The Ramming Chase
I graduated from the Fort Worth Police Academy in 1980. After graduating, you ride with different training officers for three months. I finished that phase and was cut loose on my own roaming the streets. During the academy classes on pursuit driving, they emphasized chasing but not ramming. It was clear the city didn’t want to pay any damage costs and would frown on anyone having to make them pay.
I had already been in many high speed chases with my training officers. It was an amazing part of being a police officer. I enjoyed driving fast and I loved the competition. It was the bad guy against me, and if you weren’t careful, it could cost you injury or even your life.
All my training officers told me, “Don’t listen to the crap they told you in the academy. When we’re in a tough chase and it needs to be stopped, it’s demolition derby. We ram them until it stops.” (I should insert here, there was no pit maneuver. It was ramming. As stated earlier, it was demolition derby. The young officers of today don’t understand that.)
On this night I found out about ramming. It was crazy but it was fun. I was working the midnight shift in Adam district, which was on the east side of the city. The dispatchers had a repertoire of names for the officers. I was the Newby and was assigned Adam twelve district. Sometimes the dispatchers would have a little fun when they dispatched officers.
Because of the popular TV series Adam12, that’s the beat in Fort Worth they always made fun of. I was Adam three twelve (designated A-312). The dispatcher would broadcast, “Adam three fourteen …….. ADAM ……. Twelve ……. copy call.” The enunciation and hesitation were deliberate. They were saying Adam twelve was special. I responded to the call. When the dispatcher gave me a “10-4” I could hear her laughing.
I was enroute to the call. The guys would reach down and push their transmit buttons on the car radio. This created a click on the radio. The clicking sound means you were being made fun of. I got used to it. I loved the dispatchers. I loved several of them in the biblical sense. It was great.
We were sent to a disturbance call on the lower east side of town. There were several employees arguing at a BarBQ joint. It’s two AM in the morning and they’re closing. I got there a few seconds after Adam three fourteen.
I told the dispatcher both units were on the scene. We walked through the back door of the restaurant, which was the kitchen. It smelled great, and I was hungry. As we entered four guys were in the middle of an argument. Three guys were yelling at each other. One guy was standing there looking down at the floor. When we entered everything stopped. All the guys looked at us. One guy said, “What’s wrong officers?”
My partner said, “We got a call about yelling in the kitchen. What’s going on?”
They all started laughing. The head guy stepped forward, “It’s nothing officer. It’s late and we’re trying to go home. We do this every night. It’s no big deal. Nobody’s hurt or upset.”
My buddy looks at everyone pointing at them saying to each one, “Everything okay?”
They agreed and we left. I grabbed a slice of roast beef and gobbled it down while walking out the door. As we left, we could hear the argument start up again and they were yelling. We got in our patrol cars and got the hell out of there. We met up in a grocery store parking lot at two thirty in the morning. The place was completely empty except for our two police cars alone in the middle of the lot. After a few minutes my buddy said he needs to use the bathroom. As he got ready to drive off, he said, “Wait a few minutes to clear the call. That’ll give me time to get to a bathroom before she goes crazy on me for not clearing the call.”
It was standard operating procedure, and I gave him the thumbs up as he drove off. I was sitting there catching up on paperwork. The dispatcher was asking for any units available for calls. I felt bad but I had to cover my buddy while he performed an important function. I waited.
Two units cleared and the dispatcher immediately gave them a high priority call. There was a burglary in progress. Both units acknowledged and were enroute. I was new to this district and had no idea where the burglary was. I finished my paperwork as the two units called on the scene. The dispatcher acknowledged and everyone waited as they checked it out.
I didn’t think much about it but the longer nothing was said on the radio the more it bothered me. We had a thick map book called Mapsco. It allowed an officer to find street locations quickly. I started looking up their location and figured I’d head that way.
While I’m looking up the location the radio squelched, and it was one of the officers on the burglary call. He said, “We’re in pursuit of burglary suspects in a green impala going west bound on Strong Ave.”
Now I was trying to look the street up, but the chase changed so quickly they were calling different street names. The officer calling the chase decided it was getting dangerous. They were going down thirty foot wide side streets at eighty miles an hour with cars parked on the street. As I’m feverishly looking up the streets they’re calling out, I start to hear the faint sound of police sirens. The sirens got louder fast. I had my window down and could hear the sirens. I finally glanced in my rearview mirror and saw a green Chevy Impala pull into the rear of the store parking lot and head for me at a high rate of speed. Immediately behind him were two Fort Worth Police cars with their lights and sirens going. Apparently, I didn’t have to wonder where the officers were. The Impala was coming at me. At the last second, he swerved and blew past me. I threw the transmission into drive and hesitated a second to let the two police units pass. As soon as they passed me, I hit the accelerator and was now involved in the chase. Both units were on his ass. One unit was slightly to the right, and one was slightly to the left. I was behind the units in the middle. We were all traveling at a high rate of speed. The two original officers decided it was time to end the chase. The officer on the right slowed slightly for a second and then gunned her car. She rammed the Impala, and he swerved a little, but it didn’t stop him. Police cars have large heavy metal bumpers to help push other cars or for ramming. These large bumpers are called buddy bumpers. They can wreak havoc on a car or even a big truck.
The officer kept banging away at the car. The other officer decided he wanted to get in on it. He started ramming the left side of the car. The Impala swerved severely and sideswiped a parked car. Once he started weaving violently back and forth, both officers continued pounding his car and the Impala couldn’t take it anymore. After sideswiping numerous parked cars, he finally went off the road, up over the curb and hit a tree. Both subjects in the Impala bailed out and ran on foot. All three of us bailed out and ran after them. We ran four or five houses down and caught up with them. We tackled them and they wanted to fight. After several face punches and head strikes with metal flashlights by all three of us, they decided to quit. We got them handcuffed and as I stood up and looked around, I noticed no one had come outside. I started looking at the windows to see if any curtains were cracked. Nobody was even looking outside. There was suddenly dead silence. The cars have stopped screaming through the streets, the sirens are off. Tomorrow morning these people will get up and come out to get their paper and won’t have a clue what went on in their front yard earlier.
I walked my prisoner back to the car. When I got to the car the other two officers were waiting to transport the prisoners to the jail. I thought I was off the hook for any paperwork. I was wrong. The Sergent showed up and told me to work on all the accidents. There were at least four or five. That’s a lot of accidents. I was done for the night as far as making any more calls. I did my work and called a wrecker for the Impala. Worked all the accidents as hit and run and finally got to go home way after the sun came up. I still think about that night and how no one knew all the activity going on in their front yard. If only regular citizens knew what went on while they slept. I also learned a strong lesson, when you get in a high speed chase and the officers start ramming the car, make sure you get at least one ram in, or you have to work all the accidents. I never was in that situation again. I rammed.
