit of a woman accused of cashing a bad check, you have to wonder why wasn’t the chase called off?
News pieces at the start of this month focus on Rose Lynn Becker, 35, reportedly hitting over 70 mph through two school zones in Coweta County, Georgia and topping 90 in the chase itself, as reported in the Times Herald and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Not only that, Becker and the Coweta County deputies responding to the call were cutting through those school zones at 3:30 in the afternoon, back on October 30th.
Ultimately, the cops performed a PIT maneuver on Becker, whereupon the police claim they found bags of cocaine in her possession. She has been charged with identity fraud, forgery, narcotics possession, felony fleeing, speeding in a school zone, reckless conduct, going inside a guard line with drugs, suspended license, reckless driving and failure to maintain lane, per the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Only now am I seeing video from inside the police cruiser and it has me more worried about the chase than the crime itself.
Don’t forget, as we pointed out a year ago following a few other reports on the subject, that police chases are much more deadly than you might think, killing at least 1,300 people since 1979:
For context on that 13,000 deaths figure, The Washington Post notes that “police chases kill more people each year than floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, and lightning – combined.” And the Post noted that innocent bystanders accounted for 27 percent of chase deaths.
At a certain point you have to think that it’s less safe to continue with the chase than keep it going.