In 1950s, Austin removed lights and sirens from police cars: Result was award winning traffic safety record

Speeding with light and sirens is among the most dangerous things police officers do on the job, and about as likely to get officers or civilians killed as gunplay. Over the last couple of decades, this blog has documented efforts to reduce those deaths via policy tweaks and new technology.

But in the 1950s, Austin police took an even more drastic step to reduce police-vehicle accidents: Grits was today years old when I learned that, in the 1950s, the Austin Police Department removed lights and sirens from its police cars to encourage better driving by its officers. 

It worked. Accidents involving officers plummeted and the city won a national safety award for its vehicle fleet.

In an Austin Statesman article dated December 27, 1955 titled, "Siren, light removal makes police unhappy," the paper reported that "removal of the sirens and red lights has materially reduced accidents involving police cars rushing to other smashups or speeding to the scene of a crime."

Police Captain George Rogers, head of the department's traffic bureau, said "it was a very important factor" in Austin's winning of the 1955 fleet traffic safety award.

The award - presented by the National Association of Chiefs of Police and the National Safety Council - recognizes the Austin police department's fleet safety record as the best in the nation.

They began removing lights and sirens as they replaced old patrol cars starting in 1953. According to Captain Rogers, "Some of the boys got it in their heads that because they had sirens everyone would get out of their way, but of course that's not true. We figured we could save equipment by removing them, and we have."

Rogers noted that since July only two police cars have been involved in accidents - a substantial better showing than in the past.

[City Manager Terrell] Blodgett put it this way: "We did it to reduce accidents. We felt that the few seconds saved (because of sirens) were not worth the chances of accident and injuries.

"Rank and file" grumbled about the change, but for at least a few years, it stuck. 

I can't tell precisely when lights and sirens made it back onto Austin police cars. But in 1971, the Legislature passed a state law mandating that "an emergency vehicle on an emergency call must use red lights and a siren." Not long thereafter, two Austin police cars were totaled when they hit each other driving with lights and sirens to a non-emergency call. One of the officers was seriously injured. Reported the Statesman at the time:

At one time, the Austin police force did not have plainly marked patrol cars and only had a small red light which an officer placed on the dashboard of the unit when stopping another car.

No car was equipped with sirens at that time. ("New police Code 3 policy requires sirens, red lights," Austin American Statesman, Dec. 28, 1971)

This is a shockingly forward thinking policy prescription for the 1950s and I'm amazed police brass were willing to stand up to the rank and file to enact it. Less surprising are the facts that a) it undeniably reduced accidents and saved lives and b) eventually the city succumbed to pressure from the "rank and file" to change it back.

Limiting police pursuits would save lives but cops like them too much

Houston police Chief Art Acevedo says HPD won't change its policies after three high-speed chases in one night, all of them initially stemming from suspects who fled at traffic stops, resulted in two innocent bystanders killed. According to press reports, Houston cops on average undertake 2-3 high-speed pursuits per day. Similar issues arose when the chief was in Austin.

Indeed, overuse of police pursuits has been a hobbyhorse of this blog for many years: High-speed chases are among the most dangerous things police officers do and result in many preventable deaths. In 2015, USA Today reported:

More than 5,000 bystanders and passengers have been killed in police car chases since 1979, and tens of thousands of more were injured as officers repeatedly pursued drivers at high speeds and in hazardous conditions, often for minor infractions, a USA Today analysis shows.

On average, more than one person per day dies in a police pursuit nationwide, about a third of them bystanders. Moreover, there's good reason to believe that bystander deaths from police chases are significantly undercounted. For that matter, high-speed chases are dangerous for officers as well, more of whom die from traffic fatalities than gunshots.

To the extent traffic safety is public safety, the public is safer without high-speed pursuits: the best-available research shows that, "a suspect who does not know he or she is being pursued will drive in a reasonably safe manner, and suspects who know they are being pursued and drive dangerously will slow down after the police terminate their pursuit." So, especially when a suspect is being chased solely for a potential traffic violation (as was the case with the deaths in Houston), chasing them through the streets in a car makes the public less safe than simply taking down the license plate number, if possible, and following up later.

It's okay. Not every hooked fish ends up in the boat.

These are not new issues, it's just a topic where law enforcement has dug in their heels, whether they genuinely believe chases make people safer or just enjoy the thrill of the chase. Either way, it's a high-risk endeavor. In 2010, the SA Express News analyzed pursuits in that city. They found: 

In the past six years, officers chased vehicles nearly 1,200 times — an average of one chase every two days. Two of five chases reached speeds of 60 mph or more.

Forty percent of all chases — 480 incidents — damaged cars or property, in cases ranging from minor fender-benders to horrific wrecks.

Nearly one of five chases injured someone — usually the suspect.

The problem is, the Express News reported, when officers undertake a chase they initiate a series of high-risk actions they can't control:

In a nationwide study of police chases by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the most frequent ways a pursuit ended was when a suspect gave up; there was a collision; or the suspect got away.

“What is telling about these statistics is that 72 percent of all pursuits end because of a reason that is almost completely out of the hands of the police,” wrote the study’s authors, Cynthia Lum and George Fachner.

Arguably the greatest car-chase scene in cinematic
history, with apologies to the Furious franchise

Desistance by police officers in most cases makes far more sense than careening through the streets like an extra from The Blues Brothers. Grits is a long-time Popular Mechanics subscriber and in 2013 they ran a somewhat optimistic and premature feature titled, "Why high speed chases are going away." The author, himself a police officer, had come to believe over his career that the juice simply wasn't worth the squeeze. Quoting one of his own trainers, he wrote:

About one-fifth of police departments allow pursuits only for felony offenses, while half require the pursuit to end when the suspect has been identified, according to the IACP study. "Ending the pursuit" often means the officer must switch off his lights and siren, stop, and turn around. Vaughan says departments commonly require the permission of a supervisor to allow or continue a pursuit. The new limited-pursuit policies mean that if an officer is chasing someone, the officer—and his supervisors—believes the suspect has done something really bad.

