State eyes police chase policy
The headlines are all too common: “Newtown traffic stop leads to highspeed chase, crash.” “Stolen car chase injures six in multi-vehicle crash in Hamden.” “Teen dead after police pursuit.” “3year-old killed by suspect leading officers on chase.”
That last one haunts Rep. Joe Verrengia, who was a West Hartford police officer for 25 years. Two women, a toddler and a baby in a pink stroller were on the sidewalk in Waterbury when the 18-year-old suspect’s car barreled into them in 2017. Police believed the man was involved in a drug deal; he fled a traffic stop.
Why did the police start a dangerous chase for that, Verrengia wonders. What if that was his wife or kid?
“A lot of innocent people are getting seriously injured if not killed,” said Verrengia.
Police pursuits are more common than police shootings and frequently cause injury to civilians, suspects, police and property, the U.S. Department of Justice reported.
Connecticut started collecting data on police pursuits for the first time in January. Now, the state is convening a working group to reconsider Connecticut’s nearly 20-year-old minimum policy on police chases.
“Rep. Verrengia and I sat down for a little while and we both have concerns about stolen cars and chases resulting from stolen cars,” said James Rovella, commissioner of the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection and former chief of Hartford Police.
If the state stops police pursuits for stolen cars, traffic violations or nonviolent felonies, Connecticut could be the first state to join a growing list of cities around the country to only allow police chases of violent criminals, said Geoff Alpert, professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of South Carolina. Some Connecticut cities have already switched to that restrictive model.
The focus on pursuits is part of a national reckoning with how police work to protect the public sometimes puts civilians in danger.
In Connecticut, a new bill expanding the mandatory dissemination of data on police use of force is expected out this week, but it’s unlcear if the data would include pursuits. Sen. Gary Winfield, D-New Haven, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, said he considers police pursuits a “use of force” on the “Where We Live” radio show.
A Department of Justice report from 1990 called high-speed police pursuit “possibly the most dangerous of all ordinary police activities.”
Verrengia completed police pursuits when he was a cop and described the feeling.
“It’s an adrenaline rush,” said Verrengia. “Once you’re engaged, you’re
so focused on the vehicle in front of you, chasing it trying to apprehend it. ... Your whole body changes. Your train of thought changes. But at the same time, you have to be aware of your surroundings.”
Connecticut has a statewide policy on police pursuits that it enacted in
2000. The decision to initiate a chase hinges on a judgment call by the officer behind the wheel. The officer must conclude “the immediate danger to the police officer and the public created by the pursuit is less than the immediate or potential danger to the public should the occupants of such a vehicle remain at large.”
It does not spell out the types of crimes an officer may pursue for.
“(Police officers are) making a lot of decisions under the heat of the chase,” said Alpert, who has studied pursuits since the 1980s. “It’s an emotional decision that police want to chase the bad guy and they end up hurting themselves, hurting innocent civilians and hurting the bad guy. So that’s why I recommended 20-something years ago police pursuits be limited to violent crimes.”
The state policy is a minimum. Local police departments can have more restrictive policies and some do.
New Haven police do not pursue for traffic violations.
Last month, Hamden town officials proposed only allowing chases of violent felons, like murder and armed robbery suspects. This puts Hamden in the ranks of Milwaukee, Orlando and New Orleans, which have enacted the same limitation.
Hamden’s new policy, not yet approved, also explicitly states that pursuits may not be used for property crime suspects. That distinction may grow in importance as stolen car thefts rise in Connecticut suburbs.
Hamden police pursued a stolen SUV on Jan. 1, and the chase ended with a crash and the death of 25-yearold Andrew Basilici of Hamden. Most police pursuits do end with the arrest or apprehension of the subject, said Alpert. Most are short and occur at night.
But sometimes the chase comes at a
cost. About 40 percent of pursuits result in crashes, 20 percent cause injury and 1 percent are fatal, Alpert said.
Officers often have little technical driving or decision-making training regarding pursuits, Alpert said.
Sometimes the apprehension of criminals can be achieved by other means than pursuing. Alpert also pointed to other technologies like improved GPS tracking that could decrease police reliance on pursuits.
Until now, Connecticut policy makers have been reliant on media reports and anecdotes on policy pursuits in the absence of state data collection.
The state’s Police Officer Standards and Training Council began collecting pursuit data from municipal departments and state police for the first time in January. The data will be analyzed by a state university and published at the end of the year, said Verrengia, who chairs the legislature’s Public Safety and Security Committee.
Only eight or nine states collect similar data, Alpert said. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been found to undercount police pursuits and chase-related deaths.
On April 17, Verrengia sent a letter to Rovella, commissioner of the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, requesting the state police and POST Council convene a working group to review state and municipal policies and recommend best practices by Oct. 1.
Those recommendations will provide lawmakers the guidance to update the state’s minimum policy if needed, said Verrengia. He wants all towns and state police to follow one policy, instead of the current patchwork.
“I think we need to step it up to another level,” said Verrengia.
The working group will be discussed at an upcoming POST meeting, Rovella said. The group will comprise cops, legislators, community members and other stakeholders.