A Moraine, Ohio, police officer tried to pull over a Kia on North Springboro Pike on the afternoon of Tuesday, Sept. 29, after spotting fake tags on a car police say was stolen. The driver took off instead, cutting through rush-hour traffic and running red lights, according to WHIO-TV, which obtained the cruiser’s dash camera video. Officers called off the chase over safety concerns and switched to a StarChase GPS tracker.
The tracker worked. It led police about seven miles away to Hoover Avenue in Dayton, where the Kia had crashed into two other cars near North Gettysburg Avenue around 6:50 p.m., WHIO reported that night. Two people went to the hospital. The three people police say were in the Kia ran, and Dayton police K9 teams did not find them. The Ohio State Highway Patrol is investigating the crash, and Moraine police have the criminal case. As of WHIO’s Oct. 2 report, no one had been arrested, and police had not said publicly who was hurt or which car they were in.
This is the second time in under two years that a car tagged by a Moraine GPS dart kept running hard enough to hit someone else after police backed off. The dart is sold, and bought, as the way to end dangerous chases. On Hoover Avenue it took the police car out of the chase and left the getaway driving where it was, and the people whose cars got hit now face Ohio rules that make it hard to send the bill to anyone but themselves.
How Moraine’s StarChase launcher works
The system mounts in the front of a cruiser and fires a GPS tag that sticks to the back of the fleeing car. Officers then follow a dot on a map instead of a set of taillights. Moraine Sgt. Andrew Parish described it to Dayton 24/7 Now in December 2024 as a compressed-air launcher that sends a projectile off the front of the patrol car. The station reported the tag travels at about 28 mph, which means the cruiser has to be within a few feet of the target when the officer fires…