The police always take flak for their actions on the street. Police Departments all have policies designed to limit their liability in a lawsuit. However, the dirty little secret is that no policy manual can foresee every single situation an officer will face on the street. Yet those policies will be used against the officer should he make the wrong decision. In this instance, a chase was heading towards a school zone, and a sergeant made a decision. He decided to use a PIT stop on the vehicle which is not allowed by policy.
While true, the sergeant did violate policy, and on camera for that matter, one has to wonder what the criticism of HPD would be had the chase gone into the school zone and a child was injured or killed. The officers chasing the car would have been criticized for (a) not stopping the chase before the school zone and (b) not terminating the pursuit (in which the criminal would have still sped through the school zone anyway).
Officers face dangers on two fronts. There is the criminal on the street, and the officers’ own administration. Any decision an officer had a split second to make will be scrutinized by people who sit behind desks with all the time in the world.
Blogversation: Red Ink Texas
