|
This debate has been raging for years here in Southern California. Many due to many high profile cases where innocent people have been killed. Perhaps the most notorious of these cases was a border patrol chase in Temecula which resulted in the deaths of 5 pedestrians near a high school in 1991. The Border Patrol was chasing a vehicle which busted through a Border checkpoint while carrying illegal immigrants. The Border Patrol was sued in federal court and was found 25% responsible for the deaths. In that case, the law enforcement should have pulled off at least the land based portion of the chase when it realized it was going to go through a school zone as school was starting.
Nowadays, the chase policies vary widely from department to department. Some departments pull off the ground based units if the driver is driving crazily. Some departments still use the "pit manuver" against people they're chasing. The pit manuver is where a cop car rams one of the rear quarter panels to try to get the car to spin out.
I think that chases should be evaluated on a case by case basis. It's hard to have an all encompassing guideline for this.
__________________
My name is goddfather40 and I approved this message.
I got ho's and I got bitches,
In C++ I branch with switches
-MC Plus+
|