LA police told to cut deadly chases pursuits

Just like in the movies, the city of Los Angeles loves a good car chase – until, that is, it all goes horribly wrong.

A couple of months ago, a driver with lapsed registration became so alarmed by the wail of police sirens behind him that he raced into the Saturday afternoon traffic around a big shopping mall. Losing control at a pedestrian crossing, he bounced off a parked Mercedes and slammed into an elderly couple, Henry and Anna Polivoda, both of whom suffered horrific injuries and narrowly escaped with their lives.

Then, just a few days ago, police in central LA gave chase to a suspected car thief. The thief, driving a BMW, hurtled into the crowded area and hit a small van. The van hit a street light, shearing it off at the base, and the lamp came crashing down on top of four-year-old Evelyn Vargas, who died instantly.

Who should be held accountable for these accidents? Should the fleeing drivers take all the blame, or should the police also think twice before gunning up their engines for the chase, lights flashing, at times when a lot of innocent bystanders are likely to get in the way?

It's not an idle question. The Los Angeles Police Department initiates more car chases, leading to the injury of more people, than any other law enforcement agency in California. The state, in turn, leads the US in pursuit-related deaths, most of them occurring in LA. The reason for the lopsided statistics is simple. Most other jurisdictions will only initiate a chase if the driver is a known serious criminal. But in Los Angeles, any excuse will do.

In 2000, the last year for which full figures are available, 68 people were hurt in 597 LAPD-initiated chases. With local television helicopters eager to zero in on a good police pursuit, and the police only too happy to ham it up for the cameras, the numbers keep going up every year.

And now some people think it is time for the rot to stop. The Polivodas are Polish Jews who narrowly escaped extermination by the Nazis and their recently hired, high-profile lawyer argues that nothing justified plunging them into this new hell. Although the police are protected by a 1988 state law absolving them of almost all responsibility for chase-related accidents, the Polivodas are arguing that the police's behaviour in their case "shocks the conscience".

After Evelyn Vargas's death, which provoked another outcry, the LAPD's watchdog, the Police Commission, convened a special hearing to reconsider the rules on chases.

The LAPD forestalled any immediate change of policy by arguing that, more often than not, the drivers in chases turn out to be major-league criminals. But that argument is almost certainly wrong. Recent statistics show that just 15 per cent of chased drivers in LA turn out to be murderers, armed robbers or rapists. The rest are either car thieves or simple traffic violators.