Police pursuit ends with yet another fatality

Speeding Cadillac flees Harris County officer, loses control, runs over woman on sidewalk

When the Cadillac flew by, it caught the deputy’s attention. The driver was speeding down Interstate 45, so the deputy flipped on his lights to make a stop.

But the man refused to pull over, instead leading the Precinct 1 patrol on a high-speed chase that ended with a 34-year-old woman dead and the alleged driver, Julian Marcelino Sosa, behind bars.

The woman he’s accused of killing has become another of the more than 300 people who die every year during police pursuits, according to federal data. Given their deadliness, police pursuits have long been a contentious policy point, with some experts advising caution and others suggesting the tactic shouldn’t be used for low-level offenses at all.

“Departments have a responsibility to have a policy in place that takes into consideration the danger to innocent civilians,” said Larry Karson, an associate professor of criminology at University of Houston-Downtown, “and it needs to be a policy that finds some balance between the requirements of policing and the security of the community they serve.”

The latest fatal chase began around 6 a.m. on Sunday, when deputies with the Precinct 1 Constable’s Office started pursuing Sosa’s Cadillac on the highway. The 22-year-old allegedly refused to pull over and instead got off and made a U-turn beneath the overpass in the 13100 block of Rankin.

But on the sharp curve, Sosa lost control and veered onto the sidewalk, then hit a utility box and allegedly ran over a homeless woman sleeping in front of it, according to the sheriff ’s office.

The woman, who authorities did not immediately identify, had to be pulled out from under the vehicle by Houston firefighters and later died at the hospital.

Sosa took off running, but deputies caught him about a block away on the feeder road. When they searched his car, authorities

allegedly found a handgun and some marijuana.

The chase was just one of at least four Houston-area police pursuits overnight. None of the others ended in fatalities — though one concluded with the fleeing driver’s vehicle impaled into the wall of a Burger King.

Given the high stakes, the public safety of police pursuits has long been up for debate.

Geoff Alpert, a criminal justice professor at the University of South Carolina, told the Chronicle earlier this year that police should reserve chases for violent suspects — not low-level traffic violations.

“If this is a terrorist, if this is someone who shot up a school, a rapist, a robber — I think we’d all be saying, ‘Go get them,’” he said. “But when it’s just a traffic or property offender, I think we need to say, ‘What for?’”

Though experts noted that a suspect’s decision to flee could be seen as indicative of other risky goings-on, the decision to pursue could just multiply that risk.

In 2016, the Houston area saw at least 13 chase crashes in 13 weeks, leaving six people dead and nine injured, according to a Chronicle analysis.

“Speeding is a public hazard, and it’s multiplied when you have a following officer — so it’s like double the potential for an accident,” said Mitchel Roth, a criminal justice professor at Sam Houston State University. “With so many traffic violations, there’s other ways to deal with it.”

That’s why, he said, many urban police forces have become “much more cautious in using a high-speed chase.”

Over the years, departments have also shifted their policies on who authorizes continuing a pursuit, how many officers can be involved in a chase, and — most recently — Houston police OK’d tapping the fleeing driver’s car, a controversial and potentially dangerous tactic intended to end chases more quickly.

In the case of Sunday’s chase and fatal crash, it’s not clear whether Precinct 1 followed policy or whether its policy allows for pursuits following traffic violations. The office’s internal affairs will investigate, officials said.

“Whenever you get into a chase, the officer and supervisors are always calculating the risk to the public,” said Precinct 1 Constable Alan Rosen. “Every chase is evaluated to ensure it meets policy.”