The Independent Investigations Division of the Maryland attorney general’s office is investigating the deaths of three women killed weeks apart in April when drivers fleeing law enforcement struck the women’s vehicles, reports the Baltimore Sun. None of the women were the target of the attempted police stops. But the close timing of their deaths — which took place in different counties and involved different agencies — has raised questions for the victims’ families and Attorney General Anthony Brown about the safety of police pursuits. “I’m alarmed and deeply troubled by the frequency of these incidents and I’m truly saddened by the loss of life,” Brown said in an interview with The Baltimore Sun. “We can and we must do better.”
The majority of those killed in Maryland police chases in the past 2 1/2 years were either a passenger of the person officers were pursuing or were “bystanders” in an unrelated vehicle, highlighting the high cost of pursuits for people who happen to be nearby. Of the 19 Maryland deaths since October 2021 — excluding a man on a scooter fatally struck by a Baltimore Police officer responding to another call — five were passengers in the pursued vehicle and six were bystanders. Because no national standards exist for law enforcement pursuit policies, the U.S. Justice Department and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration asked the Police Executive Research Forum to develop recommendations for agencies. Its report in September encouraged agencies to restrict pursuits to people believed to have committed violent crimes and who pose an imminent threat of committing another violent crime.
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