100 killed in Riverside County police chases

Danny Salazar, 18, parked a Ford Pinto on a curb in a Cathedral City neighborhood, picking up his little sister from her friend’s house. Maria hopped in the car, and they made a U-turn, heading back to their home a few blocks away.

A second later, it was over. The Pinto was broadsided by a stolen car, driven by a 15-year-old who was fleeing from police. The impact pinned the Pinto against a box truck, squeezing it in a vise of crumpled metal.

Salazar died immediately — at about 10 p.m., April 28, 1982.

Salazar is one of 100 people who have been killed in Riverside County police chases between 1979 and 2014, according to federal crash records. About half of these victims were passengers or bystanders who, like Salazar, weren’t responsible for the chase that killed them.

“It shouldn’t be that way,” said Martha Luna, Salazar’s older sister. “Nobody should go through what we went through. An 18-year-old boy went to pick up his sister ... and he never came home because police were chasing a stolen car. It shouldn’t have happened. That’s just the bottom line.”

Of the 100 Riverside County pursuit deaths, at least 31 occurred in the Coachella Valley. This includes the county’s deadliest chase — a Border Patrol pursuit that killed 11 undocumented immigrants in 1983.

These Coachella Valley deaths were tallied as part of a Desert Sun investigation into police chases, one of the most dangerous actions that police officers ever take. The investigation revealed that, despite the danger, a majority of the chases begin with minor, ticketable offenses. Local police policies say officers should only chase a suspect if their crimes are “serious” enough, but pursuits of known violent suspects make up less than 7 percent of all local chases.

In several interviews, police officials argue that many pursuits start with a small crime but end with an arrest for a bigger one. Anyone who is willing to run from police over a speeding ticket is obviously hiding something, they said.

“There is a reason they are running,” said Lt. Mike Kovaleff, a spokesman for the Palm Springs Police Department. “They are wanted. Or they are driving an unreported stolen vehicle. ... With a lot of these individuals that commit a minor violation, we end up at the conclusion of the pursuit finding a more serious violation.”

However, even those “more serious” violations aren’t always that serious. When fleeing motorists are finally caught, only about 13 percent are arrested for violent crimes or illegal weapons, according to local pursuit statistics. Another 16 percent are arrested for DUI. The rest are in trouble for property crimes, drugs, traffic violations or simply disobeying police.

Although these chases continue, local police have become far more willing to let go. Since 2011, when a Cathedral City officer was killed in a high-speed chase, desert police have become about five times more likely to call off pursuits that are deemed too dangerous.

The Desert Sun investigation is part of a joint reporting effort with USA Today, which measured the nationwide death toll of police chases. More than 11,500 people have died in crashes during police pursuits since 1979, according to USA Today. Deaths have increased in the past 10 years, despite advancements in vehicle safety, police technology and pursuit strategy.

Of the 10 deadliest U.S. counties for police pursuits, five are in California — Los Angeles (1st) San Diego (5th) San Bernardino (8th) Alameda (9th) and Riverside (10th).

In some ways, this is to be expected. As the nation’s most populous state, California has more drivers, more cars, more roads and more cops than just about anywhere else. But advocates for pursuit reform say the death toll from police chases is about more than just numbers.

California law makes it impossible to sue police over high-speed pursuit deaths, even if the victims are innocent bystanders. Because they are immune to legal liability, the only oversight of police chases comes from police departments themselves. Most departments have written policies that discourage chases unless they are really worth it, and yet, experts say these policies are routinely ignored.

Every cop, in the back recesses of their mind, believes two myths,” said D.P. Van Blaricom, a pursuit expert. “One – If they are running from me, then there must be a body in the trunk. And two – If we don’t stop them, they will all run from us. Neither are true, but they all believe it.”

Blaricom, the former chief of police in Bellevue, Washington, was one of the earliest critics of police chases.

After becoming chief in 1975, he re-wrote the Bellevue pursuit policy to be as restrictive as possible, discouraging his officers from chasing all but the most dangerous suspects. Today, he works with reform groups in an effort to curb pursuits to only those that are absolutely necessary.

He didn’t always feel this way.

Decades ago, back when Blaricom was just a young officer, he still believed in the chase. On a September night in 1960, he chased a suped-up Ford Thunderbird through Bellevue, believing the car was stolen. The Thunderbird reached speeds of more than 130 mph, then broadsided a convertible at an intersection.

Two people died.

The Thunderbird, it turned out, wasn’t even really stolen. The driver was just a “rabbit,” who ran from police for fun. Blaricom was doing what he had been trained to do.

