PursuitWatch.org: Countdown with Keith Olbermann

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I have been a police officer with a California agency for over 30 years. I support what you are doing. My agency and most California police agencies have very strict do’s and do not’s for pursuit.

I have been involved in hundreds of pursuits over the years and ultimately they should be for violent crimes only. I do not want my family members killed or injured by a police- bad guy car chase for some minor violation (s). Coupled with time of call, traffic conditions, etc. many pursuits are terminated by agencies around us due to unsafe conditions.

Keep up the good work and what you are doing.

Signed,
A Master Police Officer

California

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Dear Mr. Phillips -

Just caught your interview, and wanted to say thank you for your efforts toward protecting the public against the practice of high-speed police chases. I could not agree more, and am delighted to hear that there is an actual movement in this direction. The carnage resulting from these horrific crashes is preventable, and it is way past time that the public demands the protection we deserve from those we employ to "protect and to serve." The degree of criminality must be carefully weighed before innocent bystanders are reduced to collateral damage.

Your efforts are sincerely appreciated.

Portland, OR.

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I am a law-enforcement major at Unity College in Maine pursuing a career in state police and homeland security in the state of Maine. I watched your show today about making safer policy on pursuits. I know this site and show in no way is bashing police officers in any manner, but it does bother me in a way that a safer policy should be made to pursue a criminal in a high speed chase. The United States of America define the P.I.T Maneuver as precision immobilization technique. This allows the pursuit to come to a halt so no more civilian, police and criminal life is threatened. I know your site knows what this means and I'm in no way preaching to you what it means or teaching anyone anything. I'm just reflecting my thoughts on the manner.

I know various chases are of extreme matters from start to end, but some start out small and end big. For example; a 18 year old teenager could of stole a purse and jumped in a truck to get away, but if an officer of the law goes by policy to pull that individual over and that individual does not pull over that is failure to stop and is now considered evading the police. Now we have a chase all because that individual failed to stop. The chase is now endangering the public, the police, and themselves the chase needs to end fast swift without injury or fatality. Not all the time this can be accomplished, due to the fact that the individual gets hurt by themselves or by police. A chase can only gone on so long before it needs to end, if the p.i.t maneuver is initiated fast and swift with precision I don’t understand the problem. Yes! sometimes the individual gets hurt that was their choice to begin with if they decided to break the law. Officers don't mean or intentionally hurt the individual but their job is to serve and protect the public and the criminal, so if that means using that technique to get them off the road I feel it's required.

I'm not saying that everything officers do in this country is right and they’re some officers who don't follow their policy, but to say their needs to be a safer way to go about this? How? You can't just allow a chase to go on for hours on end because that's endangering the public and the police. Maybe I'm reading to much into this and I'm in no way starting an argument I just don't understand how you can make a chase stop without that technique and I know America will never spend billions of dollars for a special electrical gun to immobilize the car and stop it in its tracks with out any physical alteration between police public and the criminal. Basically the P.I.T. is required.

John Phillips' Response:

I found your email very interesting and informational. The P.I.T. maneuver is an important police tool that can be used if necessary and potentially stop a pursuit before it comes to a deadly end. This we can agree with.

However, this is not my main concern. Your example of an 18 year old who stole a purse, however, is. The goal of PursuitWatch is to prevent the P.I.T. maneuver from ever being used in this situation. That is because police should never pursue this sort of suspect. I am unsure from your email where you stand on this concept. Basically, unless it is violently related, police should not pursue. It is that simple.

Again, thank you so much for your email. We still have a lot of work to do, but I am convinced that we are moving in the right direction. Unfortunately, it seems like the only time that we can get valuable discourse about this subject is when something horrible happens and innocent lives are lost.

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Just finished watching the segment on MSNBC and I am very happy that someone else is as passionate about high speed chases like I am. I live in Northwest Indiana, about 20 minutes outside of Chicago and our area has had the misfortune of experiencing several fatalities due to high speed chases. One chase involved a drunk driver that was chased at 100 miles per hour for forty-five minutes on Thanksgiving morning by the Valparaiso Indiana police department!!!!!! Luckily no one was injured but think of what could have happened. I immediately wrote to our local newspaper and faced some opposition from friends in the law enforcement community. High speed chases are bad enough but why would you even consider encouraging a drunk to take off and flee at that speed for that length of time?

Is there anything that I can do? Writing to the newspaper just isn’t enough

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