SPEECH ON HIGH-SPEED PURSUITS

GIVEN BY MS. SHIRLEY HEAFEY
CHAIR OF THE RCMP PUBLIC COMPLAINTS COMMISSION

AT THE CANADIAN ASSOCIATION OF CIVILIAN OVERSIGHT OF
LAW ENFORCEMENT (CACOLE) CONFERENCE

IN WINNIPEG, MANITOBA
on September 23, 2000

We have been together as an organization for six years. We are a young organization - and Don has challenged us. He has invited us to look ahead and begin to shape the future of our organization. We all received a questionnaire. What are the most important issues facing us in the first decade of the new century? Is there a single issue that involves all of us? We come from such diverse communities. Each of you has issues that relate only to your community. Organizations need to be challenged. We find our strength and our identity under the pressure of challenge.

What would an issue that could unite us look like?

First, it would be of national scope - present in every one of our communities throughout the country. Second, it would be urgent, demanding our immediate attention. And third, this unifying challenge would be one that could only be met by CACOLE.

My topic today presents precisely that challenge and opportunity. The issue of police pursuits meets all of the criteria:

First: pursuits are happening everywhere in Canada. This is a national issue.

Second: Police officers and civilians are being killed and injured at an alarming rate every year in every province. This matter is urgent.

Third: the RCMP and other police forces, and our local governments, have tried at one time or another to meet this challenge. But there has been no organization to unite and drive a national response to this challenge.

In my view, CACOLE is the organization to meet this challenge. What other challenge should we accept if not this? When would we tackle it if not now? Who will meet this challenge if not us?

I am very grateful for the cooperation that I received from the RCMP and from each of your provinces in sharing their available data and information regarding this important issue. Without this assistance and information I would not have been able to produce my report.

Policemen and policewomen all over Canada face their own challenges, difficulties and dangers every day. These Canadian men and women have made a choice. They have chosen to enter this profession to help people and to serve their communities. They selflessly accept the inherent risk. They put their personal safety and their lives on the line to protect the ordinary citizen.

Sadly, many police officers are injured; some pay the ultimate price and die in the line of duty. One of the most dangerous activities is police pursuits.

On the 28th of July 1999, Sergeant Richard McDonald of the Sudbury Regional Police was killed. And as recently as August 30th of this year, Constable Alain Forget of St. Hubert, a Montreal suburb, was killed.

"As Peace Officers, when you envision yourself in that position where you have to make a decision one day to perhaps take a human life, you don't often think about it being through a vehicle, but let's face it, you're driving around a big bullet, and it can kill. I never figured that I'd ever be involved in a situation as a police officer, contributing to someone's death in a chase." [Quote taken from a training video produced by the RCMP "E" Division in B.C., for use in province-wide training.]

But there is another part to this tragedy. There are many other Canadians who are being killed. These are the ordinary citizens who are killed during the course of police pursuits.

Citizens like Andrea Henry, who was killed near Ste Anne, a few kilometres from Winnipeg, on May 17th of this year. Andrea was the passenger in a stolen car. She was killed instantly when the vehicle crashed at the end of a police pursuit. Andrea was 18 years old.

And there are many incidences of young, inexperienced drivers who panic and flee when directed to pull over by police, like the 15-year-old who stole a car in Surrey, B.C. last July. He crashed into a family car killing 11-year-old Tina Burbank.

In the course of our exploration of this issue, we have come across some evidence outside of Canada that suggests we can reduce - perhaps even substantially - the number of injuries and deaths to civilians and, of course, police officers.

There are two categories of police pursuits that I will refer to today.

The first is what the RCMP calls hazardous pursuits. These are pursuits undertaken once an individual has ignored a police directive to stop. The police must engage their emergency equipment, that is sirens and flashing lights, while pursuing so that the public is aware of the danger.

The second category is what the RCMP presently calls "routine pursuits," and what other police forces refer to as "catch-up pursuits.". A "routine pursuit" is one in which police officers may exceed speed limits and ignore other traffic regulations. In this type of pursuit there is no requirement to use sirens and flashing lights and no data is kept about them.

Police engage in "routine pursuits" for a variety of reasons - for example, to catch up to a speeding vehicle without the driver being aware that he or she is being pursued. This is known as "closing the distance" - the idea being that the officer "closes the distance" and only turns on the lights and sirens when the target is within close range.

