At approximately 7:30 pm on January 31, police received a call regarding the theft of a Toyota truck. They found it quickly, but as they approached, the driver fired his engine and fled, and a chase began in the San Fernando Valley.
Los Angeles Police Department officers pursued the pickup at speeds up to 79 mph. However, a few minutes after starting chase is over Road signs were slammed into the ground and debris littered the streets on Woodman Avenue and Lanark Street in Panorama City with the roar of crashes.
They were lifelong friends, aged 47 and 49, and they were out for tacos. They were sitting in a parked Honda Civic minding their own business when a stolen truck chased by the police T-boned them.
Police chases are an old LA story High-speed chases have long been part of the culture of sprawl, wide boulevards, highways and fast cars. They are actual movie scenes.
However, the results are often uninteresting. according to new numbers It was submitted to the Police Commission at the end of April.
Worse, half of those killed or injured were bystanders unrelated to the chase, like two friends who went to buy tacos.
This is a shocking number of innocent victims, but nothing new.
2015, James Query reported in the Times On the dangers of police chases in Los Angeles.
Since then, more news articles, internal reports, grand jury investigation Some additional rules and training. But according to the LAPD, from 2018 to today, the number of chases, crashes and injuries has steadily increased, not decreased.
As for bystanders, 78 injured in 2015, according to the California Highway Patrol.but New report by LAPD It shows an average of 98 bystander injuries per year over the past five years, rising to 102 in 2021 and 118 in 2022.
Here are some caveats: Fugitive suspects are involved in more rear-end collisions than police. Additionally, bystander deaths are far less common than injuries, with nine of his “third parties” killed during pursuits since 2018. .
Police also note that the increase in chases coincides with an increase in car thefts. Since 2018, 44% of auto thefts, 17% suspected drunk driving, and 11% reckless driving have been tracked.
Still, it is unacceptable that nearly 100 innocent bystanders are injured each year in LAPD pursuits. Nine deaths may not sound like much, but when one of the dead girlfriends is your child, parent, spouse, friend, or brother, it’s an utterly excruciating number.
“A stolen truck has no value,” said Joelen Ammann, sister of Chris Teagarden, one of the bystanders who died at Panorama City.
Police say an outright ban on pursuit would create a bad incentive.
“If you know you won’t be chased with impunity, why not run away?” LAPD Deputy Chief Donald Graham said in an interview.
That’s a reasonable point. But it’s also questionable whether it makes sense to run around the city (injuring someone every fourth time) to catch suspects of relatively minor crimes, as Amman did.
“If you’re chasing a terrorist or a rapist or a murderer, it’s one thing, but it’s not a stolen car or a stolen TV,” said a University of South Carolina criminology professor who studies police. One Jeffrey Alpert said. A pursuit from the 1990s. “Poor return on investment”
Indeed, a getaway driver may be a parolee with a weapon who does not want to be caught and re-incarcerated. But people often run away for silly reasons, says Alpert: They don’t want their license points, their license is suspended, or they’re afraid they’ve had one too many drinks. sometimes pays big for those bad-moment decisions.
Because of police’s reluctance to let the bad guys escape, and because of the adrenaline rush, they are often tempted to continue the pursuit rather than stop it, Alpert said.
Alpert points out that many “progressive” cities now limit tracking to things related to violent crime. Police in Phoenix, Dallas and Philadelphia have stopped chasing a misdemeanor suspect.
LAPD, to its credit, has been thinking about these issues. During follow-up, that officer is expected to conduct a balance test to determine, among other things, “whether the severity of the first or subsequent breaches reasonably justifies continued follow-up.” According to the department manual.
Pursuing officers must continually assess whether they are exposing the public to “unreasonable” risk. They consider the weather, traffic conditions and the nature of the area in which they live.
And it’s not just the cops in the car that make the decisions. There is usually a supervisor who monitors tracking and decides in real time whether to continue tracking.
But LAPD doesn’t limit its pursuit to felonies and violent crimes.
Deputy Chief Graham said the agency is now analyzing how other cities have responded after adopting more restrictive policies. We look not just at whether deaths have fallen, but also how the new rules have affected crime.
LAPD should change the rules if the data requires it. Yes, less car chases to entertain us on TV. But the police should help prevent injuries.
This story originally appeared los angeles times.
first published
