NCJ Number
142177
Journal
Trial Volume: 29 Issue: 4 Dated: (April 1993) Pages: 78-80
Date Published
1993
Length
3 pages
Annotation
This article outlines the three general types of policies of hot pursuit used by police departments and examines factors in court decisions bearing upon police liability when injury results from a police pursuit.
Abstract
One type of pursuit policy currently in use is the discretionary policy that provides broad guidelines and a list of factors that officers should consider in the decision to mount a chase. All major decisions that relate to pursuit initiation, tactics, and termination are left to individual officers, however. A second type of policy is restrictive, in that it removes some discretion from individual officers and places certain restrictions on their judgments. Such policies may forbid pursuits when the fleeing driver is a juvenile, a traffic offender, or a property offender. A third type of policy discourages pursuit by severely limiting occasions for pursuits to clearly defined circumstances where the risks of nonpursuit outweigh the risks of pursuit, such as when the suspect is reasonably believed to have committed a violent crime. The American Automobile Association supports a policy of discouraging police pursuits, and the International Association of Chiefs of Police has a model pursuit policy that is restrictive. Recent court decisions that have imposed liability on police when injuries have resulted from a pursuit have emphasized the importance of life and public safety over the immediate apprehension of a lawbreaker. Factors courts tend to examine are the reason for the pursuit, weather and driving conditions, evidence of excessive speed, the presence of pedestrians and other traffic, the use of warning signals, and police adherence to traffic signals. In most cases, police can obtain a license number of the violator's vehicle, such that the arrest will merely be delayed until a later, safer time. 23 notes