Linh Ta, and MacKenzie Elmer

Des Moines Register

Jason Hunt was driving a friend to the store early Sunday morning when he was killed in a car crash caused by a driver fleeing from police on Des Moines' northwest side.

Hunt's death is the first involving a police chase in Des Moines this year. But data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration shows that innocent bystanders make up nearly one-third of all deaths resulting from police chases nationally.

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The numbers in Iowa are much better.

Eighty-four people died in police pursuits in Iowa from 1979 through 2013. Only eight of those deaths, or less than 10 percent, involved innocent bystanders.

Local law enforcement attribute that to stricter internal policies on when a chase should be initiated and when it should be terminated.

“Hypothetically, there’s a million different scenarios (when a chase should be terminated) because there’s so many things to take into consideration,” said Sgt. Paul Parizek, spokesman for Des Moines police.

He listed potential reasons for ending a chase early, including road conditions, traffic, time of day and location of the pursuit.

“In my experience on the street, I’ve called them off when it looks like the risk isn’t worth the reward of catching this person,” Parizek said.

Des Moines police pursuits have increased each of the last three years. Police initiated 101 pursuits in 2015, up from 84 in 2014 and 65 in 2013.

The department has been involved in 73 pursuits so far this year, which could put it on pace to top last year's total. Eleven of the pursuits this year have been called off by police. Des Moines police terminated 16 pursuits in 2015. ​

Fort Wayne, Ind., which has a population roughly the same size as Des Moines, has been involved in 87 pursuits this year. It has called off 30 of those chases.

Local police departments maintain data on police pursuits, but there is no federal agency that keeps national statistics on police chases.

"The most accurate figures that can be found come from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which tracks all reported vehicular accidents in the U.S.," according to Zachary Crockett of the website Pricenomics.com.

Crockett published an article last month that examined NHTSA data from police chases that included a fatality. It found that 7,430 people were killed during police pursuits from 1982 to 2004. The majority of those deaths involved the drivers and passengers in the fleeing vehicles. However, there were 1,994 innocent victims killed in police pursuits.

"The vast majority of them are drivers on the road who are either hit by the police car or the vehicle being pursued," he wrote.

That was the case Sunday when a vehicle driven by Darnell Bowder, 34, of Des Moines crossed into oncoming traffic on Lower Beaver Road, north of Douglas Avenue, striking Hunt's vehicle.

The pursuit began about one minute earlier in the parking lot of the Harding Hills Hy-Vee store at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr Parkway and Douglas Avenue. Police tried to stop Browder, who was driving a vehicle without license plates.

According to Crockett, 91 percent of police chases are started as a result of nonviolent crimes, with nearly half stemming from simple traffic violations such as rolling through a stop sign or driving with a broken taillight.

"Lawfully, by Iowa Code, we can pursue anybody who runs from us," Parizek said. "A minor infraction could initiate a pursuit, but whether we continue the pursuit is based on the totality of situation."

The Fort Wayne Police Department has a similar policy governing pursuits. There are many reasons to call off a chase, said Officer Michael Joyner, spokesman for Fort Wayne police. These include the dangers caused by drivers running stop signs, speeding in residential neighborhoods and heavy vehicular or pedestrian traffic.

According to Parizek, this week's chase will go through a department review process that follows each police chase, much like the official "use of force" reviews.

“This one, the other night was almost 1 in the morning and it ... started at a store and it ended up (going) from a commercial zone into a residential area,” he said.

"It seems to be totally appropriate."