Titled:   Glue gun will mean police can stick to fleeing drivers

The Times Online tells us of a new plan that will enable LA police to avoid chasing and catching criminals. The concept is to shoot a trackable GPS unit at the fleeing driver's car so that they can find it later. Assuming that word of this will spread around the criminal community, especially after the press coverage, this means that crimes that risk a police chase have now got much safer for the criminals.

“Rather than pushing them because they are going 70-80 mph and we are attempting to keep up with them, we will just basically monitor where they are going,” said William Bratton, the police commissioner.

“Let them run. We will just basically track them to where they dump the car. We do that now with helicopters.”

No more televised chases across town through traffic, ramming, shoot-outs and foot chases. Now the stolen getaway vehicle will be free to roll across town, drop off the crims at a convenient pick-up point near their other vehicles, with the police just having to pull up later and tow the original vehicle away.

“Banning pursuit is probably a good idea if all you care about is public safety, because if you ban pursuit there won’t be any chases or any risk to the public,” said Geoff Alpert, the head of the criminology department at the University of South Carolina, who has endorsed the new technology.

Way to go, LA! 

“This is incredible technology,” said Commissioner Bratton. “We are going to test it out. We are really optimistic that this may be one of the next big ideas in American policing.”

It will keep police in jobs forever, simply by letting criminals go free each time, free to steal another car and escape over and over. And the police will win too! Their record for recovery of stolen cars will skyrocket. Pity about their record of captured thieves.