(The Center Square) – It’s been nearly two months since Initiative 2113 was implemented, restoring vehicular pursuit options for law enforcement agencies across Washington state.
I-2113 was passed by the Legislature this session and went into effect on June. 6. The law allows police officers to pursue vehicles when they have reasonable suspicion that the driver has committed a crime and is a threat to public safety.
The change came at the urging of police agencies and citizens who raised concerns about community safety with criminals feeling emboldened to flee, knowing officers were prevented from giving chase in many circumstances.
I-2113 was filed in response to House Bill 1054 , passed and signed into law in 2021, which critics said weakened police officers’ ability to pursue suspects and contributed to a rise in crime. HB 1054 limited police to engaging in a pursuit if there is “probable cause” to arrest a person in the vehicle for committing a specific violent crime or sex offense such as murder, kidnapping, drive-by shooting or rape.
The lowering of the threshold for police to engage in high-speed pursuit of suspects is having an impact.
The Thurston County Sheriff’s Office has been posting recent pursuit incidents on its Facebook page , resulting in a lot of praise posted in public comments.
“We had three or four last week, and three of them were motorcycles,” Thurston County Sheriff Derek Sanders told The Center Square. “Motorcycles aren’t above the law, and this concept that we shouldn’t chase them because they’re putting themselves at risk doesn’t make any sense to me.”
In one case, deputies chased a motorcyclist on Interstate 5 whose license plate was not visible. The suspect crashed but was not seriously hurt.
Deputies found pills on the suspect believed to be fentanyl, a drug the suspect admitted to smoking before driving, according to police.
Deputies also chased after a suspected DUI driver on Old Pacific Hwy SE for speeding and swerving. During the chase, the suspect crashed into another driver. Both the suspect and the innocent motorist went to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
“We can’t always prevent something bad from happening,” Sanders said.
Opponents of loosening pursuit restrictions argued that could lead to police chasing motorists for possible minor infractions, like equipment violations.
Deputies use discretion in those situations, Sanders noted.
“Just the other night, we did pursue someone for equipment violations at 2 a.m., and we nabbed up two drug dealers in the car after they crashed into a tree,” he continued.
The Center Square asked the sheriff if there had been in increase in pursuits since I-2113 went into effect in early June.
“A little bit, yes,” Sanders answered. “But has the number of cars fleeing gone down? Absolutely. Prior to the pursuit laws changing in 2021, almost no one ran from us. They pulled over and dealt with their stuff.”
He likened what happened regarding the issue of police pursuits as a trial of sorts.
“Then we went through our social experiment where we essentially legalized running from the police, and on any given day up until June 6, we’d see three or four vehicles a day fleeing from us,” Sanders said. “Now we’re not seeing those numbers at all; it’s gone down drastically, and it’s been refreshing.”
Sanders expects vehicle theft rates to begin coming down from their record highs in the last few years.
Last year, opponents of loosening restrictions on police pursuits pointed to data that pursuit-related deaths went down during the time HB 1054 was in effect. However, as previously reported by The Center Square, the data produced for lawmakers to justify the restrictions was subsequently changed to reflect a lower number of deaths resulting from police pursuits.
Sanders says regardless, those statistics need to be balanced.
“What about unchecked reckless driving deaths, or unchecked DUI drivers?” he asked.
“Then you talk about the increase in auto theft because we couldn’t chase car thieves, and what about all those victims? It is a problem that continues to compound if you give all the power to criminals in our state,” Sanders said.
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