The fast and the furious!

This past week was a lot of fun at work. We had at least 7 pursuits and all of them turned out really good. Our department is very aggressive about pursuits and we train a lot regarding when to pursue, when we shouldn't, and when to safely use techniques to stop the bad guy car. And a lot of the responsibility lies on the shoulders of the sergeant. We are the ones who make all of the final decisions, and we are the ones that have to answer to the Chief!
Some departments only pursue on violent felonies. Some departments don’t pursue at all! They are afraid of the liability. But our troops are highly trained and our policies help us make sound decisions. Plus we always outweigh the need to catch the person versus the seriousness of the crime. We also factor in traffic, road, pedestrian, officer ability, and time of day conditions.
A few years ago we found a stolen car at a local motel and while our guys were watching it a girl ran out, jumped in it and took off. We chased her for a few minutes but when she started flying though intersections and red lights at high speeds we terminated the pursuit. It was only a stolen car so it wasn’t worth anyone getting hurt so we shut down the pursuit. Unfortunately the female kept going and she got into a bad accident. Of course the suspect lived and was only sentenced to about 10 years in prison!
Well one of our pursuits this week almost went bad. Our officers chased a guy in a stolen car that was high on crack. We later learned that his female passenger was also helping him smoke crack during the pursuit! Can you believe that!?! Anyway, my guys chased him up this hill and by the time I got into the area I decided to wait at the bottom in case he turned around. It’s a long hill on the west side of the city with two lanes in each direction and divided by a cement jersey barrier. Well the bad guy did turn around and decided to go back down.... on the wrong side of the road! Our officers terminated the pursuit at that point because it was now too dangerous for the public. Luckily I was at the bottom waiting and had traffic blocked off. I wasn’t going to allow this guy to kill someone because he wanted to smoke crack on his off time! Somehow on his own he ended up crashing before he got to me. I guess crack and driving don’t mix! I don’t recommend it either! =) So we all ran up there and removed him from the vehicle and took him into custody.
And right after that high adrenaline call I had to take a citizen complaint where a lady called in to complain because one of my officers refused to park a police vehicle in front of her home at night. Some people!