LANSING, Mich. (WILX) – The Lansing Police Department has an improved version of spike strips, a special tool used to puncture the tires of a suspicious vehicle.

Officer Anthony Dean knows from personal experience how intense a high-speed chase can be, and the pressure is on to ensure a criminal is caught without compromising safety.

“There’s a lot of weight on your shoulders because obviously you want to catch the bad guy,” he said. “But you also want to make sure you’re safe, you want to make sure the citizens are safe, and you want to make sure the suspect is safe once he’s caught.”

Lansing Police protocol says officers should only pursue people wanted for a violent crime, but when that moment comes, the department will now be able to stop cars traveling at high speeds quickly and from a safe distance.

Officers had the chance to take the spike strips for a test run on Friday.

“It is reusable. Trustworthy. You can be away from it,” said Sgt. Michael VanBeek. “It’s easy to reload and set up in a variety of locations.”

New, manual nail strips are activated by remote control. When a button is pressed, a long claw of metal spikes shoots out onto the road and punctures overturned tires.

When an officer presses the button a second time, the nails retract into a spring-loaded metal box.

“I didn’t expect the tires to deflate so quickly,” Dean said. “It happened almost immediately.”

This is a dramatic upgrade from the spike strips Lansing Police previously used; a strip of nails thrown into the road by hand by an officer.

“You’re really close to the road, the rope could trip an officer or hit the vehicle,” VanBeek told News 10.

LPD currently has two sets of automatic nail strips, but they hope to add a third soon.

Until then, they will be used on Mid-Michigan roadways as needed, making LPD the only police agency in the state using the technology.

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