Only millionaires typically have time and money to cosplay as Batman, but the police already have all the heavy equipment and qualified immunity to indulge their superhero fantasies. A sheriff’s office in Olympia, Washington used a grappler to end a pursuit last week by crashing a stolen car at 100 miles per hour. The deputies are extremely lucky that they didn’t kill anyone trying out their new toy.
The Thurston County Sheriff’s Office proudly posted the pursuit footage on its Facebook page. The chase took place on the winding two-lane Delphi Road SW. The cruiser reached the bumper of the allegedly stolen car and deployed the grappler. The fleeing driver lost control of his car, spun off the road, plowed through a fence and hit a tree. He attempted to escape on foot but was caught almost immediately. Gizmodo explained how the Grappler came to be and how the sheriff’s office got its hands on one:
Grappler inventor Leonard Stock has said he came up with the device after watching a police pursuit TV show and “awoke in the middle of the night with the idea.” Stock, who worked as a roofer, “welded a contraption on the front of his truck and convinced his wife Frances to drive the getaway car … that day the concept was proven.”
In an application requesting grant money to pay for Grappler systems, the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office wrote that “having access to technology such as Grappler can prevent and minimize deaths and injuries to suspects and innocent bystanders, as well as protect the law enforcement officers themselves.”
The Thurston County Sheriff’s Office was quick to state how safe the arrest was. The safest police pursuit is the one that never happens. Police chases killed 577 people in 2022—the highest death toll ever recorded by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Many police agencies have implemented no-pursuit policies because they usually kill innocent people.
