Anyone else immediately think of the old Tom and Jerry cartoons, when Tom would be chased by Jerry on occasion?

.....though all you youn'un's 'll probably reference Itchy and Scratchy.

/Where's my onion? Oh, right here on my belt.

?

muninsfire: /Where's my onion? Oh, right here on my belt.

Ahh I remember that style fondly

The skid marks prove just how dangerous the "Senior Chase" can be.


Ewwwwww/

This don't look like no expressway to me!

Heh, skidmarks.

why does this not happen where i live?

Traditions are all well and good, but having a tradition of getting into a high speed chase with police cruisers and high school students seems to be a BAD idea.

Alright, I haven't had enough coffee this morning.

Where does it say the cops were in the lead? I mean escorting doesn't necessarily mean out in front.

/wouldn't know...never been in a senior high speed chase, the old geezers around here don't go that fast.

All my senior class did was go to Nags Head for a week after we had graduated. I guess we're not cool enough to have high speed chases.

Haha Snodgrass

Ok, maybe i'm slow but what the hell happened? I read the article twice and i'm no closer to understanding.

They broke my watch!

Memphis City Marshal Steve Snodgrass

Snodgrass? Ha!

2006-08-23 10:16:19 AM vonmatrices


Traditions are all well and good, but having a tradition of getting into a high speed chase with police cruisers and high school students seems to be a BAD idea

Oh come on, it's a good idea because it's fun, dangerous and reckless. Thats what fun stuff is, therefore its a GOOD idea

From what I was told from my friends down yonder, for years it was just the seniors showing up on the first day of school following a police car that had its lights and siren on. Driving normal speeds. Apparently, they've taken it to the next level. Go seniors!

Crappy article. Doesn't even give a full explanation of the "Senior Chase" tradition.

Of course, if this had been an incident-free Senior Chase, no one would be suspended or resigning over it.

Sounds to me like everyone was fine with it and accepted it until something happened. Then everyone not directly involved explains how they aren't involved or responsible even though they've been going along with it for years.

TFA: "It's similar to schools having Senior Skip Day. It's not something that's on your calendar. You don't plan it. You don't have anything to do with it. There's no school sponsorship to it at all," said Shalley.

Anyone else smell that?

At our school we had a tradition of celebrating the dog days of summer at the beginning of the school year. We called it "Dog Days", of course. It was a great way of helping us start the school year in high spirits. Pretty fun stuff, but I wonder to this day what the hell dynamite and cocaine have to do with the dog days of summer.

so the headline and the article don't really match up. where's the details on WTF actually HAPPENED during this "chase"?

Couldn't these morans have just gotten drunk like the rest of us? On second thought, I thin kyou'd HAVE to be drunk to do something as stupid as this.

Let me see if I understand this:

The Police and City Counsel of this town know this event is going to happen but decide not to stop or sanction it. Instead they vote to have nothing to do with it. One police officer decides to escort the students, I am assuming for safety reasons, against the wishes of said police officials and counsel members. And because there was an accident she is forced to resign.

To me that just does not sound right. I mean, why not try to shut it down or provide more officers for escort duties to prevent such an incident? But instead they let go the one cop who decided to help? I understand she 'failed to follow a departmental directive' but what good cop would follow such a dumb directive when public safety is an obvious concern?

That's just farked, IMHO.

/Unless there is more to this story then is being reported.

So.... I'm placing the probability of this police officer ever being an officer again at about zero percent.

HYUUCK! Wees gonna ride ina chase!

MakJeezus

Exactly what I was thinking.

Must be a lot of inbreeding down there.

unicornrider: I understand she 'failed to follow a departmental directive' but what good cop would follow such a dumb directive when public safety is an obvious concern?

Politics conquers all.

It's better in this country to keep your head down and not to draw attention to yourself, doing only what is absolutely necessary according to your boss, than to take initiative: if you follow orders exactly, if the shiat hits the fan, you won't be singled out, but if you mess up while taking initiative, you're the scapegoat for anything that goes wrong.

muninsfire:

All to true, very sad, but very true.

It sounds like Mahoney and Motor Mouth Jones was involved. Somebody call Commandant Lassard!

muninsfire:

To my last post let me add:

"An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law."

Martin Luther King, jr.

New Oldsmobiles are in early this year!

"There are times, sir, when men of good conscience cannot blindly follow orders."

Captain Picard: STTNG, The Offspring

I'm not really sure what it was they were doing. Driving around the town? All these guys just driving? I honestly can't imagine anyone wanting to get involved, unless senior year starts at 12 in that state. Not surprising that some those who did participate wound up in the hospital with injuries as a result if you think about it.

Yeah... but did the cops have SCMODS?

/the light was yellow, sir
//orange whip?

In Memphis, Cops run from YOU.

You know, normally I am pretty rebellious and buck the system if it is wrong, but how is obeying the speed limit in town all that wrong? I can understand if it is a speed trap, but these guys were wrecked just a block from the school. Where there are likely busses and pedestrains.

Likening this to making black people drink at seperate fountains is stupid and foolish. Somehow I don't think MLK, Thoreau and other civil disobients would think this is worthy of the cause.

/wanted for questioning

Anything involving cops will always turn out very, very bad.

Always.

I'm confused - kids broke the law, facilitated in part by a police officer expressly forbidden from such an activity, and this is somehow protest-worthy?

Bad judgment on a cop's part, really bad judgment on the kids' parts, should not be just nodded away as 'tradition.' Cop gets a two-week suspension, kids get a hospital stay, everyone goes "whew."

"An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law."

The very description of "civil disobedience," and one of the few true acts of bravery left to the public. The latter part of that sentence is important - those who protest now forget that there can be real consequences to shining a harsh light on legislated injustice, and part of being a responsibile citizen is accepting those consequences in order to illustrate such injustice.

That's neither here nor there, however - it doesn't apply here. I don't see some form of universal injustice, just a couple of errors in judgment that ended up badly. Something in the line of "well, it's never happened before, so we just didn't think about it." It's like running red lights because you've never hit or been hit by someone, then acting surprised the first time you're T-boned.

no, FormlessOne, the cop was fired and his supervisor was suspended

"The light was yellow, officer"

That is one of the funniest farking things I have read in a long time.

That was one great piece of journalism right there. I think I've lost IQ points from reading it. There was absolutely no detailing of what led up to the accident, how the police officer was involved, other than driving ahead of them, or anything else for that matter.

Looks like Reserve Officer Jason Moss might be getting a full time job offer:

http://www.memphisdemocrat.com/2006/news/060427_police.shtml

"Memphis Police Officer Michelle Miller..."

There's your problem right there.

/proud member of MAWD

I live very close to Memphis and am not surprised at all by this story.