Louisa to review chase policy

Media General News Service
Published: June 10, 2008

Two recent fatal wrecks following police chases that began in Louisa County have prompted Sheriff Ashland D. Fortune to take a second look at his office’s policy on high-speed chases.

“We’re looking at it real good right now,” he said Tuesday. “I have it on my desk right now.”

High-speed pursuits are one of the biggest judgment calls a law-enforcement officer has to make, balancing the duty to apprehend lawbreakers against the risks that rise with every mile per hour.

On Memorial Day, Fortune walked into his office ready to call off a high-speed chase that had crossed into Albemarle County.

One of his deputies was pursuing a Geo Metro with no license plates that was speeding on Route 22, a two-lane road that connects Boswell’s Tavern in Louisa and Cismont in Albemarle.

“I knew Route 22 was a winding road, and I didn’t want to lose one of my officers or vehicles,” Fortune said Tuesday.

But by the time the sheriff reached the emergency dispatcher to radio the deputy, the Geo had crashed into a tree in a fiery explosion that left its driver dead and, to this date, unidentified. The chase lasted seven minutes and had reached speeds of 85 mph.

“When we’re involved in a pursuit, the person driving the police car has to constantly weigh the risk to the public, to himself and to the suspect,” said Lt. Todd Hopwood, a spokesman for the Albemarle Police Department, which is still investigating the Memorial Day crash.

The driver of the car still hasn’t been identified because he was burned beyond recognition, and the car he was driving was stolen. Fortune believes the driver drove into the tree deliberately, but the Albemarle investigation hasn’t drawn any conclusions.

Albemarle’s pursuit policy also considers why a suspect is being chased. “A speeding offense would not be reason to continue a high-speed pursuit,” Hopwood said.

On the other hand, Hopwood recalled participating in a high-speed chase more than five years ago of a man who had stabbed someone and stolen a car. Albemarle police pursued the suspect through Fluvanna, Louisa, and Orange counties before he wrecked in Greene County.

A similar threat of violence hung over a high-speed chase Saturday night that led two Louisa deputies into Goochland County. They were pursuing a 36-year-old man armed with a sawed-off shotgun who had threatened his mother with the weapon at their Gum Spring home and vowed to kill her and the first deputy he saw.

Four minutes and 3 miles after the pursuit began, the man, Michael R. Duncan Jr., lost control of his car while grappling with the shotgun. The car hit an embankment on Route 619, rolled several times and threw Duncan to the pavement. The shotgun lay next to him.

There was no other traffic on the road, Fortune said. “If there’s heavy traffic involved, we do not pursue we let him go.”

About Police Pursuits

Last year, a U.S. Supreme Court decision gave police broader protection from lawsuits for engaging in pursuits. The justices voted 8-1 that a Georgia sheriff’s deputy could not be held liable for an accident during a high-speed chase that left the car’s driver a quadriplegic.

State law exempts police from obeying certain traffic regulations, including the posted speed limit, if they are responding to an emergency. But they must activate their lights and sirens.

The number of bystanders, suspects and officers killed in police chases in Virginia from 1995 to 2005 is 18.

— Media General News Service