ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, April 23, 1996 TAG: 9604230137
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Above
SOME CITIES limit chases to cases of murder, rape or other violent felonies.
Outside Atlanta last fall, 21-year-old Frank Petty was heading home from his pizzeria job when a '73 Dodge Dart blew into an intersection at more than 100 mph.
The crash, which killed Petty, ended a police chase. The other motorist had fled officers because he didn't have a driver's license and was wanted for violating his probation on a shoplifting conviction.
On New Year's Eve in Orange County, Calif., boxer Ernesto Magdaleno, a contender for the World Boxing Council's light-heavyweight title, died when his Jeep Cherokee was hit by 19-year-old driver fleeing police.
Police were chasing the teen-ager, who also died, because they believed he had stolen camera equipment.
In Omaha, Neb., police had five high-speed chases in the first 10 days of April. In one, a 33-year-old man wanted for traffic violations smashed his car into a tree and died.
Hundreds of people die each year - thousands over the past decade - in police chases across the United States, according to federal highway officials.
The deaths Sunday of a Vinton couple and their infant are among a growing number of cases around the nation that have sparked controversy over when and how police should chase runaway motorists.
Critics say high-revving police chases of people wanted for traffic violations or petty crimes put both officers and citizens in terrible danger - a risk, they argue, that outweighs the benefits of catching someone who could be grabbed later.
"More people are killed in high-speed chases than from an officer's gun," says Letitia Landry of Jackson, Wyo., director of a national advocacy group, Solutions to Tragedies of Police Pursuits, created in 1994. "We don't feel police should be putting citizens at risk in a chase unless they've already been put at risk by a known, violent felon."
Defenders of current police-chase practices say officers can't stand back when people defy authority - and police shouldn't be blamed for what happens when motorists run from the law.
Roanoke Valley police say Sunday's fatal chase started after an officer noticed a motorist who was acting suspiciously and appeared to have illegally tinted windows on his car.
"In this case, and many other cases, people point their finger at the police," but it's the fleeing driver who's to blame, Roanoke Police Major Don Shields said. "He's the one who made the decision not to stop. He's the one who killed those people."
Federal highway safety statistics show that about one-quarter of the people who are killed after high-speed chases are police officers or innocent bystanders.
David Falcone, a criminal justice professor at Illinois State University, says studies show at least one of every 100 high-speed chases ends in death. He said federal statistics - which show that the number of chase deaths has grown from 287 a year during the 1980s to 388 in 1994 - may undercount the true number of fatalities. It could top 1,000 a year, he said.
Typically, the driver is a male about 20 "who makes a silly decision to run, and the whole thing goes downhill," Falcone said. Studies show about 60 percent of chases begin with routine traffic stops, and most of the rest involve nonviolent crimes, he said.
A growing number of cities now limit chases to cases involving murder, rape or other violent felonies.
Memphis, Tenn., Police Chief Walter Winfrey likens the decision to chase to deciding whether to pull your service revolver and use deadly force - which is supposed to happen only in life-and-death, no-other-choice situations. "If you can't shoot," Winfrey says, "you can't chase."
Since Alexandria, Va., police began limiting chases, Chief Charles Samarra says, his officers do a better job of planning their traffic stops, arranging backup and cutting off escape routes.
Roanoke's Shields wants to see tougher penalties for motorists who flee police, including mandatory jail time, seizure of the vehicle and making it an automatic felony offense.
Falcone, a former police officer, said making it a felony would create more chases, because it would give police greater reason to pursue in cases resulting from routine traffic violations.
Staff writer Betty Hayden contributed to this story.
LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines KEYWORDS: FATALITYby CNB