Here’s a plot twist you don’t see every day: the same troopers who were supposed to be putting the brakes on drunk drivers are the reason nearly thirty of those drivers just walked. Twenty-seven DUI cases were dismissed in a Savannah courtroom last week after four fired Georgia State Patrol troopers skipped out on their subpoenas. Not exactly the kind of no-show that inspires confidence.
The backstory here reads less like a traffic report and more like a heist movie, minus the getaway car chase (well, sort of). It turns out these troopers weren’t just doing the PIT maneuver to stop fleeing suspects. Some of them were allegedly using it as a side hustle, filing personal injury claims against the very drivers they hit, then collecting insurance payouts for supposed stress and soreness. If you’ve ever wondered what “having your cake and eating it too” looks like in law enforcement, this might be it.
For those unfamiliar, the PIT maneuver, short for Precision Immobilization Technique, is when an officer nudges a fleeing car just right to spin it out and end a chase. It’s a legitimate tool troopers train for. What’s not legitimate, apparently, is initiating that contact yourself and then turning around and asking an insurance company to cut you a check for your troubles. That’s like rear-ending someone on purpose and then complaining about your neck…