Miami based on what cops did at the end of the chase. Three of
the major race riots in this country over the past quarter
century have been caused by what cops did at the end of a
chase.”
“When you get going at high speeds, especially through
residential neighborhoods, that’s scary,” says Bob Martin, a
former high-ranking LAPD officer. “Even if it is only fifty miles
per hour. Your adrenaline and heart start pumping like crazy.
It’s almost like a runner’s high. It’s a very euphoric kind of
thing. You lose perspective. You get wrapped up in the chase.
There’s that old saying — ‘a dog in the hunt doesn’t stop to
scratch its fleas.’ If you’ve ever listened to a tape of an officer
broadcasting in the midst of pursuit, you can hear it in the
voice. They almost yell. For new officers, there’s almost
hysteria. I remember my first pursuit. I was only a couple of
months out of the academy. It was through a residential
neighborhood. A couple of times we even went airborne.
Finally we captured him. I went back to the car to radio in and
say we were okay, and I couldn’t even pick up the radio, I was
shaking so badly.” Martin says that the King beating was
precisely what one would expect when two parties — both with
soaring heartbeats and predatory cardiovascular reactions —