A high-speed police chase near the Plaza and Brookside? KCK police need to rethink policy

Here are two phrases that too often go together: “police chase” ending in a “violent crash.”

That’s exactly what occurred recently in Kansas City, though the chase apparently didn’t involve the Kansas City Police Department. What it did involve was a wildly dangerous high-speed chase through Country Club Plaza and Brookside neighborhoods instigated by Kansas City, Kansas, police that left an innocent bystander in critical condition.

The late-afternoon chase lasted 13 minutes and reached nearly 90 mph along Interstate 670 and 80 mph south of the Plaza.

As the caravan passed the east side of the Plaza, speeds were reported at 45 mph. Heading south on Main Street, speedometers hit 60. At one point, the driver of the station wagon being chased drove over a sidewalk where Main Street feeds into southbound Brookside Boulevard.

Things picked up again from there.

“Passing 61st Street,” a pursuing officer advised, according to a Broadcastify.com recording. “Traffic is light. Speeds are 80.”

The victims, an elderly couple sitting inside their SUV at 63rd Street and Brookside Boulevard, were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The driver of the station ran a red light and smashed into them. You can’t help but wonder if the couple even saw it coming.

Both were hospitalized, with one in critical condition.

No question that serious crimes potentially sparked this incident. Someone notified officers of a rolling gun battle near 24th Street and Parallel Parkway in Kansas City, Kan. When officers tried to stop the station wagon, the driver fled. A short time later, the station wagon sped toward an officer standing outside his patrol car.

The driver also intentionally struck a police car, police said.

Kansas City, Kan., department policy permits chases for a felony, misdemeanor or traffic violation, and they’re allowed to spill over into neighboring cities. Asked why the chase continued through heavily populated neighborhoods, police spokesman Thomas Tomasic said, “Because it involved a violent felony.”

He said the chase was under review.

Still, this strikes us as overkill, the equivalent of taking out a bee with a bazooka. How many people must suffer to end the threat? Continuing a high-speed chase that places so many innocent lives in peril is simply unacceptable.

Departments in these parts — and across the country — have wrestled with chase policies for decades for precisely the reason that innocent life so often is jeopardized. Over the years, the trend has been, rightly and logically, to restrict chases.

“Police pursuits are always a dangerous situation, no matter where you are,” Liberty Police Lt. Mark Misenhelter told The Star in 1999 when the newspaper reviewed area policies.

The number of deaths from chases averages 355 a year, according to recent Bureau of Justice Statistics figures. Support groups have popped up to aid families who have lost loved ones to chases.

Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, says the number of chases is dropping as chiefs weigh acceptable risk.

“What departments have learned is that this is about the sanctity of human life,” he said. “You can’t get a life back.”

Kansas City, Kan., police should once again review the department’s policies with an eye toward ensuring that chases occur only in the most dire of circumstances. And chases on busy city streets during daytime hours should be rare to non-existent.