Maryland must hold police accountable after deadly vehicle pursuits | GUEST COMMENTARY

After three women – in three different Maryland counties – were killed as a result of high-speed vehicle pursuits in April, Maryland attorney general Anthony Brown said it was time to take a hard look at the policies dictating when police choose to pursue suspects on the road.

“I’m alarmed and deeply troubled by the frequency of these incidents and I’m truly saddened by the loss of life,” Brown told The Baltimore Sun. “We can and we must do better.”

All of the women killed in the chases were innocent third parties, their cars struck by vehicles driven by persons fleeing law enforcement.

Brown is right to question the inconsistent policies across the state surrounding police pursuits. The Independent Investigations Division of the Maryland Attorney General’s Office, since it began investigating deaths involving police in 2021, found the majority of those killed in police chases were either a passenger in the vehicle officers were chasing or an innocent third party. More than a third of the police-related deaths investigated by the division have been fatal pursuits or crashes.

Geoffrey Alpert, a criminal justice professor at the University of South Carolina, has been researching police vehicle pursuits for over 30 years. Years ago, while I was the law enforcement specialist at the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, Alpert told me that his findings suggested a police vehicle pursuit should be predicated on an evaluation of the danger posed to the public and not necessarily the nature of the crime for which the suspect is wanted.

His research has shown that when the police break off the chase, the fleeing suspect is more likely to slow down, and when police develop policies restricting or discontinuing vehicle pursuits, crime rates are not impacted.

Deaths resulting from high-speed pursuits are not a new phenomenon. History is replete with tragic cases of police pursuits resulting in the deaths of law enforcement officers, innocent third parties and those who would flee from police at high speeds.

Police vehicle pursuits have been studied, policy and training recommendations have been made, and local governments have faced civil litigation for decades. Yet here we are again today, questioning the danger pursuits pose to the motoring public.

The late John Timoney of the New York Police Department may have said it best: “Those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it … and those who study policing know we don’t study history.”

One of the latest efforts to advocate a rethinking of police pursuit policies came last year, when the Police Executive Research Forum published “Vehicular Pursuits: A Guide for Law Enforcement Executives on Managing the Associated Risks.” It encourages police agencies to adopt policies that permit pursuits only when a violent crime has been committed and when the suspect is considered an imminent threat to commit another violent crime.

But we’ve seen similar efforts in the past. Without a mandated, enforceable standard, years from now we’ll still be discussing the merits of police pursuits as innocent motorists are killed.

What’s needed is legislation to create a statewide standard, monitored and enforced by a third party, perhaps the attorney general. It’s past time that the more than 150 police agencies in Maryland follow the same rules regarding policy, training, and accountability when it comes to pursuits, and that they face sanctions or discipline when these rules are violated.

Change cannot be left up to law enforcement administrators. It is time for lawmakers to address Attorney General Brown’s concern over the threat police vehicle pursuits pose to the lives of the public. Maryland is long overdue for an enforceable standard to guide law enforcement and establish accountability surrounding police vehicle pursuits.

Karl W. Bickel (karlbickel@comcast.net) is retired from the U.S. Department of Justice, was previously second in command of the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office and is a former assistant professor of criminal justice. He started his career as a Metropolitan Police Department officer.