HELENA — After two high-speed chases in less than a month in Lewis & Clark County, including one where the fleeing suspect crashed his car into a house, killing a woman in East Helena, we wanted to know what exactly the policy is when it comes to these chases.
East Helena Police Department Deputy Chief Ed Royce said, “Yeah, it is a concern, and what you want is everybody to be safe at the end of the day.”
High-speed chases: What's the policy?
Last year, the Montana Highway Patrol conducted approximately 100 high-speed chases. They aim to stop fleeing drivers who are accused of committing a crime, but high-speed chases can be dangerous to the suspect, law enforcement, and the general public. It’s a risk law enforcement officers have to weigh in the moment.
Sheriff Leo Dutton said, “Is this whatever we are chasing for worth it?” That’s what officers have to ask themselves as they take many factors into consideration.
“It is a very rapidly evolving situation, decisions have to be made very quickly, and that decision has to be based on the safety of the public,” Colonel Kurt Sager of the Montana Highway Patrol said.
Some of the factors involved include weather, time of day, and location.
Dutton said, “When a person accelerates, you do not know the reason why, so if you do pursue now, the things to consider are traffic load, are other people at risk, is this driver driving so erratically that it will put the public in danger?”
There are four law enforcement agencies in Lewis and Clark County, and all of them have different pursuit policies. They all have supervisors on staff to help decide to pursue or not, and key to that decision-making process across the board, the safety of the public.
“The biggest factor we take into consideration when deciding to pursue or not is does the crime or suspected individual warrants the risk it may pose,” Lieutenant Adam Shanks with Helena Police Department said.
The Helena Police Department has a limited pursuit policy that says officers may only pursue when a violent offense is suspected, which could be domestic violence or a gun pulled on another person.
Shanks said, “We will not pursue unless we have a reason to believe the person we are pursuing poses an immediate risk to the public or somebody else.”
The East Helena Police Department’s policy is similar, no pursuit unless there is a forcible felony, so think armed robbery or murder.
Royce said, “East Helena is pretty small, it’s pretty tight, lots of kids running around, things of that nature, so it becomes somewhat of a liability issue, and it is not worth it.”
While most pursuits happen on highways, they can also occur in neighborhoods.
Sager said, “Do we never pursue in residential areas and neighborhoods? No, but we try to limit that obviously, but that is largely decided by whether the person decides to stop or not, take off on us, and the severity of the reason for being stopped.”
Helena police department says pursuits do happen in neighborhoods, but “oftentimes we will terminate pursuits if they are in a residential area,” Shanks said.
It is also important to note that, according to MHP, anything above the marked speed limit can be considered a high-speed pursuit.
