Vehicular Pursuits
It is tempting to believe that a lot has changed since the RodneyKing case. In that highly televised case, police in Los Angeles stoppedMr. King after a high-speed car chase on March 3, 1991. In that case, thechase did not cause the problem; the actions of the officers, taped by acitizen after they got King out of his car, caused the problem. Still, theincident might be regarded as a poster child for the liability that canaccrue to police departments, in terms of civil and even criminalliability, expense and community ill will when dramatic enforcementmaneuvers, such as a high speed chase, are involved in police work. In the aftermath of the King case, G. Patrick Gallagher, director ofthe Institute for Liability Management in Leesburg, Va., noted that "policedepartments must have clear, constitutional, updated and consistentlyenforced policies that provide guidelines for responding to such high-risktasks as the use of force and vehicular pursuits" (Howard, 1991). However,some commentators note that "vehicle pursuits serve a vital law enforcementfunction, with as many as 500,000 occurring each year" (June 1, 1998) The questions, almost fifteen years after the Rodney
His family contendedthat once the police had the license number of the car Poole was drivingerratically, they could have picked him up later instead of engaging in a120-mph pursuit for 14 miles (Rutledge, 1997). Nationwide, the vehicularpursuit death toll is between 300 and 400 people, according to the Post,and about half of those people had nothing at all to do with the police orcriminal activity; they were "in the wrong place at the wrong time"(Kentucky Post, 2003). SupremeCourt appears not to be consistent. There are those who think that's too high a price,considering only 17 percent of those fleeing police are serious felonyoffenders, the article notes, adding that Kentucky put an instant remedy tothat statistic by making it a felony to elude police by car. In 1997, 17-year-old James Ray Poole was killed after a vehicularpursuit that ended in Poole having a fatal crash. THE FINAL SOLUTION As early as 1988, Time magazine examined the issue of vehicularpursuit. In 2001, the Court "issued a ruling that has changed thethreshold of negligence before an agency or officer can be held liable,which will impact police agencies across the United States" (Pape, 2001). Further, Pape (2001) noted that the policy would be balanced betweenthe need to apprehend those suspected of offenses with the need to protectnon-involved citizens from becoming unfortunate statistics because ofvehicular pursuits. TheCounty of Sacramento appealed, and the Supreme Court then reversed theappeals court ruling, holding that "liability for negligently inflictedharm is categorically beneath the constitutional due process threshold,while conduct deliberately intended to inure in some way unjustifiable byany government interest is the sort of official action most likely to riseto the conscience shocking level" (Quoted by Tabin, March 2, 1998). Pape(2001) noted that even before the Supreme Court ruling, a large body ofcase law had built up, resulting in both state law and federal statutesthat would need to be considered as well; the policies would need toaccommodate all such previous legal findings that applied in theirjurisdiction. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled in favorof an officer who had pursued a 13-yer-old traffic violator who crashed andsustained serious permanent injury. LEGAL OVERVIEW Between the time of the Cincinnati police and Kentucky Fish andWildlife incidents, the U. In that case, the court found that "theuse of high speed pursuits to apprehend traffic violators is notunreasonable and, thus, not violate of the Fourth Amendment" (Quoted byPape, 2001).
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