Oculus VR Co-founder Andrew Reisse Killed In Auto Collision

ccguy writes with this excerpt from a sad report on CNET: "Oculus Rift co-founder and lead engineer Andrew Reisse was hit in Santa Ana, where he was a resident, by a speeding car being pursued by police." Reisse was killed, says the report, when the car "slammed into two vehicles during the pursuit before hitting Reisse at Flower Street and MacArthur Boulevard."

Comments

FTA

[rmdingler]

Police were pursuing a vehicle for an unnamed offense which ran several red lights before striking Reisse's vehicle at an intersection. The cynic in me says the offense wasn't extremely grievous if it has thus far gone unnamed: these testosterone-fueled police chases kill far too many innocents.

Re:FTA

[dunkelfalke]

Let us be fair. Cars kill too many innocents. Cities should be for the people, not for cars!

Re:FTA

[gl4ss]

Police were pursuing a vehicle for an unnamed offense which ran several red lights before striking Reisse's vehicle at an intersection. The cynic in me says the offense wasn't extremely grievous if it has thus far gone unnamed: these testosterone-fueled police chases kill far too many innocents.

the offence was fleeing after a firefight.. apparently the perps were on probation too(and had warrants on their heads).

Re:FTA

[kurt555gs]

Cars don't kill people, people kill people.

Re:FTA

[Dins]

When you outlaw cars, only outlaws will have cars.

Re:FTA

[Reliable Windmill]

Cars don't kill people, people kill people.

Sure, but no one is out on the streets to kill people with their car, yet people get hit and die, and if you take X * 4000lbs of travelling metal out of the equations of a city, there will be fewer deaths, among other benefits. Motor vehicles should really be reserved for when they're actually needed. Not that it would matter in this case, but you get me.

Re:FTA

[Luckyo]

Because you know, guys with guns fleeing after a firefight and a violent encounter with police are totally white, nice and fluffy, model citizens and police should just wait for them to show up again and not try to prevent them from doing it again. What a nice example of police brutality!

Sometimes, it actually helps to read the source:

Authorities say the incident began when officers saw two vehicles full of people involved in some type of criminal activity in the 1000 block of Rosewood Court Thursday. When officers went to investigate, there was a physical altercation between police and 26-year-old Gerardo Diego Ayala that ended with a fatal officer-involved shooting. Police say a gun was located at the scene.

Source: http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/orange_county&id=9122999

Re:FTA

[cffrost]

Because if they had suspended the chase, the offending vehicle would have slowed down and obeyed all traffic laws thereafter?

Probably — why risk wrecking the vehicle or attracting further attention once the pursuing police have fallen back?

Re:FTA

[Anonymous Coward]

And in cities, they typically are reserved for this. "when needed" includes "i need to get somewhere that's not well served by public transportation"

Which in the US unfortunately is pretty much every trip that has an endpoint outside the core of the city....

Re:FTA

[Anonymous Coward]

That is precisely what the police do. If a pursuit will lead to a prolonged, high speed chase, the police cruisers are supposed to be pulled back and a helicopter is used to follow the perpetrators until they can be apprehended more safely.

Re:FTA

[aitikin]

Which in the US unfortunately is pretty much every trip that has an endpoint outside the core of the city....

Are you kidding me? Public transit in the US is abysmal even when you're endpoint is within the core of the city.

Re:FTA

[ClioCJS]

Anytime someone gets killed by someone, we should take it away from all the people who don't kill anyone with it.

Also, when one kid in class chews gum, everyone in the class should get detention.

When a right is abused, it should be taken away too. Because of Westboro Baptist Church, we should repeal the 1st Amendment.

Re:FTA

[candeoastrum]

Because you know, guys with guns fleeing after a firefight and a violent encounter with police are totally white, nice and fluffy, model citizens

What does being white have to do with anything?

Re:FTA

[hairyfeet]

Don't think you are from around these parts friend. You see America? Don't really have any public transportation to speak of except in a few select cities (and often in only select places in those cities) and what little public transport we have? You wouldn't want to ride on it, its not very nice in most places.

So unless you expect everyone to walk dozens of miles its not like there is much of a choice friend. Heck in my state there is a single bus line, which is very lousy, and which only follows a little circuit that covers MAYBE 20% of the capital. That's it, that is all there is. If you need to go anywhere besides that little circuit, or to any other city in the state? Tough shit.

Just a little FYI there, for while I hear other countries actually have public transport and in some places its actually quite nice that sure as hell doesn't describe a good 85%+ of the USA. Again using my state for example you drive or you get to "enjoy" living in the shittiest neighborhood in the state capital, since it only really goes to that one dirt poor area and to the malls.

Re:FTA

[g0bshiTe]

True, but if you simply remove people from the cities you have the same result. Then the cars can still roam free in their natural habitat.

Re: FTA

[jklovanc]

For the most part, gang violence only affects gangs and our gun rights,

A similar thing could be said for police chases. "For the most part police chases only effect the people being chased."

I would still prefer they not chase these kinds of perps.

Tell that to the bystander killed in their next shootout.

There have been many instances where innocent people have been injured or killed by drug gang violence. I seem to remember a child being killed in a crib when a bullet came through the wall during a drive by shooting.

It would be OK if gang violence effected only the gangs but it does not. It terrorizes entire neighborhoods.

The problem with not pursuing fleeing felons is that more will flee if they know they can get away by driving fast enough. If driving fast is a get out of jail free card, more people will do it.

Re:FTA

[Alef]

For what it's worth, that is the standard operating procedure for Swedish police: They fall back and essentially just track the fleeing vehicle at a distance, then coordinate a road block using other vehicles, or just wait until the suspects eventually stop and apprehend them then. The reasoning is that, in most cases, a close pursuit will create even greater danger for innocent bystanders, and for the people in the fleeing car, some of which could be innocent as well (e.g. children).