Still, not pursuing a suspect is hard for some cops to accept. "[It's] a difficult pill for some officers, especially the less experienced, to swallow," Vaughan says. "They perceive a fleeing suspect as something personal." The authors of The Criminal Law Handbook (Nolo Press) label running from the police "contempt of cop."

But times change, especially in a society prone to high-dollar litigation. "Chasing was far more prominent back in the day when there was not as much training and officers had more leeway," Vaughan says. "There's been evolution of the profession through better training and better policies. Also, departments that have experienced litigation are encouraged to change their policies by insurance-fund administrators."

Will limited-pursuit polices cause more drivers to flee, knowing police regulations restrict high-speed pursuits? An IACP study found no evidence to support that. Also, interviews with people who have fled from the police, conducted by the National Institute of Justice, revealed that the offenders returned to normal driving within about 90 seconds of the chase's being abandoned.

The rationality of such evidence-based commentary today seems almost quaint. With 20/20 hindsight, it's clear the author over-estimated the extent to which police departments are responsive to litigation costs, and underestimated the extent to which "but we've always done it that way" would become its own self-fulfilling justification for cops like Chief Acevedo who simply don't want to change. 

Meaty January episode of Reasonably Suspicious podcast: Hear federal judge scold Travis County DA; what's the remedy for school principal convicted based on junk science?; why DPS troopers' chase policy is a bad fit for urban policing, and more

Here's the January 2020 episode of Just Liberty's Reasonably Suspicious podcast, co-hosted by me and Mandy Marzullo. We have a meaty, jam-packed show for you this month.


The Texas parole board is the last hope for Joe Bryan, the Bosque County school principal falsely convicted in 1985 based on erroneous blood-spatter testimony. Travis County DA Margaret Moore can't accept the results in an innocence case. And the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals says Texas prison guards couldn't have known it was a problem to keep a prisoner naked sleeping in feces and urine for six days. (And really, how could anyone have guessed?)

Intro
Bail reform not responsible for alleged repeat-offender monkey in Galveston

Top Stories
Marijuana prosecutions in Texas declined by 2/3 since Legislature legalized hemp. Does anybody besides cops and prosecutors miss them? (2:20)

Home Court Disadvantage
This month, the cases highlighted found defendants and plaintiffs at extreme disadvantage:

• Joe Bryan (6:16): The Court of Criminal Appeals turned down the former school principal, who was the subject of a major New York Times Magazine/Pro Public investigation by Pam Colloff. Now, it's up to the parole board to free him, if it happens at all.
• Rosa Jimenez (10:10): Four different judges have found her innocent. But Margaret Moore and the Court of Criminal Appeals don't want her released. Hear audio from a disgruntled federal judge scolding the Travis County DA's office for their handling of this increasingly high-profile case.
• Trent Taylor (19:02): The Fifth Circuit won't hold TDCJ responsible for what they deemed deliberate indifference that put Mr. Taylor at risk of serious harm because the courts had never ruled that six days was too long to endure such conditions. Infuriating.

The Last Hurrah (25:49)

• DPS troopers' high-speed chase policies a poor fit for urban policing.
• Rejecting Reid technique no reason to criticize sex-crimes detective.
• Lege should rein in counties trying not to comply with jail investigations.

As always, I'll order a transcript and add it below the jump when it comes back. Until then, enjoy!

Suggested rules for using Precision Immobilization Technique

At the Houston Chronicle, St. John Barned-Smith has a story on Houston PD's decision to use the "Precision Immobilization Technique" (PIT) - causing a fleeing suspect's car to crash by intentionally ramming the back corner of their moving vehicle - for use during car chases in that city.

The article only quotes law enforcement personnel, no accountability advocates, researchers, or others who might have suggested needed limits on the tactic. So, since this was a topic that came up years ago when your correspondent was Police Accountability Project Director at the ACLU of Texas, allow Grits to fill that void. Offhand, here are some of the bare-minimum policies needed to make this decision acceptable from a public-safety perspective:

1. PIT should not be used for pursuits resulting from traffic violations - only when pursuing alleged felons. 

2. It should require initial training and regular retraining of authorized officers, including proper locations for the maneuver. 

3. Policies should require pre-approval from supervisors before the technique is used. 

4. It should not be used at speeds above 35 mph. 

5. Officers may not ram suspect vehicles outside of the PIT parameters. 

6. Officers should be encouraged to break off chases where PIT maneuvers would endanger the public.* 

7. Ban PIT's use on motorcycles. 

8. Only allow officers to use the technique who have dashcams in their cars.

9. Track data and video on incidents where it's used and re-evaluate the policy after one year.

There are almost certainly other limitations that should be included in HPD's chase policy on the use of this technique (feel free to suggest some in the comments), but at a minimum these subjects should be addressed. There are good reasons the previous chief chose not to use this technique, and lots of things that can go wrong.

*E.g., "Research has shown that if the police refrain from chasing all offenders or terminate their pursuits, no significant increase in the number of suspects who flee would occur. ... For a discussion of the experiences of the Orlando, Florida, Police Department, see G. Alpert, R. Dunham, and M. Stroshine, Policing: Continuity and Change (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2006), 194-205."

Cash-register justice, against drug-free zones, and other stories

Here are a few odds and ends which merit Grits readers' attention while I'm focused elsewhere today:

Williamson County to allow citations for pot, DWLI
Great news: Williamson County has decided to let Round Rock police officers issue citations for low-level marijuana possession and driving with an invalid license, utilizing a 2007 statute authored by former House Corrections Chairman Jerry Madden. The move is being pitched as a pilot program which could expand to other agencies if successful.

