Slowing Down Police Chases

One of the most controversial of all police actions is high-speed pursuit. It’s loaded with danger for police, fleeing suspects and innocent bystanders.

The high-speed chase has become an issue again, this time in San Clemente, where city officials, responding to public complaints, want to meet with the U.S. Border Patrol about its policy of pursuing people fleeing the checkpoint four miles south of the city on Interstate 5.

The city’s concern is understandable and warranted. Sometimes cars being chased north from the checkpoint exit in San Clemente and speed through city streets. This happened 17 times during a two-year period ended last July, according to the latest Border Patrol study of 104 chases. Only one incident ended in an accident.

The latest incident occurred just before Christmas when Border Patrol agents pursued a car down San Clemente’s main street at speeds of nearly 65 miles per hour. Seven people were seriously injured when the car sideswiped two others and crashed into a tree.

There are no easy answers to the problems of high-speed police pursuits. Police point out that when a pursuit starts, officers usually don’t know who they’re chasing or why the suspect is fleeing. It could be a scofflaw or a serial killer. Once the pursuit begins, however, the problem is how to end it safely.

Sometimes that means breaking off the pursuit. Most departments have pages of written regulations governing that practice. The Border Patrol has none. It should have. A written policy is needed. For the protection of everyone involved, pursuits must be broken off when they threaten community safety. This is especially true when the people being pursued have not committed a violent crime but simply are guilty of trying to enter the country illegally.

The problem for San Clemente should largely resolve itself when a new Border Patrol checkpoint opens in a few years five miles farther south than the current one, which was designed in the 1960s and is long outdated. The new checkpoint will have 16 lanes and be designed to discourage chases before they start with off-freeway lanes that will be constructed to make evasive action harder to take. In the meantime, harried Border Patrol agents need a pursuit policy that puts as much emphasis on caution as capture.