Essay on Police Chase Liability: Should the Officer Have Been Held Responsible?

Recently I read the Washington Police Chase liability article on U.S. Supreme Court decision in County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 844 (1998). The main argument was that the deputies' actions did not get to a level that they shook the conscience. It got determined that unlike what the Lewises believed, that he should not be held accountable to what happened to Lewis. In this paper, I would like to support the family of Lewis and argue that the officer should have been held responsible. I will also present a different case and argue out if the officer should have been held liable.

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The deputy had alternatives to pursue rather than going after the motorbike. These alternatives include; noting the license number of the motorcycle down and searching for it later to impound it. The deputy is in the force has knowledge and statistics on how police pursuits end. He knew that like three-quarters of them end in deaths and he still went ahead to take a risk. This risk resulted in a fatal accident that went forward to cost lives.

The deputy was not sure that this was indeed a dangerous felon. Lewis' motorbike might have incurred a problem on the route and got issues of maintaining the speed limit. The deputy chasing after him did not help the situation. He should have called for backup so that whatever the case was Lewis would have been caught safely. Also seeing that there was a passenger, the pursuit put the passenger's life in danger.

With the case of a police car chase that happened on Sunny Side, the pursuit was indeed inevitable. In this case, the police had marked the car down and were stopping it slowly for having no headlights. The car decided to speed up, and the police decided to chase it down. The vehicle was initially on an average pace and would have just gotten served with a ticket but the fact that it decided to speed of means that the driver had something to hide. When he got apprehended, it was clear that he was speeding away because he was a felon.

Moreover, the driver disregarded the public traffic willingly. The police say that he was driving recklessly, he reached up to twice the speed limit, and run past numerous stop signs, with the headlights off. This implies that he did not care about endangering the life of the people running healthy lives and following the traffic rules. Seeing this, the police did not "shook the conscience while pursuing this car.

The driver also had a passenger in his car, and he threatened the life of this passenger. The passenger (a woman) had not intended to be in the car. She did not deserve to die due to the recklessness of the driver. When she asked them to let her out, he said that he did not mind killing them both. The police chasing after this car gave the woman assurance that she may be fine if the police successfully stopped the car.

Conclusion

In conclusion, police car chase has been increasing day in day out in our state. A police car chase can get termed to have "shook the conscience" or not. If the actions of the police pursuing a car "shook the conscience", they are required by law to pay for the damages incurred. Different causes can get viewed differently come the day of administering verdict in the caught of the law so the police should be vigilant to know when to chase and when to use other alternatives.

Works cited

https://kimatv.com/news/local/police-chase-11-time-convicted-felon-through-sunnyside-i-82

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/supcourt/stories/wpchase052798.htm