In response to the vehicular manslaughter conviction of
Adam Jones, who killed a UC Berkeley student while fleeing the police, the San Francisco
Chronicle published the following editorial:
DESPITE SEVERAL state statutes and elaborate local policies
regulating police chases, those pursuits too often end up with serious injury or death to
people unconnected with the incident.
That's what happened to Wang Jie, a promising 24-year-old UC Berkeley graduate student in
chemistry, who was killed nearly two years ago in Berkeley when his car collided with one
driven by someone fleeing from an Albany police officer.
Albany has a 10-page "vehicle pursuit" policy, which stipulates that an officer
must terminate a chase "when continuing it reasonably appears to outweigh the risks
resulting from the suspect's escape." An administrative review of the incident by the
city of Albany concluded that the officer committed no wrong doing, that no state laws had
been violated.
Last month, Adam Jones, the 31-year-old driver of the vehicle, was convicted of gross
vehicular manslaughter while under the influence. His conviction brings an unsatisfying
end to a sequence of events that should never have ended a life of a young scientist of
great promise.
We understand that vehicle pursuits typically involve difficult judgment calls by police
officers. But because these pursuits too often end in disaster, the state Legislature must
revisit the laws regulating them when it reconvenes in January.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle, 11/24/06
PursuitWatch Flashback:
Battle Lines are drawn over
Kristie's Law in California, 3/7/05
Text of
Kristie's Bill, 2/20/04
.. |
