Police Pursuits:  The View From A Supervisor
by:  Sergeant Mike Carter - Sand Springs Police Department
 

As an officer and supervisor, I have been involved in numerous pursuits.  They are scary events that are sometimes a part of my job.  Officers get into this line of work to help people.   None of the officers that I know get into Law Enforcement with the objective of seeing someone lose their life.  From the perspective of law enforcement, a death from our activities are always unpleasant.  We are forced to make a decision on whether or not to pursue a suspect and question if we should continue a pursuit after it has started.  It quite simply is one of the toughest things I have to do as a police supervisor.  I want to discuss  two pursuits that I was involved in to put you in the mind of a police officer. 

The first is a pursuit in which I was working in the place of another Sergeant who needed the night off.  One of the officers started a pursuit at 2:00 am.  The pursuit went eastbound towards Tulsa.  The pursuing officer was being left by the suspect who was at speeds over 100 mph.  There was no other traffic or any other indicators that would call for this pursuit to end other than the speed.  The only other car in the area pulled out in front of the suspect, and the passenger of the victims vehicle was killed.  The pursuit lasted 82 seconds. 

The suspect was originally stopped for suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol. I was en-route to the scene when they told me that there was a fatality involved.  Not that this is right, but I prayed that it was the suspect, and not an innocent civilian.  I was not wishing that anyone was dead, but if it had to be someone, I wanted it to be the person who committed the act.  I think about this all of the time, and I probably always will.  I truly believe that this suspect would have killed someone later if he continued to be left to drive the street, and I also know that the officer had no idea that there was any other traffic around and he believed he was acting in a safe manner by backing off of the suspect. 
Result of the pursuit:  one innocent person dead, one suspect serving may years in prison, and two officers who must live with that terrible night forever.  Was it worth it?  Not in retrospect.  If I could turn back time, I would.......

 

The next pursuit was a year or two later.  I was filling in for a training officer on New Years Eve.  The rookie officer wanted to catch a DUI, so I took her to a spot that I knew drunks used to avoid the main part of our city.  Within 30 minutes, we were in a high speed chase that lasted about 15 minutes. That pursuit started from a  stop sign violation.  It ended with no injuries and no property damage.  We later learned that we had captured a suspect that was suspected of killing a local Sheriff.  He has been in prison since his capture.  He will be going on trial for the murder of the Sheriff. 
Was this pursuit worth it?  YES; would I love them all to turn out this way.  If I could turn back time, I would do everything the same way.

 

In the first case, a pursuit was justified to get a driver who was already a danger to the public stopped.  In the second pursuit, we could have terminated due to the minimal infraction that caused us to attempt to stop the suspect.  I still regret the outcome of the first and revel in the second.  Everything is clearer in retrospect, and you just have to do your job the best you can.

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