Capital Appellate Fail
The Texas Defender Service today released a major report from our pal Amanda Marzullo on the inadequacy of the direct appeals process in capital cases. See the executive summary and the full report, as well as initial coverage from the Houston Chronicle. More on this later, perhaps, after Grits has had the chance to read it.

Guidance on operating inmate web pages
At the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Dave Maas offered guidance for people operating social media or web pages on behalf of  Texas prison inmates, after TDCJ earlier this year banned such accounts when operated by a third party.

Ticketed drivers need 'safe haven' to deal with debt
College Station muni Judge Edward Spillane had a great suggestion for encouraging drivers with outstanding tickets to come to court: "Why not encourage defendants to come to court and not be in jail by mandating legislatively or as a start courts having a policy that coming to court removes any pending warrant out of that court for misdemeanor charges on fine-only cases?" Comparing the idea to the mediaeval concept of "sanctuary" in churches, Spillane argued that "Safe Haven" legislation would reduce incarceration, encourage defendants to come to court, and "make it clear that jail is not the proper punishment for fine-only cases."

Contemplating collateral consequences
Noting that more than 7,000 felons return to Bexar County every year, the SA Express-News published a good story recently on collateral consequences from felony convictions. The gist: "Tough-on-crime policies extend well beyond harsh sentencing. There is a series of invisible sanctions we impose after the official sentence is met. People with felony records, especially drug-related cases, are legally discriminated against when seeking jobs, public housing, food assistance and student loans, not to mention voting and jury duty. One of the most harmful of these sanctions may be the discrimination of employment because a stable job with a living wage is a critical factor in keeping former convicts from relapsing into the criminal justice system."

Against 'drug-free zone' statutes
In Texas, drug offenses in a "drug-free zone" can result in lengthy mandatory minimums rivaling those for deadly weapon offenses. Texas prosecutors especially like the statute because, in the wake of earlier drug-law reforms, "keeping drug offenders in prison is becoming increasingly difficult." As other states reconsider drug free zones, eliminating that enhancement seems like a good way to stop sending a discrete class of nonviolent offenders away for super-long sentences.

Requiem for junk science
At the Wall Street Journal, Judge Alex Kozinski opined on the significance of a "new study from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology [which] examines the scientific validity of forensic-evidence techniques—DNA, fingerprint, bitemark, firearm, footwear and hair analysis. It concludes that virtually all of these methods are flawed, some irredeemably so." Wrote Kozinski, "Some forensic methods have significant error rates and others are rank guesswork." For example, "Bitemark analysis is about as reliable as astrology."

Most police pursuits over nonviolent offenses
What crimes generate police pursuits? Very few are violent felonies.

Cash-Register Justice
An academic paper confronting debtors prison issues from earlier this year has been appended to Grits' ongoing reading list. Here's the abstract:

Criminal justice debt has aggressively metastasized throughout the criminal system. A bewildering array of fees, fines, court costs, non-payment penalties, and high interest rates have turned criminal process into a booming revenue center for state courts and corrections. As criminal justice administrative costs have skyrocketed, the burden to fund the system has fallen largely on the system’s users, primarily poor or indigent, who often cannot pay their burden. Unpaid criminal justice debt often leads to actual incarceration or substantial punitive fines, which turns rapidly into “punishment.” Such punishment at the hands of a court, bureaucracy, or private entity compromises the Sixth Amendment right to have all punishment imposed by a jury. This Article explores the netherworld of criminal justice debt and analyzes implications for the Sixth Amendment jury trial right, offering a new way to attack the problem. The specter of “cash-register justice,” which overwhelmingly affects the poor and dispossessed, perpetuates hidden inequities within the criminal justice system. I offer solutions rooted in Sixth Amendment jurisprudence.

Save lives by limiting police pursuits

In the wake of a terrible crash that killed a Patton Village police officer and an 11-year old boy, State Sen. John Whitmire called on police departments to make law-enforcement pursuit policies public. Reported the local paper: "A Chronicle review of recent Houston-area chases from April through June found 13 crashes over 13 weeks that led to six deaths and nine injuries." The tendency of law enforcement in the past has been to blame the suspect being chased and disavow all responsibility for such deaths.

But in recent years, amidst growing evidence that chases are more deadly than previously understood, some larger departments have restricted police pursuits to protect both officers and the public. Police officers are more likely to die in traffic accidents than to be shot. And high-speed chases, it turns out, are one of the most dangerous activities cops engage in, both in terms of threat to self and the public. More attention is generally paid to police shootings, but the lives of those killed during police pursuits matter, too - particularly innocent bystanders not involved in the chase. Frequently, those fleeing are immature or stupid, not necessarily dangerous, and letting them go poses less public safety risk than a balls-to-the-wall high-speed chase scenario. With dashcams and increasingly ubiquitous urban surveillance, suspects usually can be identified and arrested later with much less risk to officers and the public.

The Chron reported that many Texas police departments refuse to make their pursuit policies public. However, this is but a symptom of a broader problem. Since the Texas Supreme Court expanded the law-enforcement exception to the open record law in 1996, and the Lege codified the bad ruling the following year, many departments have begun to keep their written policies secret, including for use of force. These secret instructions about police officers' most critical decisions breed distrust and make it look like department brass have something to hide.

New tech that fires GPS tracker darts at a suspect vehicle may reduce the number of chases at the margins, but the equipment is expensive and can't replace good judgment or sound departmental policies.

Could state legislation address this issue? It's difficult, but there could be a few policy prescriptions they could implement at the statewide level. For starters, police policies should be made public, about pursuits, use of force, and all else. Law enforcement in America should not be operating under secret orders.

Further, Grits would like to see the Lege restrict chases for traffic offenses and other minor crimes. Recent deaths involved shoplifting suspects and a man who allegedly urinated in public. Enforcing these laws isn't worth the death toll. Perhaps it's time to consider a statutory ban on high-speed chases except for those suspected of violent felonies.

