Car Chases Way Down, Police Say

Police pursuits, that staple of local television newscasts, have declined sharply so far this year, according to a review of Los Angeles Police Department statistics.

LAPD officers are chasing fewer cars, and causing significantly fewer injuries to bystanders, suspects and themselves. Overall, chases are down 62% from last year.

The decline drew praise from some of the LAPD’s biggest critics as well as experts on police pursuits, who described it as a step in the right direction.

“These are just astounding numbers,” said Ramona Ripston, executive director of the ACLU of Southern California, which had long challenged LAPD pursuit practices.

“Los Angeles has had the reputation as a department that would chase at the drop of a hat and until the wheels fell off,” added Geoffrey Alpert, a University of South Carolina criminal justice professor and a national expert on police pursuits.

Chief William J. Bratton, who championed a policy to reduce the number of pursuits, called the figures “good news all around.”

The policy, adopted in January, calls for greater use of helicopters to track suspects and gives officers more discretion in halting chases involving minor infractions.

Some police departments have gone even further to limit chases. Still, the new LAPD policy is shaping up to be one of the most tangible of Bratton’s efforts to remake the department.

There were 76 LAPD-initiated chases during the first half of this year, down from 202 last year.

Traffic collisions also have plummeted. The number of motorists or pedestrians involved in crashes dropped to 18 from April through June of this year. In contrast, 58 people were involved over the same time span last year. Injuries also fell, from 18 to 4.

The number of officers involved in crashes fell from 18 to 5 in the second quarter of 2003 from the same period last year.

Bratton said the report contradicts naysayers who had predicted that restricting chases would lead to fewer arrests and increased crime, particularly in categories such as auto theft and vehicle burglaries. The chief said that the opposite has been true, noting that arrests overall climbed by 10% this year and auto thefts and vehicle burglaries fell by 2.5% through Aug. 17.

State law generally shields California police agencies from liability in the event that a pursuit results in property damage, injury or death. The Los Angeles city attorney reported the city has settled 12 chase lawsuits since July 2000, costing nearly $37,000.

Before the policy change, LAPD officers had a virtual green light to pursue any suspect, whether they were fleeing to avoid a traffic ticket or from a serious crime.

Long a topic of concern in Los Angeles, police pursuits fell during the late 1990s, as did overall crime. A study by the California Highway Patrol, for example, found that LAPD pursuits decreased from 822 in 1995 to 639 in 2000. Statewide, the five-year numbers fell from 7,817 to 5,334, according to the CHP.

A crime spike at the beginning of the decade quickly reversed those gains. In 2001, LAPD pursuits rose to 781, from 597 in 2000. Pedestrian injuries were nearly double those of 1998.

As the collateral damage from chases piled up, so did the bad publicity. An elderly couple who survived the holocaust were severely injured near the Beverly Center in March 2002 by a driver who fled after he was stopped for a traffic infraction.

A 4-year-old girl was killed two months later when a suspected car thief pursued by Los Angeles police ran a red light on a busy downtown street, causing a chain-reaction accident.

On Dec. 3, 2002, a 2 1/2-week-old boy lost an arm after his parents’ sport-utility vehicle was broadsided by a car carrying four men involved in a high-speed pursuit in Sylmar.

Shaken by those incidents, the Los Angeles Police Commission adopted the new policy in January that banned the use of infractions -- including minor offenses such as broken taillights -- to justify a pursuit.

The guidelines also called for the LAPD to use helicopters as the favored means of tracking suspects. The policy was formally adopted by the police commission in January, but department-wide training began in March, and the policy went into effect in June.

Los Angeles police union President Bob Baker said quick and thorough training was one big factor behind the sudden drop in police chases.

“In the past, a department directive would come down and training followed later,” Baker said. “In this case, the department was very quick in getting training for the rank and file.”

LAPD Assistant Chief George Gascon said the new policy improved the city’s image by “eliminating the circus atmosphere,” a reference to the live coverage of police chases.

While Mayor James K. Hahn and other public officials also called on news directors to show fewer chases, it appears dwindling pursuit numbers have resulted in reduced television coverage, said Jeff Wald, news director for KTLA-TV Channel 5, which like The Times is owned by Tribune Co.

“I certainly feel they’re down [in chases], and I’m glad that they are,” Wald said of the “pursuit mania” that has been prevalent in local news.

Even though chases draw viewers, Wald said, they disrupt news operations. Wald said KTLA news will not cut into regular programming to televise a chase unless there is a serious danger to the public.

Joe Domanick, a senior fellow at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication, said he believed the new LAPD policy hadn’t helped improve coverage, but rather “reduced terrible coverage.”

Alpert said he believed the LAPD should extend the chase ban to suspects in property crimes. “In those cases, apprehending people is not as serious as the risk created by the chase,” he said.

Police Commission President David Cunningham III said he would not rule out taking a second look at the policy to adopt tighter rules.

“Public safety has increased significantly,” Cunningham said. “There are the numbers, and there it is.”

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Pursuit trends

The LAPD’s pursuit reports for the second quarter reveal both fewer pursuits and fewer collisions recorded in 2003.

*--* Pursuits 2002 2003 Total pursuits 202 76 Pursuit minutes 1,214 578 Pursuit miles 918.8 384.2 Traffic collisions 2002 2003 Officer 18 5 Suspect 97 22 Third party 58 18

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Sources: LAPD - Researched by Times graphics reporter Pat Rathbun