When should the police sue? A woman, 5 dogs are only the latest victims of a high speed chase • Long Beach Post

Jessie Bingaman had just left a stop sign when a large van hit the driver's side of her Ford Escape.

The vehicle was stolen, according to the police, who had begun to pursue it around 11:30 Tuesday.

Two minutes later, the driver crossed a stop sign at Temple Avenue and Third Street, killing Bingaman and five dogs that she was using as part of her pet-care business, announced the police.

The outpouring of grief was immediate and intense.

The next day, more than 100 people attended a vigil. Some among the crowd wondered why the police were pursuing the driver as he was driving through the quiet neighborhood.

Bingaman's death is tragic but not unique.

Hundreds of innocent civilians are injured every year as a result of police prosecutions in California.

"These are very risky for the public," said Jim Bueermann, a former Redlands police chief who now heads the Future Policing Institute.

In Long Beach, 14 uninvolved spectators were injured from 2016 to 2018, according to CHP figures.

Across the state, five passersby were killed and 419 were injured in 9,343 lawsuits in 2017, the CHP announced.

Across the country, an average of 355 people – whether bystanders or not – were killed each year in police-related prosecutions between 1996 and 2015, according to the Department of Justice.

The case of Bingaman in particular should prompt the Long Beach Police and other departments to scrutinize their prosecution rules, according to Bueermann.

"Looking back, he says, it's 20/20."

How does a lawsuit begin?

There are few strict rules about when agents can and can not start suing someone.

According to experts, it is usually a subjective decision in a split second, during which the police weigh the risks according to their desire to catch a suspect.

Most departments in California have a list of factors that agents must take into account, Bueermann said.

Long Beach has 15 factors that range from the objective (traffic conditions, presence of pedestrians, whether the activity continues in a residential area or near a school) to more subjective: the suspect's recklessness, familiarity with agent with the area and probability that the police will catch the suspect later if she retires.

"It's a very difficult situation," said Long Beach Police Department spokeswoman Arantxa Chavarria. "Do we let someone escape?"

This decision is usually left in the hands of a supervisor who oversees the pursuit by far. According to Bueermann, you do not want an officer who focuses solely on the car in front of him.

"The cops have a real bias for action," he said.

Upon Bingaman's death, a supervisor authorized the prosecution, according to Chavarria.

The police were continually assessing the risks, but the prosecution was short-lived, she said, lasting about two minutes.

It looked like the van was slowing down before the accident, she added. She had almost stopped before flying off again and crashing into Bingaman SUV, she said.

Police said they learned after the lawsuit that his vehicle was being driven by Javier Oliverez, a 43-year-old Los Angeles man who was arrested 20 times in his life and was wanted under a warrant of robbery. . He was taken into custody after Tuesday's accident, suspected of avoiding a police officer, a DUI crime and manslaughter.

Officers must make a very complicated calculation to follow or not someone like Oliverez in a residential area, said Chavarria. But, she added, the ministry is willing to review its policies if necessary.

"The sanctity of life is, of course, always our guiding principle in policy making," she said.

How many times is someone injured?

In comparison with the rest of the state, Long Beach still has fewer innocent civilians injured in lawsuits, according to an analysis done by L.A. Times in 2015 and covering nearly a decade of data.

Witnesses were injured at just under three times out of 100, according to the Times. It was slightly less than the average at the state level of just under four percent.

According to Time's database, the LAPD was at the top of the list with one spectator injured for 10 lawsuits.

In 2017, a report from the Los Angeles County Civil Grand Jury asked if the potentially fatal consequences of the lawsuits were worth it.

The report cites HPC statistics that only 67 percent of Los Angeles County prosecutions resulted in an arrest, but 17 percent resulted in an accident.

"Is it the best balance that can be achieved between the objectives of maintaining order and the risk of unexpected consequences?" Asked the grand jury.

The percentage of accidents is even worse in Long Beach, according to data from cogeneration. He showed that 37% of the LBPD lawsuits resulted in collisions between 2016 and 2018.

Nobody lost their lives in these wrecks, but 32 people were injured, according to the CHP. Most of the injured people were in the car that the police were pursuing, according to the data.

Bingaman was the first person injured in a police chase in Long Beach this year, Chavarria said.

More than likely, the police will not assume any financial responsibility for his death.

If the police service meets certain standards of training, the California law exempts them from any responsibility "even when the agents do not respect the policy of their vehicle with regard to pursuits", notes the report of the grand jury of 2017.

California is the only state to benefit from such an exemption, the report says.

what are the solutions?

Bingaman probably did not have the warning that his car was about to be crumpled beyond recognition.

Motorists fleeing the police are usually far enough ahead of the sirens lurking and passers-by never hear, said Tim Morgan, retired Deputy Sheriff of South Carolina, who employs currently reduce the number of prosecution deaths.

"It's the danger," he said.

On a personal level, the officers are very aware of it, according to Morgan.

It is known that officers call their families and warn them when a high speed chase is nearby.

"I did it and I know I'm not the only one to have done it," he said.

Morgan now sells PursuitAlert, a service that allows police departments to inform the public of lawsuits. When police chase someone who hits a button in their car, he warns anyone with the PursuitAlert app located within 3 km.

Police departments have also experimented with other high-tech solutions, such as a GPS tracking dart that can be fired at a fleeing vehicle, according to Bueermann.

But the police must also consider the beginning of these prosecutions, he said.

According to Bueerman, when Bingaman dies, the questions will probably be about the type of strategy used by the agents of the strategy.

"Could they have followed in a safer zone?" He said. "Could they have used ordinary cars or a helicopter until it stopped? Could they have locked him in a box?

A big question, he said, is whether police should even pursue stolen cars in light of recent criminal justice reforms that have reduced the penalty for some thefts.

"You had a habit of going to jail if you stole a car," Bueermann said. "This is not the case now necessarily."

Editor-in-chief Valerie Osier contributed to this report.

Jeremiah Dobruck is the editor of the Long Beach Post. Reach him at [email protected] or @jeremiahdobruck on Twitter.