The police rationale behind the use of "routine pursuits" is based on what is called the "rabbit theory". Many police officers believe that if a speeder is alerted to the approaching police car by lights and sirens when it is still some way off, he or she will take off like a rabbit to avoid apprehension. However, this remains an unproven theory.

This type of routine pursuit offers a serious danger to the public, for obvious reasons - predominantly because other drivers have no way of knowing that the police vehicle is travelling at a speed well above the posted limit. People have died pulling out of intersections, not because they failed to see the police vehicle, but because they never imagined that it was travelling so fast.

Let me talk, for a moment, about some myths regarding police chases and what we frankly don't know. Many people, including police officers, believe that someone who races off when challenged by the police must have committed a serious crime. Available information shows this is not the case.

The limited data that is available provides an interesting picture of pursuits and indicates that the majority of pursuits are undertaken for property offences and traffic violations. And this has been confirmed in a recent study published in the United States. [Police Pursuits. What We Know, 2000, Police Executive Research Forum, p. 8]

In addition, when looking at the charges laid following pursuits - for example in Ontario, the data indicates that 35.8% of the charges laid are for theft/possession; 32.4% were for Criminal Code traffic violations - not including the most serious offence of impaired driving, which was only 8.5%. In contrast, serious violent offences (including homicide and weapons offences) involved only 2.8% of pursuits. This is consistent with data from the USA.

So most people who flee have committed minor infractions or property thefts. They are running away because they're panicked and scared.

This must be addressed. No one in our communities wants dangerous pursuits occurring because of traffic or property offences. Listen to what a young constable from B.C. says as he reflects on a chase that ended in the death of a young man who had stolen an expensive car. And I quote:

"To take a human life over a $40,000 vehicle? It's wrong for him to be there, it's wrong for him to be in the stolen vehicle, it was wrong for him not to stop when he was initially instructed to stop, but it cost him his life and it wasn't worth it. We lost in the situation, everyone came out as losers. The members [that's himself and his fellow officers] who were involved are all scarred for life, the family certainly has a significant loss in their life, the vehicle we were trying to save - that was a write-off, so what did we gain from it? Nothing."

That by the way is taken from a splendid video produced by the RCMP "E" Division in B.C., for use in province-wide training. I think that this video should be required viewing for every member of CACOLE. It is an excellent example of one of the ways that the RCMP and some B.C. police forces are dealing with this problem.

What can be done? There are opinions on the international scene and even some experiments that have been carried out in other communities that have clearly shown a significant reduction in injuries and deaths. Can we achieve this in Canada?

Frankly, no one knows - I don't know, the police forces don't know, the RCMP doesn't know, no one in this room knows.

Here are the basic facts that we do know:

The available data only refers to what are termed "hazardous pursuits."

In terms of national data, at the time of our review, the RCMP did not have recent, comprehensive data on high-speed pursuits. The only comprehensive national RCMP data is for the period 1991-95. During that five-year period, there were 4,232 hazardous pursuits, of which 587 resulted in injuries and 19 in deaths.

At the time of our review only the provinces of B.C. and Ontario were keeping comprehensive data.

So let's focus on the B.C. and Ontario statistics.

In B.C., between 1990 and 1998, there were 3,991 pursuits which resulted in 818 injuries and 23 deaths.

In Ontario, data from non-RCMP forces indicate that between 1991 and 1997, there were 10,421 pursuits, which resulted in 2,415 injuries and 33 deaths.

To put this in perspective, on average in B.C. and Ontario, there are over 1,900 pursuits, 430 injuries and 7 deaths. That's every year. And that's only hazardous pursuits. And that covers only half of the population of Canada.

Approximately 35% of all pursuits end in a crash. The people fleeing drive through intersections and busy streets striking other vehicles and running down innocent bystanders. As the family and friends of Krystal Bartusek and Erik Thomson know all too well. They were innocent bystanders in Kamloops, B.C. killed in a police pursuit on March 15, 1995. It was their tragic death that led to the special Commission report that is the subject of my talk today.

This is a huge national problem and I'll tell you why this is not recognized in a few minutes. But first let's look at a couple of possible alternate solutions.

There are essentially three types of solutions:

tougher laws for offenders;

alternative methods of pursuit, including new technology;

improving the quality of regulations and policy.

