When should the police be allowed to engage in a car chase? It’s a question loaded with risk.
Officers might be able to make more arrests by pursuing suspects—but it often requires high-speed chases on city streets teeming with pedestrians, bicyclists, and other drivers. Police chases across the nation frequently lead to violent collisions that injure or kill suspects, bystanders, and officers.
After years of having a relatively restrictive policy that, except in special circumstances, only allows OPD officers to pursue violent and armed suspects, some city leaders are signaling they’re willing to change the rules.
This week, East Oakland Councilmembers Kevin Jenkins and Treva Reid introduced legislation that, if approved, would have the Oakland Police Commission review the city’s current police chase policies and propose changes that will align the city with national best practices for car chases.
Jenkins said he’s raising questions after hearing from residents who feel crime is too high and the police should be allowed to engage in more chases. Their proposal cites a 37% rise in robberies and a 45% rise in car thefts in 2023.
“Criminals are smart, they know that there’s a no pursuit policy for certain crimes. You can come to Oakland and be able to get away with it,” Jenkins told The Oaklandside before the City Council’s Public Safety Committee meeting on Tuesday, where the proposal was first discussed.
“I do realize pursuits are dangerous and end up in collisions. But also we can’t just telegraph and say we’re not going to do this,” said Jenkins.
The City Council’s Public Safety Committee passed Reid and Jenkins’ resolution. The full council will vote on it next week. If approved, the Police Commission would be asked to bring its report on police pursuits and proposed changes back to the City Council by Sept. 24.
What’s OPD’s current policy? What might change?
The last time Oakland significantly changed its chase policy was in 2014. Before then, OPD rules allowed officers to chase suspects for low-level misdemeanors and citable offenses but required officers to break off a pursuit if they couldn’t subsequently determine the person might be involved in a felony crime. The Oakland Police Department’s Inspector General audited OPD’s pursuit policy in 2011 and found it often resulted in injuries to police officers, bystanders, and criminal suspects. “There is evidence of a culture that routinely minimizes the threat these pursuits present and places a higher priority on catching the offender, even when the offense is not that serious,” the auditors found.
Based on this, and decades of other research by police departments and academics, OPD determined that these types of chases led to innocent bystanders, officers, and suspects getting hurt too often and weren’t worth the risk.
Oakland’s current police pursuit rules are spelled out in several places. OPD Department General Order J-04 describes the department’s overall rules, and Special Orders 9192 and 9212 and Training Bulletin III-B.9, provide even more detail. Together, they allow officers to chase suspects who are believed to have committed a “violent forcible crime” or a crime involving a firearm. Police can also chase people who they have “probable cause” to believe are in possession of a gun.
Officers are prohibited from chasing people suspected of committing nonviolent crimes like breaking into a car. But there are exceptions. An OPD supervisor can authorize a chase when “the fleeing suspect’s actions pose an immediate and serious threat to officers and the public.”
OPD’s policy says that chases have to be terminated when the risks are too high that someone could get hurt. “The protection of human life shall be the primary consideration when deciding to engage in a vehicle pursuit,” the policy states.
Some other jurisdictions have recently decided to change their policies, allowing police to chase people suspected of committing property crimes or other nonviolent offenses. This year, San Francisco voters approved a ballot measure that loosens restrictions on police chases by letting officers initiate a pursuit when they have “reasonable suspicion” that a person is committing a felony or a violent misdemeanor. Earlier this year, the Florida Highway Patrol relaxed its pursuit policy to give state troopers more leeway to start high-speed chases. City leaders in Washington D.C. approved a bill last year that authorizes officers to engage in pursuits. And the state of Washington recently rolled back restrictions to let officers chase anyone suspected of any crime.
Jenkins and Reid’s proposal doesn’t call for specific changes. Rather, it asks the Police Commission to look at best practices and figure out if a change in the chase policy might better help fight crime.
Some Oaklanders support loosening the police chase policy
Martin Hevezi, a 54-year-old telecommunications executive who has lived in the Oakland hills since the late 1990s, told The Oaklandside he has supported public safety efforts to reduce collisions. However, he believes that many of the people committing crimes in Oakland have become aware of a “no chase” policy. As a result, they’ve become more brazen in their willingness to break into cars and businesses and commit other kinds of crimes. Hevezi said he wants the city’s current rules to be suspended to allow officers to use their own judgment depending on the situation.
“If criminals are adjusting to our policy, we need to adjust the policy,” Hevezi said. “And honestly, we are tired, we are frustrated, we’re our own police force here. Citizens in our neighborhood I know personally have chased suspicious cars out of our neighborhood.”
One of the most prominent people to criticize OPD’s policy is former Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong, who said in a February interview with the Epoch Times, a far-right newspaper associated with the Falun Gong religious movement, that the rules prevent officers from apprehending criminals.
“An officer can actually drive up on someone burglarizing a car, the individual can get into a vehicle and take off, and the officer cannot pursue that person. The officer has to let that person go,” Armstrong said.
“Once that person gets in the car and becomes mobile, then the policy kicks in,” Armstrong added.
Armstrong said that not being able to chase people suspected of burglaries causes the public to lose trust in the police.
Some Oaklanders are against loosening police chase policies
Kevin Dalley, a volunteer with the Traffic Violence Rapid Response group, told The Oaklandside that statements like the one former OPD Chief Armstrong made are misleading because they suggest cops can’t chase anyone suspected of a nonviolent crime who’s in a car.
“Police officers are allowed to follow suspects at a safe and legal speed. Frequently, OPD officers choose not to follow suspects, misapplying the no-pursuit policy as a no-follow policy,” he said.
Cat Brooks, the executive director of the Anti-Police Terror Project, told us she has heard from residents who were told by police officers that the current policy is to blame for rising crime. She thinks it’s part of an intentional effort by some officers to revise the policy so that more chases are permitted, even though they could already be doing more to prevent and solve crime.
“I think it was an intentional thing with the hopes that we would get to this point, right where folks will be clamoring, like we did in the ‘80s and ‘90s, to do things that make our communities less safe and promise the illusion of safety,” said Brooks.
