CHESAPEAKE, Va. — Chesapeake Police Chief Kelvin Wright said he can't explain a pattern of police pursuits ending in devastating crashes, but he believes his officers made the correct decisions and "tragedies could have been avoided" if the drivers had pulled over instead of evading arrest.
Since May, seven police chases in Chesapeake have led to crashes, injuries and deaths. Three innocent, uninvolved people have died in the last week.
Chesapeake Police Department policy says a chase is up to the police officer’s discretion -- with supervisor oversight -- but the need for an arrest must outweigh the inherent risk of a pursuit.
“There is a single solution and that is for the driver to simply pull over, that is the solution," Wright said. "The fact is, it’s reckless driving. That person represents imminent danger to the public if not stopped."
On Thursday, a man avoided an officer’s attempt to pull him over for reckless driving, later crashing into a car and killing two people. He’s now charged with murder.
On Sunday, CPD and Virginia State Police said another speeding driver crashed into a car and killed an innocent person.
“These two recent tragedies, I think the pursuit lasted right at about a minute, and that’s a lot of information to process and make a determination quickly," Wright said.
CPD is reviewing its pursuit policy and investigating the multiple crashes and deaths of the past three months, but Wright said he’s confident his officers acted correctly.
When asked whether he believed these events are circumstantial or coincidental, Wright said he couldn't tell why these crashes are happening at such a rate.
"Well, they’ve never happened like this before," he said. "I don’t know what the odds are, but I can tell you we’re very distressed and perplexed as to why all these things have occurred at this period in time and certainly we mourn for families who have lost their loved ones."
When asked if officers could be escalating the danger and threat by initiating police chases, Wright said they have an obligation to investigate speeding and reckless driving.
“I would dare say that each time an officer activates his lights there is a risk, the question is how do we minimize and mitigate certain risk," he said. "We have terminated pursuits, there are pursuits we say, 'No, this is too dangerous, this person is more of a hazard and we’ll figure it out later.'"
Wright said an alternative solution could be an expanded version of administrative impoundment, where officers get the license tag of a vehicle, follow it briefly, confirm it's a pursuit in which risk outweighs capture and then stop the chase -- only to later impound the vehicle.
However, he stressed that drivers need to pull over instead of evading arrest, saying "99.9% of the people who get stopped comply, it is that small percentage of people who are creating havoc and tragedy and devastation."
After Sunday morning’s crash that killed one person, Chesapeake Police said the speeding driver ran off into the woods and escaped.
Tuesday, Chief Wright said investigators have DNA evidence from the car, and CPD believes they have security video of him as he fled.
Wright said he hopes to make an arrest soon.