Despite Dangers, Police Say, Pursuits Are Still Necessary

Police pursuits are a necessary law enforcement tool, and of the hundreds that occur on the streets of Los Angeles every year, few result in injury to innocent bystanders, authorities say.

Nonetheless, the debate over high-speed chases on busy city streets was expected to intensify after three teen-age boys were killed Tuesday in Van Nuys by a burglary suspect fleeing police. Although not officially considered a police pursuit, three young brothers were killed in San Pedro earlier this year when the truck in which they were riding was hit bya patrol car rushing to the aid of officers.

LAPD officials sought to reassure the public Tuesday that their officers consider the risks to innocent bystanders before initiating a pursuit.

In the 817 pursuits involving LAPD officers in 1994, one bystander was killed and six were seriously injured. But, police noted, more than 100 pursuits were called off.

In fact, police said the patrol car pursuing the burglary suspect in Van Nuys backed off when it became apparent there was traffic in the area, even though it was 2:15 a.m.

Officers are left to decide for themselves when they should initiate a pursuit. But LAPD rules require officers to activate their lights and siren and “weigh the seriousness of the offense against the potential dangers to themselves or innocent citizens.”

“Police pursuits are a part of police work,” said Sgt. Jerry Powell, in charge of the emergency vehicle operations course for the LAPD. “But when the driving becomes too dangerous, what we do is pull out of the pursuit. . . . We turn it over to the airship.”

A Wyoming-based group, Solutions to Tragedies of Police Pursuits (STOPP), cited Tuesday’s accident as evidence of the need to restrict police pursuits to chasing violent felons. The group, made up of families of innocent victims of pursuits, also advocates an end to “the Hollywood mind-set that hypes the excitement of hot pursuit” on TV and in the movies.

The group’s director was in Washington on Tuesday, meeting with aides to North Dakota Sen. Byron L. Dorgan, whose mother was an innocent victim of a police pursuit and who plans to introduce the National Police Pursuit Act of 1995. The legislation would require law enforcement agencies to establish “hot pursuit” policies and establish a minimum penalty of three months in jail and loss of a driver’s license for anyone fleeing from police. In California, traffic violators who flee from police can be charged with a felony if their driving endangers the public.

CHP officials contend that the chance of injury to bystanders from pursuits is low. Statewide, there were 8,079 pursuits by all police agencies last year, and 12 resulted in the deaths of bystanders, the CHP reported.

“We don’t believe that it is worth anybody being killed in order to effect an arrest,” said CHP Lt. Greg Manuel. But the public would be at greater risk if legislators put the brakes on police pursuits, he said.

“Any time a person knows they can step on the gas and you’re not going to stop them, you’re going to have a lot more people flouting the law,” Manuel said.

About 75% of the drivers apprehended in CHP pursuits were driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, driving a stolen vehicle or wanted on a felony warrant.

“If police back off when a drunk driver flees, then more drunks will take advantage of the chance to run,” CHP Commissioner Maury Hannigan said in defending police pursuits last year. “The fact is if we preclude the use of pursuits, far more citizens will be put at risk than is presently the case.”

CHP officials are experimenting with ways to stop fleeing suspects, such as spike strips laid across the highway that can puncture tires. But they are not always practical when roads are congested or the suspect may take alternate routes.

Nor are helicopters always useful, the CHP says, noting that most pursuits last less than 10 minutes, leaving little time to get a chopper airborne. License plate numbers often prove useless in tracking suspects because many who flee are driving stolen vehicles.

The ultimate solution may be a space age strategy: electronic disablement of the vehicle’s ignition or induction systems, but such remedies could draw objections from civil libertarians.

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High-Speed Police Chases In 1994, the California Highway Patrol reported that all law enforcement agencies statewide were involved in 8,079 pursuits, resulting in 5,257 arrests. As a result of those chases, 132 officers were injured, 27 suspects were killed and 765 other suspects were injured. Also, 421 people who were caught in the path of speeding suspects were injured, and 12 of them died.

Here are some of the high-speed chases in Los Angeles County that resulted in fatalities over the past year and a half:

FATAL INCIDENTS * Feb. 22, 1995: A 7-month-old girl was kidnaped by four gang members and was killed when their fleeing car spun out of control and crashed into a tree, bursting into flames.

* Feb. 1, 1995: A 17-year-old died when the stolen car he and another suspect were riding in crashed into a tree in Hacienda Heights, minutes after sheriff’s deputies stopped chasing the car.

* December, 1994: A suspected car thief who sped away after being stopped by police was killed in a crash at the La Brea Avenue exit from the Santa Monica Freeway.

* May 1, 1994: A truck theft suspect who led police on a 25-mile chase through six cities was killed when he collided with a van and another vehicle at Washington Boulevard and Garfield Avenue in Commerce.

* Feb. 13, 1994: A suspected drunk driver led police on a chase from Los Alamitos to Long Beach, where he ran a stoplight at Lakewood Boulevard and Spring Street, broadsiding a car and killing a woman and her two sons, ages 6 and 4.

* Feb. 10, 1994: A suspected prowler fleeing police in the Pasadena area crashed into another car, killing the driver.

LOCAL STATISTICS IN 1994LAPD (City of L.A.)

* Total pursuits: 817

* Officers injured: 12

* Officers killed: 0

* Suspects injured: 93

* Suspects killed: 5

* Bystanders injured: 80

* Bystanders killed: 1

L.A. County Sheriff’s Dept.

* Total pursuits: 509

* Officers injured: 18

* Officers killed: 0

* Suspects injured: 60

* Suspects killed: 1

* Bystanders injured: 36

* Bystanders killed: 1

SOURCE: LAPD, Sheriff’s Department, Los Angeles Times files Compiled by Cecilia Rasmussen

The Policies LAPD: Pursuit policy spelled out in 1992 manual calls for officers to “continuously question whether the seriousness of the initial violation reasonably warrants continuation of the pursuit.” Unmarked units without emergency equipment are prohibited from joining a chase, and the assistance of a helicopter is recommended.

SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT: “The immediate apprehension of the violator is never more important than the safety of innocent motorists or the deputy himself. When it becomes apparent that the immediacy of apprehension is outweighed by a clear and unreasonable danger to the deputy and others, the pursuit must be abandoned.”