An investigation tracks how Border Patrol chases have spun out of control, with sometimes deadly consequences

She saw red and blue lights, and heard emergency sirens. The Pathfinder, packed with immigrants, had just dodged a set of spike strips at 95 mph.

She tried to pull over. But the Pathfinder invaded her lane in an attempt to pass her. It clipped her driver’s side, spun out and T-boned her passenger side. The airbag deployed in her face. Agents blocked in the Pathfinder.

“That’s why they were able to catch him,” she says of the crash.

When she opened her eyes, pain was shooting through her spine and it hurt to move her neck. Her car, a Nissan Juke that she had just finished paying off, was totaled.

In some instances, the Border Patrol used risky offensive driving techniques at high speeds, standing in stark contrast to the policies of other large law enforcement agencies that make use of those same maneuvers.

The Pursuit Intervention Technique, commonly called a PIT maneuver, in which an officer strikes the rear of a fleeing vehicle to make it spin out and come to a stop, should rarely be used at speeds above 35 mph, experts said.

The tactic of “boxing in” a fleeing car, where two or more law enforcement vehicles surround it to force it to slow down, is also not meant to be used at high speeds, experts said.

The LAPD and California Highway Patrol, which combine to engage in thousands of chases per year, direct officers not to use a PIT maneuver at speeds above 35 mph. Some agencies discourage or prohibit box and PIT maneuvers altogether.

Even the Border Patrol considers use of a PIT maneuver against a car driving faster than 40 mph to be “deadly force,” Kim said.

But in at least five cases, the ProPublica-Times analysis found, Border Patrol agents attempted to use a PIT or box maneuver when a car was going faster than 40 mph. Some instances occurred in places where pedestrians or other cars were in danger of getting hit.

Kim, the assistant chief patrol agent, maintains offensive driving is sometimes necessary.

“If I’m chasing this vehicle and I see that it keeps swerving in and out of traffic, it’s already cut some vehicles off and made them crash, in my mind, they have no regard for human life. They need to be stopped, otherwise if they keep going they’re just going to continue doing that,” Kim said.

Alpert, who reviewed several cases for this analysis, criticized the speeds at which agents were chasing suspects and requesting permission to use offensive driving maneuvers.

“The speeds seem crazy,” he said. “If you’re driving that fast, unless this guy really poses an imminent threat, why would you risk yourself, the public and even the fleeing suspect to a likelihood of a serious consequence, for what?”