Thank the lawyers: Tonya Bell at Unifest

We didn’t note it at the time, but in December, Valentina Chambers won $945 thousand in her suit against DC police from a Washington DC jury. You see, a scofflaw was leading police on a car chase, and hit Chambers’ car, injuring her, and, like trial lawyers want, the deep pocket was liable for not […]

We didn’t note it at the time, but in December, Valentina Chambers won $945 thousand in her suit against DC police from a Washington DC jury. You see, a scofflaw was leading police on a car chase, and hit Chambers’ car, injuring her, and, like trial lawyers want, the deep pocket was liable for not simply letting the criminal get away—though at least not liable for the $100 million Chambers sought. (Henri Cauvin, “D.C. Ordered to Pay in Police Chase”, Washington Post, Dec. 14). Such liability concerns cause DC to have the strictest police chase policy in the country, something we’ve noted has expensive consequences for the non-criminal element of the city.

Tonya Bell, who some say is a temporary worker for Marion Barry, was driving in Southeast D.C. Saturday night, apparently after a full day of smoking crack. She rear-ended a police car at 7:15 pm, and drove away instead of stopping: sure enough, DC police followed the trial-lawyer-driven policy and broke off the chase. Bell rewarded the officers’ diligence by laughingly driving her Volvo through a crowd of people at a street-fair a half hour later, injuring at least forty, before police threw a couple of motorbikes under her vehicle to stop it. Thank the lawyers for yet another wonderful contribution to public safety, though we won’t see any class actions against the trial bar for this one. (Robert E. Pierre, Sue Anne Pressley Montes and Yolanda Woodlee, “Driver Used Crack Before Festival Crash, D.C. Police Say”, Washington Post, Jun. 4).

11 Comments

  • Seriously, what is the likelihood that a broken-off car chase will result in the driver later plowing through a crowd of people, compared to the likelihood of a police pursuit putting a whole bunch of bystanders at risk? ‘Expensive consequences’ aren’t just monetary. Just a few days earlier, police pursuit of a motorcyclist on the DC beltway resulted in a traffic accident that killed 2 people and wounded 15. The motorcyclist got away.

  • As of Thursday, police said the Beltway crash was not part of a chase, though that story may change again.

    As I like to note, Timothy McVeigh was caught because he was pulled over for a minor traffic violation. If McVeigh knew that, instead of pulling over, he could merely speed up and force police to give up the chase, there might never have been justice for the Oklahoma City bombing.

    Extensive discussion in the April 5 comments.

  • In response to goodgrief:

    I hate to tell you this, but the New York Police Department was found liable for an analogous situation. It isn’t hard for a jury to find causation in that situation. I am sure that the plaintiffs’ bar will have 40 willing participants in their lawsuit against the D.C. P.D.

  • A driver fleeing police plowed into our minivan, killing my innocent daughter. I blame the driver, who by the way, went home with her mother that night while my Kristie died in the hospital. I received no money from the “deep pockets” even though officers violated at least five critical elements of their pursuit policy. The officers knew the fleeing driver’s identity and that she had taken her mother’s RAV4 without permission. They chased her through a residential neighborhood (a policy violation).

    In 1987, California passed a law granting blanket immunity to public entities when the fleeing driver kills or maims an innocent bystander. California now leads the nation in pursuit fatalities and saves a lot of money because it doesn’t have to “pay off” the innocent, but California gives a lot of money to the families of drivers who flee. Information on this cost-saving benefit is right here: http://www.kristieslaw.org/count1.htm, turn to page 26.

    Here’s a 2002 quote from California’s Fourth Appellate Court on another case through a school yard: “Unfortunately, the adoption of a policy which may never be implemented is cold comfort to innocent bystanders who get in the way of a police pursuit. We do not know if the policy was followed in this instance, and that is precisely the point: We will never know because defendant did not have to prove Ingwerson or the other police officers participating in this pursuit followed the policy.” The Court urged the legislature to correct the immunity clause. The clause remains intact.

    Oh yes, there are investigations. Across the country, these investigative teams are usually comprised of law enforcement officials. A sergeant from the same police department involved in the chase that killed Kristie conducted the investigation. He said, “The pursuit was valid and controlled.” Now, imagine Kristie is someone you love.

    I am still amazed at those who criticize the innocent because we ask two questions: Was the pursuit policy followed? Was the chase necessary? If the Court finds the answer to these two questions is “Yes,” then the Court should dismiss the lawsuit.

    A quote from the late Jim Phillips of PursuitWatch.org: “Victims [of pursuit] and their families … seek accountability. Money is the cornerstone of civil liability. Significant monetary awards force agencies to enforce, train and track their policies. If [you] would like to suggest another mechanism for accountability I think all reasonable people would be willing to listen. One fact is certain–without accountability there can never be trust.”

    Thank you for considering my post.
    Candy Priano

  • As I like to note, I have great confidence in our law enforcement and the FBI. They would have caught McVeigh, if not a traffic stop, another way. No one knows what McVeigh would have done if he felt he could flee and the officer wouldn’t chase. My guess is that his ego would not have allowed him to run and that’s why he pulled over. A 1997 Department of Justice study proved the following to be a myth: “If we don’t chase, everyone will flee.”

  • I’m sorry for your loss.

    California has by far the most vehicles in the nation, so it’s no surprise that they also lead the nation in various categories of vehicle-related deaths.

    Immunity means that taxpayers aren’t punished when the police investigate breaches of policy.

    I’d be curious to see the 1997 DOJ study you mention. Of course, no one claims that “everyone” will flee if there is no chase. The question is what happens on the margin, and the experience of car theft in DC (no chase) and Virginia (chase) is very good evidence of that marginal effect on crime: no-chase policies encourage both dangerous fleeing and crime.

