Tampa and St. Petersburg may be close in size and well, just close, but the way they deal with auto thefts is a world apart. In 1995 the Tampa Police Department changed its chase policy to deal with the embarrassingly high rate of auto theft. Instead of chasing only violent felons, the police started going after burglars, car thieves and DUI suspects. The change had sort of a seesaw effect: Auto theft rates dropped while car crashes during high-speed chases soared, resulting in injuries and deaths.
The St. Petersburg police department hasn't chased stolen cars since 1984, and they still don't see any need to. Just because they don't chase car thieves doesn't mean they don't catch car thieves — and they don't have to kill them to do it.
The St. Petersburg Police would like to avoid comparing their chase policy to Tampa's, says spokesman Rick Stelljes. Although the two cities are a short distance apart, the demographics and the crime statistics are just not the same. Point taken. However, the priorities of the two departments still beg comparison. The St. Petersburg Police Department does not allow for the pursuit of stolen cars because it's dangerous to citizens, and recovering a stolen car is not worth a life. Tampa's chase policy suggests that maybe it is.
Before 1995, Tampa was more than just a destination for cold Canadians to soak up some rays and drive really slowly. Tampa was also a car thief's Mecca. According to police, car thieves taunted officers while sailing past them in stolen vehicle after stolen vehicle, and because it was Tampa's policy not to chase stolen cars, the impotent boys in blue had to let them pass.
The police were pissed, but probably less so than the owners of those stolen vehicles who wanted their cars back — or at least a little justice. Hell hath no fury like the owner of a stolen Volvo.
Enter Dick Greco, who reestablished his mayorocracy in 1995. A vote for him meant an end to the car-stealing free-for-all. He pledged to change the policy that kept the police from chasing car thieves. When Greco won the election, the policy was changed and the chases began. So did the car crashes, injuries and deaths.
In the past five years, the Tampa Police Department has engaged in 655 police pursuits. Although the police chase suspects for other reasons, more than half the chases involved stolen vehicles. Almost 40 percent of the pursuits, 256, resulted in crashes. Injuries in those crashes totaled 137 and 10 people died. Of the 10 who died, three were innocent bystanders. Most of the fatal chases involved car theft.
The problems of police pursuits aren't limited to the city of Tampa. Although data from the National Institute of Justice have shown that the best policy limits police chases to violent felons, the agency estimates that fewer than 10 percent of law enforcement chases are actually for violent felons. An overwhelming number of chases are for traffic violations and stolen cars, a mere property crime. These police pursuits — often launched for relatively minor crimes — result in the deaths of about 400 people each year.
Tampa Police Chief Bennie Holder acknowledges the risk involved in hot pursuits. He says he's comfortable with Tampa's liberal policy. The argument that a car can be replaced or recovered in noncrash-inducing ways doesn't sway him. "People have worked very hard for that property. Why should we let the criminal element just take over, take someone's property and get away with it?"
Since 1995 the auto theft rate in Tampa has declined sharply. "The word was out that if you wanted to steal a car, go to Tampa, they can't chase you," Holder says. Some thieves went so far as to put signs in the windows of the cars they took reading, "This car is stolen."
"We were a laughingstock."
Some of Tampa's citizens weren't laughing. "People were tired of getting their cars stolen," the chief says. One group of citizens came to his office to lobby for a change in the way Tampa police attempted to apprehend suspects. They wanted them caught.
In 1994, 11,011 auto thefts were reported in Tampa. By 1995 that number had dropped to 5,982. "Most definitely the pursuit policy played a very important role in that." Many citizens in Tampa aren't sorry that Tampa chases auto theft suspects, Holder says, drawing on comments he hears in the community.
