Roll Call: Police pursuits are on the rise. Are they worth the risk?

Undoubtedly, you’ve either seen or read about the increase in police pursuits occurring in the suburbs.

The decision to pursue offenders is being made by the police chiefs who want to take a strong stance against individuals who flee from the police.

Fleeing and eluding the police are unfortunately common occurrences, but that has not always been the case. In this column, I want to examine the theory behind vehicle pursuits, decisions on whether to pursue, recent technology released to limit harmful effects of pursuits and what lies ahead.

It seems not a week goes by that we don’t read about a police pursuit that reached speeds in excess of 100 mph.

Pursuits usually do not involve only a single jurisdiction. In fact, it’s common for several police departments to join a pursuit as it often goes through multiple municipalities and sometimes onto the expressways into Chicago, which then can involve the Illinois State Police and Chicago Police Department. The city of Chicago has a helicopter, which is ready for use by suburban police departments.

For the record, I never have been a proponent of police pursuits for anything other than those involving highly violent offenders known to have committed a violent crime or an officer pursuing an individual for a shooting or stabbing. But to be clear, police officers rarely know the reason for a pursuit. Pursuits mostly are the result of traffic offenses, retail thefts, burglaries or a crime that is violent but the victim who reported it does not want to prosecute or cooperate with the police.

In these cases, the pursuits involve multiple police agencies, multiple officers and a tremendous amount of effort and equipment. And, more often than not, these pursuits end in a crash. Then the victim decides against cooperating with the police. It is one reason I say no to chases.

The goal of an officer is to arrest a suspect. When a suspect flees, that instigates a pursuit under Illinois law. Police officers must follow numerous rules during a pursuit, including balancing the goals of law enforcement with public safety.

If a pursuit is started, the supervisor on that shift must decide whether it should continue or be terminated. The sergeant monitors the radio traffic on the quest and makes that call quickly.

Other factors that must be taken into consideration by the officer involved are the location of the pursuit, weather conditions, the crime that is known at the time of the pursuit, time of day and traffic conditions. These factors must be considered within the first 10 seconds of the pursuit.

The sergeant making the call on whether the pursuit is to continue must make a risk assessment for the welfare of the officers involved. Typically, officers who initiate the pursuit can get what is commonly referred to as tunnel vision. This is when a supervisor must interject and consider the officer’s safety as well as the public’s well-being.

Every time a pursuit is initiated in Illinois, state law requires that the agency fill out a police pursuit driving report. In 2023, the last full year in which data is available, the pursuit driving annual report reported just more than 800 pursuits. And if you believe that is the number of pursuits in Illinois, you are wrong. Law enforcement agencies seldom fill out those required reports and send them to the proper authority.

Over the past several years, some innovative technology has come out to help police stop pursuits. These include a GPS tracker, a device that’s mounted on the squad car. A dart is shot from a device that pins the GPS onto the back of the offender’s car, allowing the officer to discontinue the chase and rely on the GPS to follow the suspect to his final location.

There also is an app called Pursuit Alert that alerts residents when a pursuit comes within five miles of a given area.

Another device, the Grappler Police Bumper, serves as a tool for capturing fleeing offenders. The Grappler is attached to the front of squad cars. When the squad approaches the offender’s car, the officer launches netting that grabs the tires and wraps around the rear axle, forcing the car to stop.

One device developed by the auto industry, but not yet available to police departments, is a beam that shoots from the squad car into the vehicle being pursued and shuts the engine down. Several national car brands have developed this device and are ready for deployment. I believe this device soon will become available to law enforcement agencies.

When it comes to vehicle pursuits, Illinois law is woefully inadequate. The state’s statute for fleeing and eluding police has no teeth. Our legislators in Springfield need to toughen the fleeing and eluding police statute, making it a Class 1 felony, which would carry a prison sentence upon conviction and allow mandatory seizure of the vehicle used in the pursuit.

This would allow law enforcement to use that vehicle for undercover purposes and/or sell the car and use the proceeds to strengthen traffic enforcement in the communities where the pursuit initiated.

I engaged in some police pursuits in my career. It certainly was a different time. I also made some significant arrests based on the captures. But in almost all cases, I never knew what I recovered inside the car was in there in the first place. The pursuit was initiated after a minor traffic offense or a property crime. Rarely, if ever, did I know that the offender I was chasing was wanted for a violent criminal act. While this does happen, it is not commonplace.

Most law enforcement executives have argued over the years that pursuit policies and pursuit itself are based on the belief that fleeing suspects will slow down at some point after the pursuit is terminated, but this rarely happens. Instead, the offender often flees on foot. Offenders rarely slow down so law enforcement can take them into custody without further incident. The best pursuit policy is for the supervisor working that shift to make the call.

• Tom Weitzel was chief of the Riverside Police Department. Follow him @chiefweitzel.