Pursuit
policy may prevent deaths
By Veronica Rodriguez
Special to the On-line Forty-Niner
Anna
Polivoda knew that her husband Henry Polivoda
would rather spend his Saturday evening
on his burgundy, old leather chair immersed
in a book, than exercising his legs by taking
a stroll to the Beverly Center, four-blocks
away from their home.
So on March 16, 2002, Anna decided to get
Henry out of his chair with the hopes that
they could search the entire center from
top to bottom, just as they had on numerous
occasions.
The Polivodas, both Holocaust survivors,
finally reached the intersection and proceeded
to walk carefully and patiently to the other
end, just how Anna says Henry liked to cross
it, when a 1989 Buick Century launched against
them, tossing Henry in the air and knocking
Anna against another car.
“I opened my eyes and I’m lying against
a gray or blue car. My right hand was against
the car, and it was all torn open. My right
side was against the car, and my leg was
hanging, like from a string,” Anna said.
Stephany Yablow, daughter of the Polivodas
remembered feeling terrified when she found
out what had happened to her parents.
“I couldn’t believe my ears when the doctor
told me of all the injuries. My mother’s
leg almost had to be amputated because of
the severity of the injury and my father
suffered a trauma and a broken leg,” Yablow
said.
Two months after the Polivoda incident,
on June 1, a chain reaction accident caused
by a car-theft suspect fleeing from Los
Angeles Police Department in downtown L.A.,
killed four-year-old Evelyn Vargas, who
was on her way to visit an uncle with her
mom and her three siblings.
“All I could do was cry for help. I just
begged for people to help me with my daughter,”
Evelyn’s mother, Olga Vargas said.
As a result of these two very close tragedies,
the LAPD has been under pressure to evaluate
its pursuit policy, last revised in 1998,
which says that senior officers must consider
location, pedestrian safety and the seriousness
of the crime when initiating a pursuit.
Unfortunately, these split second decisions
are not always the best fit, resulting sometimes
in serious injuries.
Activists, such as those from the American
Civil Liberties Union, had been hoping that
the LAPD would create a new policy, which
would strictly limit the conditions in which
police can engage in a pursuit.
“There are some reasons for a pursuit like
rape, murder, etc.” and all other circumstances
are unreasonable, ACLU spokeswoman, Cindy
Miscikowsky said.
The ACLU hoped a new policy would reflect
that of other departments, such as the Santa
Monica and Orange County Police Departments,
which have limited their pursuits by ignoring
minor traffic violations. But according
to former LAPD chief, Martin Pomeroy, the
LAPD’s actions in both the Polivoda and
Vargas cases were well under the guidelines
of both the Santa Monica and Orange County
policies.
All the justifications that the LAPD had
given the public in these two cases, and
hundreds of more, frustrated the public,
families of victims and activists who agreed
with Miscikowsky that “a crime against property
like a stolen vehicle should not be reason
to start a chase.” And on December 3, 2002
when a suspect running away from police
ran into the side of a car, causing the
loss of two-month-old Harley Medellin’s
left arm, the LAPD had no choice but to
change its pursuit policy right away, under
the new supervision of LAPD Police Chief
William Bratton.
The new policy, approved on April 1 by the
Los Angeles Police Commission, will ensure
that police officers initiate police chases
only when a person is suspected of a felony,
according to Bratton. The terms of this
policy will act to prevent innocent lives
from being jeopardized each year and to
avoid any further lawsuits against the LAPD
by victims. Because despite the fact that
a 1988 law protects officers from being
sued for injuries caused by a police chase,
as long as there is a basic policy in place,
victims have on numerous occasions sued
the LAPD with some unexpected success.
Although this new policy marks a major breakthrough
in the way police chases are handled, there
are some skeptics who think that this policy
will only create more problems.
“Sure, telling the public that there will
be bigger sentences for those who run away
from cops will deter some, but not all,”
said a police chase enthusiast, Ron Sterling.
“Because there are going to be some that
will run even faster if they know that cops
won’t chase them.”
Others think that this policy will work
only if the media stops airing pursuits,
which has caused a lot of debate between
the media and supporters of this plan. Mayor
James Hahn and Bratton think that airing
pursuits is a form of promoting violence
and would like the media to cooperate with
them in their vision of reducing the number
of chases each year, which sky-rocketed
in 2002 to 700 chases in Los Angeles alone,
according to a report by The Press Enterprise
Co.
But the strong opposition by the media to
stop broadcasting pursuits is not going
to be an easy task to dissuade because in
their defense, pursuits are news worthy
and humbly admit, bring ratings up, which
helps them stay competitive, according to
a report by The Daily News. Although the
ongoing debate of how to handle police pursuits
is still strong, there is no doubt to some
that the efforts to improve are there.
“I know that this new policy won’t make
up for the lost lives, but it will at least
ensure that future lost lives are avoided
which is a positive step that the LAPD has
taken,” said Sterling.
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