As seen on television...or not

We had our first car chase of the year Wednesday and it was a bit out of the ordinary in that once the car was stopped it took a good half hour for the law shredding occupants to exit the vehicle. Usually once they're stopped, the wayward drivers pretty much just give it up. It got weirder when the driver, a female, was trying to finally get out and give up, and her male passenger kept clinging to her. He even planted what appeared to be an unwanted smooch on her after they were finally out of the vehicle. Then he got tased. It was crazy even by L.A. car chase standards.

The couple had stolen a U-Haul truck and by the time I turned on the TV, they had hit a spike strip thrown out by police that punctured the right front tire. I tuned in to our local station KCAL Channel 9 just in time to see what was left of the tire flying away. The chase continued on three tires and a rim, until the rim finally stopped turning. Then it continued a bit further with the rim throwing off sparks as it ground down. The thieves are lucky the sparks didn't set the damn truck on fire.

While everyone was playing the waiting game after the truck stopped, the anchor mentioned that a SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) team was probably on the way and asked his call-in guest, a former cop, what the procedure would be if SWAT had to approach the vehicle and extract the occupants. And the first thing the commentator said was, "Forget everything you've seen on TV..."

I found that hilarious, because KCAL is a sister station to KCBS, our local CBS affiliate here in Los Angeles. And one of the new CBS shows this season is...S.W.A.T. WHOOPS!!!

Pay no attention to the man in the fake SWAT uniform, Thursdays at 10pm, 9 Central!