By Andrew Engelson

On Friday, the state Senate Law and Justice Committee voted to pass Initiative 2113, which would repeal statewide limits on police pursuits. If the legislature passes the bill, the initiative will become law without first appearing on the November ballot, where polls indicate it would likely win.

A group bankrolled by Redmond hedge fund manager Brian Heywood has been pushing for a statewide initiative that would allow police officers to pursue drivers based on a suspicion they have “violated the law” or are a “threat to public safety”—a dramatic reversal of efforts over the past several years to restrain the ability of police to chase drivers who they believe have committed a crime.

Initiative 2113 is part of a suite of six conservative initiatives funded by more than $6 million from Heywood.

The backlash against restrictions on police chases comes in response to a bill first passed by the legislature in 2021, which allowed police to chase a vehicle only if there was probable cause that the driver had committed a violent crime, sex offense, domestic violence, or DUI. In 2023, the legislature weakened those restrictions by  lowering that threshold to “reasonable suspicion,” adding several other offenses, and removing the requirement that officers get authorization from a supervisor before pursuing a suspect. 

The initiative still has to pass a full vote in both the house and senate before it can become law; if it doesn’t, it will head for the statewide ballot in November. Democrats in the legislature appear to be engaging in political calculus: By moving forward with Initiative 2113 and two other Heywood proposals—including one that would give parents more control over what their kids see and learn in public schools and another banning a state income tax—they can focus on fighting the remaining three initiatives in November. Those proposals would repeal the statewide capital gains tax, eliminate the state’s “cap and invest” carbon market, and make a payroll tax to fund long-term care insurance optional rather than mandatory.

Supporters of the police pursuit initiative, which had a joint hearing in front of the state senate and house public safety committees on Wednesday, say repealing the law would restore law enforcement’s ability to “chase bad people”—as Rep. Jim Walsh (R-Aberdeen) put it in his testimony. That simplistic view contradicts years of research demonstrating that high-speed pursuits are risky to bystanders and do not increase rates of apprehension, according to Martina Morris, a professor emerita of sociology and statistics at the University of Washington.

“Pretty much all the data we have going back all the way to the 1980s makes it really clear that pursuits are uniquely dangerous,” Morris said. “Of all the tactics that police use, this tactic causes more collateral damage than any other.”

Morris tracks pursuit-related deaths in Washington state – mostly by monitoring and analyzing news reports, because, she notes, local law enforcement agencies and the Washington Traffic Safety Commission aren’t rigorously recording data on such fatalities. Comparing equal time periods before and after the statewide limits went into effect (about two and a half years each), Morris has observed a 50 percent reduction in deaths related to pursuits. 

Going back to 2015, Morris found that of 379 people killed by police in Washington state, 26 percent involved vehicular pursuits. Of the 32 deaths in Washington caused by collisions during pursuits, more than half were bystanders, passengers, or officers. 

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“More than half of the fatalities due to active pursuits are not the person [the police are] trying to apprehend,” Morris said. “If you’re at the wrong place at the wrong time, you could be the next person who’s hurt in one of these chases. And it’s not because you did something wrong. It’s because the chases are dangerous.”

A study published by the U.S. Department of Justice in September noted that nationwide, police pursuits caused an average of 370 fatalities each year (with the caveat that the data is incomplete). Of those who died, 76 percent were suspects, 21 percent were people who weren’t involved, and 3 percent were police officers. The study recommended limits on pursuits, including only chasing violent offenders – a key part of the Washington state law that Initiative 2113 seeks to repeal.

In testimony before the joint committee, Josh Parker, an attorney with New York University’s Policing Project, drew attention to a detailed report published Tuesday by the San Francisco Chronicle, which found that more than 3,000 people died in police pursuits nationwide during a six-year period ending in 2022. Black people were four times more likely than white people to be killed in a police pursuit.

“That study also, importantly, found that just one out of 15 people killed were chased for violent crimes,” Parker said. “Most of the time ….the officers were conducting chases at high speeds to stop drivers suspected of nonviolent crimes, or low-level driving infractions like having a broken taillight or playing loud music.”

