by Dennis Sexton, Editor

On Christmas night 2005, my old partner and I were patrolling around trying to stay warm, and just generally hoping that everyone would be prudent with their consumption of Holiday Nog so we wouldn’t be forced to haul someone off to jail on Christmas. A radio call comes out about an escapee from the Omaha Correctional Center over by Eppley Airfield. Dispatch advises the party’s name, the vehicle he’s driving (with license plate info), the coat he’s wearing, and the vehicle’s last known direction of travel (northbound on Abbott Drive).

At 24^th & Sprague, we turn around and head for the Florence Blvd. on-ramp to Storz Expy. The vehicle’s plate information returned somewhere around 40^th & Ames Ave. and we thought it made sense that the fugitive would keep heading north from the airport. Sure enough, after less than a minute of scoping out Storz from the on-ramp we see a Cadillac matching the description and race up to get in behind. Jackpot! The plates are a match to those broadcast and we can see the big fur lining of the hood of the escapee’s coat (just as it was described by the caller). A second car joins us for backup on a felony stop and we light up the vehicle.

The car doesn’t stop but the driver doesn’t seem to have his heart in it at first. Sure, we’re going more than 25 MPH through the neighborhood east of 30^th & Fort, but he’s not driving especially crazy and it almost seems like this guy doesn’t have the foggiest idea of his whereabouts. We make a couple of circles around 29^th & Ellison Ave. before the fugitive driver ups the ante a bit. No more slowing for stop signs, no more easy Sunday-drive style turns, and a couple of swerves at police cruisers responding to the area to assist for good measure. The driver’s door opens and we figure the guy’s now just looking for a place to bail out and run. But upon reaching Florence Blvd. from Himebaugh, the fugitive decides to see if his laboring Caddy can outrun us. Fortune is on our side in this case as another Baker Unit is on a traffic stop near Florence & Ogden and they actually happen to have stop sticks. Those are successfully deployed and the fugitive car quickly slows as the shredded front tires have turned a burly Sedan DeVille into a skidding heap of scrap. The driver mistakenly turns down a dead-end alley near 21^st & Ames and gets stuck on a laundry-line pole in some poor guy’s backyard.

Mr. Fugitive is taken into custody and welcomed back into the awaiting arms of confinement. Some minor property damage is incurred but there’s no accident, no injuries, and no tragedy to be replayed on the nightly news for all to see. A dangerous man (who allegedly tried to run over a corrections officer when making his escape) was neatly and tidily returned to his rightful home: a barred room. All worked out just about as well as one could hope for or expect.

So, where am I going with this? Well, for starters, did you catch that part about stop sticks? Yes, someone actually had a set in their trunk ready to use. Looking back, I can still hardly believe it. As I recall an officer submitted an article to these very pages late last year asking where, oh where, have all the stop sticks gone. I assume the writer had a not-so-hidden agenda to encourage those who are able to acquire stop sticks to do just that and place them in all cruisers currently without them. (Is this my cue to give thanks for the painting of the parking stall lines?)

Oh, and another thing…when’s the last time you received any training for high-speed driving? Has anyone actually used the driving simulator that was purchased quite a while back? To be honest, I forgot we had it until someone mentioned it recently. There’s a common perception that as a department we don’t receive nearly as much training as we should. Well, I guess we can add this to the list.

Vehicle pursuits have been a growing concern to the point that in some areas, public opinion has shifted from viewing pursuits as a necessary method to apprehend felons to the perception that they are an overly dangerous way of catching traffic offenders. Some cities have considering banning chases and much of this opposition has been fueled by skewed media reports that focus on the rare event when a civilian is injured or killed.

In our case we had a lot of factors working in our favor. We knew the party to be a felon who had just committed another felony. The pursuit limped to the point of being high speed and never truly got to the point of being reckless in nature. Stop sticks were available and successfully deployed. Yet had we not known any of the above information, how long would this pursuit have been allowed to continue? Remember, the driver hit Florence Blvd. running and was traveling in the neighborhood of 65 MPH just prior to running over the stop sticks. It’s likely his driving would have worsened. We would have been asked the reason for the stop and traffic conditions and would have had to consider the numerous intersections commonplace in a residential neighborhood, and all sorts of other information that someone has been led to believe will allow you to correctly decide whether or not we can continue to safely pursue this vehicle. Had it been called off (in the name of public safety), we would have allowed a career criminal to rejoin society and continue his anti-social behavior (pretty much the complete opposite of preserving public safety) all while repeating the mantra "we’ll get ‘em another time" so we don’t feel quite so bad for not following through with what we’re tasked to do: catch criminals.

There is academic research that indicates injuries, especially to third persons, are rare. In 1983, the California Highway Patrol (CHP) conducted a six-month investigation into all of their pursuits as well as statistics from ten other agencies in Southern California. Of the 683 pursuits reviewed, 29% resulted in accidents. About 11% of these pursuits yielded an injury and just 1% of the pursuits resulted in a death. A study of Illinois law enforcement in the early 1990s produced similar results. With 875 pursuits studied, the accident rate was 34%, the injury rate was 17%, and the fatality rate was 1.7%.

Obviously, pursuits are dangerous. No officer would argue that a vehicle being driven over 90+ MPH is not dangerous. There is also little doubt that the media and others of questionable motivations have exaggerated the dangers to third persons. But all of this begs the question: When the police finally catch the fleeing motorist, what have they caught – a fleeing felon hell-bent on wreaking more havoc, or a scared kid with a suspended license?

A 1993 Michigan study found that 34.5% of pursuits resulted in separate felony charges and 14.4% resulted in DUI charges. Another study of 952 pursuits by the Metro Dade and Miami Police Departments found 48% of fleeing suspects were arrested for felonies (or 314 felons who would have remained on the street had the police not continued to actively pursue them).

Look, no officer goes to work hoping to endanger the good citizens of the community. Is driving at 90 mph the best way to protect the lives of innocent citizens? Of course not, but "danger" is subjective and can only truly be measured against the alternative. Can you imagine a society where the police could not pursue and the way to avoid prosecution is to simply accelerate and hope the police back off? Officers are professionals and should be guided by their training, experience, discretion and a common sense departmental pursuit policy.

Officers should be protected by the criminal justice system and prosecutors should prepare charges that truly reflect how many people were endangered by a driver’s actions. If ten people were put in danger, charge the suspect with ten separate counts. Judges must recognize pursuits as special situations and sentence motorists who initiate police pursuits the same as any other criminal who is reckless with a deadly weapon in a public place.

I’m not trying to minimize the safety (or lack thereof) of pursuits, but consider the danger of allowing these actors to go free and unpunished for their behavior. You cannot remove danger from the equation but you can remove it from the street if you’re allowed to.

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