Whitmire's Senate Criminal Justice Committee has been tasked with an interim charge to analyze officer safety, and it's understandable that folks will want to discuss the murder of officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge in that context. However, there's not much police can do to stop a military-trained sniper from taking action. And there's a lot that can be done to prevent officer deaths in traffic accidents, not to mention prevent loss of life among innocent bystanders and suspects.

Brief police accountability roundup

It's been a remarkable week when it comes to the public debate over police accountability in America, and as luck would have it, Grits has spent much of it babysitting. Even so, while I remain preoccupied, here are a few items which deserve readers' attention:

Debating data and racial bias
Since Grits contributing writer Amanda Woog offered her take on the New York Times coverage of  this new study on racial bias in police use of force, let's mention two other significant critiques of that analysis: A Vox reporter who's covered the issue showed that the findings were quite narrow. And Grits was interested to see this sociologist place the research in context of other related findings. That said, as I opined about the study in the comments, "The portion based on the Houston material IMO is most dubious. But it also included important findings related to lower-level use of force that remain undisturbed by either Amanda's critique or the others." MORE: Economist Rajiv Sethi offered a critique of the study's Houston findings. See also an analysis at Chicago magazine, which referred us to this useful 2007 study on the question of whether crime rates among black folks explain their disproportionate prevalence among police stops. (Spoiler: They do not.)

Save police lives by limiting pursuits
On the same day a Bellaire motorcycle officer died in an accident during a pursuit, the Houston PD announced deployment of GPS tracker darts which can be used by a pursuing cruiser during a chase. Houston PD "averages two high-speed chases per day," according to the Chronicle. As long-time Grits readers are aware, despite the terrible events of the last week, most police officer deaths result from traffic accidents, not felonious shootings. In 2009, the Texas Senate Criminal Justice Committee issued a report (see interim charge 5, p. 58 of pdf) on the causes of preventable police officer deaths and ways to prevent them. That report pinned the largest risk to police officers' lives on the fact that they spend so much time in cars: "Policing remains a dangerous profession and our delivery method of this public service by automobile is the largest contributor to accidental deaths in Texas and across the nation."

The case for (limited) bipartisanship on police shootings
Some conservatives say their movement can find slices of common ground with Black Lives Matter:

• National Review: Finding common ground with Black Lives Matter
• Time: The GOP can lead on criminal justice reform - if we admit inequality exists
• Breitbart: My weekend incarceration in a Baton Rouge prison (with BLM protesters) 

What a difference a day makes
According to The Guardian, which has been counting police shootings in America, more people were killed by police in the United States in the first 24 days in 2015 than in all of England and Wales in the prior 24 years.

From those data, Grits estimates* that England and Wales see their cops shoot about one-quarter of one-percent (0.26%) as many people as their counterparts in America, even though their population is 18% the size of the United States - in fact, around twice the size of Texas, whose police shootings also vastly outnumber theirs.

* Estimate methodology: Multiply 59 times 1.25 to get a one-month average, times 12 to get a one-year estimate, and times 24 to match the Eng/Wales comparison. Then divide that into 55, the number of police shootings in England and Wales, to get the 0.26% figure.

Plea bargains sans trials, arsenic and hot prisons, and other stories

On another hot, busy day, here are a few items that merit Grits readers' attention:

Denying jobs for minor offenses
DPS is denying job licenses to applicants for quite-minor offenses, reported Eric Dexheimer (July 3) at the Austin Statesman. He provides several anecdotes suggesting that that "state regulators can zealously apply a law in apparent defiance of common sense."

Prosecutor misconduct alleged in capital case
This headline to a July 4 Houston Chronicle story effectively summed up some remarkable allegations which surfaced this week in Houston: "Prosecutors accused of hiding evidence, inventing testimony in death penalty case: Witnesses say prosecutors coerced them."

Late police officer's chase negligence partly to blame for her death
In an intoxication manslaughter case out of Montgomery County - in which a Patton Village police officer died while chasing a DWI suspect, in an accident that also killed an 11-year old child - DPS investigators determined that the late officer was partly at fault because he "disregarded the red light" and "failed to slow" as he entered an intersection. It's worth mentioning that, last year, we learned high-speed chases are much deadlier than was previously thought. Grits wishes these deaths were tracked as meticulously as the government tracks deaths in custody, and now police shootings.

Arsenic and hot prisons
The combination of heat litigation and the need for arsenic remediation make the Wallace Pack unit 2016's poster child for the ongoing fight over excessive heat in un-airconditioned prisons. See also recent story by Brandi Grissom. As Mother Jones pointed out recently, it's incredibly hard to sue prisons. So the fact the Pack unit litigation has gotten this far means they've overcome some major procedural and evidentiary hurdles. That implies the problems have reached fairly extreme proportions.

Plea bargains sans trials?   
On my short-term to-read list: A new law review article by Penn law prof Stephanos Bibas titled, "Designing Plea Bargaining from the Ground Up: Accuracy and Fairness Without Trials as Backstops."  The premise: American law has largely abandoned "the assumption that grand juries and petit jury trials were the ultimate safeguards of fair procedures and accurate outcomes." So, the plea bargaining system must be designed to stand on its own and re-institute some of the protections lost by eliminating trials for most defendants. From the abstract:

Part I explores the causes of factual, moral, and legal inaccuracies in guilty pleas. To prevent and remedy these inaccuracies, it proposes a combination of quasi-inquisitorial safeguards, more vigorous criminal defense, and better normative evaluation of charges, pleas, and sentences. Part II then diagnoses unfair repercussions caused by defendants’ lack of information and understanding, laymen’s lack of voice, and the public’s lack of information and participation. To prevent and fix these sources of unfairness, it proposes ways to better inform pleas and to make plea procedures more procedurally just."

