The Chicago Police Department should relax restrictions on vehicle pursuits because the sharp controls have encouraged robberies by criminals who believe they are unlikely to be chased, the head of a civilian oversight panel said Monday.
Anthony Driver, president of the Community Commission on Public Safety and Accountability, joined the chairman of the City Council’s Police and Fire Committee in sounding the alarm about severe restrictions they say have contributed heavily to a citywide surge in robberies.
Driver said he has asked commission staff to determine whether the civilian panel has the power to relax the restrictions without running afoul of a federal consent decree.
If it can’t be done by the commission, Driver said he would consider asking newly appointed Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling to take the lead by issuing a new general order on vehicular pursuits.
“People do feel emboldened. … People run from the police and know that police aren’t going to chase them. They flee in cars and they go do more robberies,” Driver said on his way into a meeting with Snelling Monday to formulate annual goals that will be used to assess the superintendent’s performance.
“Those chases do get very dangerous. That decision was made at a time when not only officers were being injured but so were members of the public,” Driver said. “It’s trying to find the right balance between … keeping pedestrians safe, but also making sure that folks are held accountable.”
In late January, Driver was the victim of an armed robbery while walking near his South Side home.
Two teenagers jumped out of a tan SUV, stuck a gun in his abdomen and made off with his wallet, phone and computer.
“When I was robbed, they had robbed six people before me. Literally. They pulled up and, when they robbed me, they threw out purses. They dumped the purses in the street,” Driver said.
“I’m hearing from Chicagoans. I’m hearing from police officers and ... stakeholders that this is something that needs to be looked at. We can’t hide or run from this issue anymore. ... I don’t think there was a lot of public input from either the general public or officers when this policy was created.”
Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29th), a former CPD officer now chairing the council’s police committee, urged the commission to take the lead in revising the current vehicle pursuit policy, which he believes went too far.
The policy requires every vehicular pursuit to meet a balancing test: the need to “immediately apprehend the fleeing suspect” must outweigh “the level of inherent danger created by a motor vehicle pursuit.” It also states CPD “will not discipline any member for terminating a motor vehicle pursuit.”
In practice, it “essentially becomes a no-chase policy. ... Even if you do see a robbery, does the current policy allow for a chase?” Taliaferro said.
“Our chase policy does play a role in the criminal mindset,” he added, with robbers figuring “that since there is a no-chase policy, then I don’t have to worry.”
Yvette Loizon, another commission member, said she believes changes in the vehicular pursuit policy must be made by the superintendent.
“Under the ordinance, that probably exceeds our purview because it’s a matter for the consent decree, which we don’t have direct authority over,” said Loizon, an attorney who serves as a partner at Clifford Law Offices.
“But if CPD were to attempt to modify that order as a general order, we would then have the ability to provide them with input.”
Over the years, Chicago taxpayers have shelled out tens of millions of dollars to innocent pedestrians, motorists and passengers killed or injured during police pursuits gone bad, despite repeated overhauls of the pursuit policy.
Even so, Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara urged Snelling to revisit restrictions that, he claims, result in terminating vehicular chases “pretty quickly, 99.9% of the time.”
And then, even after ending a chase, “officers who initiated a chase and self-terminated a chase that ends up in a crash where there’s great bodily harm or injury or death are now getting disciplined for following the policy this department put forward,” Catanzara said.
“You wonder why proactive policing has receded. That’s a perfect example why,” Catanzara said. “I applaud Superintendent Snelling for talking about getting back to aggressive policing. It’s not a dirty word. It can be done constitutionally, professionally and make this city safer.”