Re:FTA

[Jappus]

If cars were banned people would just leave the cities. Might be a good thing after generations of living like rats.

Actually, the opposite would happen.

If you would ban cars, people would leave their suburbs in droves and return back into the city core.

After all, that's how it was from the very first cities of Mesopotamia (~65k inhabitants for the city of Ur in 2000 BC!) over the cities and city-states of Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece (~100k inhabitants in 1000-500BC), continuing with Ancient Rome and the first large cities in South America (up to 250k inhabitants) all the way to the metropolises of the industrial Revolution (London, Paris, Berlin; with millions of inhabitants) and finally the mega-cities of today; like Tokio, Shanghai, Singapore, Mexico and New York City with each near or exceeding tens of millions of inhabitants.

As you notice; all the way up to the very recent histories, these cities grew from ~65k people to over 6 million people; all without the help of cars. The jump from then to now (when cars were available) only pushed that up by a factor of 2.

Cars are actually the reason why cities grew slower than before, with the suburbs and "greater metropolitan" areas soaking up most of the excess population that'd otherwise live much closer to the city core where they could make use of public transportation much more easily. You would see nearby cities grow together, until the boundary between them vanishes; like the Ruhrpott [1] (which grew without the presence of cars) which is more like a huge city with multiple city cores.

So tldr; : No cars would mean even bigger cities. Not in terms of density, but sheer diameter and area filled with people.

[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhrpott

Re: FTA

[jklovanc]

1. They do chase from helicopters when available. The patrol cars need to stay in contact with the fleeing vehicle until the helicopter arrives. In this case the accident happened 1.2 miles from the start of the chase. That is less than two minutes into a chase and a helicopter would not have been on scene yet.
2. Felons know about helicopters and try to out run them too.
3. Police do call off chases in certain circumstances. In this case the fleeing suspects had just shot at police and would be a high priority to apprehend..

So we'll just accept that innocent people will die needless, violent deaths for the sake of catching criminals.

The deaths are not needless; they are a byproduct of catching criminals. We also accept similar risks every day just crossing the street. On the other hand are we to just accept that suspects who flee will almost always get away?
The police are in a hard spot. If they pursue and someone dies they are the bad guys. If they don't pursue and the felons kill someone later, they are the bad guys. It is a no win situation and one can't please everyone all the time.

In the nine year period 1994 through 2002 1088 deaths were of people not in the fleeing vehicle, That is 121 deaths per year in the entire United States. Considering the number of high speed pursuits that occur that is a very small number. That may sound harsh but the benefits of apprehending criminals, who have demonstrated their lack of respect for their lives and the lives of others by entering the high speed chase, outweigh the costs.

Re:FTA

[Solandri]

As you notice; all the way up to the very recent histories, these cities grew from ~65k people to over 6 million people; all without the help of cars. The jump from then to now (when cars were available) only pushed that up by a factor of 2.

You're comparing 4000 years of growth and 100 years of growth as if they're somehow equivalent?

So tldr; : No cars would mean even bigger cities. Not in terms of density, but sheer diameter and area filled with people.

That conclusion doesn't fit the data. Here's U.S. census data from 1800 to 1990 of the percentage of the population living in urban vs. rural areas. As you can see, the advent of widespread car ownership does not correlate with a slowdown in urbanization as you're hypothesizing.

What's going on is that in order to support a city, you need to be able to transport goods and resources in and out of the city. Improved transportation facilitated that, and allowed cities to grow bigger than before. If a city needs x amount of food every day, and transportation in the 1800s by horse and wagon can only bring food from a 25 mile radius into the city in a day, then the city's population is capped at whatever food you can grow in a 25 mile radius (this is a simplified explanation - I know some food can survive trips of greater than a day). In the 1900s transportation improved to where you can bring in food from a 250 mile radius, and thus the city's population cap was higher. Current trucking and speed limits pushes that radius out to about 500 miles (though modern refrigeration increases the timeframe to several days), and so our cities can be much larger. The start of the shift to an urban population in the U.S. actually correlates almost exactly with the advent of railroads (1830s-1850s).

Last words.

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's so real, it's like it's coming right at me !"

Bus factor

[Edulix]

It's a strong thing to say, but this is what happens when the bus factor strikes.

Re:Reckless Cops

[Charliemopps]

Ok, think of it this way. Lets say instead of jumping into a car, the suspects picked up a pipe bomb with a dead-mans switch. Would the police chase them? No. They'd follow slowly at a safe distance. Now, why wouldn't they chase them with the same vigor as the car chase? There's a big difference between a car chase and a pipe bomb, and it's not really obvious at first. Both chases end with a lethal release of energy... the bomb explodes, the car crashes. No suspect fleeing from a murder scene is going to stop until he crashes after all... The difference is the cars lethal force is uni-directional. The POLICE'S lives are not in danger. When the suspects come to a stop that lethal force is applied in the opposite direction of the police. So the police will not risk their own lives, but if it's the public who's in danger from their actions they're not as concerned.

Re:A MEXICAN killed him - had enough yet?

[arth1]

"Victor Sanchez". There's a nice, 'American' name...

Unless your own name is in the vein of "Runs Through", "Onawa" or "Aipaloovik", you can shut up now.

Re:He should not have been pursued

[AlphaWolf_HK]

You mean as in being held accountable for the same laws, and having everything they do recorded on camera? Wow, enlightened England is so unique and smart, I wish we would have thought of that. And surely having a violent crime rate more than four times that of the US makes them more than four times better, right?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196941/The-violent-country-Europe-Britain-worse-South-Africa-U-S.html

Clearly the problem is that America has too many guns.