Experts detail alternatives to high-speed police chases
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — Experts say there are other ways to catch suspects than police engaging in high-speed chases.
These chases can sometimes have tragic results. In 2015, a young man ran a stop sign in East Liberty and Pittsburgh police officers chased him with tragic results. The fleeing driver hit another driver head-on on Baum Boulevard, injuring five people — including a young girl who suffered brain damage.
Then-Pittsburgh Police Chief Cameron McClay revised the city's chase policy to limit pursuits only in cases of violent crime, and even those chases should be terminated when the need for apprehension is outweighed by the dangerousness of the pursuit.
That policy appears to remain in effect.
"It's a matter of safety in general, right?" Pittsburgh Public Safety Director Lee Schmidt said. "We know that if we chase folks for low-level crime, it's a much higher risk of injury, death and property destruction occurring. So, we have to be thoughtful about when we chase, how we chase."
But that's not the case across the state. Pennsylvania is a patchwork quilt of separate police departments, and each one has a pursuit policy of its own — ranging from strict to lenient.
"We don't have a controlled system where all departments are playing by the same rules," former FBI agent Larry Likar said.
While some allow chases when any kind of crime is committed, KDKA-TV found most local departments only permit pursuits when a violent felony has been committed and the public is in imminent danger, allowing other kinds of suspects to flee. Likar says there are alternative ways to catch a suspect.
"He's going to get caught sooner or later anyway when you have that type of technology coming up," he said.
While some officers privately complain that restricting chases handcuffs officers, state law permits municipalities to keep their policies confidential in order to keep the deterrent in place. And more and more departments rely on cameras, license plate readers and other technologies to pick up a suspect at another time.
"With the technology that exists now, with cameras, we have better ways to use that technology to keep our officers safer, to keep the public safer to ensure we're not chasing folks down on a high-speed level, causing a crash," Likar said.
But even with strict policies in place, dangerous chases continue, pointing to the need for better training and breaking old habits to better protect the public and the officers themselves.