Training sharpens officers’ stop stick skills

By PATRICIO G. BALONA, The Daytona Beach News-Journal, An AP Member Exchange

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Courtesy:  http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2007/nov/22/training_sharpens_officers_stop_stick_skills/

DAYTONA BEACH — The driver of the fleeing vehicle had tried to run over a state park officer and was barreling toward Volusia County Sheriff’s Deputy Richard Fortin.

Fortin grabbed the stop sticks from his patrol car and set them up on the shoulder of a road in Holly Hill. Despite his numerous hours of training, Fortin could not help feeling tense as he crouched behind his patrol car for safety on the night of May 26. He listened to his radio as the dispatcher relayed the vehicle’s description and direction. Then the vehicle came into view.

“I pulled the stop sticks onto the road and I managed to hit three of the four tires,” Fortin said. “You could hear a loud hissing as the air was forced out of the tires.”

David Favale, 52, of Daytona Beach did not get far. He was arrested and charged with aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer, felony fleeing and eluding and driving under the influence.

As police departments across the nation have barred live pursuits of fleeing vehicles in all but the most dangerous situations, they’ve turned to stop sticks to reduce the potential of costly damages and injury to innocent bystanders.

Officers pursue at a distance, relaying information on the fleeing car to officers who set up stop sticks where they believe the vehicle is heading. When they succeed, the sticks puncture the tires of the fleeing car, causing them to gradually lose air pressure as the pursuing officer arrives.

But stop sticks can be dangerous, and the strategy does not always work.

In July 2003, Flagler County sheriff Deputy Charles “Chuck” Sease, 35, was killed instantly after being struck at 2:54 a.m. by a car driven by Bruce Harold Grove Jr., 28. Sease and another deputy were laying sticks on the southbound exit ramp from Interstate 95 to State Road 100 when Groves careened into Sease as the deputy was running away from the ramp.

During a recent training session near DeLand, deputies using fake stop sticks understood the danger Fortin faced. The tension is natural because deploying stop sticks involves stopping a speeding vehicle, said Kathy Daniels, trainer and coordinator of the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office Emergency Vehicle Operations Center.

Sheriff’s deputies in Volusia and Flagler counties take extensive training, including simulated chases involving deployment of dummy stop sticks every year, officials said.

In the training session, Daniels drove a white F150 pickup on a winding course as a marked patrol car followed. Just as the truck approached, Deputy Wayne Miller tossed the orange-colored plastic stop sticks.

While the truck merely ran over the plastic decoys, deployment of real stop sticks in actual chases does not always go as smoothly, Miller said.

“You have one officer already chasing a guy who does not want to be caught. You never know what that person is capable of doing to get away again,” he said.

Situations change fast during a chase, making it even more dangerous, said Deputy James Nunn. Officers have to deal with motorists who pay little or no attention to flashing lights on the road and others who try to go around officers setting up the spiked strips, Nunn said.

“Sometimes by the time the information gets to you, there is not enough time to set up and you have to toss it (on the road),” Nunn said.

Tossing exposes the officer to the approaching speeding vehicle, Nunn said.

Daniels said the Sheriff’s Office uses stop sticks two or three times a month.

But mistakes can occur. On Oct. 25, Seminole County sheriff deputies punctured the tires of two cars they thought were stolen. In looking for a silver Mustang shortly before 2 a.m. on Oct. 25, they threw stop sticks into the paths of two uninvolved vehicles, a Seminole County sheriff’s report states.

And in Georgia, state troopers punctured the tires of a minivan on Oct. 19 only to find the driver was an undercover sheriff’s investigator assisting a fellow deputy, according to a Macon, Ga., newspaper report.

Despite the errors and danger, Fortin believes stop sticks are the best way to stop speeding vehicles.

“Training alleviates some of the guessing,” Fortin said. “It ends a chase with the least amount of injury to a person or damage to property.”

 

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