ACLU Urges New Limits on LAPD Pursuits of Suspects

Citing a fatal accident that ended a high-speed police pursuit Tuesday night in Mission Hills, an American Civil Liberties Union official Thursday called on the LAPD to immediately suspend its existing pursuit policy.

“I urge you take immediate actions . . . and adopt an interim policy that would greatly reduce the number of pursuits and restrict the initiation of pursuits to specific, serious criminal activity,” Ramona Ripston, the executive director of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, wrote in a letter to Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks and Police Commission President Edith Perez.

The foundation last year released a report criticizing the department for “alarmingly high rates of officer, suspect and bystander injuries” resulting from chases.

“We urged your predecessors . . . to review and revamp LAPD pursuit policies,” Ripston wrote. “We renew that plea and hope that by changing the manner and frequency of pursuits, the human cost of high-speed chases will be dramatically reduced.”

Neither Parks nor Perez was immediately available for comment Thursday evening.

An officer in the Police Department’s media relations unit said he was not aware of the ACLU letter.

In Tuesday’s pursuit of two 19-year-old men in a stolen van, a Granada Hills woman was killed and her daughter seriously injured when their vehicle was struck broadside after the men fleeing police ran a red light. Three officers were also hurt, two of them while trying to save the women from their burning car.

Police officials defended the pursuit, saying that officers followed guidelines in chasing a car that was reported stolen.