Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Some police chases are necessary evils. Some aren't.

by Kurt St. Angelo

I asked an orthodontist friend of mine why it is I.U. Dental School's policy to teach human anatomy instead of just the anatomy of the head. He said, "The head bone's connected to the neck bone. The neck bone's connected to the shoulder bone . . ."

Enough said. I got the picture. Of course everything's interrelated, and we want policies that encourage dentists to see the whole picture - not just part of it.

And so too with the police-chase policies of the Indianapolis Police Department and the Marion County Sheriff. We cannot tolerate policies that encourage unnecessary police chases and unnecessary deaths of innocent people, including passengers, bystanders and police officers.

On August 3, 19-year-old Kelly Baker died while on a blind date with 22-year-old guy named Leonard Moss. Wanted for a bench warrant, Moss fled police for two miles at 110 m.p.h. before wrapping his car around a utility poll, killing both Baker and himself.

On the morning of August 14, police chased a couple suspected of armed robbing a convenience store on Indianapolis' west side before the couple crashed their getaway car into a daycare center. Luckily it was Sunday and no children were present.

Lawrence Police Officer Craig Herbert wasn't so lucky. He died last March when a 15-year-old boy crashed a stolen van into the officer's parked car during a police chase.

Critics of current police-chase policies say high-speed chases bring out the worst adrenal instincts in police officers, and often get out-of-hand. Policy defenders say that if the public expects the police to do their jobs, then some innocent people will occasionally be hurt and killed.

Given these valid sides - one that says police chases are necessary evils and the other that says this evil isn't worth the community's risks - let me offer a compromise plan that ensures police their authority to apprehend violent criminals, yet reduces harm to the unsuspecting public.

Rule number one. If a motorist flees a police officer or the scene of a crime, police officers may use all reasonable diligence to pursue the motorist. The act of fleeing police officers would be prima facie evidence that the motorist is engaged in improper activity or already wanted by the
police.

Rule number two. During the police chase, police officers should use all reasonable diligence to determine the nature of the offense for which the suspect is wanted. If the offense is violent, such as murder, rape, or armed robbery, then the suspect is likely as dangerous outside the vehicle as
inside it, and the chase could continue.

However, if the offense is of a nonviolent nature, such as one involving vice or fraud, or as in the case of Leonard Moss who was wanted for skipping out of a work-release facility, then the police chase itself is more dangerous to the community than the suspect would be outside of his car, and
the chase should stop.

Unfortunately, Kelly Baker fell prey to an unnecessary police chase. Moss was more dangerous driving at high-speeds than he would have been to anyone if he was outside of his car. Police policies should require supervisors to call off chases of nonviolent suspects as soon as the nature of the wanted offender is determined.

However, in the case of Kelly Baker, my proposed policy would not have saved her life. Moss lost control of his car within a couple minutes of fleeing a routine police stop, and no police supervisor could have prevented that.

Nor would my proposed policy have prevented the couple that robbed a convenience store at gunpoint from careening into a daycare facility on Sunday.

But in the case of the death of police officer Craig Herbert, a police supervisor might well have prevented a high-speed chase of the car-thieving 15-year-old who was on home detention and unfit to drive.