On Aug. 17, 2019, two state troopers came in from rural counties outside Dallas to work as part of a policing task force called “Operation D-Town” all over the city.

The goal was to help cut down on escalating crime and the city’s highest murder levels since 2007.

They had just finished a traffic stop when they spotted a silver Toyota Camry down the street. The car turned left, but it never signaled.

Instead of stopping for police, the driver, Schaston Hodge, who did not have outstanding warrants, led the troopers on a brief chase. At one point, speeds topped 50 mph around South Dallas’ residential streets, where the posted limit tends to be around 30 mph.

At the end of the chase, Hodge, 27, tried to make a run for the back door of his grandmother’s house. As the two troopers ran behind him into the backyard, Hodge jumped out of his car and turned toward them holding a gun. Within seconds, they shot him 16 times.

A Dallas County grand jury found the troopers’ use of lethal force to be justified.

Hodge’s stop highlights the danger of police pursuits — a practice that has come under intense scrutiny. Many law enforcement agencies have started doing them only in cases of violent crimes or have banned them entirely.

But experts say local and state police have radically different policies for officers to decide when to engage in a chase.

In Dallas, city police officers have the discretion to start pursuits for felonies. But that depends on the weather, population density and the “seriousness of the offense,” according to the department’s general orders.

Dallas police changed their chase policy in 2006 after a spike in pursuit-related deaths.

David Kunkle, the city’s chief at the time, said the new practice was meant to protect officers, the public and suspects.

Many city police departments have adopted this approach when it comes to pursuits in dense areas. In Atlanta, Police Chief Erika Shields announced a zero-chase policy this month.

But for those patrolling Texas’ highways — state troopers — traffic enforcement is their main responsibility as they investigate accidents and arrest those who violate the laws. They also have more discretion on when to initiate a chase. In some cases, DPS troopers have shot tires and fired into cars.

According to a national study by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2017, 85% of local police departments were more likely to have a restrictive pursuit policy compared to 37% of state police.

The deployment of about 100 DPS troopers to help an understaffed Dallas Police Department with patrol and traffic enforcement during an uptick in violent crime was an unusual move.

Such operations have been criticized, experts say, because of differing policies between local and state police. Troopers, who are the workhorses of the state highways and loops around North Texas, aren’t trained for the types of interactions city police are used to when they respond to crime in urban settings, experts said.

Andy Harvey, a law enforcement consultant and author of the book Excellence in Policing, said state and local police follow different policies, practices and cultures.

“We should take that into account when we are working together with another agency,” said Harvey, who spent 22 years with the Dallas Police Department.

Different policies

At the request of Police Chief U. Reneé Hall, Gov. Greg Abbott decided to deploy troopers to Dallas last summer. The goal was to help stem the spike in crime in the city, which ended up with over 200 murders by the end of the year. Law enforcement officials hyped the operation but declined to share details on the mission and how state troopers were to be used.

While some welcomed the state’s aid, complaints surfaced that instead of tackling violent crime, troopers were focusing on petty traffic offenses and, sometimes, behaving aggressively with drivers.

During its nearly three-month operation, the traffic-stop-focused enforcement efforts in Dallas led to 1,390 traffic citations, 297 felony arrests and about 120 seized guns, according to DPS statistics. Troopers also served 208 felony warrants and 219 misdemeanor warrants. It’s estimated troopers made 17,242 stops and initiated 77 pursuits, including in vehicles and on foot.

Operation D-Town ended Sept. 1.

Dallas police officials declined a request for an interview for this story. When asked about any arrangements or discussion Dallas police had with DPS about its chase policy, a city police spokesman said in a statement that troopers “adhere to their policies and procedures while performing their duties throughout the state.”

The agencies did not sign a memorandum of understanding for the task force, DPS said in response to an open records request.

Geoffrey Alpert, a leading researcher on police pursuits from the University of South Carolina, said that when state police work with city officers, it’s rare for agencies to follow the same policy.

“As a police officer, you’re going to follow your own policy,” Alpert said.

In other cities, similar state-local police operations have raised concerns about police chases and officer shootings.

In 2019, Albuquerque police officers and New Mexico State Police worked together in an effort called “Metro Surge Operation." The operation came under scrutiny by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico after two state police shootings revealed they were not following the same policies as the city.

In one case, state police chased a man who had stolen a vehicle and ran a stop sign in March 2019 in Albuquerque’s city limits. The state police shot at the car, the Albuquerque Journal reported. The suspect was shot in the shoulder.

The pursuit and the shooting violated policies of the Albuquerque police, which had undergone massive reforms for use of force, the Journal reported. The operation also sparked another controversial shooting just hours later, where a man with a warrant escaped police.

Peter Simonson, executive director of the New Mexico ACLU, said the two agencies had little coordination and their crime-fighting efforts were only short-term.

“There appeared to be no long-term vision on how this would sustainably reduce crime in the Albuquerque area,” Simonson said.

He questioned the tactics used by law enforcement given the nature of the offenses.

“Regardless of any of those things, the crime — if indeed a crime was committed — does that rise to the level of using lethal force?”

