As of today police in Texas will have a harder job thanks to this: “Supreme Court allows Texas’ controversial immigration law to go into effect Read article).

The U.S. Supreme Court, for now, is allowing Texas to implement its immigration law, known as SB4, that permits local and state police to arrest people suspected of being in the U.S. illegally.

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed a controversial immigration enforcement law to go into effect in Texas. The law, known as SB4, makes unauthorized entry into Texas a state crime, and it allows local police to arrest undocumented immigrants and return them to Mexico, regardless of where the immigrant is from.

I spent 20 years as a volunteer reserve police officer in two states putting in thousands of hours generally durng night shift. I knew dozens, if not a few hundred. full-time officers and had uncountable conversations with them.

One story stands out related to what can happen if someone refuses to stop when a police officer tries to pull them over. One of my police friends told me this story a few days after the incident happened. He was still shaken by it.

My friend observed someone going through a red light, he turned on his lights and siren, expecting the driver to pull over. He didn’t. Instead he sped up and tried to elude, whiich is illegal itself.

As my friend got closer to the car which was recklessly going through red lights he saw a young child standing on the back seat looking out at him. Without knowing why the person was refusing to stop, he called off the chase. He never got close enough to get the license number. Nobody will ever know why the driver refused to stop.

There are several reasons why people refuse to stop for a police officer or run from them.

Occassionally the person is just stupid or trying to show off. I was involved in the later when I was driving my own police cruiser and a young man tried to elude my partner. I got the radio call and hurried to assist driving into the farm country outside our town.

When other officers found him he was in the middle of a corn field with a young woman in his car. Because nobody knew what to expect by the time he was stopped we had our two city police cars there and three Sheriff’s cars. Two deputies had their shotguns out. Failure to stop generally prompts such a stop since nobody knows how dangerous the person or people fleeing are.

Some eluding incidents are fairly minor like a person having lots of unpaid traffic tickets or owing child support and others much more serious like having felony warrants against them. This is why these incidents prompt a “backup requested” radio call.

Police need people to be willing to stop when they hear who whoop-whoop of the siren and see the blue lights strobing in their rear view mirror. If they are undoumented and fear being arrested and deported they may decide to risk the consequenses and try to get away. Obviously this is a risk to public safety.

This is one of the serous unintended consequences of laws empowering police to ask for papers of people they suspect of being undocumented. There’s another which I haven’t had personal experience with but all detectives have, and anyone who watches police shows know about it. Police depend on both witness statements and informants to solve both serious crimes and even decide fault in a traffic accident.

It make things difficult enough that in certain communities where members of minority groups who are documented distrust or even hate the police so they refuse to cooperate when the police are investigating a crime. As you’ve seen on tevevision, a crime can take place in a crowd and sometimes nobody will come forward to tell the police what they saw. Add to that the chance that some of these potential witnesses may be undocumented.

In addition to all of the above, criminals may see undocumented people as easy prey for property crimes and violent crimes knowing they’d not be likey tp go to the police.

The police depend on the people trusting them and assisting them. They can’t do their job efficiently and effectively unless people work with them. Texas SB4 is a right wing political law which will make everyday policing more diffcult and in some instances dangerous.