PAHOKEE - A tire deflation device — a common tool
used by police across the country to stop fleeing suspects — is at
the core of the investigation into the deaths of two Palm Beach
County sheriff's deputies killed early Wednesday by a fellow deputy
chasing a stolen car.
Deputies Donta J. Manuel, 33, and Jonathan D. Wallace, 23, were
struck and killed by a sheriff's cruiser while trying to remove
tire-deflation spikes that they had launched across a desolate
stretch of State Road 715.
A key question facing sheriff's investigators is why Manuel and
Wallace, dressed in their dark green uniforms, were on the unlit
road during a pursuit, and whether the equipment they were using was
faulty, malfunctioned or improperly used.
"You make split-second decisions
and you hope they come out right," Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said.
Manuel and Wallace laid down the device, sometimes known as "stop
sticks," as the fleeing Toyota Camry accelerated with three deputies
in pursuit. The Camry's tires blew out, but the two deputies needed
to move the sticks off the road so another deputy could get by,
follow and release a police dog that to pursue the two suspects
fleeing into the sugar cane fields, Bradshaw said.
The device is supposed to have a lanyard attached for officers to
pull the spikes off the road. But an initial investigation into
Wednesday's wreck indicated that the stop sticks used by Manual and
Wallace had no cord, sheriff's spokesman Paul Miller said.
The deputy whose car struck them, Gregorio Fernandez, 39, lost
control and crashed into a nearby canal. Fernandez, a dog handler,
suffered a concussion and a broken arm and was flown to St. Mary's
Medical Center in West Palm Beach, where he was in fair condition.
A training deputy riding with Fernandez, Usbaldo Lara Jr., 23,
suffered minor injuries and was treated and released at Palms West
Hospital in Loxahatchee.
The male German shepherd in Fernandez's cruiser, Brit, was not
injured.
"This was out on 715. It was pitch black and our deputies are in
dark green," Bradshaw said. "Everyone involved was doing their job,
and that is why this is a dangerous job."
The pursuit has put a spotlight on what law enforcement experts
around the country describe as a risky method of ending high-speed
chases, and one in which officers often have little training.
According to a national law enforcement memorial organization,
records show that since 1996 as many as 20 or more police officers
in the United States have died on duty while deploying road spikes
or similar tire-deflation devices. That compares with an average of
more than 150 officers killed nationally each year.
Standards for how and when police use the devices are inconsistent,
and manufacturers offer varying recommendations, specialists say.
"There is not a best practice. There is not a widely regarded and
well understood way for everyone to know how to use these devices,"
said Travis Yates, a Tulsa, Okla., police captain who writes for an
online law enforcement training magazine.
Recommendations on how to deploy and retrieve road spikes — such as
how close officers should get to speeding vehicles and when to throw
the devices onto a roadway — vary by manufacturer, the specialists
said. They also say policies differ vastly among law enforcement
agencies.
"There is not a global right way to do this," Yates said.
Still, even with questions about the device and how it was used by
Manuel and Wallace, Bradshaw cited the two suspects as the reason
for Wednesday's tragedy.
"What I blame are the two people who stole that car who put us in a
position that we had to go chase them and put our lives in danger,"
Bradshaw said. "That's who I blame."
Investigators tracked down one of the suspects hiding in a shed
outside an apartment building at 365 S. Salvadore Court in Pahokee,
officials said. Ernie Daley Jr, 19, of Pahokee, was charged with one
count of grand theft, one count of fleeing and eluding causing death
and two counts of aggravated manslaughter of a law enforcement
officer by culpable negligence.
He is to appear in court this morning.
Detectives were still looking
Wednesday night for the second suspect.
The chase started after a woman in Belle Glade called
911 at about 1 a.m., saying two men were breaking into a
neighbor's gold 1990 Toyota Camry. As deputies
responded, they saw the car northbound on State Road
715.
Bradshaw said a sheriff's sergeant authorized a pursuit,
in part because the streets were mostly empty and there
had been a rash of robberies in the Glades and his
agency wanted to find suspects. Police procedures
usually discourage pursuits unless a felony was
committed.
In this case, officials hatched a
plan, Bradshaw said:
A sergeant, a patrol deputy and Fernandez would follow
the fleeing car. Manuel and Wallace would lay down the
sticks. The Camry would pass over them and its tires
would deflate. Manual and Wallace would move the sticks.
Fernandez would pass the other two cruisers on the left,
past where the sticks had been. His dog would then be
let loose to track two suspects if they fled into the
cane fields.
Everything worked according to plan, Bradshaw said,
until, for an unknown reason, Manual and Wallace failed
to remove the sticks from the road.
There are two basic types of tire-deflation devices.
Bradshaw said both are used by his deputies. Typically,
the equipment costs about $400 to $450 each. He has said
he wants to put these devices in the cruisers of most
deputies.
Barry Peterson, a sales representative for Federal
Signal, a company that manufacturers the devices, said
the company recommends that officers not immediately
attempt to remove the devices from the roadway until
they know the area is clear of traffic.
"If you have to go out and get the spikes because a
chase [patrol] vehicles is following, then, we say just
leave the spikes out there; the worst thing they'll do
is just flatten [the tires] of the police cars,"
Peterson said. "[Entering the roadway] is a real strong
no-no. You just leave them in place."
Generally, the devices are used to impede or stop the
movement of vehicles by deflating tires. The strip is
made up of a collection of long metal barbs. The strips
are typically sold with an attached rope or some other
retrieval device.
Bradshaw said the device the deputies used may not have
had a retrieval device, or it had become entangled and
was unusable.
With or without a retrieval cord that would be used to
yank the strips off the roadway, experts say, the
deputies faced a hectic situation with the approach of
the speeding canine vehicle.
"It's a horribly dangerous activity," said Ron Barber of
In the Line of Duty, an online police training site.
Lowell Keith, treasurer of Safety Stopper Inc. in
Carmel, Ind., sells a spike stick device that is
deployed electronically from the back of a patrol car,
eliminating the need for officers to enter the roadway
to spread the deflation tools.
"A lot of time, for the officers, the adrenaline is
racing, they grab the spikes fast, and they forget the
right way to use them and don't always follow the safest
methods of retrieving them either," Keith said.
As investigators looked for answers in the wreck,
Bradshaw met with the families of both deputies who
died. He pledged the support of the Sheriff's Office.
"It's a very traumatic incident when their lives are
snuffed out," he said.
Leon Fooksman can be reached at
lfooksman@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6647.
