CrimLaw

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In recent days there have been a number of deaths when local police officers attempted to pull someone over for a traffic violation and then engaged in a high speed chase when the car did not pull over.

THIS EVALUATION IS JUST WRONG:

"It's about this simple: Police must chase people who attempt to run from them, whether in a vehicle or on foot. They have no choice but to chase each and every person who attempts to elude them. Not doing so runs the risk of letting someone get away who is wanted for a more serious crime. For all the police know, the person fleeing could be Osama bin Laden."

This is wrong on so many levels that it is hard to know where to start. So, I'll just jump in. High speed chases engaged in by police cannot be excused by falling back on the minisculely remote chance that a terrorist might be involved. We cannot justify every action taken by law enforcement with the excuse that someday, somewhere some officer might stop some terrorist and find the magic formula to end terrorism forever.

Now lets get to reality: Often police engage in investigatory stops using minor traffic infractions as cover. While this violates the spirit of the constitution it is effective and courts continue to allow it as technically valid. When you do this sort of thing occasionally someone is going to run and if you chase a certain percentage of fatalities will occur.

Some locales have stopped police pursuits in these situations because of the number of fatalities. I think that each locality needs to do its own cost-benefit analysis. The equation should go something like this: If - (number of stops leading to serious felony arrests**/number of stops) < the acceptable percentage of deaths coming from chases - it is unacceptable. Of course, the problem is that we will never get the correct number of stops because we will never know how many people were pulled over and let go with a warning after the officer searched the car and found nothing.


** felonies other than felony eluding and at least as serious as distribution

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