Two pursuits, 4 innocent lives lost

Tulare County Sheriff's deputies attempted a traffic stop last week. The SUV refused to stop and deputies pursued at high speeds until the suspect stuck a car, killing a mother, father, and their 17 year-old son. From the Visalia Times Delta:

The deputy followed the SUV with lights flashing and sirens blaring, said Sheriff's Lt. Keith Douglass.

Less than two miles away, at the Akers Street intersection at Caldwell, the SUV broadsided a maroon Chevrolet Impala, killing all three occupants, police reported.

[...]

"There was a supervisor and commander monitoring the pursuit the entire time," Douglass said, in response to being asked if the pursuit was safe to continue into Visalia city limits. "It was night and there was minimal traffic."

You can read the entire story HERE. While more charges could be filed, the story identifies a parole violation potentially being the only non-chase related charge.

And in Harlington, Texas, reporter Isaac Garcia has been writing about a pursuit that lead to the death of an innocent woman.

THIS story explains the suspect was under surveillance and police observed him commiting a traffic violation. When he refused to stop, police chased. He had a gun and marijuana in the car. DETAILS are slow to emerge.

HERE Mr. Garcia explains how police have been unwilling to release their vehicular pursuit policy and further details about the chase.

He has continued to cover the story, and has another story regarding policies around the region. A few interesting quotes.

Cameron County Sheriff Omar Lucio said information regarding his department’s pursuit policy is not exactly public information. He said that if he released the full details of the policy, criminals might use the information to evade arrest.

FALSE. A well known policy does not mean more suspects will flee. In the year after the City of Orlando changed their policy 118 suspects fled and 40,342 obeyed the order to stop. This is despite a well known and significantly followed change.

John Phillips, founder of Pursuitwatch.org and an advocate nationwide of safer pursuit policies, said he knows all too well of the dangers in police pursuits. In 2001, Phillips said, his sister was killed in a vehicle when police were pursuing another vehicle.

Phillips said that with the help of his website, he helped rewrite some of the pursuit polices in central Florida.

Phillips said he believes that that many pursuit policies change to be more restrictive only after the death of innocent bystanders.

Mr. Garcia did confuse a few things here. I did not start PursuitWatch.org, my father did. Further, while PursuitWatch.org did help OCSO and OPD rewrite their policy, the organization's efforts were spearheaded by Jim Phillips.

Herhold: An open letter to the governor

Yesterday, in the Silicon Valley Mercury News, columnist Scott Herhold wrote an open letter to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger urging him to look closely at the California Highway Patrol's pursuit policy. Mr. Herhold's advocacy stems from a pursuit last week that lead to the death of an innocent 15-year-old.

"Given the situation, the adrenaline involved, and the need to make a very quick decision, we don't want to have more variables that could add to bad things happening,'' says John Phillips, the president of PursuitWatch.org, whose sister was killed in a law enforcement chase.

Phillips points out what other agencies have already recognized. There are other ways for officers to handle the situation. In most cases, the police can get a license plate number and arrest the bad guy later.

You can read the rest HERE.

Whittier Daily News

From the Whittier Daily News in Whittier California:

Watchdog groups, such as pursuitwatch.org, cite studies that show the danger of chases.

"Research shows that approximately 40 percent of all pursuits result in a crash, 20 percent result in an injury and 1 percent result in a death," said Geoffrey Alpert, a professor of criminal justice at the University of South Carolina, during an interview with pursuitwatch.org.

Many cities do not allow police chases for car theft, according to pursuitwatch.org.

You can read the rest of the article HERE.

It's been a busy few weeks for pursuit deaths across America.

A busy few days

For some reason, this last week seemed to be extremely deadly. There was the death of an innocent victim in Baldwin Park, California. In that case, the police were chasing a car thief. I argued against that chase HERE. The same newspaper published an editorial arguing for an progressive police policy.