Parliament recently increased penalties for anyone fleeing from the police. I support imposing a heavier burden of responsibility on the person fleeing. My job is concerned with police accountability. But accountability must also apply to citizens who disregard the law. We must be careful, though, not to look to these penalties as some kind of magic solution. It is an essential part of the equation but it is only part of the solution. A former police officer, writing in Blue Line Magazine (March 2000 issue) stated: "Place yourself in the mind of the fleeing suspect. Getting life in prison for a chase resulting in tragedy might be all the incentive you need to continue the chase."

The most common alternative method of pursuit is the use of helicopters in larger jurisdictions. The best example is that of Calgary who has had an active Air Services Unit assisting all other police units since July 1995. Statistics currently being kept by the Calgary Police Service indicate that it is a valuable asset to the community.

Once the helicopter is on the scene of a vehicle pursuit, it is extremely difficult for offenders to avoid being caught;

the helicopter can engage in high-speed pursuits with little risk to officers or the public.

Despite the successes of helicopters, or even of other technologies, limited resources play a key role in determining whether or not such instruments can be used. However, it is possible that we can avoid injury and save lives by establishing effective regulations and policy changes.

Now let's look at regulations. In Miami (Dade County), Florida, in 1992, very restrictive regulations were put in place respecting police pursuits. In that jurisdiction, it was decided to limit pursuits to known, violent felonies. The results were frankly surprising: within one year, the number of police pursuits had declined by 55%. And within five years, they had declined by 80% and the number of collisions, the number of injuries and the number of deaths also declined commensurately. And did crime increase? It did not.

With respect to regulations, I was very encouraged when, in 1998, the B.C. Government introduced progressive police pursuit regulations and substantially restricted the grounds on which any peace officer could engage in catch-up pursuits. The regulations applied to all police forces in the province, and were developed in consultation with both the RCMP and municipal police agencies.

I was encouraged to see that a Canadian province was addressing the issue of catch-up pursuits and recognizing the importance of this issue. However, the regulations were repealed two years later. Unfortunately, the new regulations had not been in place long enough to compile any useful statistics. Perhaps we would have found that there was a reduction in collisions. Perhaps not. Perhaps B.C. might have achieved similar results to Miami, Florida. But the reality is we don't know. There is a real danger that we will engage in decades of discussion, endlessly amending and changing regulations without ever gathering the essential information to know if they have been effective. And during this period, civilians and police officers may be injured and killed unnecessarily.

I recognize that there are occasions when the police must pursue a dangerous offender, to protect society. But, as I mentioned earlier, such pursuits represent only a small percentage (3.3%) of the thousands of high-speed pursuits that take place in Canada every year.

That is why the Commission has and continues to emphasize the practical measures that will assist the RCMP officer in discharging his or her duty in a responsible manner:

ensure that hazardous pursuits are undertaken only for serious offences;

ensure the policy contains a definition of what constitutes a serious offence;

make the use of emergency equipment mandatory for all police pursuits;

increase and sustain officer training.

I am encouraged by the enthusiasm with which the RCMP has embraced this issue. And I am pleased by the amount of work that they have done to date on reviewing policy and training concerns.

It is possible. And it is my conviction that we can reduce the number of these tragic events resulting from high speed pursuits, but not until we make a commitment, not until someone steps forward - such as a civilian oversight agency - and provides the necessary leadership and impetus to gather these statistics provincially and nationally.

There is a unique role for the members of CACOLE to play here. Many people are gathering information but it is scattered, unreliable, not cohesive and - most importantly - not analysed.

I believe we have a responsibility to inform the public. As I mentioned earlier, the basic facts of this national problem remain largely unknown to Canadians. It is simply unacceptable that this information is not available. Canadians do not know how many pursuits happen in their communities. They do not know the extent of the collisions, injuries and deaths caused by these pursuits.

This is an opportunity for us as a young organization to rally around a simple but very important cause.

I believe that when there is good information good decisions can be made. We must make sure that these decisions are made. As an organization we must take the leadership of this issue. We must assist our police forces and our governments. We must fight to place this issue much higher on the agenda of the police and governments.

This is a matter of national importance. We need to gather this information.

We need to keep the public informed - we need to stay vigilant until new regulations are enacted to protect the public and at the same time protect police officers and civilians from unnecessary injury and death.

I can tell you that the families of victims of police pursuits would agree.

If not this - then what?

If not now - then when?

If not us - then who?

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