It was on a Sunday morning in mid-March when Riverside County sheriff’s personnel attempted a vehicle stop at Perris Boulevard and Iris Avenue in Moreno Valley. The driver sped away.
But deputies also had a trick up their sleeve — a secret weapon that is part grappling gun, part lasso.
The device, known as the Grappler, was released from where it was installed on the front bumper of a sheriff’s vehicle and onto the fleeing suspect’s back tires. Within seconds, the vehicle was halted off the 60 Freeway exit at Country Village Road, and the suspect was left as powerless as a rodeo calf on its side.
“That move, that grapple, prevented him from driving on the wrong side and potentially from crashing into another vehicle,” said Riverside County sheriff’s Lt. Jason Santistevan.
For the deputy, that success confirmed the effectiveness of a system he had persuaded the department to adopt. The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department joins a growing number of law enforcement agencies trying out a relatively new technology in an attempt to curb chases and the injuries and deaths that can follow. Santistevan said he is determined to reduce bystander casualties.
The Grappler is generating excitement in some corners of law enforcement as officials look for new ways to deal with high-speed pursuits. Faced with innocent bystanders being hurt — even killed — during the chases, some agencies have at times called off pursuits in the interest of safety. Spike strips rolled onto roadways in front of pursued cars work sometimes, as does the “PIT maneuver,” in which patrol cruisers tap the suspect’s car in an effort to cause it to spin out and come to a stop.
It has fans in law enforcement as well as those who say the jury is still out on how effective this tool will be.
The California Highway Patrol reported 13,627 pursuits in 2023, with 19% (2,593) resulting in a crash. The previous year, 12,000 pursuits were recorded, of which 19% (2,275) ended in a crash. There were 43 deaths in 2023, up from 34 the previous year.
In Los Angeles, there were 1,116 pursuits in 2024, with 353 resulting in crashes, according to the LAPD.
The final six months of 2024 included a number of pursuits for Riverside County sheriff’s personnel. Those chases included a showdown with more than a dozen bikers, a 100-mph pursuit in Palm Desert and a chase that ended in gunfire in Joshua Tree.
Santistevan, who works in the department’s Special Enforcement Bureau, which oversees the K-9 unit, found his answer in an unexpected place — at a law enforcement desert event where K-9 units are tested in a series of drills. An expo accompanies the Desert Dog Police K9 Trials in Scottsdale, Ariz., where agencies show off new techniques and equipment.
Santistevan was intrigued by the Grappler system being used by the Phoenix Police Department’s SWAT and K-9 units. Phoenix was the first police agency to employ the system in 2018.
Other adopters include the U.S. Border Patrol, the Kansas Highway Patrol and the Hollywood, Fla., Police Department.
What is the Grappler?
The roughly $5,000-per-unit system is relatively simple.
Law enforcement employs what its manufacturer calls the “snag maneuver,” in which a pursuing vehicle pulls within 5 feet of a fleeing car or truck. The pursuing agent presses a button, unlocking the device attached to their vehicle’s front bumper, and a net springs out.
“The net is designed to entangle itself on any of the rotating objects in the rear of the car,” Santistevan said. “Meaning it could be the tire, it could be the axle.”
The entangled vehicle is then supposed to stop quickly, leading to shorter chases and less potential for injuries and damage.
The inventor of the Grappler, Leonard Stock, has no law enforcement background, according to reporting from Virginia-based WHSV. He did not respond to an inquiry from The Times, and his company, Stock LLC, declined an interview.
Stock was a Peoria, Ariz.-based roofer who was troubled by televised police pursuits “that featured several tragic endings of innocent motorists being injured,” according to his company’s website.
He fell asleep one night “with the images” of carnage “circulating through his mind,” the site said. When Stock “suddenly awoke in the middle of the night,” the Grappler was born.
In about a week’s time, he had “welded a contraption on the front of his truck and convinced his wife, Frances, to drive the getaway car — the family Suburban,” the website said. They tested the device on abandoned dirt roads around Arizona.
That original vision was 20 years ago. By 2018, Phoenix police had purchased the first Grappler system. More than 150 law enforcement departments throughout the nation now employ at least one Grappler.
Seeking federal dollars for pursuit technology
The growing implementation of the Grappler comes at a time when funding to find ways to de-escalate chases is under consideration.
Rep. Laura Friedman (D-Glendale) announced the bipartisan Next Gen Road Safety Act on April 8 that would include funding for new technology like the Grappler.
“This is about ensuring that law enforcement has the tools that we need to de-escalate chases faster, more safely and more effectively,” she said at a news conference.
The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, meanwhile, became the first in California to employ the device, equipping two vehicles by mid-2025 and adding another eight vehicles six months later.
The department now offers Grappler training.
Riverside County Sheriff’s Deputy David Orlik, a K-9 team member, said the Grappler bumper makes little difference in the driving of the vehicle, and he prefers the net to a spike strip, which involves risk for the deputy or officer placing such a device on the ground.
Orlik said the device enables “preemptive grapples,” where law enforcement vehicles pull within deployment distance of a fleeing suspect without turning on lights or sirens. They can then release the Grappler without the suspect being aware, he said, and prevent chases.
Grappler setback
That isn’t to say the system is foolproof.
A grand-theft suspect died after crashing a sedan into a building on April 8 during a pursuit in which Riverside County deputies failed to grapple his car.
The department said the suspect likely died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound and was pronounced dead at the scene.
A Riverside County sheriff’s K-9 unit sped up behind the fleeing suspect’s vehicle in Jurupa Valley and attempted to deploy the Grappler twice.
However, the system did not stop the suspect, who spun out of control after being tapped by the Grappler and crossed three lanes of traffic before crashing into a wall, according to television footage. The sheriff’s deputy in pursuit also lost control of their vehicle but did not crash.
“Although law enforcement strives for 100% effectiveness with every tactic or tool used during confrontations, that’s not always the case,” Lt. Deirdre Vickers, Riverside County sheriff’s spokesperson, said at the time.
It’s too early to tell how effective the device will be
Geoffrey P. Alpert is a professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of South Carolina and has conducted research on high-risk police activities for more than 30 years.
He said the Grappler has emerged quickly, and the enthusiasm for the device reminds him of the fervor for the StarChase GPS tracking system in the mid-2010s. StarChase uses compressed air to launch a GPS tracker from a police vehicle onto a fleeing car. The officer can then disengage from the pursuit while still tracking the suspect.
StarChase claims an 86% apprehension rate with no injuries or fatalities yet from its system.
Yet, it also has its detractors. The Oakland Police Department said StarChase’s trackers had a high failure rate of attaching to vehicles, according to reporting from the Oaklandside.
“More than 10 years out, we know the strengths and weaknesses of the product,” Alpert said. Complaints include the device failing to attach.
Those assessments come “only through data,” Alpert said. “There just isn’t much out there for the Grappler.”
But he noted that what makes the new device appealing is its manufacturer’s claim that it can stop pursuits quickly.
“Anything is better than chasing,” he said. “The higher the speeds, the higher the variables and the higher the risks.”
Through March, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department had deployed the Grappler about 45 times, according to Santistevan, with chase speeds from the low 30s to 106 mph. By the end of July, the department hopes to install the device on another half a dozen vehicles, Santistevan said.
“We’re not going to give these guys the ability to even flee,” Santistevan said, “because once they flee, we all know everyone’s lives are endangered.”
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