In testimony supporting his initiative, Heywood lamented what he described as an “increasing disregard for the law,” and noted that the measure wasn’t intended to encourage “250 mile-per-hour chases,” but rather to “restore local jurisdiction over making the rules on when a chase or a pursuit should occur.” He added that local law enforcement agencies could still impose stricter limits: “We’re completely fine with that.”

In early 2021, the Seattle Police Department imposed limits on pursuits that require police to establish probable cause that a person has committed a violent or sex-related offense, making Seattle’s rules stricter than the current state law requires. Those clear guidelines contrast sharply with the department’s vague policies on emergency driving, which SPD is reviewing after 23-year-old student Jaahnavi Kandula was killed in a crosswalk in 2023 by a police officer driving 74 miles per hour.

The King County Sheriff’s Office’s pursuit policy is closely aligned with the current state law, requiring reasonable suspicion of a violent offense or sex offense, vehicular assault, or a DUI. Asked whether those policies would remain in place if the initiative passes, KCSO spokesman Eric White said, “Any potential changes in state law will not shift the King County Sheriff’s Office’s primary focus on community safety in every decision and action the department takes.”

In his testimony, Heywood also claimed that, in response to a suspected rape on the campus of Bellevue College on Tuesday, Bellevue Police declined to pursue the suspect; however, nothing in new reports or information provided by the Bellevue Police Department indicated that this was the case. When Sen. Jesse Salomon (D-32) pointed out that police are already allowed to pursue people suspected of sexual offenses under the current law, Heywood walked back his comments, noting that “at the very least, it’s caused confusion in what the police feel like they are allowed to do.”

Heywood also drew attention to high rates of car theft as a reason to repeal pursuit limits, observing that Washington has “become the nation’s leader in car theft.”

Morris notes, however, that Washington has had nationally high rates of car theft in the three decades that predate the pursuit law. Indeed, Washington’s current rate is second in the nation at 693 vehicles per 100,000 population – but still below a peak of thefts in 2005 when it had a rate of 783. Seattle’s own law restricting pursuits hasn’t impacted the city’s ability to recover stolen cars, either; as Morris points out, SPD recovers 86 percent of all stolen vehicles (as opposed to a national recovery rate of 46 percent). 

Though data is relatively scarce on the impact of pursuit policies, the city of Milwaukee prevents a fascinating case study, Morris says.

In 2010, after four people were killed in pursuits over the span of a few months, the Milwaukee Police Department became one of the first law enforcement agencies in the nation to put limits on pursuits, requiring officers to establish probable cause of a violent felony before engaging in a chase. After the limits went into place, the data show pursuits declined by half, to about 50 a year. 

However, as in Washington, there was vocal opposition to the restrictions, and by 2017, Milwaukee had removed all restrictions on police pursuits. 

The number of pursuits in Milwaukee each year skyrocketed from 50 in 2012 to a peak of 1,079 in 2020 – and continues to average more than 1,000 per year. Meanwhile, the rate at which suspects were taken into custody as a result of vehicular pursuits plummeted from 72 percent in 2012 to 38 percent in 2022. 

In addition, the number of pursuit-related injuries in Milwaukee after the repeal increased dramatically—from about 11 a year to more than 170. “So all the danger came back, amplified,” Morris said.. Even though Milwaukee police were chasing suspects for offenses as minor as expired tabs, the city  didn’t escape a surge in car thefts that began in 2021 with a TikTok challenge to steal Kia and Hyundai car—a phenomenon, it turns out, that originated in Milwaukee.

Leslie Cushman, a spokeswoman for the Washington Coalition for Police Accountability, said that the state’s current restrictions, which are in line with the 2023 Justice Department report recommendations, are very reasonable. 

“The core of the law is focused on crimes against persons – this includes violent crimes like murder and includes carjackings and armed robbery, it includes all sexual assaults and crimes, many assaults, escapes, and DUIs,” Cushman said. “The bottom line is that pursuits are a dangerous tactic and should be reserved for the most serious crimes against a person.”

SPD did not respond to questions about whether the department will keep its current pursuit policy in place if the ballot initiative passes.