Although this is slightly not related, the car that was being driven is a 2006 BMW 3 series. I was browsing through the BMW forums and I saw this. Its funny to see how the owners react to seeing a car similar to theirs being chased.

Ooh and the E90 refers to the Chasis number corresponding to the new 3 series.

Easier to watch video clip here.

Matchbox cars?

Police towed the BMW to a nearby gas station and inventoried the contents. Inside were suit bags, a duffle bag, backpack, electronics and oddly enough, dozens of matchbox cars. [Link]

Naming mixup:

HPD said the incident was triggered when Amarjit Kaur Mann was allegedly acting strangely at a Berryhill's. [Link]

How weird... but what a gorgeous car! Before he smashed it all up, that is. I don't know anything more than what the news report says but my first thought when hearing about his bizarre and inappropriate behavior was... "frontal lobe tumor!." But I tend to think lots of people have FLTs.

It's funny to see how the owners react to seeing a car similar to theirs being chased.

it really is:

"Thise run flats should do good over the spike strips."
"They better not ram that car!"
"Handles well in the breakdown lane too!"
"He'll get good mileage, this could go on all night!"
"go bmw go!!!"
"He must have NAV with all the great routes he's picking!"
"The announcer here said he looked really relaxed....we all know that feeling!"

all about perspective eh

Are you guys planning to highlight everything "desi"?
Relevance and Substance be damned.

I like and enjoy this blog. And fully understand that it is your right to blog on anything you please.
So, all I can do [short of starting my own blog - for which I lack the talent and initiative] is plead - please do not turn into a tabloid.

Naah - ignore that - keep it simultaneously tabloid and intellectual - let Sepia Mutiny be all things to all men (and women)

Hells yeah, we like it this way.

Jay: The braces look like an after thought, that's incase you did not notice.

So, all I can do [short of starting my own blog - for which I lack the talent and initiative] is plead - please do not turn into a tabloid.

"Expose":
Shame on you for missing the larger signifigance and societal implications of this story. It is unheard of for a desi man in America to be involved in a high speed car chase with the police. Brown people know that at the arraignment there would be terrorism charges added to the list of crimes (unless there was a "note to the plaintiff that his daughter was tied up in a Brooklyn basement"). One could argue that the BMW was being used as a weapon of mass destruction in this case, as it sped around Houston. In light of that it makes sense that the offender behind the wheel was found to be a Brit.

There shall be no tabloid posts here. :)

thinking about it I quote Ananthan

all about perspective eh

...please do not turn into a tabloid.

31 year desi dude was not driving a Camary. Thats news.

Yeah - if he had done this in a Datsun it wouldnt have been news.

I am glad to see my fellow British-Indian being such a smash hit in America.

Hopefully this will counterbalance the good things that Parminder Nagra has done for the image of British-Punjabis in American society and show that we produce idiots too, just to remind you that we are not all super-cool and sexy.

This whole thing started because Mann was apparently making racial slurs and using abusive language at the restaurant he was at. Some women complained, and when police were called he took off in disgust.

so why did he feel the need to go 100 mph down the freeways? he could have taken off in disgust and stayed within the speed limit. i dont get it...

Dude. The bimmer is becoming as much of a desi car (a bit upmarket and 'kool ishporty gaadi') as the good ol' camry. So it's not news he's driving a BMW. In fact, when my officemate saw this, she said, 'probably a IT geek'.

Brit-Indian getting caught on high speed liveTV chase in Amrikaa that too in BMW 330..360 whatever it is. That IS news..BIG news.

so why did he feel the need to go 100 mph down the freeways? he could have taken off in disgust and stayed within the speed limit. i dont get it.

What are they thinking exactly?

Well since he was Brit I just assumed that he was probably quite drunk before embarking on his adventure. Maybe I assumed wrong but we will see if that was the case :)

So it's not news he's driving a BMW. In fact, when my officemate saw this, she said, 'probably a IT geek'.

Glad to note that Desis are driving bimmers. However, he must not be an IT geek, it takes a segmentation fault for an IT geek to let out a slur. Moreover the geek would be obediently on the shoulder of the road before the Cop puts his hand away from the switch after lighting him up. tees saal ka experience hai

Thank God nothing happened to the baby & other passengers...

I'm really impressed by the way that thing handles

Does this guy's arrogance and general lack of respect for human life not matter to anyone? This guy's a prick in a fast car, I could give a damn if he's desi/sikh/brit or even a turd from mars, he needs to be off the roads and spend time in jail for his misdeeds.

I'm delighted he's paved the way for other brown folk to be known as more than overachieving potential terrorists with tech skills.

Let's hear it for Jatinderjit Mann -- underachiever of the year!!

Does this guy's arrogance and general lack of respect for human life not matter to anyone?

I think people were being sarcastic timepass, you know? Everyone says he is an idiot, reckless, crazy.

31 year desi dude was not driving a Camary. Thats news.

That would have been true in 1996.