Bystander deaths from police pursuits significantly undercounted

High-speed chases by police are more common and more deadly than previously thought, reported USA Today in a story which opened (Sept. 29):

The U.S. government has drastically understated the number of people killed in high-speed police car chases, potentially by thousands of fatalities over several decades, a USA TODAY investigation shows.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration overlooked at least 101 motor-vehicle deaths in 2013 that were related to a police chase, according to a USA TODAY review of police reports and internal documents, court records, police-car videos and news accounts based on police statements.

NHTSA's count of 322 chase-related deaths in 2013 — the most recent year for which its records are publicly available — understates the total by at least 31%, the investigation shows.

NHTSA's undercount suggests that the actual number of people killed in police chases since 1979 could be more than 15,000 — far more than the 11,506 chase-related deaths found in the agency's public records — and that chases result in a death much more frequently than studies have stated.

The findings expose potentially major flaws in how the federal government tracks motor-vehicle fatalities and, to a lesser extent, how police document high-speed chases, which often result in innocent people being killed and have been sharply restricted in some cities.

An earlier report from USA Today in July was titled "High speed police chases have killed thousands of innocent bystanders."

Dallas PD: When in doubt, chase 'the fatter guy'

Brilliant!

The Dallas PD instituted new guidelines for foot chases this week in the wake of the shooting death last year of an unarmed man, James Harper, who the officer (wrongly) believed was about to pull a gun. As Texas Monthly put it, the new policy:

addressed a number of the factors that led to Harper's death, including when an officer should stop pursuing a suspect. Dallas Police are to stop a pursuit if the officer loses his weapon or communications, or if he loses sight of the suspect, or if the officer is too tired to continue the chase. They're also to consider the alternatives to a chase, such as an aerial search, using a swarm of officers to catch the suspect, following by car, or using search dogs. And whenever possible, they're encouraged to get an ID on the suspect immediately, to avoid the need for a chase in the first place.

When multiple suspects flee, as happened in Harper's case, Assistant DPD Chief Michael Genovesi  said "the police should focus on just one suspect: 'Preferably the fatter guy.'"

Makes sense to me. MORE: From the Dallas News.

High-tech method to prevent dangerous high-speed chases

There are very few things police officers do that's more dangerous - for themselves and the general public - than engaging in high speed chases. For several years now I've thought technological advances had the potential to reduce the death count from high-speed chases substantially. As early as 2006, some departments experimented with GPS trackers fired at the chased vehicle as opposed to barreling through the public streets in dangerous pursuits. The leading company in the field, called Starchase, has created what the media are describing as a James-Bond type device that, with the push of a button, fires GPS-enabled dart from the grill of the police car at the vehicle in front of it, CNET reported this week:

The officer in the driver's seat presses one button, the grill opens, and the gun fires the [GPS-enabled] bullet.

If all goes well, the bullet, with a GPS device enclosed, sticks to the back of the car being pursued.

Once it does, the officer can slow down, because the suspect's car will be tracked along the computer screen.

One further advantage, of course, is that the suspect's car will likely feel the police have given up and hopefully slow down.

This seems so blindingly intelligent -- at least until miscreants catch on -- that there can't be a drawback.

According to a news report posted on the company's website, Austin PD has deployed the technology in 12 vehicles and is looking for grant money to expand the program. Cost is the big barrier to wider deployment. Each device costs $5,000 to install and each GPS dart costs around $500. But perhaps competition and/or economies of scale will drive those numbers down in years to come.

Private contractor trained DPS helicopter sniper

Via Craft International

The Texas Observer identified a contractor - Craft International - which trained the Department of Public Safety aerial sniper unit who accidentally gunned down two undocumented immigrants while trying to shoot out the tires of a moving pickup. The company features DPS officers receiving sniper training from helicopters in a promotional video on its home page. The Observer's Melissa del Bosque opined that, "Craft’s video glorifies Texas’ DPS sniper program, and makes it look like the troopers are training for a foray into Fallujah instead of keeping the peace in Texas." Their company motto is "Despite what your momma told you ... violence does solve problems." It had been reported earlier this year that DPS had outsourced significant aspects of its border security operation to private contractors, but I hadn't realized before now that extended to sniper training.

RELATED: See a story from Nov. 2010 from the SA Express News and the Texas Tribune analyzing DPS pursuit policies along the border and beyond. "Statewide, DPS chases resulted in 1,300 wrecks, 780 injuries to troopers, other officers, suspects and bystanders, 28 deaths and an estimated $8.4 million in property damage in the past five years." One police pursuit expert concluded of DPS pursuit tactics: "They're crazy." The Express-News/Tribune analysis found that "troopers use aggressive pursuit tactics - including firing guns and setting up roadblocks - that many other law enforcement agencies prohibit." Even so, DPS' pursuit outcomes aren't all that great. "Statewide, more than 30 percent of all DPS chases ended with the suspect eluding officers on foot. Fewer than a quarter of all suspects - both statewide and in Hidalgo County - stopped and surrendered." Foreshadowing the most recent episode, the Express-News/Trib analysis mentioned that, "Troopers also can shoot out a suspect's tires if other methods, such as deploying spike strips, fail to stop the pursuit. Troopers fired their guns during chases nearly 90 times over the past five years, and 14 of those incidents occurred during pursuits in urban areas."

The sharpshooter who wasn't

A DPS sharpshooter in a helicopter aiming to take out the tires of a fleeing pickup truck missed and killed two undocumented immigrants in Hidalgo County, causing the local DA to request that DPS quit shooting at fleeing cars from helicopters. The term "sharpshooter" seems misplaced in describing such an episode; mere "shooter" would be more accurate. Notably, the Houston Chronicle reported, "a nationally known use-of-force expert has said he had never heard of a U.S. law enforcement agency with a similar policy." Compare this episode to an Austin case where an officer was recently fired for shooting at a fleeing vehicle. After the US Supreme Court issued Tennessee v. Garner back in the '80s, most local law enforcement agencies changed their policies on shooting at fleeing vehicles and DPS' approach seems like an odd, outdated throwback.