  • “…no-chase policies encourage both dangerous fleeing and crime.”

    The critical question is how to balance the crime-preventive effect of aggressive pursuit policies against the risk they expose innocent bystanders to.

    Even the value of pursuit to prevent (at the extreme) likely imminent violent crime has to be weighed against the danger it creates.

  • Candy Priano,

    I’m deeply sorry for your loss – I have 3 children under the age of 10, and I can only imagine what that would be like.

    However, I don’t have to imagine what happens when criminals are allowed to flee the police without penalty. I can look at the history of this country.

    Before the implmentation of crtain pursuit laws, a criminal could escape the police (or other authority) by leaving their jurisdiction. It became not uncommon for crooks to flee the police towards a county line or state line. You can imagine how that worked out (or you can go check the history books and SEE).

    Allowing criminals to escape via high-speed will only encourage those with th most to lose (such as murderers or other “high crime” criminals) to run. We end up with the worst of both worlds: more high speed (as they still have to hit high speed to get away) and fewer criminals caught.

    The way to have the last high-speed is to make it absolutly certain that running has bad results. If those who flee the police are ALWAYS caught, and fleeing the police is its own crime (along with all collateral damage, even that caused by the police, bing attributed to them as well), there will be STRONG disincentives to run.

    It will still happen – but it will happen far less often.

  • Let me be clear: it’s an empirical question. Perhaps, after weighing all the costs and benefits to society, it’s best to have a policy like that Ms. Priano proposes. The problem is that the judicial system is poorly situated to evaluate these costs. If cities are liable for bad results of police chases, but not bad results from the failure to chase, that guarantees that we will have too few police chases. In DC, criminals laugh at the impotent police.

  • This comment is in response to Ted’s request for the DOJ study. (The recent posts made after Ted’s request give the impression some people posting here have no confidence in our officers, i.e., that they don’t know how to catch criminals without the chase. I will write more about this aspect in another post.)

    The Department of Justice study contains information about pursuit policies and training. From page 2: Implications of the study: “Support written policies with training and supervision. A written policy may mean little if officers are not both carefully trained to implement it and held accountable for abiding by its provisions.”

    From page 5, “Recruits’ opinions,” shows that training has an effect on altering some opinions reported by the recruits. For example, before the training course, 77, 79, and 86 percent of recruits were willing to engage in pursuit for a stolen vehicle. After the training, the percentage decreased to 59, 70, and 73 percent respectively.

    Here’s the link to the DOJ study on police pursuits: http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/164831.pdf

    I made an error in saying the DOJ Study “proved” the following to be a myth: “If we don’t chase, everyone will flee.”

    However, here are brief excerpts from articles and reviews that address the “If we don’t chase, everyone will flee” statement and four links to the complete articles:

    To Chase or Not To Chase? October 2006 http://www.officer.com/article/article.jsp?id=33481&siteSection=16
    “The arguments that if people run from officers, they’re obviously guilty, or if you don’t chase fleeing suspects, everyone will flee — they have turned out to be myths,” Geoffrey Alpert asserts. “Often the people who run from officers are petty criminals making stupid decisions. Police are learning that they don’t want the blood of innocent victims on their hands just to catch someone for speeding.”

    A 2003 Illinois Law Enforcement Executive Forum http://www.policedriving.com/article44.htm includes this information:
    “The prevailing myths of the pro-chase faction are essentially two: first, if a driver runs from the police, he must have committed a more serious crime that will be discovered after apprehension and second, if we adopt a policy of not chasing everyone who runs, everyone will run. As with many honestly held beliefs, there are simply no facts to support those strongly held assumptions. To the contrary, it has been demonstrated that there is neither an increase in criminality nor an increase in vehicular flight from the police that can be attributed to the adoption of a more restrictive vehicular pursuit policy.

    Two reviews about restrictive pursuit policies:
    2005 — Orlando, Florida: http://www.kristieslaw.org/orlando_review.htm
    Orlando’s strict policy limiting police pursuits passed its first-year review on Monday without a surge in fleeing criminals thumbing their noses at police.

    August 2003 — Los Angeles: http://www.driveandstayalive.com/articles%20and%20topics/police%20issues/police-pursuit-policies-001_LAPD-2003-08.htm
    Since the start of a Departmental pilot program focusing on new standards for initiating and managing police pursuits, a recently released preliminary summary has revealed that the Department has responded to the implemented changes, and the results have attributed to not only fewer pursuits, but far less collisions that have injured officers, suspects and third party individuals.

  • There is a large economic literature demonstrating conclusively that criminals do respond to incentives: increased police officer overtime means fewer crimes, ceteris paribus; drug dealers will substitute children for adults as crew members when the relative criminal penalties for the two categories change; etc.

    For me to believe that, in the long run, criminals will not be more likely to flee in response to a widespread understanding that police will not follow, is going to require more evidence than the ipse dixit assertions in the cited links above, none of which provide material evidence supporting the strong claims being made.

    For example, the Orlando “review” cited above did not keep track of the number of criminals who successfully evaded police before the change in policy, so there is no basis to say that 107 escapes is not a “surge.” The number of car accidents declined from four to two, which is not statistically significant given the small sample we’re talking about. And how many additional crimes did those 107 escapees commit? (And, at the margin, how many more people were encouraged to commit crime by the reduction in deterrence from the reduction in the probability of getting caught?) And were the social costs of those crimes greater or less than the two accidents ostensibly prevented? The Orlando report does not answer these questions: instead, we just get self-serving statements about the success of the program from the people who put it into place.

    I sympathize with Ms. Priano’s plight, but her latest response is outside the scope of this post, which merely notes that, regardless of the optimal policy for police chases, one can be quite confident that permitting litigation against taxpayer entities for police chases will surely result in a sub-optimal policy for police chases being adopted.