Far too many desis driving bimmers these days, it's almost a stereotype.

oh my.. he is indian? I saw this on t.v. today and i wanted to pull him out the t.v. set and choke him! There was a LI'L baby in the other car.. IDIOTS! ugghhh

You wanted to choke the chicken?

the geek would be obediently on the shoulder of the road

Dude, you haven't seen enough desi geeks when inebriated (usually a beer or two does it for desis, unless you are Punjabi, of course!). They'd make a gangsta blush.

DesiNole: Thanks for the link to that forum. Those reactions were hilarious and I got to download a couple of Top Gear videos as well. Its quite another matter that I had to masquerade as a E90 (threw in the M3 marquee for effect) owner to get in and download those videos.
On hindsight, I think this guy had been watching BMWfilms once too often. FYI, BMWFilms.com is a site that featured short movies featuring Clive Owen as a chaffuer-on-hire and guest stars like James Brown and Madonna, driving a vehicle from the BMW stable. There were, I think 6 short movies, each made by directors like Guy Ritchie, John Woo, Ridley Scott and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. Sadly the movies are not available online anymore (were taken down in October last year) and are are now featured in the Museum of Modern Art, after winning several awards at Cannes etc! We used to watch these shorts on the overhead at grad school, whenever a instructor was not around. lol.. Every single one of them had the stamp of their director. The short featuring Madonna was the funniest, typical Guy Ritchie fare! They were the best ads that a company could make (though Honda seems to be doing a lot for its Euro ads) for its products. And so was this chase!
And that's the first thought that came up when I saw the footage! Ofcourse its sad and stupid. More so because the police were told to back down from the chase and let the guy go.

Anti: You are welcome. And yes I do remember the bmwfilms.com website. In fact you could pay and get those movies in a DVD.

Does this guy's arrogance and general lack of respect for human life not matter to anyone?

I think everyone is pissed at him for the following

a) He was an ass
b) He almost got away, but decided to do something stupid that ended the chase (if you are a BMW owner)
c) He hit a car that had a baby

Everyone is happy that

a) It ended
b) The woman from the other car almost beat the sh*t outta him. (Hey can we say sh*t here ???)
c) The baby and everyone involved are safe.

Dude, you haven't seen enough desi geeks when inebriated (usually a beer or two does it for desis, unless you are Punjabi, of course!). They'd make a gangsta blush.

how true. how true. recently saw a very very senior manager from my company doing a hand stand at a company party after a few beers

Just another jumped up man with a self-entitlement off the charts hurting others. No IT geek, people. Just a brown man with a rage problem who sees red and turns off his judgement in pursuit of self-indulgence. Especially these Punjabi men, let me tell you. His wife probably made some reference to some obscene behavior in front of the family and he just blew his top, took his expensive car (which he bought with the money they made through a small business) and decided to evade the police because at the time "he was angry". We've seen what a geek could do with a gun and many many rounds of ammo and now we see what a self-entitled doofus can do with a really expensive car. We are too cool, no?

Especially these Punjabi men, let me tell you.

Quick to stereotype, eh?

A Houston real estate agent who led police on a wild two-hour car chase that ended in a head-on crash has a long history of mental illness and has been treated by psychiatrists here and in England, his attorneys said... A pre-trial screening test indicates that Mann suffers from bipolar disorder, Anderson said in court today. [Link]

I wonder what kind of racial slurs he was making?

Another Beemer driver involved in another incident... reckless homicide using an expensive vehicle as the weapon of choice. No "desi" agel to this one, though. :-)

--

Man run down after yelling at speeding driver in OC parking lot

Associated Press

ALISO VIEJO, Calif. - A former high school football coach was run down and critically injured after he yelled at a driver speeding in a mall parking lot, authorities said Friday.

John Royston, 41, of Aliso Viejo was hospitalized in extremely critical condition with "massive" head injuries and severe leg injuries, said Jim Amormino, a spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff's Department.

Amormino originally said the father of three had played professional football for the Atlanta Falcons, based on information provided by the hospital and the man's friends. However, his wife, the Falcons and the National Football League have no record of him as a player, Amormino said.

A search by The Associated Press failed to find Royston on any Falcons roster between 1983 and 2005.
Royston is a former football coach for nearby Santa Margarita Catholic High School, school officials said, the alma mater of several pro football players, including Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer.

Royston, now a loan officer, and two friends walked out of a restaurant in a busy outdoor mall around 11:30 p.m. Thursday when they saw a silver or light blue BMW sedan with two or three young men inside speed by and blow through a stop sign, Amormino said. The victim yelled at the driver to slow down, he said.

The driver sped erratically through the parking lot, collided with a parked Mercedes Benz, then turned around and sped toward Royston and his friends, Amormino said. Royston again yelled at the driver to slow down, but the motorist ran him down as he walked toward his friend's Ford F-150 pickup truck, he said.

"It was an intentional act," Amormino said.

The driver of the BMW fled the scene, he said. Authorities believe the front end of the car was damaged.
Amormino said a search was under way for the car and the driver.