On the same day as the funeral for two deputies who died during a police pursuit, officers chased after criminals across the county - including a man who ended the chase by shooting his ex-girlfriend and then himself.

Almost every day in Palm Beach County, the chase is on.

On Wednesday, three people were caught running from cops.

Since Jan. 1, 517 people have been jailed on charges that included fleeing and eluding police, according to booking records.

That number does not reflect those who got away.

"There's nothing routine about a vehicle pursuit. There's nothing routine about a normal traffic stop. Anything we do out here is not routine. Anything we do can end up in a tragedy," said John Kazanjian, president of the county Police Benevolent Association.

Last week, deputies Jonathan Wallace and Donta J. Manuel were killed when they walked onto State Road 715 and into the path of a K-9 unit trying to catch up to a stolen car going an estimated 85 miles an hour.

The driver of the stolen car was charged with manslaughter, but Kazanjian said he is lobbying state legislators to change the statute so that causing a death while fleeing police will be felony murder punishable by life in prison.

"It took this tragedy to try to create a law. I don't think anybody's ever tried before," Kazanjian said.

It's not just the high-profile shootings and crashes that plague officers, he said. It's the daily struggle to get someone simply to stop.

When a suspect tries to evade capture, supervisors make a split-second decision whether to go after them and how fast and furious to continue the pursuit.

The time of day, seriousness of the crime and location are all factors.

Agencies don't keep statistics on how often they have to make that decision.

Sometimes the suspects run a few red lights and disappear.

Sometimes their crime was serious enough to warrant a longer chase, such as the fatal chase on Wednesday.

A few hours after the deputies were buried, Riviera Beach police officers pursued a gunman after he kidnapped his ex-girlfriend from outside an apartment off Blue Heron Boulevard.

Officers chased the white Ford Mustang onto the Beeline Highway until around 11 p.m. when the car stopped, overheated and the grass beneath caught fire.

They then saw the flash from the shots, surrounded the car, broke the window and found that Isaac Benjamin, 37, had killed himself and his estranged girlfriend, 27-year-old Tonya Raines. The couple had been in and out of jail.

They both had multiple drug arrests and domestic disturbances, but neither had been charged with fleeing police before. Raines had a no contact order against Benjamin from Aug. 23.

That night, they had gotten into an argument near the Broadmoor Apartments where he lives because Raines wanted clothes out of Benjamin's car and another man called her, said the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, which is investigating.

But Benjamin is not the only person who tried to get away that day.

In Boca Raton, 21-year-old BeauDonna Alexis ignored the lights and sirens following his Lexus and made quick turns onto 44th Street and Northeast Fifth Avenue before he stopped and surrendered, according to the arrest report. His passenger, Steve Dumerlus, 22, bolted from the moving car until he ran into a mailbox. Police charged them with snatching two cellphones from a T-Mobile store shortly before the chase. Dumerlus was one of seven people charged with resisting arrest that day.

In Lake Worth, Carlos Ferguson, 41, also was charged with fleeing and eluding police Wednesday night. Details of his arrest were not available.

Officers don't chase suspects nearly as much as they used to.

West Palm Beach police Lt. Chuck Reed said there was a chase in the city almost daily about five years back until policies changed so that officers are authorized to go full-speed only in response to a violent felony, a similar guideline that other area law enforcement agencies follow.

Suspects may have gotten more brazen trying to get away knowing police won't go after them for a minor crime.

"If we try to stop a car that is stolen and they hit the gas and run a couple of red lights, we can't chase them," Reed said. Reed said criminals anticipate they'll be able to get away.

"They've told us that 'We didn't think you were going to chase us.''"

Staff researcher Sammy Alzofon contributed to this story.