Mustang Thieves Get Stuck On A Weird Bus-Only Track
Read the full story on The Auto Wire
Here in the US, Ford Mustangs are stolen all the time, so to see one swiped in Australia to us seems sadly a little mundane. What's unusual about this case out of Adelaide is the teenage suspects ended up on a weird bus-only track, where the pony car became stuck.Adelaide, Australia has a unique bus-only road that's really more like concrete train tracks, called the O-Bahn. Its design is to discourage people in cars from entering the route, which allows buses to rapidly travel from the city center to the suburbs.
A little wheel that sticks out by the front steering wheel on the bus presses against the cement curb on the side of the O-Bahn, doing the steering for the driver, who then just maintains a consistent speed. It's a clever way to keep buses off surface streets and speed up public transit commutes.
We're assuming the kids thought it would be a great getaway route for the 2016 Mustang they allegedly boosted from the owner's driveway. Once police tried pulling over the American muscle car, setting up roadblocks to trap the fleeing suspects, the teen driver did the unexpected and hit the O-Bahn.
But without the special wheel to rest against the curb, he had to navigate the sweeping turns on the track by hand with a vehicle that has a much narrowing track width. That obviously didn't end well as one of the front wheels fell into the space between the cement tracks.
Police were able to track down the four teens aged 14, 14, 16, and 16 after they ran away on foot. Then they had to use a crane to lift the stolen Mustang off the track. What seemed like a cool idea at the time proved to be a horrible plan for escape.
Image via South Australia Police/Facebook
Join our Newsletter, subscribe to our YouTube page, and follow us on Facebook.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Rally to be held in Boston in response to ICE raids, National Guard deployment in Los Angeles
Demonstrators are expected to gather in Boston on Monday for a rally in response to ICE raids and President Donald Trump's deployment of the National Guard in Los Angeles over the weekend. Cross-partisan group Mass 50501 says it 'vigorously condemns the violent actions of ICE and the Trump administration against peaceful protestors in Los Angeles,' and is mobilizing in solidarity with local union leaders in Massachusetts by holding a rally at Boston City Hall Plaza from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. Parts of Los Angeles look like a warzone on Monday morning after protests escalated over the weekend. The demonstrations come in response to Trump's immigration crackdown in the city. Authorities and demonstrators have been clashing over recent immigration raids across California. Demonstrations started Friday and quickly turned violent, with cars set on fire and buildings damaged. The protest even spilled over onto the 101 Freeway, where some blocked traffic. Those demonstrations prompted Trump to deploy 2,000 members of the National Guard, marking the first time since 1965 that a president deployed a state's National Guard without a request from the state's governor. Trump cited failures from local officials and the governor to squash the demonstrations. 'You have violent people, and we're not going to let them get away with it,' Trump said. Leaders in California claim this is an abuse of power and only incites more aggression. 'What we're seeing in Los Angeles is chaos that is provoked by the administration. And deploying federalized troops is a dangerous escalation,' Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said. Locally, Mass 50501 says its rally will demand the release of all the protesters in Los Angeles who were arrested over the weekend, including SEIU President David Huerta. 'This is an attack on American liberty. The right to freedom of speech and due process of the law must be protected above all else, and the response by the Trump administration is tantamount to a declaration of war against the American people,' Mass 50501 Council member Kylie Bemi said. 'Make no mistake—we will be peaceful, but we will not be quiet. They will hear us from Los Angeles. They will hear us from Washington, D.C." Mass 50501 is also calling on Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey to safeguard Bay State residents from federal forces, Attorney General Andrea Campbell to prosecute ICE 'abductions' as kidnappings, and the Massachusetts labor unions to strike until these demands are met. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Prosecution of Judge Hannah Dugan undermines centuries of legal precedent
The Trump administration's unwarranted prosecution of Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan threatens to undermine centuries of precedent that judges are immune from prosecution when performing official duties. Dugan is accused of knowingly concealing a person from arrest and obstructing an official proceeding. She supposedly did so through her instructions to a defendant and others in her courtroom as to how to exit her courtroom into the public hallway where ICE agents were waiting to arrest the defendant. Dugan's alleged conduct falls squarely within the bounds of a judge's official duties to control her courtroom and so cannot be a valid basis for criminal prosecution. The integrity of our justice system fundamentally hinges on the independence of its judges. That is why, historically, the judiciary has commanded a higher level of public trust than the executive and legislative branches: judges are seen as impartial arbiters of the law. This profound responsibility is in turn safeguarded by judicial immunity, a foundational principle with deep historical roots in English common law that is firmly embedded in American jurisprudence. Opinion: We asked readers about wake boats on Wisconsin lakes. Here's what