But is the chase policy really a significant factor in reducing the number of auto thefts in Tampa, or is it just tough-on-crime political posturing? When Tampa reached record levels of auto theft in 1994, Tampa police instituted a combination of tactics. That same year spawned the "Rat Pack," a unit devoted to reducing auto thefts during peak theft seasons such as the summer, when kids are out of school. The Rat Pack targets high-theft areas, such as shopping centers, to prevent the crime by patrolling. They also target areas known to be dumping grounds for stolen vehicles, where they can catch criminals in the act. This task force is still in operation today and is quite effective, says police spokesman Joe Durkin.
In 1994 the police department also launched a media blitz to get the word out to car owners on ways to prevent thefts. "There are a lot of devices that will prevent auto theft, and they're really popular after people have already had their cars stolen," Durkin says. The Tampa PD took to the airways to tell people not to wait until it was too late.
Since 1995, police have chased 482 stolen vehicles, while more than 20,000 cars have been stolen. The chase policy may deter some thieves from running, and it may deter some from even stealing cars in the first place. But it certainly doesn't mean that a significant number of car thieves are actually being chased and caught.
Holder feels sympathy for those who have lost someone as a result of a police chase. "I lose a lot of sleep over it, but it's what I'm paid to do," Holder says.
He's not the only one losing sleep over Tampa's chase policy.
One dead child
Joseph Kearns sits with a baseball cap pulled tightly over his head. His neat white beard and stocky frame suggest Santa Claus, except for the pain in his eyes. Last year, on Sept. 21, Kearns' only child, Alfred "Alphie" Kearns, 17, died in a car crash that occurred during a high-speed chase. Emily Robins and Ritchard Haddad also died. Emily and Alphie were driving in a vehicle that had been reported stolen. They attempted to outrun police. Haddad — driving his own car — was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Police attempted to pull the two teens over after discovering that the car had been reported stolen. The car belonged to Walter Robins, Emily's father. Emily had commandeered the car and circumvented every attempt her father had made to stop her. To take the car that day, Emily had to remove a chain her father had rigged through the steering wheel and bolted to the front seat.
Knowing she was likely the culprit, Robins was frustrated. He reported the vehicle stolen. According to Durkin, Robins also reported that his daughter was missing. If he indicated that his daughter was involved in the theft, the officers who attempted to pull the teens over were not aware of it. As far as they knew, this was just like any other auto theft.
When the teens took off, officers pursued. The teens led police through their south Tampa neighborhood before heading north on Dale Mabry. At Azeele, Alfred steered the car into the southbound lane. When he saw Haddad's car, he tried to get out of the way. But he was too late. Alfred and Emily died on the scene. Haddad died at Tampa General Hospital just days later.
Tampa PD claims no responsibility for the deaths of the three teens. "The officers went out of their way to be sure that they followed the policies that are in place," Durkin says. These policies include making sure that traffic is light, weather conditions don't impede visibility, and calling in a police helicopter to take over the chase. In this case conditions were ideal and the chase was in the process of being called off because the helicopter had arrived on the scene, says Durkin.
Of course the one thing that officers couldn't predict on the clear night on nearly deserted streets was that Haddad would be driving home and that Alphie would hit him nearly head on. That one variable suggests that there can never be ideal conditions for a police chase, so there should at least be a really good reason for engaging in one.
Kearns does not place all of the blame on the police, nor does he excuse what his son did. In addition to grappling with the loss of his only child, says Kearns, he's also struggling with the fact that his son's recklessness took the life of young Haddad. But he also believes that police herded him toward tragedy.
Alphie had not been an angel by any means. He had gotten into trouble before. However, Kearns believed that his son wasn't so far gone that he couldn't turn himself around. Alphie had moved in with Kearns just a month and a half prior to the accident after living with his mother for a few years. Father and son had a strained relationship, at one point going for a year without speaking. Kearns wanted to rebuild his relationship with his son and provide the discipline he so clearly needed.
"I felt lessened by having to go and beg for him to see me again," says Kearns. But he did. Gradually they worked toward building a relationship, and when Alphie moved back in, Kearns thought he'd once again have a chance to offer his son some direction.
