Tragedy Often Brings Change


Kristie's Law was never about banning vehicular police pursuits. The goal is to enact guidelines for police involved in chases that provide a safer environment for police officers and innocent bystanders. If this happens to your loved one, you will wonder why no one has done anything to make police chases safer. Let's stop dangerous and unnecessary police pursuits before another family has to suffer through this preventable tragedy.  

Kristie's Law: The means to prevent a new generation 
of innocent victims of police pursuits.


Change is difficult for everyone, especially for officers who are trained to make our lives safer. Making our lives safer is what police do and that's why we support the hardworking officers who risk their own lives every day. But, every day at least one person is killed in this nation's 70,000 police vehicular pursuits.

Pursuits are the most dangerous police tactic, killing more innocent bystanders than a bullet from an officer's firearm. Firearm policies must be followed because it's the law. Kristie's Law for safer and smarter pursuits is asking for the same thing—a law that says officers must follow their own agency's pursuit policy. Policy must be followed because we cannot rely on fleeing suspects—who must be punished to the fullest extent of the law—to care about safety. It is the officers who protect and serve us and so we must "arm" them with the best tools—a law that clearly defines what types of crimes warrant a vehicular pursuit.

From the late Jim Phillips, founder and president of PursuitWatch.org:

All over the county, in reaction to one horrifying incident after another, police pursuit policy and practice is coming under review. It is hardly a surprise that generally these reviews result in more restrictive policy when you consider this:

Research shows that approximately 40% of all pursuits result in a crash, 20% result in an injury and 1% result in a death. It is compelling that these percentages vary little from study to study and are accurate for departments throughout the country and over a period of years, even when the numbers of pursuits fluctuate. With as many as 70,000 pursuits occurring every year in the United States the conclusion is inescapable: pursuits are deadly business.

 

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