Tragedy Sends Family In Pursuit Of Policy -- Bill Would Establish State Rules On Police Chases

OLYMPIA - Mark Overby died exactly three months before his 17th birthday.

In the last minutes of his life, Overby argued with his parents, then drove off in the family car without a driver's license.

His father called police and reported Overby as a runaway.

When Overby noticed that a state trooper had spotted him at a convenience store, he panicked and raced out of the parking lot. Trooper Robert Ayers gave chase. A few miles down the road, two Lewis County deputies joined Ayers, and they chased Overby down a narrow, two-lane road.

Mark Overby died March 15, 1992, when he lost control of the car going through a curving underpass and hit a tree at 90 miles an hour.

Now, nearly two years later, his parents have sued the State Patrol, the Lewis County sheriff and all three officers involved in the pursuit. The Overbys claim their son died as a direct result of the officers' "intentional, reckless, deliberately indifferent and unreasonable actions."

"Here's a kid who got upset and took off. All he's done is run away with his folks' car," said Theodore Spearman, attorney for the Overbys. "Then those crazy guys take off after him with this chase-psychology."

According to the National Highway Safety Administration, 46 people were killed in car chases in Washington during the 1980s. In 1990 and 1991, six more people were killed in such pursuits.

State Rep. Jeanne Kohl, D-Seattle, has reintroduced a bill this

legislative session that would regulate police pursuits. Last year the same bill (HB1795) died in committee.

The bill would require the state Criminal Justice Training Commission, the State Patrol and the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs to develop a written model policy on car chases and would require every law-enforcement agency in the state to adopt it, or a more stringent policy of its own.

The policy would include provisions for monitoring a pursuit, deciding the lead chase car and how many cars could join the chase at one time, how to coordinate with other jurisdictions, and guidelines for determining when pursuits "should not be initiated or should be terminated."

Every state, county and municipal law-enforcement agency would have to adopt either the model policy or a policy of their own that meets the minimum standards.

"Although the Washington State Patrol has an adequate (pursuit) policy, many local law-enforcement agencies don't," Kohl said. "There are a lot of small towns without policies, and there is no consistency within the existing policies that lets officers know when to initiate pursuit and when to call it off."

The Seattle, Tacoma, Bellevue, Redmond and Olympia police departments - among others - already have pursuit policies, and some are more restrictive than the proposed minimum standards in the bill.

In Bellevue and Redmond, pursuits are allowed only in the case of serious felonies, while Seattle, King and Pierce counties leave the decision to the officer.

While most police agencies agree in principle with the bill, some are anxious about an amendment that got tacked on in the Senate last session and may be reintroduced this term. It would prohibit pursuits unless the suspect had committed a felony and poses a serious threat to the public.

Kyle Aiken, King County police legal adviser, told the House Judiciary Committee the county favored the bill but opposed the amendment.

"If the amendment passes, then were I a drunk driver, I would learn the lesson that if I drive fast enough the police won't chase me," Aiken said. "That just encourages them to `put the pedal to the metal,' so to speak."

Aiken said restrictive policies were fine for urban and highly populated areas where the danger of innocent citizens being injured is greater during a pursuit, but she also cautioned lawmakers that unincorporated and rural areas, where criminals have miles of open road to escape, need some flexibility in their pursuit policies.

But will more restrictive policies really decrease accidents and fatalities?

Former Bellevue Police Chief Don Van Blaricom thinks so.

"I ended up in a pursuit when I was a young cop that started with a simple speeding violation and ended with two dead bodies," said Van Blaricom. "One was the criminal and the other was a young woman whose car the suspect broadsided at 100 mph when he ran a stop sign."

"What happens in pursuits is that it turns into a personal contest between the officer and the s.o.b. trying to escape," he said. "All of the psychological studies say an officer's focus narrows until you have tunnel vision, and pretty soon you have an accident on your hands.

"The people that will stop will always stop and those that run will always run. But which is more dangerous to the public: a drunk driver weaving in and out of his lane on his way home - and statistics show they usually make it - or a drunk driver who is fleeing police in a full panic at 100 mph?"

However, a Michigan State University study in 1984 of 40 police departments and 35 sheriff's departments nationwide suggests pursuit policies may make little difference in the death toll.

The study showed that one in seven pursuits ends in injury, while death occurs in one of every 35 pursuits.

In the cases of injury and death, between 60 and 78 percent of the officers involved had training in pursuit driving, and in almost every case the police agencies involved had pursuit policy restrictions in place similar to those proposed by HB1795.

But the presence of a number of restrictions on police agencies had no effect on injury and death rates to officers, suspects and other motorists, the study said.

Nevertheless, proponents of HB1795 say that if the bill saves one life, it's worth all the paperwork.

"Citizens have a right to life without it being removed by government action," said Jerry Sheehan, legislative director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington.

"Policy changes shouldn't hinge on numbers involved in accidents when life issues are at stake. One 16-year-old boy dying is enough for me."