Knott-Inspired Bill on Police Stops Stirs Debate

When the bright red lights of a sheriff’s patrol car flashed in Cristina King’s rear-view mirror as she drove down a dark and winding East County road one night last week, the fate of Cara Knott flashed into King’s mind.

Remembering Knott--prosecutors have charged former California Highway Patrol Officer Craig Peyer with Knott’s murder--King says she slowed down but kept driving about 1 1/2 miles until she came to the lighted parking lot at the Jamul convenience store where she works.

About an hour later, King, a police officer’s daughter with no prior criminal record, was sitting in a County Jail cell, accused of trying to evade the sheriff’s deputy who stopped her for speeding.

“After what happened to Cara Knott, there was no way I was going to pull over there in the dark,” said King, 23, who spent two hours at the Las Colinas women’s jail before she was released on her own recognizance. “In jail, I had a lot of time to think about it, and I started thinking maybe I was wrong. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought I was right.”

State Assemblyman Larry Stirling, a San Diego Republican who has introduced legislation that would make what King did legal, said her case appears to support his contention that something must be done to allay the fears of motorists, particularly women, when they are stopped by police at night.

‘Reasonable Distance’

Stirling introduced his bill shortly after Peyer was charged with murdering Knott, the San Diego State University student who was strangled on the night of Dec. 27 as she drove home to La Mesa after visiting her boyfriend in Escondido. Knott’s body was found the next day beneath a bridge near the Mercy Road off-ramp of Interstate 15, a dark and secluded spot where 10 other women have said Peyer pulled them over and engaged them in friendly conversation.

The bill would allow a motorist to proceed “a reasonable distance to the first available place of safety” if the motorist signals his or her intent to stop. The bill defines “place of safety” as a place “with adequate lighting if at nighttime, far enough from traffic lanes for personal safety, and not unnecessarily remote or inaccessible.”

Stirling, chairman of the Assembly Public Safety Committee and usually an ally of police, has agreed to hold off any action on his bill until opposition from police groups can be lessened or eliminated.

“There’s a way to resolve this issue that doesn’t shift the discretion totally to the motorists,” Stirling said in an interview. “It’s a matter of setting up terms and conditions so that the driver and the officer know what the standards are.”

For example, Stirling said, the law could be written to say that motorists must stop at the next intersection or at the next lighted area. On freeways, there could be designated “safe areas” where drivers would pull over.

But police groups in Sacramento and law enforcement officials in San Diego say current law provides all the standard that is needed: when police officers flash their lights, drivers are to pull over to the side of the road. No questions asked.

Opponents Out to Kill Bill

“If that bill isn’t amended, we’re going to do everything we can to kill it,” said Alva Cooper, a Sacramento lobbyist for three statewide police organizations. “You can’t sit here and allow 20 million people to decide where they’re going to pull off the road. A trained police officer has to think things out for the whole situation, himself, the person he’s stopping, and the environment he’s working in. John Doe citizen is not trained to do that.”

The California Highway Patrol also opposes the bill, said spokeswoman Susan Cowan-Scott.

“The issue that’s paramount is safety,” Cowan-Scott said. “The safety of the motorist, the safety of the officer making the stop, and the safety of other motorists on the roadway. Our officers are trained, and they’ll pick the safest place to stop.”

Ben Killingsworth, chief of the CHP’s border division, said he and his staff have tried to reassure motorists since Peyer’s arrest.

“We understand the concern,” Killingsworth said. “We don’t think it’s necessarily valid, but we understand it. If they (drivers) want to continue to a place that’s well-lighted and they feel safe, we’d understand. We have to use some good judgment and reasonableness in this. They can’t say they want to drive 100 miles to a place where they feel more comfortable.”

But King says it was comments like Killingsworth’s that prompted her to drive 1 1/2 miles to the lighted parking lot at 10 p.m. May 25, after a deputy tried to pull her over for speeding on Steele Canyon Road. King, who is married and has a 3-year-old daughter, said her father, a Chula Vista police officer, told her not to stop for police on a dark and desolate stretch of road.

“I told them (sheriff’s deputies) that after Peyer was arrested, everybody said on the news that we could drive to a lighted area where we felt safe,” King said. “They didn’t want to listen to it. They told me the judge wouldn’t buy that either.”

Hauled Off to Jail

King was taken to the sheriff’s substation in Lemon Grove and then to jail. She spent two hours behind bars before she was released and a friend picked her up at 1 a.m.

Sheriff’s Lt. Tom Zoll, a supervisor at the Lemon Grove station, said King was jailed for “attempting to evade” an officer. Zoll said he had no information to indicate that any other factors, such as King’s conduct after she was stopped, contributed to the decision to arrest her rather than simply issue a ticket.

Sgt. Rich Hendrickson, a department spokesman, said deputies still operate under the same policy that was in effect before Knott’s death, though they enforce it with more sensitivity now.

“We expect people to comply with the law,” Hendrickson said. “The law simply states that you will pull over when you are requested to do so by a police officer.”

Hendrickson said law enforcement officers are concerned that motorists failing to pull over at the sight of red lights could impede the movement of police or others to an emergency.

“You can’t assume the officer wants to pull you over,” he said. “He may be trying to respond to another emergency. If the officer has to follow for 1 1/2 miles until the person decides to pull over, it could create a life-threatening situation somewhere else.”

Despite the opposition to his proposal in law enforcement circles, Stirling said he is hopeful that a compromise can be reached. But he conceded that, because of legislative deadlines, he will probably have to wait until next year to move his bill forward.

“This kind of very serious public policy issue isn’t something we snap our fingers and have immediate consensus on in a 26-million-person state,” Stirling said. “It’s a difficult thing that needs to be worked out over a period of time.”