They'd talked about Alphie joining the Navy after high school, he says. A former military man himself, Kearns thought the regimented lifestyle would be good for his son. He was also encouraging him to participate in school sports. Alphie was flat-footed and not very athletic, he says, but they'd discussed the possibility of Alphie joining the rowing team.
"He was just a normal kid. He was very intelligent but he wasn't very directed. If given the chance, he would have grown up to be a good man," says Kearns.
"They didn't know what they were doing," the father continues. "They were just circling the neighborhood, afraid to go home, afraid of what was going to happen to them."
Kearns' assertion that his son fled police because he was afraid jibes with expert opinion on the profiles of fleeing suspects. Most motorists who flee police fail to consider the consequences of the chase.
"They are drunk, unlicensed, stupid or scared. You don't get serial murderers. There is no body in the back," says Geoffrey Alpert, a criminal justice professor at the University of South Carolina and a noted expert in the subject of hot pursuit.
So Alphie ran, the police gave chase, and tragedy resulted.
The criminal justice system generally treats juvenile offenders differently from their adult counterparts; they have a separate court system and separate detention facilities. Sentences are often a form of community service, designed to divert kids from lives of crime.
Part of the reason for the difference is that juveniles just don't have the same ability to reason as adults do. They sometimes exercise bad judgment. When they steal cars, they're more likely to joyride in them than strip them for parts.
Running from the police, an absolutely ridiculous thing to do, may seem just a little less ridiculous to them. They're also just a little more likely to kill or be killed during a high-speed chase. Of the seven suspects who have died since 1995 during high speed police chases, four were juveniles. Juveniles were driving in both accidents that resulted in the deaths of innocent bystanders.
Knowing that, does the Tampa PD act any differently when they are aware that a juvenile is at the wheel of a stolen vehicle? No, they don't.
"Many times you don't have a chance to judge how old the driver is," says Holder. And it doesn't matter anyway. "If they're old enough to be driving and stealing cars, they're old enough to be chased as far as I'm concerned," he says.
To Kearns, there is such a thing as too young to die. "Why are we killing kids? If (former Mayor Sandy) Freedman had been mayor, my son would have been in trouble, but he would have been alive. If I lived in St. Petersburg this wouldn't have happened."
Tampa's chase policy doesn't deter professional car thieves, says Kearns. They can have a car stripped and dumped before the police even get involved. "Three kids are dead because Greco wanted to get tough," he says. "Not effective, just tough."
Whatever the view on who was to blame for Kearns' loss, he's right about at least one thing: It wouldn't have happened in St. Petersburg. That city's cop shop has had a limited chase policy since 1984. The department chases only violent felons or those who present a clear threat to the public if they're not apprehended immediately.
"We took a good hard look at our policy," says department spokesman Rick Stelljes. "We determined that we didn't feel that taking the chance of endangering somebody's life was worth a 3,000-pound machine. There are other ways of apprehending the suspects."
"I don't know how to say it except that we all have families," says Stelljes. It wasn't just criminals who were at risk; it could be their wives, mothers or children behind the wheel when tragedy strikes, he says, and the officers themselves are at risk.
And St. Petersburg has yet to turn into some sort of car thief's Promised Land where cars are stolen while officers look on and despondently wave goodbye. The criminal communication network that let car thieves know that Tampa was the place to steal cars before 1995 seems to have experienced a breakdown. Auto thefts are on the rise in St. Petersburg, but they're starting to rise in Tampa as well. Apparently it takes more than a liberal chase policy to keep a good car thief down.
Dollars and Sense
Across the nation, police chase policies are in a state of flux. Some police agencies that previously chased anybody who even thought about committing a crime now chase only violent felons. The reason for these changes more often stem from expensive lawsuits than a newfound concern for public safety.
The problem with letting bleeding city coffers lead to change is that police chase cases can be difficult to win. Those seeking damages from the city for their losses have to be willing to endure years of legal wrangling just to get their cases heard by a jury.
