Should the police chase fleeing vehicles?

Almost a few times each week if you are watching the news there are reports of a squad pursuit and in some cases a crash at the end or conclusion. These pursuits are extremely dangerous and in many cases the drivers are juveniles who have little driving experience. Many are not even old enough to drive. For some reason, these pursuits are exciting to the people inside the fleeing vehicles, not realizing what the results might be. Now there are big differences between vehicles wanted for something like an armed robbery or kids just out for a joy ride in a stolen vehicle. In the end the results are the same and can be deadly no matter why you are being chased.

Why are there so many pursuits going on these days? Do you remember when former Chief Flynn put in a policy stating you can only pursuit vehicles if they are involved in a felony? I talked with numerous officers doing that time who were not happy with that policy. They were being disrespected by some citizens who would speed off knowing they would not be chased. Some were at actual traffic stops and other cars would burn rubber and just try to tease the squads to chase them. Now I cannot say for sure why pursuits are up, but it has some kind of involvement. The sad part is now these days there are even girls inside many of these stolen vehicles and the pursuits.

MPD has a squad pursuit policy which each squad must follow to continue or call off the chase. They must call out the speed they are traveling, direction, how heavy the vehicle traffic is and how many pedestrians are out in the area. Sergeants are supposed to be monitoring all pursuits and call them off also if they are getting dangerous. If you notice in some of these stories, they will say the squad ended the pursuit because the vehicle was traveling at a high rate of speed. The squad will then check the area and observe the vehicle has crashed trying to get away.

We need to put out PSAs or public service announcements talking about how dangerous these pursuits are. These can be on TV, or signs and buses to get the word out. I believe this could or should also even be mentioned in schools. Do many of you remember the DARE program when officers came to school and talked about the dangers of drugs? How about doing the same thing talking about the dangers of running from the police? We really need to do more before many more people are seriously injured or killed from these incidents.