MORE (11/03): DPS now says the agency employed this tactic for fear that the speeding truck would soon enter an area with schools where children might be endangered. The audio from the chase was released to the media, and it cuts both ways. To DPS' credit, it contradicted earlier reports that DPS troopers were able to tell that people were in the back of the truck. The troopers involved in the chase declared, mistakenly, that "bundles" (i.e., drugss) were under the tarp. OTOH, I just listened to the audio clip up to point of the shooting and nobody ever mentioned schools or children. If that was part of the decision making process, as DPS now asserts, it wasn't discussed by any of the DPS personnel actively involved in the chase.

DPS has asked the FBI to investigate the incident, so stay tuned. This ain't over. 

AND MORE: One more notable aspect to the audio file keeps nagging at me. Dispatchers asked repeatedly right after the shooting whether there were any injuries, whether they should send an ambulance, etc., to which personnel at the scene responded with six minutes of radio silence on the subject. After someone on the ground finally answered, yes there were injuries, the dispatcher sarcastically asked if in the future "can we call him on the phone if he's not going to answer the radio?" Can you imagine those intense six minutes? What goes through a trooper, game warden or police officer's mind as the dispatcher's question rings out, unanswered over the radio - "Are there any injuries?" "Do you need an ambulance?"- all the while with the bodies of two sniper victims laying in the back of the truck? The living vehicle occupants had bailed at the 9:30 mark on the audio, and at least one had already been caught before the eleven minute mark; on-the-scene personnel confirmed the injuries at the 17:12 mark. Were there officers at the scene - troopers or perhaps from the game warden or other agencies - who could or should have seen these injured folks but delayed responding, perhaps panicked at their mistake over the cargo? There were 10 to 12 units at the scene, one officer estimated. Wouldn't somebody have looked in the truck bed that minutes earlier they thought was carrying a dope load? Those are the sorts of questions, one supposes, the FBI will be burrowing into soon.

Tragic accident should spur evaluation of police pursuit, speeding policies

Yikes! Reports Matt Ledesma at the Wichita Falls Times Record News, "a Wichita Falls police officer was driving nearly twice the posted speed limit before a wreck that killed two teenagers June 30." Further, "The report indicates [Officer Teddy] Whitefield made no attempt to brake or avoid hitting the victims' Pontiac Grand Am." And "Sgt. Joe Snyder, police spokesman, said in the days following the wreck he did not believe Whitefield was responding to a police call at the time of the wreck. Whitefield, 29, a six-year veteran with the department, was still recovering Thursday from an arm injury suffered in the collision."

According to a preliminary report (pdf) on the incident obtained by the Times Record News under the Public Information Act, "Evidence at the scene also showed that the driver of (the police car) took no evasive action when a reasonable person would have." The driver of the other vehicle - an 18-year old pregnant girl with a 13 year old passenger - didn't have a driver's license, but it sounds like she's not the one who caused the accident.

Wichita Falls ain't that big a town. Like it or not, this heartbreaking accident will haunt the department and  help shape the public's opinion of WFPD officers for a decade or more. Town officials should ask themselves, when the episode is over, how will residents think about the city's response? Will they remember the chief or even the mayor blaming the dead girls, or will they remember officials who took responsibility and did everything in their power to make sure something like this never happens again? You don't get a second chance at a first impression and how officials respond in the next few weeks will shape how the public thinks about this tragedy for years to come.

As such, if I were the Wichita Falls police chief I'd be scrubbing departmental policies and penalties on dangerous driving and upgrading them if they aren't already strong enough to forcefully discipline the officer in this instance. For starters, WFPD needs to create or enforce, as the case may be, a policy that all officers wear seatbelts. Neither Officer Whitefield or the deceased teenagers were wearing them, the paper reported. And we know this is a common contributor to officer deaths.

What's more, especially if Officer Whitefield wasn't in pursuit but even if he was, there should be policies in place limiting speed, disobedience of signage, etc., to situations where it's objectively safe to do so. There are plenty of examples from other departments which have confronted the same issues if WFPD decided to improve theirs.

Should the officer be fired? I'm interested in readers' views. I don't myself have a strong opinion either way without a lot more facts than were presented in this article. But it's sure a horrifying tragedy and a cautionary tale for other agencies which may not have modernized their policies on high-speed chases and officers' responsibility to safely operate city vehicles.

Fish stories and dog tales: Police misconduct roundup

Here's a roundup of recent police accountability stories that were big enough to make it onto Grits' radar screen but haven't found their way into individual posts:

Firing too harsh for failure to report jail beating?
Three Cameron County jailers have been fired: One for beating an inmate and two for watching and failing to report. The two who covered up the incident  say firing them was too harsh. Let me know if you agree in the comments.

Sheriff convicted over fish story
Sheriff Weldon Tucker in Bandera County was convicted of a felony charge of abuse of official capacity after he was caught using the department's rescue boat to check his trot lines. The offense seems trivial except that he lied about it: "In 2009, Tucker publicly denied using the boat recreationally, or outside Bandera County. But a game warden had stopped him as he used it to retrieve trot lines at Choke Canyon after his personal boat broke down."

Dogs v. State
Under pending legislation, you could soon get life in prison if your dog attacks and kills someone under 18 or over 65, but if a cop comes on your property without a warrant and shoots your dog, they won't pay the vet bill because they're not liable for property damage. Go figure.

Not quite a 'mastermind'
Reports AP, "A former Dallas police officer convicted of aggravated robbery for masterminding a heist at a Sam's Club while working there off-duty as a security officer has been given probation." When you fail at robbing a place where you yourself are providing security, perhaps "mastermind" isn't the right word.

