And the chase is off
New York is trying to steal the Oscars. Colorado wants its water back. The Lakers can't get along. And, now to make things worse, L.A.'s longest-running reality show is in danger of cancellation.
The Los Angeles Police Commission said earlier this month that it will no longer allow police chases for minor traffic infractions like broken taillights or expired license plates. The decision, which police believe could reduce the number of chases by up to 60 percent, was met with a flurry of snickering, including suggestions that this entire chase-obsessed city might need psychological counseling. Los Angeles is, after all, the police-pursuit capital of the world. In 2001, the last year for which data are available, there were 781 chases on its broad boulevards and ubiquitous freeways--more than in any other city in the nation. Dallas, for instance, had 424. News choppers from seven TV stations hover constantly over the freeways monitoring traffic and making it easy for local stations to break into programming (which they do once a week on average) to cover rogue cars and vans as they flee the cops and drive up ratings. So consumed are some Angelenos with freeway chases that they pay companies like PursuitWatch.com, which has 2,000 subscribers, to alert them by pager or cellphone as soon as a chase begins. "We know it's ridiculous, but there is a tremendous fascination in this city with everything that happens on the freeways," says Jeff Wald, news director for WB affiliate KTLA. "When a chase starts you never know how it will end."
But more and more it ends badly. One of five chases typically ends in a crash. More than 3,000 people have been killed in police pursuits in the past decade, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In 2001 alone, 365 people died nationwide, including 140 who were not in a police car or the vehicle being chased. As a result, citizens groups and lawmakers have been pushing for changes. Cities such as Boston and Atlanta, for example, now allow police to pursue only suspected violent felons, like armed robbers or rapists. Several state legislatures, concerned about mounting injuries and lawsuits, are considering new measures that would not just decrease the number of chases but increase the penalties for those who flee police to include vehicle forfeiture and mandatory jail time.
Los Angeles, however, has been slow to cut the chase. "The police culture says you've got to do everything you can to get the bad guy," says Geoffrey Alpert, a professor of criminology at the University of South Carolina and an expert on police pursuits. "Without sufficient public outrage, that culture is very slow to change." But the outrage has been building here, and now it has a sympathetic ear in the new LAPD chief, Bill Bratton. Bratton, a former New York City police commissioner, has expressed concern that the local news media treat police chases as "sport" and has questioned whether the coverage contributes to the problem. (Fleeing suspects have been known to wave to the cameras.)
Bratton called for a review of the department's policy late last year after several high-profile accidents were caused by police chases; in one incident, an infant boy's arm was severed when the SUV his parents were driving was sideswiped by a fleeing suspect.
The LAPD's new policy, which will be tested for a year, is still far less restrictive than those in other cities. In Los Angeles, officers who suspect a misdemeanor or felony is, has been, or is about to be committed--such as reckless driving or car theft--can still initiate a pursuit. "There is a great deal of misunderstanding," says LAPD Deputy Chief David Doan. "People are jumping up and down thinking we aren't going to chase down criminals anymore. We're trying to hold people accountable in the safest way possible." To that end, the department will rely more on helicopters to safely track fleeing cars from the air. As for those who flee, most of them, says Alpert, are not serious criminals but rather "deadbeats who make a stupid decision to run so they won't get caught for some minor offense."
The police union and even the media say they are behind the changes. "We agree with Bratton," says news director Wald, noting that most local stations have scaled back chase coverage since a 1998 incident when a distraught AIDS patient ended a pursuit by committing suicide on live television. He then adds: "But if the story is worthy of coverage--and I can't tell you exactly what that means--then it's our job to cover it."
This story appears in the January 27, 2003 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.