ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, April 28, 1996 TAG: 9604290053
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DIANE STRUZZI STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Strip
DEPARTMENTS TRAIN officers in not only the technique for pursuing suspects at high speeds, but more importantly, whether they should even undertake the risk.
The high-speed chase began last August with a stalking complaint.
A woman in Old Southwest Roanoke told police a man in a van had been following her. A patrol officer spotted a van matching that description near the woman's house and saw it run a stop sign.
The officer turned on his flashing lights and tried to pull the van over. The driver sped away.
The chase reached 95 mph before the suspect crashed into a median on Interstate 81.
Radio dispatches among officers that night show why some police say the high-speed pursuit is the most stressful and unpredictable part of their job.
"The adrenaline gets flowing during a pursuit," said Sgt. Roger Macy, who heads the Virginia State Police Training Academy in Richmond. "Physically and psychologically, the officer is so intense on getting the job done it's like outrunning floodwater. Once they're finished, all of a sudden the adrenaline flood catches up, and now they deal with a big letdown."
The suspect in last summer's case, Larry D. Smith of Roanoke, was in court last week as prosecutors played tapes of the radio traffic between officers, supervisors and dispatchers. He was sentenced to six years in prison, the maximum, for reckless driving and driving after being declared a habitual offender.
The tapes show pursuing officers' concern for safety, other motorists and their department's policy.
When the chase crossed into Roanoke County on Interstate 581, a dispatcher notified county and state police. A supervisor then told some patrol cars to back off, giving breathing room to the lead officer and the suspect.
The chase continued onto northbound I-81.
"He's trying to cut you off - watch yourself," an officer trailing the pursuit cautioned the officer in the lead car. "You have a lot of room to catch up to him, don't get too close to him."
"When the county unit gets here ... let him take over," another officer said.
On the tapes the lead officer was calm - until he saw Smith's van crash into the median, careen back across the two northbound lanes and onto the shoulder.
"Block traffic! Block the entire interstate!" the officer shouted. "He fell out! He's right here in the middle of the street! He's been thrown from the vehicle! I need rescue!''
Smith suffered a leg injury that kept him in treatment for months.
Even Smith's attorney noted the officers' restraint during the chase.
But maintaining control does not come easy, and only recently have law enforcement agencies recognized it as a potential problem in pursuits. What most have learned is that special training, strict policy and good supervision help achieve control.
"You train people to follow procedures and to utilize outside sources like supervisors who are not immediately involved," said Lt. William Althoff, who heads the Roanoke Police Academy. "You teach them to control themselves by teaching them to adhere to procedure."
When should an officer choose not to enforce the law?
That's the question in a pursuit.
And that judgment call is what the critics say makes pursuits so risky. What is worth jeopardizing the public's safety? Is anything worth the life of innocent bystanders?
Roanoke County Police Chief John Cease and his department have been mulling over those questions as they look at the deadly results of a chase last Sunday. It began over what police considered suspicious actions by a motorist, and ended nearly 15 miles and 17 minutes later, when the motorist plowed into a car crossing his path, killing a family of three.
The officers had stopped the chase three-tenths of a mile from the congested intersection where the crash occurred. But Scott Allman continued to speed away from them, even though he knew officers had stopped chasing him, according to an interview with WDBJ (Channel7).
Allman is charged with three counts of involuntary manslaughter, eluding police and additional traffic violations. He is scheduled for a preliminary hearing in Roanoke County General District Court May29.
As an officer tried to pull Allman over - suspecting his tinted windows were too dark, a traffic violation - he sped away. The officer noticed a woman in the seat beside Allman.
"Ninety-nine times out of 100, you pull over someone and they stop," Cease said. "But what made him pull across two lanes of traffic and run? Did he just rob a bank? Has the woman in the car been raped or abducted? I guess if the woman had, she'd hope you'd pursue."
But officers should react to what they know, not what they don't, said Geoffrey Alpert, a University of South Carolina criminology professor who has studied high-speed chases for 15 years.
He likens a high-speed chase to a police officer's use of force against a suspect. Alpert said officers should pursue only when a suspect is a known violent felon - and even then, the risk to innocent people has to be weighed against the arrest of that suspect.
Alpert believes it comes down to training and policy. Both are improving, he said, as departments learn that a chase may not be worth the safety and liability risks.
"A few years ago, you didn't get training; and if you did, it was on how to chase," he said. "Now it's when to chase."
Officers who have been out of the academy for five or six years, for instance, are more likely to get into a risky pursuit than are new recruits, Alpert said.
Officers are trained not to let bruised egos factor into their decision to chase, said Macy of the state police. Rather, they are trained to consider the goal of the chase and the safety hazards.
"They have a job to do, and [pursuits] are part of it," he said. "But they must understand to do it with due care. ... They have to be concerned about the general public and also themselves. If they can't complete the job, then they're of no value."
That philosophy has evolved as trainers such as Macy learn more about what happens physiologically to an officer in a pursuit. National cases with extreme results - like the 1992 beating of Rodney King, and more recently, the beating of illegal immigrants who tried to elude deputies in Riverside County, Calif. - have occurred after chases.
Such cases have been wake-up calls to some law enforcement administrators, who now scrutinize pursuit cases. As in incidents when force is used, administrators track the number of cases, who is involved, and whether policy was followed. Virginia State Police say the findings help improve the training for their 950 troopers.
Last year, those troopers were involved in 215 pursuits; one in four reached 50 mph above the speed limit. Thirty percent ended in accidents, which included the deaths of three suspects and two innocent bystanders.
"We're impressing on the officer that there's nothing wrong with terminating a pursuit," said Lt. Col. W. Gerald Massengill of the state police. "In fact, it's appropriate and entirely proper."
Some agencies are also looking into alternatives to stopping pursuits. State police are testing tire-deflation devices that can be put on the road for the suspect's car to run over. The device shoots a tube into the tires, gradually letting the air out.
There has been one successful use of the device.
Cease said his internal investigation of the Allman pursuit should be completed early this week. So far, investigators have found that the officers heeded policy.
Investigators also found that Allman's windows were twice as dark as they should have been, violating state law.
By far, this is the worst end to a pursuit in the department's five-year history. Never before have innocent bystanders been killed.
In 1994, Roanoke County and Roanoke officers chased an 18-year-old driver who did not have his headlights turned on and refused to stop for them. The teen-ager died from injuries sustained when he crashed as he exited the Roy Webber Highway. Authorities determined he had been drinking.
Pursuing drunk drivers has become more commonplace, Cease said. In the past three years, DUI charges resulting from chases have steadily increased in his jurisdiction.
When Cease talks about how seriously his department takes chases, he points to a special committee that reviews them every three months. The members are looking for trends: Are the same officers involved? What are the location, time of day, weather conditions? Did officers adhere to policy?
"When you do all of that," Cease said, "I still believe our policy is sound, our training is good and our officers behave responsibly within that policy."
LENGTH: Long : 157 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: Chart by staff: Roanoke County police pursuits. KEYWORDS: FATALITYby CNB