Baltimore police don’t track their officers’ chases. Should they? – Baltimore Sun

Baltimore police, which has had three deaths related to people fleeing from police since 2022, say they do not track how often their officers pursue vehicles.

According to the Maryland Attorney General’s Office’s Independent Investigations Division, three of the 19 fatal chases or crashes statewide since October 2021 have involved Baltimore police officers, making the agency, along with the Charles County Sheriff’s Office and Montgomery County Police, the agencies with the highest number of such deaths. A recent series of chases that have left pedestrians and passengers dead has raised concerns with the state’s attorney general.

There is no statewide body that tracks nonfatal chases, but eight law enforcement agencies of varying sizes in Maryland last week provided annual figures on chases since 2021 in response to a request from the Baltimore Sun.

In Baltimore, however, police spokeswoman Chakia Fennoy said in an email that the department’s data team “does not have any data on chases.” Fennoy referred a question about the agency’s process for reviewing chases to another unit, which did not respond.

Experts say recording data on activities is important and can provide insight into whether changes need to be made.

“You can’t solve a problem if you don’t know what the problem is,” says Geoffrey Alpert, a professor of criminal justice and criminology at the University of South Carolina.

Baltimore Police Department policies regarding vehicle pursuits are relatively strict, allowing officers to conduct a pursuit only when they have reasonable suspicion that a suspect in a vehicle has committed a violent crime and that failure to apprehend poses an “imminent threat of death or bodily harm” to the officer or others.

Still, Baltimore attorney Hannah Ernstberger, who represents three women injured when a man fleeing police downtown hit their car in 2021, said the department’s lack of accessible data could indicate a “lax approach” to the pursuits.

“The fact that they don’t track what happens in these pursuits and their (lack of) concern for public safety, I think that’s just a sign of their lax approach,” Ernstberger said. “I wish I could think of a good reason for not investigating and prosecuting these types of things.”

The agency’s federal order does not explicitly require Baltimore police to pursue chases, said Kenneth Thompson, an attorney who leads the order’s monitoring team. But it does include provisions on officers’ use of force, including training on foot chases and avoiding excessive force, Thompson said in an email.

The settlement also lists chases as a benchmark for an “early intervention system” to identify problem officers. However, the department did not respond to a question from the Sun about whether Baltimore police have begun collecting that information for their officers. The department’s contract for an early intervention system was approved last September.

When asked if he thought Baltimore police should track chases and release related data, Thompson said the monitoring team’s role was to provide technical assistance to the police department, not to “prescribe specific policies or tactics.”

The women represented by Ernstberger – Carlene Jones, Talease Gaither and Sharonda Finch – suffered permanent injuries as a result of the accident, including “severe nerve pain, soft tissue injuries, post-concussion syndrome, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder,” according to their lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in March.

The lawsuit alleges that the officers violated the department’s vehicle pursuit rules in multiple ways and that Baltimore officers generally do not receive adequate training on those rules or adequate supervision.

A Baltimore Police spokesman declined to comment, saying the department does not comment on ongoing or pending litigation.

According to agency policy, officers deciding whether to initiate or continue a pursuit must weigh public safety, including the “density of vehicular and pedestrian traffic,” as well as whether they have verified the identity of the suspect and others in the fleeing vehicle and whether there is a possibility of arresting the person at a later date. They are specifically prohibited from pursuing someone if the original violation was a crime against property, a misdemeanor or a traffic violation without “imminent danger.”

“My overall concern is: Are they actually training officers on the policies that are in place, or are they just telling them, ‘Hey, we did it?'” Ernstberger said.

According to the women’s lawsuit, the chase began after Baltimore police officers attempted to stop a driver who was backing up on a one-way street. The officers retreated while the Foxtrot police helicopter followed them. They resumed the pursuit a few minutes later in downtown rush hour traffic before the man ran a red light and collided with the plaintiff’s car at the corner of North Gay and Orleans streets, the lawsuit says.

“People who are obeying the law, going about their business, having nothing to do with it and not even realizing that there is a chase going on around them – and then their life changes completely in a split second,” Ernstberger said.

After each of the deaths in chases or crashes in Baltimore since 2021 – Kweli Murphy Al-Mateen, 17; Linda Moss, 74; and Alfred Fincher, 54 – the Attorney General’s Office investigated the cases and prepared a report. The Baltimore District Attorney’s Office did not file charges against the officers in any of those cases.

Prosecutors in Baltimore certainly that the officers did not pursue the driver Al-Mateen when he crashed and died on October 8, 2022, while the Attorney General’s Office said it was “unclear” whether officers had initiated a pursuit.

Fincher, a pedestrian, died when a driver fleeing police on Feb. 8, 2023, collided with another car, hitting it on the sidewalk before crashing into a rowhouse, which partially collapsed. While the attorney general’s report said it was “reasonable to believe” the officer violated department pursuit policies during the incident, Baltimore prosecutors concluded the pursuit was lawful and ended before the crash.

In the March 25, 2023, case of Moss, a passenger in a fleeing car, the Baltimore District Attorney’s Office and the department disagreed over whether officers violated department pursuit policies when they followed a car suspected of being involved in armed robbery.

A Baltimore police officer was convicted of negligent homicide in a fatal collision in June 2022 with a 58-year-old man on a scooter. Investigators from the Attorney General’s Office found that he ran a red light on his way to another location.

Each of these incidents also likely underwent an internal review to investigate possible policy violations. Officers initiating a pursuit must complete an incident report outlining their probable cause for the pursuit and how it outweighed the safety risks. Supervisors must determine whether the pursuit violated policy.

The supervisor review is also conducted by a shift supervisor, according to police policy. They are expected to document any counseling, referrals for additional training, or disciplinary recommendations. Any misconduct or potentially criminal behavior is reported to command staff and the department’s Public Integrity Bureau.