you said. This same immunity for government officials that applies to the executive and legislative branches applies with equal force to judges. As the Supreme Court has explained, this enduring doctrine empowers judges to make decisions 'without apprehension of personal consequences,' thereby preserving the effectiveness and impartiality of the judiciary – the trusted keepers of the rule of law. The arrest of Dugan in violation of these principles casts a chilling shadow over judicial independence nationwide. It has compelled us, alongside a coalition of almost 140 other former state and federal judges, to file a 'friend of the court' brief supporting Dugan's motion to dismiss the federal prosecution. We felt compelled to act because the prosecution is not just about her, and is not just contrary to law; it poses a grave danger to the American justice system. As we explain in the brief, judicial immunity finds its parallels in the protections afforded to the executive and legislative branches: officials cannot be prosecuted for actions taken in their official capacity. This official immunity ensures that each co-equal branch operates free from personal reprisal. Crucially, in the case of Dugan, these official immunities are an absolute bar to the prosecution at the outset, not merely a defense to be litigated later. Filing the charges itself violates the immunity. Because the charges are based on actions taken in and around her courtroom and within her judicial role, they must be dismissed immediately. If judges are alleged to have made errors while acting in their official capacity, these are properly addressed through the appellate process or disciplinary proceedings, not the executive branch bringing criminal charges. Perhaps even more concerning, the Trump Administration alleges that Dugan knowingly concealed a defendant in her courtroom from arrest and obstructed his arrest by directing the defendant out of her courtroom through the jury's private exit and into the public hallway where ICE officials were waiting to arrest the individual, rather than force the defendant to exit the front door of her courtroom into the public hallway. If convicted of these federal felony charges, Dugan could be imprisoned for up to six years. She did not even arguably conceal the individual from arrest or obstruct his arrest. Beyond judicial independence, this prosecution gravely threatens public trust in the judicial system and in the public's ability to access courthouses without fear. If citizens believe that judges can be prosecuted for political reasons or are fearful that judges will be forced to become law enforcement agents themselves, it fundamentally undermines faith in the rule of law and the importance that judges are seen as neutral arbiters. Such a perception deters individuals from seeking justice, fostering the belief that judges are corrupt, or alternatively, that judges who act in a neutral manner may be punished. This could lead to widespread cynicism and a collective loss of faith in the justice system. The prosecution of Dugan is not merely a legal dispute; it represents a profound challenge to the separation of powers and the constitutional order of the United States. Allowing this prosecution to proceed would set a dangerous precedent and irrevocably erode the bedrock principle of judicial neutrality upon which our justice system stands. We and our over 130 other colleagues urge that the court dismiss this extraordinary indictment to safeguard the integrity and effectiveness of the entire legal system going forward. Opinion: Americans need transformative talks on race. Juneteenth is the space for that. Dugan's conduct to preserve and protect the dignity, solemnity, and decorum of her courtroom from the spectacle of the defendant's arrest by immigration officials falls squarely within the bounds of Dugan's official duties to control her courtroom and so cannot be a valid basis for criminal prosecution. Her arrest and prosecution are nothing but the next attempt by the current administration to threaten and intimidate the judiciary because the courts are ruling against the president and his administration daily. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi admitted as much when she immediately took to national television, justifying Judge Dugan's arrest on the grounds that judges across America like Dugan are 'deranged' and believe they are above the law. Never has such a corrupt statement been uttered about the judiciary in the almost 250 years since America's founding. J. Michael Luttig served as a U.S. Court of Appeals Judge from 1991 to 2006. Nancy Gertner served as a federal judge in the District of Massachusetts from 1994 to 2011 and is a senior lecturer in law at Harvard Law School. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Here's why Dugan's case should be tossed by federal court | Opinion
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Trump Wants To Revive the Militarization of Police: The White House May Be Setting Us Up For a New Wave of Police Abuses—and Necessary Calls For Reform
