The Case of the Chase: The history of MPD’s pursuit policy
Police pursuit policies across the country are the result of three landmark U.S. Supreme Court rulings, including the Garner case from Memphis that involved a teenager shot and killed by an MPD officer chasing him on foot. (Jim Weber/Daily Memphian file)
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The current Memphis Police pursuit policy has been in place since January 1993, when then-Police Director Walter Winfrey made a change after a six-month review that included push-back on the same issues that have surfaced in the current debate.
The MPD didn’t have a specific policy until 1985, just past the late 1970s era of blue police patrol cars that were a version of the car driven by NASCAR legend Richard Petty and touted as such by the department.
The current policy bars police car chases for misdemeanors including traffic offenses.
It also makes provisions for police helicopter crews to pursue and seek information from above for police to follow up on later.
The policy was tested less than a month after it was put in place when two police patrol cars collided with each other as they chased a suspect wanted in a robbery and carjacking of a pizza delivery driver three days earlier.
Winfrey said the officers were within the policy because they were pursuing someone wanted for a crime against a person – a violent crime.
A year and a half later, the Tennessee Supreme Court confirmed the city and police brass’s reasoning with a decision in a Chattanooga case that held departments liable for crashes when a car police are chasing hits someone in another car not involved in the crime or pursuit.
The current Memphis Police pursuit policy has been in place since January 1993, and bars police car chases for misdemeanors including traffic offenses. (Patrick Lantrip/Daily Memphian)
The case involved a Hamilton County Sheriff’s Deputy attempting to pull over a car with a broken taillight.
The ruling overturned two previous decisions by the Tennessee Supreme Court that limited police liability in such crashes.
Current police pursuit policies across the country are the result of three landmark U.S. Supreme Court rulings, including the Garner case from Memphis that involved a teenager shot and killed by an MPD officer chasing him on foot.
The court’s ruling there signaled the formal end of the policy used by MPD and other departments of the time that allowed police to use deadly force on “fleeing felons” – those suspected by an officer of felonies.
The standard defined by the court was whether the suspect being pursued is a threat to kill or seriously injure the officer or others on foot or in a car.
The MPD had already stopped using the deadly force policy by the time the court ruling declared it unconstitutional.
The other two Supreme Court rulings that have shaped car chase policies date back to 1989.
And their subject matter is less clear in determining the balance between the dangers of a car chase and the crime or offense of which the person being chased is suspected.
“It is clear that force must be proportionate to the danger the fleeing person represents,” reads a 1990 report on high-speed police pursuit policies by the Justice Department’s National Institute of Justice.
The Brower case decision bars police from creating a roadblock and then pursuing a suspect into that roadblock.
In October 1971, a car chase ended with Memphis Police and Sheriff’s Deputies beating 17-year-old Elton Hayes to death.
The chase through Orange Mound and into Capleville concluded when one of the other two teenagers driving the car turned onto a side street when he saw a fire truck blocking Lamar Avenue.
Initial reports by police claimed Hayes died in a car crash at the end of the chase. The car was undamaged.
In the other Supreme Court ruling, the court held a local government and its law enforcement agency are liable if they don’t provide specific training and guidelines for car chases.
The specific case was about guidelines for medical treatment of injured suspects but has been applied to the rules for a police pursuit among other things.
A March 2010 law enforcement bulletin from the FBI Training Division shows the majority of police pursuits to that point began with some kind of traffic violation and that from 1994 to 1998, a law enforcement officer was killed at a rate of once every 11 weeks in such pursuits.
A model pursuit policy from the International Association of Chiefs of Police isn’t as specific as the MPD policy and suggests more discretion for individual officers. “In general, pursuits for minor violations are discouraged,” it reads. (Daily Memphian file)
The authors of the study – David P. Schultz, Ed Hudak and Geoffrey Alpert – also looked at trends such as how soon after a chase was ended by police did a suspect slow down and whether a public pursuit policy encourages more suspects to flee from police.
“Research has shown that if the police refrain from chasing all offenders and terminate their pursuits, no significant increase in the number of suspects who flee would occur,” the three experts wrote.
Schultz surveyed more than 1,000 officers during in-service training on police pursuits in 2007 and 2008 at the Minnesota Highway Safety and Research Center. He surveyed them on how officers perceive pursuit policies and their experience with such policies.
“On average, the officers reported that suspects would quit running after 1.7 blocks in town,” he wrote. “Overall, 98% advised that suspects would stop within five or fewer blocks. The other 2% believed that the suspects would continue fleeing for a greater distance.”
The criteria for trying to get suspects fleeing to slow down after the chase had ended included pursuing officers turning off their flashing lights and visibly showing they were not pursuing.
A model pursuit policy from the International Association of Chiefs of Police isn’t as specific as the MPD policy and suggests more discretion for individual officers.
“In general, pursuits for minor violations are discouraged,” it reads.
The IACP did not respond to inquiries from The Daily Memphian on its policy guidelines.
The model does not make felonies the dividing line between pursuing or not pursuing.
Otherwise, the MPD policy is similar but IACP does not include the requirement of an officer notifying a supervisor at the rank of lieutenant or above within a minute of the pursuit beginning.
However, a supervisor’s responsibilities once the chase is underway includes making the call to end the pursuit by the IACP standards.
Washington state’s new police pursuit law that took effect July 1, 2021, bars police pursuits unless officers have probable cause.
In Minneapolis, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman drafted an October 2021 memo calling for changes to Minnesota’s state standards for police pursuits that allow pursuits for something other than a felony offense.
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Bill Dries
Bill Dries covers city and county government and politics. He is a native Memphian and has been a reporter for almost 50 years covering a wide variety of stories from the 1977 death of Elvis Presley and the 1978 police and fire strikes to numerous political campaigns, every county mayor and every Memphis Mayor starting with Wyeth Chandler.
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