Questions Arise Over Police Pursuit Policy After Fatal Incident

In the wake of Sacul’s death, many persons have questioned if the officers were justified in pursuing the men. Similarly, to the incident involving Deandre Chi, the men refused to stop and were chased by police. Sacul’s family says he may have feared the police, but ComPol Williams believes the incident could have gone differently if he did. Today, Williams explained that the police department does have a pursuit policy but can legally command a person to stop. 

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police: “When you’re in a situation and you are being pursued by the police, the police are in a marked police vehicle. They have the lights on. The siren on. The proper thing to do is to stop. Now I’m not saying this to justify the police actions if the police are wrong I cannot say if they are wrong or right at this time. Like I said, I’d rather wait until the investigation is over. But just as a general information to the public. When you are been pursued by the police you know it’s the police just stop and see what the issues are. It makes life much easier for both sides. It’s a sad situation. I sympathize with the family of the young man who passed away because he was the son of someone. He was the brother of someone. And certainly they’re going to grieve his loss. There are things that we will do internally to allay these issues. Maybe to stem it to some extent, like for example, I just gave instructions to Mr. Guzman to see how we can install dash cameras on our police vehicles. Dash cameras will help in instances where they are pursued, as it will give us an appreciation in terms of what the conduct of the police were or is during the pursuit. In the absence of that, then we have to rely on what the police officers are saying, or if there are any witnesses around what they are saying. And unfortunately, sometimes we don’t have that. So we believe the dash cam is going to be a great help.”