Troopers in Dallas

According to Dallas County records, Hodge had no active warrants at the time of the stop. And his only criminal offense stemmed from when he was 18.

In 2009, he was placed on probation for cocaine possession after undercover Dallas police officers bought less than a gram of drugs from him, court records show.

In 2018, he violated his probation by failing to comply with court-ordered requirements and pay $1,434 in fines for the 2009 offense. He spent some time in jail, according to court records.

When troopers searched his car after the Aug. 17, 2019, shooting, they did not find contraband, DPS records show. His mother, Shandra Brackens-Hodge, said previously in a statement that her son was legally allowed to have a gun and did not deserve to die over a traffic stop.

“He pulled into his driveway,” she wrote in a statement. “Why did they get out with their guns drawn?

A DPS investigation into the shooting obtained by The Dallas Morning News revealed that when Hodge’s car and home were searched, Hodge had a prescription medication typically used to treat depression. Investigators found a small amount of marijuana on him.

A photo of Schaston Hodge and his mother, Shandra Brackens-Hodge, which was provided to The Dallas Morning News. In August 2019, Texas DPS troopers patrolling South Dallas shot and killed Hodge, who died with 16 gunshot wounds in his body, according to an autopsy by the Dallas County medical examiner. (Courtesy)

His family said in interviews with DPS investigators that Hodge was home most of the day before the shooting happened, according to the agency’s records. Hodge, who had no children or a wife, struggled emotionally and financially after his sister died by suicide when he was 21, according to an interview with investigators.

Hodge’s chase wasn’t the only time state troopers decided to initiate pursuits during the special operation.

According to arrest warrants DPS troopers filed during the summer, there were several incidents during which they chased people in Dallas.

On Aug. 22, troopers chased a man on a motorcycle after he failed to stop at the marked stop line at the intersection of Lake June Road and North Prairie Creek, according to an arrest affidavit. During the chase, the motorcyclist crashed and was taken to the hospital. Troopers discovered the motorcycle was stolen, according to the records.

On July 26, 2019, troopers chased a driver who failed to signal through a private parking lot full of people walking around. During the pursuit, the vehicle avoided multiple stop signs and almost caused an accident when the driver lost control.

Deadly pursuits

In Texas, 762 people died in pursuit-related fatalities from 1996 to 2015, according to the 2017 Department of Justice study. The fatalities included four officers, 581 people in the chased vehicles, 144 in other vehicles not involved in the pursuit and 33 others.

In Dallas, nine people died in pursuit-related accidents in 2004 and 2005. Kunkle, the former chief, ordered a comprehensive review of the department’s policy after an August 2004 chase, in which a man in a stolen vehicle ran a red light and killed another motorist as police chased him.

When Dallas police changed their pursuit policy under Kunkle, it was very unpopular at first.

Randall Blakenbaker, a retired assistant chief who spent nearly 29 years with DPD, helped rewrite the policy in 2006. He said that before then, officers chased over violent crimes and minor incidents.

The changes initially faced some backlash. Critics said scaling back pursuits would lead to an increase in crime and hamper officers’ ability to do their jobs.

But Blakenbaker said that when the department evaluated the first six months of the change, they found that evading-arrest reports did not increase. Also, he said, the city did not see a spike in property crime.

Instead, officers became smarter and safer on the job.

“When you have policy changes that affect the way you do your job, officers are always smart and flexible and willing to learn alternative ways which fit within policy to still get the job done,” Blakenbaker said.

Fourteen years later, the policy at the Police Department is the same.

“It’s the thing I’m most proud of,” Blakenbaker said. "I feel confident that it saved a lot of lives and even officer lives.”

Routine stops

A routine traffic stop is the most typical interaction people will have with law enforcement.

Francis Boateng, an assistant professor of legal studies at the University of Mississippi, analyzed thousands of traffic stops across the country. Boateng and a researcher found in a 2019 study that 7 percent of stops were because of illegal turns. The majority of them tended to be for speeding, the study found.

The analysis looked at drivers’ self-reported data to understand officer decision-making during traffic stops. They found a driver’s demeanor toward the officer influenced how the officer reacted.

"Illegal turning is not a major offense,” Boateng said. “But if the police try to stop you and you fail to stop, then they maybe feel that you are hiding something and will chase.”

Pursuits can also be costly. Last year, Chicago paid a $4.9 million settlement to the family of a woman killed in a police pursuit in 2017.

Over the past 20 years, many major cities have restricted pursuits to incidents involving violent crimes, said Alpert, the University of South Carolina professor. However, he said, state police work under different rules because they patrol freeways.

“They chase for anything,” Alpert said. “State police are more likely to chase for minor violations."

Alpert, who reviewed video of the stop involving Hodge, said that legally, the troopers were justified.

But Alpert said pursuits should only be used in cases of violent offenses. In Hodge’s case, though, the gun changed the dynamic drastically, he said.

The troopers "had the right to turn the lights on and pull him over,” Alpert said. “Had he not pulled a gun, maybe nothing would have happened.”