CURBING THE HIGH-FLYING POLICE

High-speed police chases resulting in injury and death, which have become something of an issue in Oakland over the past year, are also becoming a potentially explosive issue throughout the state of California.

Last year, three women led police on a chase at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour on crowded Highway 101 north of San Francisco, involving several local police cars, two California Highway Patrol vehicles, a Highway Patrol motorcycle and a Highway Patrol airplane. The chase resulted in a crash with another car. The crime for which the police were chasing the women? Shoplifting.

In Barstow, a 21-year-old man crashed his Ford Bronco into a mobile home while trying to evade police after a stop for a traffic violation. Fortunately, the residents of the mobile home escaped injury. “We can’t figure out why he ran,” a police spokesman said. “He had no warrant or DMV record. He was not drunk and the truck was not stolen.” The spokesman did not explain why, then, the police chose to chase him.

Early this year, two people were killed and 13 injured in a rural section of San Diego County when a pickup truck flipped over while being chased at high speeds by U.S. Border Patrol agents. The agents suspected that the truck was carrying illegal immigrants.

Some of the police pursuit actions simply defy reason. In 1997, while seeking to join a stolen auto chase, a Sacramento Police officer learned from a radio broadcast that the driver had been apprehended. Unaccountably, the officer turned off his flashing lights while continuing to race down a city street for several blocks at speeds estimated by police investigators at up to 80 miles per hour. He ultimately rammed into the car of Andy Sorgatz, killing the 50-year-old state employee. The city of Sacramento eventually agreed to a $1.75 million settlement with Sorgatz’s family.

According to the California Highway Patrol, California law enforcement officers engaged in almost 6,000 auto pursuits in 2001, 10 percent resulting in injury collisions. Twenty-four people died in police-pursuit collisions that year, including two people described by the CHP as “others” (that is, people who were not being chased by the police). Almost 350 of those chases resulted in accident injuries to police. Statewide statistics are not yet available for 2002.

The problem is particularly acute in Los Angeles. CNN has reported that in the three-year period from 1999 to 2001, Los Angeles averaged more than five auto crashes per week resulting from police pursuits. Earlier this year, after community outrage over several highly publicized accidents, the Los Angeles Police Commission voted for a 12-month ban on police chases of motorists solely for traffic violations.

But such policies can simply be ignored without California cities, or California police officers, suffering any legal consequences.

Carol Watson, a Los Angeles attorney who specializes in representing victims of police misconduct, says that, “unfortunately, under California law, officers are given virtually a blanket immunity regardless of how reckless the chase may be.”

Late last year, a California Court of Appeals “reluctantly” (in its own words) ruled that California cities that adopt a valid police chase policy are immune from liability in resulting accidents, even if the police failed to follow that policy. “[California] law in its current state simply grants a ‘get out of liability free card’ to public entities that go through the formality of adopting such a policy,” the court wrote. The court’s ruling stemmed from a Westminster police chase of a stolen van through a high school parking lot that resulted in the death of a bystander. “There is no requirement the public entity implement the [police chase] policy through training or other means,” the ruling went on. “Unfortunately, the adoption of a policy which may never be implemented is cold comfort to innocent bystanders ...” The Appeals Court urged the California Legislature to change this discrepancy in the police chase liability law.

A Chico, Calif., couple has proposed a state law change after their 15-year-old daughter, Kristie Priano, was killed last year only weeks before U’Kendra Johnson, and following a high-speed police chase strikingly similar to the one that allegedly resulted in the death of the Oakland woman. “Kristie’s Law” would, among other things, require stricter guidelines for police pursuits in residential neighborhoods throughout California and mandate that an independent agency investigate all accidents resulting from police chases.

Priano was killed when her family van was struck by a 15-year-old girl whose only offense was taking her mother’s car without permission. Priano’s mother, Candy, who was in the van at the time, says she believes her daughter’s death was caused by a combination of police too focused on a chase and not enough on the safety of bystanders, and with too much time on their hands in a small town.

“I personally think that they were bored,” Candy Priano says.

The Priano family is working with Republican state Sen. Sam Aanestad of Grass Valley, who has preserved SB982 as a reform measure on high-speed police officer pursuits. Aanestad’s office plans to meet later this year with representatives of state sheriffs, police chiefs and the CHP to craft new safety guidelines for police auto pursuits, and the Prianos hope that the results will meet their vision of “Kristie’s Law.”

In addition, Los Angeles County state Sen. Gloria Romero has introduced legislation which would allow police immunity from lawsuits resulting from high-speed chases only if the police were following their agency’s chase guidelines.

We’ll be watching.