Aussie pigs coerce citizens into helping them do their job.
Police in Victoria, Australia, stopped several automobiles and ordered them to fill all the lanes on the road. At first, the motorists thought it was a routine traffic check, but they quickly realized they police were using their vehicles, which they were still in, as a roadblock to stop s driver who was fleeing from them. It worked. The fleeing driver stopped but only after slamming into the cars.
From the linked story:
Civilians – including one driver who had two children in his ute – were ordered to form a roadblock to help police stop a speeding hoon on a major freeway after a failed police pursuit.
David Rendina said police ordered civilians to form a roadblock on the Hume Freeway, about a kilometre before the Western Ring Road, at Epping, on Saturday morning.
The police force is now investigating.
Mr Rendina, who was travelling with his partner and children, aged eight and nine, said the officers told drivers to fill the two lanes of the freeway as well as the emergency lane, in an attempt to stop the speeding car.
A police pursuit had initially started at Benalla, about 200 kilometres north-east of Melbourne, but was terminated after three minutes because of the driver’s erratic behaviour and high speeds.
The car was then spotted on the Hume Freeway just after 11am and was tracked by the police air wing through Wallan, Kalkallo and Craigieburn.
Mr Rendina said he was the last of three vehicles in the emergency lane.
“I pretty much knew I was a sitting duck,” he told ABC radio 774 this morning.
“I just remember seeing him speeding towards me and going, ‘Well there’s nothing I can do here, I just have to sit here’.”
He said the speeding driver crashed into his car and several others as he tried to navigate the roadblock.
However, he was arrested by police, who then took statements from drivers who suffered damage.
Mr Rendina said he did not believe it was worth putting the lives of his children at risk to stop a stolen car.
‘‘I was in a position where I couldn’t go forwards, I couldn’t go backwards, I was stuck there,’’ he said. ‘‘Anything could have happened.’’
The electrician said his Nissan Navara ute has been left undrivable and he is unable to work. He said his children had nightmares about the incident.
The justification?
A police spokeswoman said on Saturday that officers did not start a pursuit on the Hume Freeway due to safety reasons.
Today, Mr Fontana said the driver had allegedly reached speeds of up to 200km/h on the freeway.
‘‘The air wing were extremely concerned about his driving. They said ‘If we don’t stop this bloke, he’s going to kill someone and himself,’’ he said.
Mr Fontana said this put the officers ‘‘in a bit of dilemma’’ and a decision was made to slow traffic before it reached the city.
‘‘It was quite clear that the driver of this car needed to be stopped,’’ he said.
‘‘If we had have let him go we could have ended up with a fatality down the road.’’
So, in order to avoid risking a fatality down the road, they risked a fatality of people in parked cars.
Brilliant.
And no doubt, had citizens not cooperated, they would have been arrested…
Fuck the Police.