Lawrence and Ada Brown filed a suit against the cities of Pinellas Park and Kenneth City, as well as the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office and its boss, Everett Rice, when their two daughters, Judith and Susan, were killed in 1984 by a fleeing suspect. The case dragged on for nearly nine years.
Nine police cars from three different police agencies pursued suspect John Deady at high speeds for nearly 25 miles before he plowed into the car carrying the Browns' two daughters. Police had attempted to pull Deady over for running a red light.
At first, The Browns' case was dismissed. The Browns' attorney, Steven Northcutt, now a Circuit Court judge, won the appeal partly because he was able to show that law enforcement has a responsibility to protect innocent citizens.
"The defense argued that they didn't owe a duty of care to the Brown sisters. Their duty of care is not to keep citizens from getting hurt; their duty is to catch the criminals," he says.
Northcutt was able to show that there are times when catching even the most violent criminal does not outweigh concern for public safety. "Let's assume that the police chased the Gainesville murderer up the Apalachee Parkway (a major thoroughfare in Tallahassee). It's Christmas season, and he pulls into the Governor Square Mall and he runs into the mall with hundreds of Christmas shoppers. Would the police be justified in shooting at him?"
When police chase a suspect, they are creating a "zone of risk" for innocent bystanders, Northcutt says. They have a responsibility to either reduce the zone (cut the chase short) or reduce the risk (warn bystanders away from the chase). Not only were the Brown sisters in the zone of risk created by the chase, law enforcement failed to warn them before they drove into the intersection where they were hit.
Then there was the question of fault. When a fleeing suspect hits another vehicle, who's to blame? Is it the suspect who fled or the police who pursued? In the Brown's case, Northcutt argued that there could be more than one cause. Deady was at fault for fleeing in the first place; however, law enforcement agencies were also at fault for failing to follow their own policies.
Chases involving more than two police vehicles were against the policies of all three agencies, and three different agencies should not have been pursing one suspect in the first place. "No one was in charge," Northcutt says. "There was no way for a supervisor to call off the chase."
Once judges granted the Browns the right to sue, Pinellas Park and Kenneth City settled. The Browns' case against Rice went to trial, where they were awarded $7-million in damages. Because there's a $200,000 limit on a city's liability in chase cases, a claims bill had to be filed with the state. The bill passed, paying $2.2-million.
More important than the money were the changes made to police chase policies following the suit. All three agencies changed their policies. The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office will pursue people if they're suspected of committing a felony. Whereas, Kenneth City and Pinellas Park will only pursue suspects who they think may have committed a violent felony.
While police in Tampa are willing to go all out to recover a stolen car, they're barely willing to pay victims enough money to even buy one. Eight lawsuits have been filed against the Tampa Police Department, but the PD has never been held liable for any deaths or injuries. The city won four cases in court; two were dropped and two were settled.
The two cases that were settled involved two German tourists killed while police chased juvenile car thieves at high speeds in 1995. However, city attorney Jim Palermo states that the settlement is not an admission of wrongdoing. Sandra Blackstad, whose husband, Heinz Baer, was killed in the crash, received a settlement of $50,000. That amount was for both her loss and her lawyers' fees, which could have been as much as 25 percent of her settlement. Her two children each received annuities in the amount of $20,470.
Hugo and Edith Rossknecht, the parents of the second victim, received a settlement of $50,000 before lawyers' fees.
More than $142,000 paid out of city coffers because police were chasing stolen vehicles may seem like enough money to make some rethink the chase policy. But it's really not that much money when you consider that very few lawsuits are brought against the city in relation to the number of crashes caused by pursuits. In Palermo's six years in office, he recalls only five, and the families of the German tourists were the only ones he recalls getting a settlement, he says. Generally the cases are dropped, or a jury decides that the fleeing suspect and not the police is at fault.
If you look at it in a Ford Pinto cost/benefit sort of way, in Tampa, your stolen car may be worth more than your life.
Rochelle Renford is a freelance writer who lives in Tampa. She can be reached at rrenford@hotmail.com.
This article appears in Apr 5-11, 2001.