Crashes led to changes in police pursuit policies

Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2005 | 10:02 a.m.

Los Angeles may be the capital of police car pursuits, but Las Vegas has had its fair share of them over the years, some with less desirable outcomes than others.

Metro's hot pursuit policies first became a hot topic for public debate two decades ago when a suspect fleeing police was involved in a fatal crash near the Sahara hotel.

By March 2003, there had been enough pursuits with fatal outcomes or crashes that injured bystanders that Metro Police adopted a revised police pursuit policy to try to reduce deaths and injuries. The changes came at a time when law enforcement agencies throughout the nation were under increased scrutiny and criticism for pursuits that often harmed innocent bystanders.

A Los Angeles Police Commission study of police chases in 20 cities in 2001 found that Las Vegas had 246 pursuits that resulted in 111 crashes and 42 injuries. Las Vegas' crash rate, 45 percent, was below the 55 percent crash rate logged in Dallas but exceeded the 36 percent crash rate in Los Angeles, a city known for its police chases.

Still, Metro initially was cool to the idea of curbing its pursuit policies.

"We don't want to nail down our officers to anything specific because that would take away their discretionary power and impede their ability to do their jobs," Metro Lt. Vincent Cannito told the Las Vegas Sun in December 2002.

Three months later, however, Metro rewrote its rules on car chases. A key feature is the emphasis on increased use of helicopters to pursue individuals wanted by police.

"We do not want to stifle police work, but we do want to make it clear to our officers that they will be held accountable to do the right thing," Metro Capt. Greg McCurdy told the Sun at that time. "The intention is to prevent collisions and keep our community as safe as possible."

In order to allow an officer to engage in a pursuit Metro supervisors were to consider the seriousness of the crime, whether the need for immediate apprehension outweighed the dangers of the chase, and whether the suspect is known to officers and could be apprehended later. Weather and road conditions and the presence of vehicular or pedestrian traffic were also to be considered, as was whether the area was residential or commercial.

Metro Police officials said they didn't know how many police pursuits the department's officers had been involved in last year and this year to date.

Metro police were involved in 206 pursuits in 2003, considerably more than the 138 that occurred in 1999 but a drop from the 251 that occurred in 2002.

In 2002, 43 police pursuits ended in crashes and police were determined to be at fault in 19 of those crashes, according to the story. In 2003, there were 33 pursuit-related crashes and offered were found to be negligent in 13 of those, police have previously said.

Six months after the revised Metro policy was implemented, a teenage driver chased by police crashed into a woman's car at Alta Drive and Jones Boulevard and killed her. Sheriff Bill Young later spoke at a press conference in which he defended the pursuit of the car break-in suspect.

"While there certainly is a victim in this, there is also a suspect," Young said in September 2003. "There's no question in my mind that it was this suspect and his actions that caused this."

Young was forced to defend his department's policy once again last November after a police chase ended in a crash that killed a mother and daughter. Vernon Morrison, the 24-year-old who rammed into the victims after running a red light at Valley View Boulevard and Bonanza Road, was sentenced to a prison term of five to 15 years.

And then there was the incident on Sept. 7 during which a burglary suspect stole a Metro Police car, wrecked it and then stole a van.

Three people, including two police officers, suffered minor injuries in a chase that ended when the suspect, Robert Huck, was apprehended outside the Fashion Show mall on Spring Mountain Road near the Las Vegas Strip after wrecking the van.

Some of the high-profile chases prior to the change in policy included: