Page 20 - FOP August 2019 Magazine

To pursue or not to pursue
The flavor of the day at the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) is vehicle pursuits.
COPA has become very interested in officers’ decisions to engage in pursuits and, as al- ways, reviews these cases from the sanitized hindsight of the lofty perches upon which they sit.
While it must be bad for one’s posture ⁠— TIM sitting up on that cross each day, COPA never-
squadrol, covert vehicle or “other truck chassis vehicle.” Once you engage in the balancing test and find that a pursuit is authorized, you must notify the Office of Emergency Man-
agement and Communications (OEMC) dispatcher.
A supervisor will monitor the pursuit and has the pow-
er to terminate it.
An active pursuit will involve no more than a primary
and one secondary pursuit unit, unless authorized by a supervisor.
An unmarked vehicle can only continue in the pursuit un-
til a marked vehicle becomes available to take over.
There is a list of maneuvers in which you cannot engage, in-
cluding:
• Boxing in
• Caravanning
• Forced collisions • Ramming
• Roadblocks
The general orders explain the duties and responsibilities of not only the pursuing vehicles but also the monitoring and su- pervisory personnel. Again, read them and know them.
The real problems where officers can run afoul are, like most police work, at the very beginning of the police action. All offi- cers have an inherent desire to do their job and successfully make the apprehension. The idea of terminating goes against all that you have been taught and believe. Unfortunately, you will need to fight this urge and make that tough decision or else you will be sitting at COPA, trying to explain yourself.
You see a man with a gun in a vehicle, you engage your emer- gency equipment and the motorist flees. You make your notifica- tions. You begin the balancing test. What are the speeds? What are the traffic conditions? What is the pedestrian traffic?
You must make these factual determinations immediately and decide if you should continue. Can you justify the continued pur- suit of the vehicle? Use your radio and cameras to justify your actions. If the continued pursuit is just too dangerous, you must adhere to the overarching language in the general order and ter- minate.
Once you make that decision, go over the radio and state clear- ly and precisely, multiple times, that you are terminating the pur- suit.
The problem that causes most of the discipline issues at COPA is when officers don’t actually terminate. Yes, they notify OEMC that they are terminating, but their actions do not reflect that they have actually terminated.
COPA will get the GPS data, and we have seen cases where the officers state that they are terminating, but their speed increases and the GPS location shows that they are still pursuing.
When you terminate, turn off your lights, dramatically reduce your speed and, per the general order, actually stop your vehicle. Don’t get caught in COPA’s trick bag where your statements con- tradict your actions and intentions.
Is this fair? Do COPA and the department ask us to engage in the impossible during a high-stress, dangerous situation? Does the pursuit policy favor the offender and provide a road map for the felons?
The answer to all these questions is an unequivocal “yes,” and you know the arguments that the new age policing “experts” make.
The best advice is to know the general orders, use your com- mon sense and always remember that the first job of all police officers is to finish your tour safely.
GRACE
theless is eternally vigilant to condemn and dis-
cipline working police officers. We need to be equally watchful that we know the general order and are prepared to de- fend our actions when engaging in a pursuit.
Like most of these dilemmas, the answers are found in the gen- eral orders.
Under General Order G03-03-01, the pursuit policy is laid out for you. This article is not meant to explore the entire 11-page general order, and it is highly recommended that you review that general order frequently.
A pursuit is defined as “[a]n active attempt by a sworn member operating an authorized emergency vehicle to apprehend any driver or operator of a motor vehicle who, having been given a visual and audible signal by the officer...fails or refuses to obey such direction, increases or maintains his or her speed, extin- guishes his or her lights, or otherwise flees or attempts to elude the officer.”
You attempt to make a traffic stop and the driver refuses to pull over. The policy sets forth a balancing test for the “initiation, con- tinuation and supervisory authorization of each motor vehicle pursuit.”
What this means: When an officer has given audible and visual direction for a motorist to pull over and that motorist either fails to pull over or pulls away from the stop, the officer must then de- cide whether or not to go after and stop that vehicle.
A balancing test is a mental analysis by the driver of the squad car to determine whether or not to initiate or continue a pursuit of the vehicle. The balancing test the officer should be consid- ering is whether “[t]he necessity to immediately apprehend the fleeing suspect outweighs the level of inherent danger created by a motor vehicle pursuit.” Simply put, is the need to take the of- fender into custody worth the danger it poses?
When applying the balancing test, the officer must look to the speed and maneuvering required by the officer. The officer should look to pedestrian traffic and volume. The officer should also look at the road and weather conditions at the time of the pursuit.
The general order cautions that an officer should consider termination of the pursuit when the suspect’s identity has been identified and property damage begins to occur. The officer also must obtain and assess all information being received from other units, including helicopter support.
Essentially, in order to apprehend the suspect, the officer needs to first analyze the facts of the pursuit and mentally note the dangers involved as well as other options.
The general order does have some absolute prohibitions when it comes to initiating a pursuit:
• Members will not engage in a motor vehicle pursuit when- ever the most serious offense that the motorist is wanted for is a non-hazardous traffic offense, theft or the felony offense of possession of a stolen motor vehicle;
• You cannot pursue if you have an arrestee or non-law enforcement personnel in the vehicle, or are operating a
20 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ AUGUST 2019