A 26-year-old Chicago woman was killed and a Chicago police officer was injured when their cars collided during a chase on the city’s South Side late Wednesday, marking the second time in as many days a police pursuit ended in a serious accident.
It also was the fifth major accident this week involving a Chicago police officer, including one in which a squad car was rushing to respond to a call. Two of the collisions occurred during routine traffic accidents–not during police pursuits, which have become a hot safety issue nationwide.
Despite the spate of crashes, Chicago police officials said they do not signify a trend. In fact, the number of police accidents and chases is on the decline this year.
“Nothing we have seen in the recent past indicates that these accidents are in any way related to a specific problem or that they are signaling a specific problem in training or driving,” said Lt. Thomas Kuroski, who heads the department’s traffic safety and training unit.
“We certainly take the matter of driver safety very seriously, and we recognize that these recent accidents are very unfortunate,” Kuroski said. “But statistically, we are doing significantly better in reducing accidents and reducing the number of pursuits.”
So far this year, Chicago police officers have been involved in 304 accidents–from fender benders to major crashes–down 12 percent over the same period last year, police officials said. The number of police chases also has declined, to 532 in 1997 from 976 in 1996.
In the most recent pursuit, Del Roy Taylor, 29, an officer from the South Chicago District, was chasing a rape suspect who already had smashed his Pontiac into one police car. Taylor was racing down East 87th Street about 11:15 p.m. when his patrol car collided with a Honda at South Cottage Grove Avenue, police said.
The driver of the Honda Civic, Michelle Hollister, 26, of the 1200 block of West 111th Street, was killed. Taylor broke his leg.
Police are investigating the accident to see who was at fault and to determine if Taylor followed proper department pursuit procedures, said police spokesman Pat Camden.
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Taylor’s crash came a day after a Town Hall District officer on the North Side fractured his hip when he crashed his squad car into a tree while chasing a suspect in another car.
On Sunday, a rookie police officer responding to a call for help on the Northwest Side collided with an alleged drunken driver, authorities said. Wood District Officer Juan Jacinto, 24, was blinded in his right eye when his squad car was struck head-on by a motorist trying to pass another car, police said.
Jacinto has filed suit against the driver, Luis Rojas, in Cook County Circuit Court. Rojas was not seriously injured.
The accidents come at a time when police chiefs across the nation are imposing more strict regulations about when officers can launch chases. The Supreme Court also will weigh the issue in coming months, as it is scheduled to decide a case that may clarify when a police officer can be sued for a deadly chase.
Geoffrey Alpert, a University of South Carolina professor regarded as a national expert on police chases, said the vast majority involve pursuit of traffic violators or car thieves, rather than fleeing murderers or rapists.
“When we talk about pursuits, we are talking about the balance between public safety and enforcement of law,” Alpert said. “An officer cannot shoot into a crowd, why should they be allowed to chase into a crowd?
“When you consider the busy streets of Chicago, a high-speed chase is almost doomed to failure,” he said. “If we were concerned only about public safety, we’d chase no one.”
Following a growing trend across the nation, Chicago officials adopted an elaborate new chase policy last May. Among other things, the policy forbids more than two police cars to be involved in a chase and requires a supervisor to take control of all chases.
But the policy still allows officers to decide when pursuit is appropriate, adding that a chase is justified when “the necessity of immediate response or apprehension of offenders outweighs the level of inherent danger.”
“Our policy is based on the guiding principle that an officer involved in a chase must be prepared to justify his actions,” Camden said.
But many cities, such as Miami, have instituted policies that prohibit officers from chasing anyone other than a violent felon. Baltimore officials prohibit chases altogether.