In recent years, American public opinion about police has swung wildly from strong support for law enforcement, to serious calls for reform in the wake of high-profile cases of police brutality and killings by officers, back to rising confidence in police. Unfortunately, as public faith in policing rebounds from its 2020 low, so has politicians' interest in reinforcing policies that fueled popular interest in change to begin with. Specifically, the Trump administration wants to revive the controversial practice of militarizing civilian police forces. "Within 90 days of the date of this order, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security and the heads of agencies as appropriate, shall increase the provision of excess military and national security assets in local jurisdictions to assist State and local law enforcement," President Donald Trump wrote in an April 28 executive order. "Within 90 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the Attorney General, shall determine how military and national security assets, training, non-lethal capabilities, and personnel can most effectively be utilized to prevent crime." In assigning "military and national security assets" to local law enforcement, the Trump administration is returning to a controversial policy of training and equipping cops like soldiers. Over the years, supplying police with military vehicles, equipment, weapons, and training has led too many law enforcement officers to behave more like occupying troops than like civilian keepers of the peace. "Over the past 20 years Congress has encouraged the U.S. military to supply intelligence, equipment, and training to civilian police. That encouragement has spawned a culture of paramilitarism in American law enforcement," Diane Cecelie Weber wrote in a Cato Institute briefing paper in 1999. "The sharing of training and technology is producing a shared mindset. The problem is that the mindset of the soldier is simply not appropriate for the civilian police officer. Police officers confront not an 'enemy' but individuals who are protected by the Bill of Rights." Almost a decade later, the situation was no better. "Military-grade semi-automatic weapons, armored personnel vehicles, tanks, helicopters, airplanes, and all manner of other equipment designed for use on the battlefield is now being used on American streets, against American citizens," Radley Balko, then of Reason, told the House Subcommittee on Crime in 2007. "Academic criminologists credit these transfers with the dramatic rise in paramilitary SWAT teams over the last quarter century" and the resulting "1,500 percent increase in the use of SWAT teams in this country from the early 80s until the early 2000s." Balko later literally wrote the book on the subject: 2014's Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces. Militarization of the police, and the resulting treatment of the American public less as people to be defended than as a subject population, directly led to many of the abuses that sparked widespread revulsion and calls for reform. That culminated in the protests-turned-riots of 2020. "About half of American adults believe police violence against the public is a 'very' or 'extremely' serious problem," the AP reported of polling in July 2020. "Only about a third said the same as recently as last September, as well as in July 2015, just a few months after Freddie Gray, a Black man, died in police custody in Baltimore." That same summer, Reuters–Ipsos polling found strong support across political divides for reforms including bans on the use of chokeholds by police, requiring officers to wear body cameras, and making police "give the people they stop their name, badge number and reason for the stop." That poll and one from Pew Research found overwhelming majorities in favor of "permitting citizens to sue police officers in order to hold them accountable for misconduct or using excessive force." But Trump's order would also indemnify "law enforcement officers who unjustly incur expenses and liabilities for actions taken during the performance of their official duties to enforce the law." Of course, Trump issued his executive order as confidence in police is on the rise, surging from 43 percent to 51 percent just from 2023 to 2024, according to Gallup. Police favorability has also taken off after the public dealt with a pandemic-era surge in crime that many attributed to police demoralized by the reform movement and prosecutors disinterested in punishing criminals. Progressive prosecutors were blamed by the public—accurately in some cases—for winning office with calls for reform but then ignoring property crimes and neglecting their responsibility to maintain order. Support for police reform quickly eroded. Voters turned out a few of the more prominent figures, like Chesa Boudin in San Francisco and George Gascon in Los Angeles, and replaced them with candidates who offered a more traditional approach. By promising in the executive order to "prioritize prosecution" of local officials who "willfully and unlawfully direct the obstruction of criminal law" Trump effectively threatens to criminalize different criminal justice policies that local voters might experiment with—and reject of their own accord if disappointed with the results. That's a mistake because research finds the crime surge was a result of foolish public health policies during COVID-19 that put people out of work and idled young men. Lockdowns bred disorder. "The spike in murders during 2020 was directly connected to local unemployment and school closures in low-income areas," Rohit Acharya and Rhett Morris wrote in a research review for the Brookings Institution. "Cities with larger numbers of young men forced out of work and teen boys pushed out of school in low-income neighborhoods during March and early April, had greater increases in homicide from May to December that year, on average." Whatever the failings of progressive prosecutors and the potential for demoralizing cops with criticism, crime surged primarily because politicians abused power by confining people to their homes, shuttering businesses, prohibiting normal social contact, and locking down schools. Criminal justice policy may have played a role, but public health power wielded as a hammer against people's liberty was the real culprit. By reviving the discredited practice of equipping and training police like an army of occupation in their own homeland, the Trump administration may fuel a new wave of abuses that will reinvigorate the public's distaste for abusive law enforcement and remind people of the need for real reform. The post Trump Wants To Revive the Militarization of Police appeared first on