“In those days, if anyone ran, you chased them,” Blaricom said. “Nowadays, everyone has changed their policy, but in practice, there are many who still do it.”

Coachella Valley police have been in about 1,000 vehicle pursuits over the past 13 years — an average of at least one chase every five days. One in every eight of these pursuits has ended in an accidental crash. Very few of these crashes are fatal, but every chase is a gamble.

In light of this risk, every local police department has adopted a pursuit policy that urges officers to show restraint. Officers are told not to chase a fleeing suspect unless the “seriousness” of their offense is worth the potential danger to the public.

Since 2002, more than half of local pursuits began with a ticketable traffic offense like speeding, running a stop sign or driving with a busted tail light, records show.

Another 20 percent of chases begin when officers spot a stolen car. Nearly half of those pursuits were in Indio, where police chase more stolen cars than any other desert city.

Sgt. Daniel Marshall, an Indio police spokesman, defended these pursuits, insisting that stolen cars are often just the beginning of a much larger crime, like robbery or drive-by shootings.

“Yes, a stolen car is just a property crime, but why was that car stolen? It was stolen for a reason,” Marshall said.

Marshall gave a similar explanation for many of the pursuits over minor traffic offenses. He cited the example of a police officer who is following a motorist that he believes might be an armed robber. If the officer does not have probable cause to stop the driver for robbery, he could try to pull him over for a broken taillight. If the driver flees, the police officer would chase him, technically because of the broken taillight, but in reality because of the robbery investigation, Marshall said.

However, in some cases, the chase itself worsens an already dangerous situation. Since 2002, Coachella Valley police have chased at least 17 drivers for unbuckled seat belts and eight drivers for obstructed windshields. They have even pursued three people for driving too slowly.

These statistics come from pursuit data from the California Highway Patrol, which is collected from police departments of Cathedral City, Desert Hot Springs, Indio, Palm Springs and the CHP station in Indio. The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, which patrols the rest of the valley, has been excluded from these statistics because their pursuit data is only available on a countywide basis, and can not be broken down by desert areas only.

However, even countywide, the sheriff’s pursuits follow a similar pattern.

According to data collected by CHP, 11 percent of sheriff’s department pursuits begin when deputies try to pull over someone who is a known violent suspect. One third begin with stolen cars. Another third with traffic offenses, despite a pursuit policy that forbids chasing suspects over traffic offenses only.

Chief Deputy John Anderson said these pursuits are actually just traffic stops, where the chase is called off before it ever really begins. Deputies must radio in for approval in every pursuit, Anderson said, and supervisors will not OK a pursuit for a mere speeder.

But other suspects need to be chased, he said.

“The public needs to understand that, unfortunately, pursuits are sometimes necessary. We have to be able to apprehend dangerous suspects that are a threat to the community,” Anderson said, adding “There is no doubt there is a risk, but we have tried to minimize that risk the best we can. There are things we don’t chase because it’s not worth it.”

Some groups insist that most police chases are an unjust use of force. To them, chasing a stolen car down a busy highway is like firing a gun at a pickpocket who runs into a crowd.

“A police pursuit has been said to be the equivalent of having a bullet on wheels, racing through the streets. And it’s true,” said Candy Priano. “We need to have the same laws for a police shooting apply to whether or not an officer is allowed to pursue.”

Priano is the founder of PursuitSAFETY, a California-based nonprofit that has tried— and struggled — to reform police chases since 2007. She started the group in honor of her daughter, Kristie, 15, who was killed during a Chico chase in 2002. Police were pursuing a teenage girl who had taken her mother’s car without permission. The teen driver smashed into the Priano family van, killing Kristie and injuring six others.

Since then, Priano has targeted California laws that make police departments immune to civil liability for chase deaths. Because of a 1987 law, any police department with a written pursuit policy can’t be sued for a chase, even if that policy is completely ignored.

In 2002, a state judge called this law a “get out of liability free card.”

Justice William Rylaarsdam of California’s Fourth District Court of Appeal urged the state Legislature to change the law after he was forced to deny compensation to the family of a bystander who was killed in Westminster. Rylaarsdam said the law had made police pursuit policies a meaningless formality.

“The adoption of a policy which may never be implemented is cold comfort to innocent bystanders who get in the way of a police pursuit,” Rylaarsdam wrote.

Despite the judge’s strong words, California law remains the same today.

