(Published September 19‚ 2003)
The law governing the investigation of crashes involving police cars is muddled enough that some departments are allowed to investigate crashes involving their own cars. It's time to clarify or even rewrite the law entirely if necessary.
When the law was written nine years ago, it was assumed that the Highway Patrol would investigate any accidents involving cars belonging to law enforcement agencies. And the long-standing opinion of the office of the state attorney general is that police vehicles don't actually have to hit something to be involved in a crash. The most common example of that would be when a police car is pursuing another car in a high-speed chase that results in a crash of the car being chased.
But the Highway Patrol has interpreted the law differently. It investigates only those cases when a police car actually is involved in the accident. If a high-speed chase happens to end in an accident, and the pursuing car is not directly involved, troopers don't get involved.
As a result, a number of such cases have been investigated internally. In other words, officers within the department investigate an accident that involved fellow officers.
That poses an obvious conflict of interest. It is doubtful that any such investigation could be entirely impartial.
Any accident involving law enforcement vehicles -- including those that occur during hot pursuits -- should be investigated by a disinterested third party. In fact, we think the State Law Enforcement Division may be better suited for that role than the Highway Patrol.
SLED doesn't function as a traffic control agency, so there is no conflict in that respect. The agency could investigate accidents involving not only local police vehicles but also Highway Patrol cars.
And that raises another issue. What if both state troopers and local police are engaged in a chase in which an accident occurs? With chases often crossing different jurisdictions, that is entirely possible and, again, a third party is needed to conduct the investigation.
The uncertainty about what the law requires and questions about the fairness of crash investigations compel the need to revisit the law and clear up any uncertainties. And the law should be revised to cover all eventualities, including chases ending in crashes even when no collision occurs, and accidents in which more than one law enforcement agency is involved.
Both state Sens. Phil Leventis, D-Sumter, and Dick Elliott, D-North Myrtle Beach, who worked together to make changes in the law in 1995, have agreed to introduce legislation to clarify the law. We hope they do so and that they get the support of fellow lawmakers.
Leventis has accused those who don't understand the law of not wanting to understand it. We think the law should be rewritten in a way that leaves no room for conflicting interpretations.
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SLED may be the agency best qualified to investigate crashes involving police vehicles. |
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