Shake down
Another cop, this time in Houston, arrested for allegedly shaking down drivers at traffic stops. Here's an interview with the fellow who reported the alleged extortion.

Prostitution stories
A former Houston police officer was sentenced to six years in prison for raping a prostitute, while a Harris County deputy constable was murdered after an argument over money with a pimp whose employee's services he'd just enjoyed.

Wrongful death suit over off-duty shooting
The family of a wrecking truck driver has filed a civil rights suit over his death at the hands of an off-duty Houston police officer, alleging that Officer Ryan Gardiner "shot and killed John T. Barnes under circumstances where no reasonable police officer would have done so."

Bystander shot after foot chase
A Bryan police officer chasing a man, apparently, because he ran, shot him several times at the denouement of a foot chase, also injuring a construction worker/bystander. "The shooting happened Friday morning as an officer was running after a suspicious person who may have been intoxicated, according to the Bryan Police Department." He and another officer are on administrative leave pending the investigation.

Second time's the charm
An arbitrator upheld the second firing of Austin police officer Leonardo Quintana over a domestic violence allegation after he'd been reinstated to the force after his earlier firing in the wake of shooting Nathaniel Sanders, which is the subject of an ongoing civil rights lawsuit by the family of the deceased.

Deputy allegedly picking colleauge's bones
From the Fort Worth Star-Telegram: "A former deputy recently fired by the Parker County Sheriff's Department surrendered to authorities Saturday after he was indicted in the theft of thousands of dollars from a memorial fund set up to benefit the widow and son of a fellow deputy." Yikes!

San Antonio police supervisors could have tracked, reined in habitually speeding cop who killed colleague

In the wake of a decision by a San Antonio jury to sentence a police officer to 15 years for killing a fellow officer with his vehicle while speeding to a non-emergency theft call, I was delighted to see that the jury foreman has published a couple of detailed blog posts regarding their decision - one on the guilt/innocence phase and another on deciding punishment, see:

• The David Seaton manslaughter trial: Why we found him guilty
• The David Seaton manslaughter trial: Why we sentenced him to fifteen years in prison

The jury determined Seaton was a habitual speeder, that this wasn't an isolated incident. That observation implicates his supervisors as well: "Obliquely, we were also sending a message to the San Antonio Police Department, habitual speeding behavior that leads to deadly traffic accidents will not be tolerated."

I thought this tidbit was particularly interesting because it points the way to investigative tactics for identifying other officers who speed excessively on routine calls:

Patrol cars are also equipped with a special GPS system (called an AVL/MDT) that pings the vehicle every ten seconds and records it's position and speed.  This information is transmitted to a computer located at police headquarters where the data is stored.  According to the MDT records at 9:44:53pm on the night of November 28, 2008, Seaton's patrol vehicle was traveling at 102 mph.  That was the last record recorded for Seaton's vehicle.

The jury used that data to look back at Seaton's history in a way, apparently, that his supervisors never did:

We decided to look specifically at Seaton's speeds on Potranco Road that has a posted speed limit of 45mph.  Each file represented a shift's worth of records, so we decided to go backwards from the day of the accident.  We had already been notified by the prosecution of a record at around 3:45 to 3:50pm in the afternoon on Novemeber 28, 2008, the day of the accident.  According to the assistant DA the call was for shoplifting at Home Depot for $50.00.  The MDT records showed that the defendent had been traveling 95mph on Hwy 151 on a Code 1 call.  A Code 1 call is low priorty and officers are supposed to follow all traffic laws and go without lights or sirens.  When we searched the MDTs on November 27, 2008 (Thanksgiving Day) we found that his speed reached 80mph on Potranco Road at one point in the day.  The day before that, November 26, 2008 we found another instance of Seaton driving between 80 and 90mph on Potranco.  We felt this was as far back as we needed to go, Seaton was an habitual speeder.

This tells me that, in addition to Officer Seaton's personal culpability, this was an instance where San Antonio PD failed to adequately supervise its officer. They were in possession of evidence Seaton was routinely speeding on low-priority calls, yet he was never disciplined for it until he killed somebody. One wonders how many other officers engage in the same behavior? Seaton's attorneys argued that SAPD's protocols against speeding are routinely ignored. None of that excuses Seaton's actions, but it does point to broader "pattern and practice" issues that go beyond the defendant's culpability to call into question the lack of supervision by his superiors at SAPD.

San Antonio officer sentenced to 15 years for police traffic death

I'm not sure I've ever seen an instance where a police officer was held criminally liable as a result of injuries sustained while speeding on the way to a call, but a jury yesterday handed down a 15-year sentence to former San Antonio PD officer David Seaton for killing a fellow officer in an accident under exactly those circumstances. Reports the Express-News, jurors:

decided that Seaton's patrol car was used as a “deadly weapon” the evening of Nov. 28, 2008, when authorities say he sped to a low-priority shoplifting call at about 100 mph, running a red light at Potranco Road and Hunt Lane without overhead lights or a siren.

Because of the finding, he will have to serve at least half of the 15-year manslaughter sentence before he's eligible for parole.

Remarkable: I've seen findings that a vehicle is a deadly weapon when police claim a suspect tried to run them over, but I've never seen that designation applied to a cop who killed someone in a traffic accident on the way to a call.

Earlier this year, the Express-News' John Tedesco had an excellent feature on police pursuits in San Antonio, analyzing an internal database, finding that 40% of police chases resulted in accidents and 20% in injuries, most commonly to the suspect but also to officers and bystanders.

DPS chases concentrated near border

The Texas Tribune and the San Antonio Express News teamed up to analyze nearly 5,000 high-speed chases by DPS troopers. "Statewide, DPS chases resulted in 1,300 accidents, 780 injuries to troopers, other officers, suspects and bystanders, 28 deaths and an estimated $8.4 million in property damage in the last five years." What's more, "Nearly 13 percent of the chases — 656 — happened in Hidalgo County. Of the 10 counties with the most chases, five were counties along the Texas-Mexico border."

