"It's like Mario Kart," Bloomington police unveil stop sticks that propel from squad cars
BLOOMINGTON, Minn. -- Bloomington police will soon be equipped with stop sticks that shoot straight out of their squad cars.
"It's like Mario Kart, you basically pull up next to the car, push the button, it goes under the tire, they drive over it and it deflates," said Bloomington Police Chief Booker Hodges.
It's called MobileSpike, essentially stop strips that project from a vehicle. It's meant as the alternative to officers throwing stop strips across a road.
Hodges said this would make Bloomington the first department in the Midwest to use MobileSpike. Each device put fashioned onto a squad will cost $20,000 from taxpayer funds.
"That's inherently dangerous because a lot of officers, sometimes they're getting hit," said Hodges. "One of our commanders actually found them online and did some research and brought them here to do a demo last year and we purchased three of them to see how they work out."
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Friday is the last day of Mobile Spike training for officers in a Mall of America parking lot.
"We've seen a significant increase in police pursuits," said Hodges.
Chief Hodges said that as recently as 2018, the department would see roughly 20 pursuits a year.
Last year, that number skyrocketed to 115, he said.
MobileSpike also serves as an alternative to pit maneuvers, which are high speed and put everyone, including other drivers, at risk, Hodges said.
"This, I believe, will allow us to apprehend more people in a quick safe manner," said Hodges.
In real life, the sticks would contain spikes. On Friday, they do not, since it's just for practice.
The sticks have held up after roughly 600 training deployments, according to Hodges.
"Some people just think they can run from the police and nothing's going to happen. We want to make sure we can catch these people and do it in a quick and safe manner," said Hodges.
The MobileSpike sticks will be deployed within the next two weeks on three squad cars, according to police.