Lawmakers tried to limit police immunity in 2005 by requiring cops to actually follow their pursuit policies. The bill — named “Kristie’s Law” — died in committee after being opposed by numerous police agencies and unions. Police said the bill would tie their hands. Instead, the Legislature enacted SB 719, which requires police to hold more training, but left their blanket immunity intact.

Case in point: Evan Marr, a local teen who got killed over a cigarette butt.

Marr, 14, died in a Coachella Valley police chase on Oct. 15, 1991. The chase began at about 1 a.m., after a sheriff’s deputy saw someone toss a butt out the window of a Toyota Corolla on Highway 111. Two deputies chased the car from Rancho Mirage to Indio, reaching speeds of more than 100 mph.

At Jefferson Avenue, an Indio police car pulled in front of the fleeing car. The Corolla swerved left and then careened into a metal street light.

Police approached the crumpled Corolla with their guns drawn. Inside, they found three bloodied teenagers, one of whom had taken his friends on a joyride in his grandmother’s car.

Marr was in the back seat — dying of a head wound.

One year later, the Marr family filed a lawsuit claiming that the sheriff’s department and Indio police were at least partially responsible for the crash. The sheriff and the city argued they were immune because they had written pursuit policies. A judge dismissed the case against the sheriff’s department without a trial. Indio settled the case out of court. The family later re-filed their suit against the sheriff’s department in federal court, but the claim was rejected there too.

A chase like this could happen again today, Priano said.

“It’s my personal opinion that this is a dangerous police tactic that has been going on for a century, ever since the first Model-T rolled off the assembly line,” she said. “We continue to do the same thing, and these tragedies repeat themselves because the people with power to change things do nothing.”

Not everyone agrees that California’s immunity law encourages chases.

Dale Mondary, the new police chief of Desert Hot Springs, said the law protects officers from lawsuits but not from their bosses. Mondary said he personally reviews every police chase in his city, and if a cop ignores the Desert Hot Springs pursuit policy, he can still be disciplined, suspended or fired.

That’s all true, but there is no way to tell how often it happens. Police officer discipline is strictly confidential in California, so there is no public record of how many officers have been punished for bad pursuits.

It was just before midnight when Cathedral City Police Officer Jermaine Gibson spotted a Ford Mustang speeding south on Date Palm Drive. He flipped on the lights of his patrol car and pulled behind the car.

Police quickly discovered the car was stolen. The driver was Durjan Germaine Gray, a wanted parolee. Gibson and two other patrol cars chased Gray towards downtown Palm Springs, where the pursuit curved north onto Palm Canyon Drive.

As they approached the intersection with Mesquite Avenue, everything went wrong.

The Mustang crashed into a palm tree, then exploded, critically injuring Gray and his passenger. Gibson lost control of his patrol car, which careened into a different tree and caught fire.

Gibson was declared dead at the scene. He is the only Riverside County police officer to die in a pursuit crash since 1979, according to federal crash records.

“Jermaine died doing what he really loved, and believed in,” said his mother, Cheryl Gibson. “It was a tragic accident that happened at the hands of a fleeing felon ... But I’d love to hear what our nation can do prevent these types of crashes.”

Since Gibson was killed in March 2011, Coachella Valley police have become nearly five times more likely to abandon chases that are deemed too dangerous — calling off nearly one in every four pursuits. The only exception is the sheriff’s department, which has steadily called off about 14 percent of pursuits over the past decade.

Lt. Glen Haas, a spokesman for the Cathedral City Police Department, said Gibson’s death led police supervisors to reconsider their stance on pursuits. Later that same year, cops from throughout the desert attended a CHP training on safe pursuits.

“The Gibson crash was a pretty big eye opener for a lot of people, but I think we have to give some credit to the CHP,” Haas said. “We had a tragedy, then we had a training with a direct corollary to what officers are feeling. So it hit closer to home, and (the training) was actually applied better on the street.”

Although local police now call off more chases than ever before, that only raises more questions for the family of Danny Salazar, the young man from Dream Homes who died in 1982.

Even today, 33 years after the crash, the family still wonders if police could have simply let the car thief go, or captured him as he left Dream Homes, which only has two exits.

If the same chase happened again, would police react any different? Would Salazar die again?

“I still don’t understand why they have to chase them,” said Luna, Salazar’s sister. “It’s just not worth it. ... Anything else would be better.”

USA Today reporter Thomas Frank and Desert Sun reporter Emily Donovan contributed to this story.

Reporter Brett Kelman can be reached by phone at (760) 778-4642, by email at brett.kelman@desertsun.com, or on Twitter @TDSbrettkelman.