One notable observation: "The analysis also reveals that troopers use aggressive pursuit tactics — including firing guns and setting up roadblocks — that many other law enforcement agencies prohibit. One expert says that DPS policies allow troopers to take too many risks, endangering the lives of officers and bystanders. 'They’re crazy,' says Geoffrey Alpert, a professor at the University of South Carolina, who has studied pursuits at police departments across the country."

Another remarkable tidbit: "The pursuits didn’t always end with fleeing motorists in handcuffs, though. The suspects in about 40 percent of chases in Hidalgo County escaped on foot — or swam away to Mexico — eluding officers and often leaving behind loads of marijuana and narcotics in vehicles mangled in accidents and sometimes submerged in the Rio Grande. Statewide, more than 30 percent of all DPS chases ended with the suspect eluding officers on foot. Fewer than a quarter of all suspects, both statewide and in Hidalgo County, stopped and surrendered."

I would not have guessed that the number of chases ending with the suspect successfully eluding troopers on foot would have been so high, nor that the proportion who stop and surrender would be so low.

Reining in bad cops in Dallas: A good start but an intractable situation

An unwritten rule among many police officers and agencies is that suspects who run from the cops get a beating, which is what happened recently in Dallas according to dash-cam video which showed officers "beating motorcyclist Andrew Joseph Collins with a baton and fists as he appears to be giving up after a brief, high-speed chase through southern Dallas." In response, one officer has been fired, criminal charges have been referred to the District Attorney on the fired cop and two others, and three more officers remain under investigation by Internal Affairs, according to this memo on the case published at the Dallas News Crime Blog. The News editorialized:

More than unprofessional, this sort of policing is disgusting to a reasonable person and embarrassing to an entire city, if not worse.

But Police Chief David Brown didn't circle the wagons behind the stereotypical blue wall of silence. He acted on an anonymous note about the officers' misbehavior and then delivered an unmistakable message that his officers can't act beyond what is reasonable and necessary to make a lawful arrest. And that especially includes an angry, frustrated officer apparently plotting to rough up a suspect or police lying in official reports about the incident.

This newspaper is saddened that these officers betrayed public trust, but heartened that Brown acted to restore it in such a forthright manner. He methodically reviewed the videos and pressed for a criminal investigation. He fired one officer and asked the FBI to investigate whether civil rights had been violated. He calmly urged community restraint and even visited the home church of the motorcyclist's family to assure citizens that justice would be vigorously pursued.

The News opined that the "courageous officer whose note revealed the troubling behavior also deserves Dallas' thanks," and I wholeheartedly agree. But one notices that nameless officer was starkly in the minority: Many more cops participated in the beating and the cover-up than leapt to report it (investigators reviewed seven dash-cams from the scene), and the only one willing to say something did so anonymously, obviously fearing retaliation from his co-workers.

The Chief partially blamed the problem on inexperienced officers working by themselves: "All of the officers implicated in the arrest have been on the force for less than three years. The city has hired nearly 1,200 police officers in recent years and Brown has previously acknowledged concerns about a patrol division full of young and inexperienced cops, including the officers doing the training," reported the News. Brown said he wants to "review ... our pairing of our young officers with each other, the experience levels of our field training officers and our current transfer system."

Notably, even officers not involved in the beating violated departmental policy: "A sergeant ordered the officers not to chase, in accordance with the department's strict chase policy. But they chased anyway, weaving through residential streets and through stop signs." One wonders whether officers violating the department's chase policy will also face punishment?

Brown deserves commendation, but most of the lessons to be learned here are troubling: Apparently Dallas police feel free to ignore their supervisors and departmental policy, most of them cover up for one another's misconduct, even when it's egregious, and the few officers willing to do the right thing fear retaliation from their peers. Chief Brown should be lauded for taking a bold first step toward holding officers accountable, but I'd be happier still if it weren't so painfully obvious that most Dallas cops - at least judging from the sample involved in this episode - don't appear to share the chief's view that this kind of behavior is unacceptable.

MORE: These weren't the only bad cops fired in Dallas recently. Chief "Brown announced that the department will begin randomly reviewing dash-cam video from patrol cars and that he is considering enhanced ethics training for about 1,400 recently hired officers."

Corpus police won't chase traffic violators or non-DWI misdemeanants

The Corpus Christi PD implemented a new high-speed chase policy this week, reports the Caller-Times ("Corpus Christi police update pursuit policy," July 24): "It is now the department’s official policy not to pursue motorists for traffic violations or misdemeanors other than driving under the influence, Cmdr. Steve Mylett said." The chief explained the reasoning behind the change:

“We can’t get into a situation where we’re endangering the public more than the individual, if left on the streets, would endanger the public,” Police Chief Troy Riggs said. “The first thing is to protect human life.”

Last year, the department’s officers were involved in 76 high speed chases, Riggs said. About 80 percent of those were with traffic violators who didn’t necessarily need to be pursued at speeds of 80 to 100 mph, he said.

Further:

Before changing the policy, officials talked to other departments that had increased their requirements to start or continue a pursuit. They were told that the number of people fleeing from officers did not increase and that most of the people who did were caught eventually, Mylett said.

 With the number of on-the-job officer deaths up so far this year, this is a wise move to protect both officers and the public. About 2/3 of on-the-job police deaths occur during traffic accidents, many during high-speed pursuits.

See related Grits posts:

• Dozen Dallas officers disciplined for high-speed chase violations
• Officer death contradicts Houston PD claims that all its cops wear seat belts
• Accidents mount in face of Dallas sheriff, constables' outdated pursuit policies
• Houston PD high-speed chase policy injures dozens every year
• A suggestion for reducing life threatening risks to police officers
• Texas leads nation in 2007 officer deaths
• Blogversation on high-speed police pursuits