Police Must Pursue a Fleeing Suspect

A letter writer (May 28) suggests that the police be forbidden to engage in pursuits of suspected criminals if there is any chance of injury to innocent bystanders. What would be the result of such a policy? Some hoodlum holds up a convenience store, jumps in his car, and as he starts to leave, a police car pulls up behind him and orders him to stop. Knowing that the police are forbidden to engage in pursuit if it might be dangerous, what would be the first thing this punk would do? That’s right, he would speed off, driving in as dangerous a manner as possible. This would give all such thieves carte blanche to commit any and all crimes that they cared to.

It is, of course, tragic when some innocent person is injured or killed during a police pursuit. But let’s put the blame where it belongs--on the criminal attempting to evade arrest, not on the policeman who is trying to protect all of us.

Richard A. Pierce

Burbank

As a police officer in Los Angeles for 12 years, I have been involved in several pursuits, some of the known and some of the unknown. I don’t know a single officer who would think it justified to kill an entire family just to catch a criminal.

As to the reference to California being the chase capital of the U.S., you only hear about the chases here and not very often about chases in other states. I have friends on other police departments who have almost as many chases as we do. On an average, there are two to three pursuits a day in Los Angeles; 90% of those last less than five minutes. Then they’re over, with no media coverage and no injuries. Those that do end in injuries to others are a tragedy.

Unfortunately, pursuits are a necessary evil of our job.

Jeff Ennis

Thousand Oaks