State Sen. Arthur Orr (R-Decatur) is pushing for new police pursuit guidelines after a fatal officer-involved crash in Hartselle claimed the life of a local teenager and injured six others.
According to the city's police department, the incident occurred on Alabama Highway 36 around 8:30 p.m. when a Priceville Police officer began pursuing a vehicle, suspecting the driver of moving violations and suspicion of driving under the influence.
The chase ended when the suspect crashed into the vehicle occupied by the victims.
"This is certainly on the minds of the folks in Hartselle today and over the weekend, and it ought to be on the minds of the public," said Orr earlier this week. "And while it is on people's minds, let's do some due diligence and see if we can't tighten things to presumably prevent loss of life and harm down the road."
Orr told POLICE1 that he has asked the Alabama Legislative Services Agency to consider stronger guidelines to limit police pursuits, particularly when officers believe a suspect is guilty of only minor offenses.
"I asked them to look into what other states have done to maybe bring some guardrails to the issue, so that we don't have these hot pursuit incidents doing more harm that is more attributable to the pursuit than to the accused that is fleeing," Orr continued. "We have a loss of life, and the accused may have a small bag of marijuana or something. It does not compute for innocent bystanders or motorists to lose their lives when we are pursuing low-level infractions."
While Orr favors tighter restrictions in some cases, he fully supports police pursuits of those suspected of violent felonies.
"That's very different from if someone was going 80 miles per hour down I-65, and now we've got to chase him without regard to public safety at large," he said. "That's different."
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