Death of 2 in Police Crash Puts Policy in Spotlight : ‘It’s Not Right,’Relative Says of Pursuit Fatalities

The Christmas Day crash of a Westminster Police Department patrol car into the car of two young women has outraged the families of the women and focused new attention on the rules governing police chases at a time of national reassessment of these policies.

Aside from killing the women, who were on their way to a celebration, the impact in the Westminster intersection moderately injured the officer, who was rushing, at what witnesses said was about 75 m.p.h., to the aid of a fellow officer.

The accident brought to five the number of Orange County fatalities in December resulting from police pursuing suspects or responding to emergency calls.

“It’s just not right,” said Steve Hammond, brother of one of the dead women, in an interview Tuesday. “To say we’re outraged is not even the word for it.

“There’s going to be lawsuits, and it’s not because of money. It’s because it’s just not right. There is no reason for police to have to drive at speeds like that.”

Hammond’s sister, Dawn, 20, and her longtime friend, Jessica Warren, 19, were killed when their car was broadsided by the police car Sunday morning. On Dec. 3, a teen-ager in a stolen car fleeing from police in Garden Grove was killed when the car crashed into a Garden Grove Freeway guardrail, then collided with the pursuing patrol car. And on Dec. 22, two men in a stolen car tried to elude police on the Orange Freeway near Brea and were killed when their car hit a bridge abutment.

Yet Orange County police officials say that the unusual concentration of such deaths belies the trend in recent years of encouraging officers to be more mindful of public safety when they launch into high-speed pursuits or responses.

A police-management expert in Washington said Tuesday that police agencies nationwide are showing a tendency toward more caution in pursuits and in driving to emergencies.

One national study found that more people were being killed by police vehicles than by police bullets, said the expert, Louis Mayo, a police management consultant and a former division director of the National Institute of Justice.

Countywide guidelines suggested by the Orange County Police Chiefs and Sheriff’s Assn. have been adopted by virtually every Orange County enforcement agency, an association spokesman said. In effect, they parallel the sections of the California Vehicle Code, which allow police emergency vehicles to violate the usual rules of the road while pursuing a suspect or responding to an emergency call, but only if red lights and siren are used and only if public safety is not endangered.

Virtually all police guidelines now urge officers to break off a pursuit when the risk of a traffic accident becomes too great, especially in cases in which the suspected law violation is minor. But the discretion still remains largely with the pursuing officers.

“We do not set a limit on speed, I don’t think any agency does,” Westminster Police Sgt. Bill Lewis said. “But what we do say is that officers have to use caution. We have to react to what is happening on the road in front of us.”

Lewis said that while the Westminster force has specific guidelines for pursuit situations, there is no policy for emergency assistance calls, like the one the officer was responding to Sunday.

“I would say, though, that caution is stressed,” Lewis said. “Obviously we can do no good unless we get there.”

The concern is not only for the safety of officers and the public, officials said. Even when police cars are not involved in accidents, police departments have been sued for allegedly persisting in a chase that endangered the public.

Last June, an Orange County jury heard such a case but found in favor of the Costa Mesa Police Department, ruling that officers had acted responsibly, even though two youths had been killed. The chase, which occurred in 1984, began when police saw a man driving recklessly and discovered that his car was stolen. It ended when the stolen car rammed a Volkswagen van, killing two occupants. The fleeing driver later was convicted of second-degree murder and is serving a 30-years-to-life prison sentence.

Worth the Chase?

Such experiences in recent years have caused Orange County departments to urge officers to weigh whether the risk is worth the chase in some cases.

“It’s built into you that when you’re pursuing someone, you want to catch him,” said Capt. Larry Baker, patrol and traffic division commander for the Brea Police Department. But police administrators now drum into their officers that the emergency must be serious to warrant all-out pursuits through dangerous traffic, he said. “These officers nowadays are much safer. When I was a patrol officer, we had (less congested) streets to go in. Now they break off (a pursuit) much sooner than we would.”

Nationally as well, police forces tend to be moving toward more caution and restraint both in chases and in driving to emergencies, according to Mayo, who was a Secret Service agent before joining the National Institute of Justice.

“There is a new trend in police management nationally in which police agencies treat pursuit driving with the same cautions and restrictions as their shots-fired policy,” said Mayo, who is now a police-management consultant based in Fairfax, Va.

500 to 600 Killed

“The reason for this is that about twice as many people per year are being killed with police cars than with police guns. I don’t have the exact figure, but it is something like 500 to 600 persons killed nationally each year in police accidents.

“This was about the same level of deaths that occurred 10 years ago with police guns, until police departments started putting in more restrictive policies on use of firearms. . . .”

Before his retirement from the National Institute of Justice in 1987, Mayo made a study of police-pursuit accidents. He said that the study found that “around 90% of all police pursuits arise out of the officers’ observing a minor traffic infraction.”

Mayo said the national study also found a high rate of accidents arising from police pursuits.

“We know (from the study) that police pursuit is extremely hazardous and frequently results in serious injury or death either to the officers or to people being chased or to bystanders, such as people entering into an intersection at the time of a chase.

” . . . About 20-25% wind up in auto accidents, and about 1% to 2% in deaths. As the result of a (U.S.) Supreme Court decision that now allows a police department itself to be sued for damages and not just its individual employees, there have been several cases in the courts where people injured in police accidents have sued and have collected millions of dollars.

“So both in terms of protection of human life and safety, as well as to avoid paying these million-dollar suits, as well as to protect the image of the police departments, more departments are treating pursuit driving with caution and restraint.”

Mayo said the same trend nationally applies to police response in emergency vehicles.

Kent Milton, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol in Sacramento, said a 1982 study tracked pursuits by both the CHP and by officers in 10 other jurisdictions: police departments in Buena Park, Westminster, Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach, San Francisco, Salinas, Merced and Sacramento, and the sheriff’s departments in Monterey and Santa Clara counties.

“During the 6-month period of the study, there were 683 pursuits--480 by the Highway Patrol and 203 by the other 10 jurisdictions,” Milton said. An analysis of the police pursuits found “that fatalities are extremely rare,” he noted.

He said the study found that “police pursuits result in accidents 29% of the time, with 11% involving injuries, including minor injuries, and only 1% resulting in fatalities.”

Milton said the CHP study also made a “profile of a typical pursuit,” which starts when an officer has witnessed a crime, covers at least 1 mile, lasts 1 to 2 minutes, involves at least two patrol cars and usually takes place in an urban area.

Milton said the CHP’s policy dictates that “pursuit can and will be terminated by officers when in their judgment the hazard of continuing the pursuit outweighs the value of catching the person or persons being pursued.”

“The officer’s judgment always has to play a role,” he added.