Next, police pursued a man who was thought to be involved in a "possible disturbance" ended in his death. The Monitor in South Texas covered the story:

John Phillips heads PursuitWatch.org, a website that highlights the negative consequences of police pursuits for non-violent offenses. The website was created after Phillips’ 20-year-old sister was killed as a bystander to a police pursuit in 2001.

Despite the light traffic conditions before dawn Wednesday, officers should have broken off their pursuit of Saldivar, said Phillips.

“Law enforcement has to go on what they know, and in this case the guy was just causing a disturbance,” Phillips said. “It wasn’t worth the pursuit.”

[...]

Phillips points to written pursuit policies as a way for officers and their supervisors to know how to decide during the heat of the moment — and to know “law enforcement is properly doing their job.”

[...]

Phillips disputes the notion that the responsibility rests with the person who is fleeing.

“Let’s say he was drunk,” he said. “Chasing someone because they’re drunk only compounds bad decisions. He’s already made that decision. Let’s not compound that decision and make it even worse.”

You can read the entire story HERE.

Next, in what seems like it's straight out of Hollywood, police took part in a wild chase and sequence of events in Yakima, Washington. Police started to pursue a suspected car thief until they thought they had the situation under control a few blocks later. However, the suspect jumped a fence, broke into and stole another car, driving out of the lot and nearly running over several of the officers who had exited their cars to find the suspect. A long pursuit ensued, and it ended when the suspect crashed, killing two innocent victims. From the Yakima Herald-Republic:

John Phillips, director of the Orlando-based safe-pursuit advocacy group PursuitWatch, called judging Sunday's chase in Yakima "tricky" but said he was troubled by the duration of it.

"Seven minutes, that's too long," he said. "There's just so many opportunities for something to go wrong."

Phillips, whose 20-year-old sister was an innocent victim of a 2001 police chase, noted that more than 300 people a year are killed in police pursuits, according to statistics kept since 1982 by the Federal Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Of that number, roughly a third -- an average of 121 people since 1994 -- were innocent bystanders. They were either in a different vehicle or on foot or bike.

"My group isn't saying no pursuits at all, because there are times they are needed, and we want to see penalties increased for fleeing," he said.

"But pursuits shouldn't start out for minor felonies. It's like essentially shooting a gun into a crowded room."

But Merryman insisted that the incident at the used-car lot was not a minor felony. In addition to being charged Wednesday with two counts of first-degree murder, Kollman was also charged with two counts of first-degree assault for allegedly trying to run down officers during the escape.

"He's got the mindset of a cop killer," he said. "When do we let him go?"

It is important to note that the last point by Mr. Merryman justifies a pursuit for reasons that occurred after the pursuit was already initiated. If police didn't pursue the suspect from the start, the crazy events at the car lot wouldn't have happened. You can read the entire story HERE.

San Gabriel Valley Tribune

UPDATE: The online version was changed. No word on a retraction for the print version, which I am assuming has the incorrect quote. Here is the correct quote:

"Unless the suspect has shown they don't care about human life, it's not worth it," said Phillips, whose sister was killed during a police chase in Florida.

-----------

Yesterday evening I did a short interview for a story out of the San Gabriel Valley Tribune in California. A man had stole a car, fled police and shortly after crashed into another vehicle. The innocent driver was killed.

---

Advertisement

---

Unfortunately, I was misquoted.

Under what he called "progressive" guidelines, most departments wouldn't chase a car thief, especially if that person was driving recklessly, he said.

"If the suspect has shown they don't care about human life, it's not worth it," said Phillips, whose sister was killed during a police chase in Florida.

What the quote should say:

"UNLESS the suspect has shown they don't care about human life, it's not worth it."

The quote that ran in the story doesn't make sense. What PursuitWatch.org advocates is only pursuing those who have displayed they pose such harm to human life that we need to do whatever it possible to catch them ASAP.

You can read the rest of the article HERE.