AIBU to ask what is happening in Middlesbrough at the moment?

Of course it isn't becuase of the police actions but that's how the families are seeing it.

If they’d stopped when police indicated dept them to do so there wouldn’t have been a chase.

Nothing that happened that night is because the police were involved.

Everything they did is why police were involved.

And they called off the chase when they went into the ring side of the road.

and 2 police officers lost their lives because of it.

The only people who did anything wrong at all in any of this was those 5 men.

It wasn’t the father of the boy killed,it was his stepfather,think it was just the mother’s boyfriend.Nothing to do with his birth Father!

The only way of fixing it appears to be the police driving snowploughs every few cars down the motorway. Messy, but would ultimately be quite effective.

Problem is there is no way of fixing that type of stupid.

Yes, of course they should.

Then 'the boys" should have stopped their vehicle instead of trying to escape.

Because in their minds the police caused the crash. Their way of thinking is incomprehensible to most people.

@PetiteBach if that’s true it just shows the type of mentally those people have.

That why would want to burn out a victims family for merely being in the wrong place at the wrong time and being crashed into.

It's outragous that the parents are going down this route. Do they think should just let the criminals do what they want and not try to catch them or bring them to justice. How dare the police attempt to catch them. Their own poor decision making couldn't possibly be to blame 🙄

From what I read, I think they believed the family still lived there.

Edited to say I have no idea whether any of that is true, just what I read.

And former Cabinet ministers.

I dont think this is a new problem for Middlesbrough. It's had huge problems for decades.

It's still devastating though. I know Middlesbrough well and there are many lovely people who live there

It will all be linked in a round about way.

One car rammed dad’s house. Second car went out to get revenge. Second car ended up killing the police. Family and friends all blame the police for some stupid reason. Flares, Bally wearing youths on bikes and quads celebrating life and then a house fire all so close.

17 people arrested now isn’t it? A family member of one of the five was recently done for driving down the very same road going the wrong way as well.

one house and four shops rammed in Middlesbrough in 2025, and 6 houses rammed this year already

I watched a video about it, local residents are seriously pissed off as even outside of the property damage, their cars are being damaged and all sorts in these rammings and high-speed chases. Sadly they were too scared of reprisals to speak publicly on camera.

It does sound really lawless and awful and I can't understand how it's been allowed to carry on for so long

The trouble is, and you see it on this forum quite a lot, people are castigated for 'judging' others. We all know who the wronguns are, the chavvy types, no class, no job, nicking stuff, thinking the rules dont apply to them, feral children, you can tell by looking half the time. But apparently we mustnt judge because we dont know whats going on for someone.

Well you normally can tell pretty accurately.

Omg! So they are targeting the families? Is it coincidence? Did they have an old address/ information?

There is something quite intense going on in Middlesbrough.

I've seen the "gangs" called traveller-linked. I'd be interested to know the origins of it all, it seems quite different from the London gangs.

There does seem to be a "war" going on as quite a few different houses have been rammed this year going back to April.

The boys/men who died in the crash with police were running away from something at speed and deliberately went the wrong way down the highway as they know police will call off the chase if they do that as it's too dangerous. Unfortunately, they collided with another police car that wasn't involved in the chase and all those people died.

Honestly, anyone who drives dangerously on purpose is a total cunt in my book and it's infuriating to see social media posts from family members blaming the police for the crash

I'm shocked they managed to arrest so many so quickly. Shows how they can get off their arses when it's one of their own. Had the innocent people been a random family, not police, I'm not sure there would have been so many arrests so soon.

I always thought those claims of two tier policing were bollocks, but it's true. Police victims get better and swifter justice than we do

It was a related incident. They were after the car that had rammed the lad’s house.

It was mentioned on one of the local Grangetown FB pages that one of the policemen who was killed in the A66 crash used to live in the house that was set on fire today. His family are no longer there. If that’s true, it’s another innocent family devastated.

God good that’s a scary scenario I honestly didn’t think of the safety of the murdered policemen's family. The situation is just getting worse by the day.

They just see it as an occupational hazard.

If they're in prison, they'll be out soon anyway, they wont be in for long

I think the families' point is that the "boys" were chased onto the A66. If there hadn't been a chase, they wouldn't have been going the wrong way on that road. Not that any of that changes the fact that responsibility lies with them.