SAN DIEGOSAN DIEGO — An unlicensed driver was allegedly racing away from police when he smashed his vehicle into another car. Two brothers, ages 8 and 4, were engers in the struck vehicle.
The boys didn’t survive.
The tragic December crash in the community of Mountain View has prompted questions from community and San Diego’s Commission on Police Practices, a civilian oversight board, about whether the department’s pursuit policies should be re-examined.
At a recent commission meeting held to discuss chases, Victoria Romero, who lost her two boys, was in attendance. The mother was also seriously injured in the crash and arrived at the meeting in a wheelchair. Tasha Williamson, founder of Exhaling Injustice, a police ability organization, spoke on the woman’s behalf.
“She wants justice to be served because it feels as though this is swept under the table,” Williamson said. “Every day she thinks about her children. It’s hard for her to sleep. It’s hard for her to be without thinking about her children.”
The commission has tasked itself with examining police pursuit practices and their resulting outcomes in the wake of the deadly collision. In its own analysis, the Union-Tribune discovered crashes are common.
About 30 percent of the pursuits initiated by San Diego police in a recent four-year stretch involved a collision — sometimes more than one.
About 60 percent of San Diego chases started over infraction-level offenses — a practice that is barred in some large cities.
Experts and police leaders have long acknowledged the perils of pursuits.
“It’s probably the most dangerous thing police officers do,” said Geoffrey Alpert, a criminology professor at the University of South Carolina and an expert in police chases. “It’s shocking how much damage a car will do compared to, say, a 9 mm bullet.”
Although pursuit policies vary across the state and nation, several prominent law enforcement, traffic safety and research groups recently published a lengthy report on pursuit guidelines departments should consider when developing their own policies.
The publication includes 65 recommendations. At the top of the list? Agencies should consider adopting a policy that restricts pursuits only for violent criminals and where failure to immediately take someone into custody presents an imminent threat to the public based on the suspect’s criminal actions.
That’s a far cry from San Diego’s policy, which allows officers to initiate pursuits over even minor violations.
San Diego Police Chief David Nisleit said via email that even infractions can threaten public safety. Speeding and disregarding traffic rules could indicate a driver is under the influence of alcohol or drugs, which could result in serious or fatal collisions. And lesser violations, such as those associated with license plates, could be associated with other crimes, like concealing that a vehicle may be stolen.
“SDPD actively investigates these violations to keep our city among the safest in the nation,” Nisleit said. The chief noted that these sorts of violations rarely result in pursuits and can sometimes lead to the discovery of criminal activity, weapons or drugs when the vehicle is stopped.
Still, some community say it’s time to make changes.
“I would strongly urge you to find one, two, three of the very best policy experts on pursuits, hire them as consultants, and go through this policy with a fine-tooth comb to figure out what best practices are and how this policy can be changed so this never happens again,” said Andrea St. Julian, a San Diego attorney and civilian oversight expert.
What the data say
The California Highway Patrol tracks pursuit data for policing agencies across the state. Between 2018 and 2021, the most recent years immediately available, San Diego police officers initiated more than 800 pursuits.
On average, chases lasted about five minutes, but some stretched on for more than an hour.
Pursuits on surface streets generally reached speeds of around 50 mph. Pursuits on freeways were much faster, topping out at about 90 mph on average. Dozens of chases cracked 120 mph.
Deputy District Attorney Jessica Coto said Angel Velasquez Salgado, the defendant in December’s fatal crash, sped away from police around 6:15 p.m., prompting a chase that spanned about 5 miles on surface streets and two freeways. Coto said he reached speeds of around 100 mph during the pursuit.
At the 43rd Street off-ramp, he rear-ended the victims’ car, carrying Malikai and Mason Orozco-Romero, sending it off an embankment and into a tree, where it “burst into flames,” the prosecutor said.
He then allegedly ran from the car and took off some of his clothes “in order to conceal his identity,” she said. He was arrested a few blocks away, hiding in a nearby residential neighborhood, according to Coto.
In addition to the fatal crash, Velasquez Salgado also rear-ended an elderly woman’s car earlier during the pursuit, causing her injuries, Coto said. He faces up to 39 years and four months to life in state prison if convicted of the two murder counts, as well as charges of gross vehicular manslaughter, hit-and-run, felony evading and driving without a license.
While San Diego’s pursuit policy says officers should consider a host of factors before initiating a pursuit — including traffic patterns, familiarity with an area and the safety of the person or people being pursued — the crime types that can lead to chases are permissive.
Some big cities like Dallas, Phoenix and Philadelphia don’t allow officers to start pursuits over misdemeanors. In San Diego, it doesn’t even have to be a misdemeanor before lights and sirens go on. Something as minor as a license plate violation can prompt an attempted traffic stop that leads to a police chase.
Infractions — violations such as speeding, impeding traffic and running a red light — were the reason behind 60 percent of San Diego police pursuits during the four-year period.
An officer can also initiate a pursuit if there is probable cause to believe a felony has been or is being committed, department policy says. Suspected felonies fueled about 20 percent of San Diego’s chases. Most often, data show, the alleged felony was vehicle theft.
State trends mirrored these figures. According to the California Highway Patrol, many pursuits across California begin over infractions. Speeding was the most common violation to prompt a chase in 2021, followed by vehicle theft. License plate, registration, red light and stop sign violations were also among the top reasons pursuits started.
State officials noted, however, that after a suspect was apprehended, more serious alleged crimes were sometimes discovered.
San Diego officers apprehended a suspect in about 70 percent of pursuits between 2018 and 2021, data show. Of those suspects, more than 60 percent faced a felony charge. Vehicle theft, felony reckless evading, and being a felon in possession of a firearm were among the most common suspected crimes after someone was taken into custody, according to the data.
Although the department’s policy allows for pursuits over minor violations, it also notes that officers must balance the seriousness of the violator’s suspected crime against “the inherent risks of engaging in pursuit, including the potential for death or injury.”
“Officers should not assume that all persons who flee from the police and refuse to yield are serious criminal suspects,” the pursuit policy reads. “Frequently, termination of a pursuit in the interest of safety is most appropriate.”
While San Diego officers did terminate about 17 percent of their pursuits from 2018 through 2021, chases most commonly ended because suspect vehicles voluntarily stop, which happened in more than a quarter of department pursuits.
Another 20 percent of San Diego’s chases concluded after a suspect abandoned the vehicle and fled.
Thirty percent of the chases involved a collision somewhere along the route, and more than 15 percent of pursuits ended in a crash.
However, the majority of chases didn’t result in injuries. About 9 percent of San Diego police pursuits from 2018 through 2021 left 100 people hurt — some seriously. Twenty-six of those people, eight who were visibly injured and 16 who complained of pain, were bystanders.
Only one pursuit during that four-year period turned fatal. The 2020 chase began around 11 p.m. on Oct. 27. Officers spotted an SUV driving without its headlights in the Sherman Heights community and, after running the license plate number, determined the vehicle had been reported stolen in Chula Vista earlier that day.
When officers tried to pull over the SUV, the driver took off, speeding and swerving around other vehicles, police said at the time. Officers lost sight of the vehicle, and a police helicopter continued to follow until the driver lost control and slammed into a light pole in the community of Mount Hope. The driver and two engers died before they could be taken to a hospital.
Nisleit said the department leans on training, procedures and the active supervision of its officers to mitigate the risks associated with pursuits. A supervisor oversees every chase in real time, he said, to help evaluate pursuit conditions and ensure public safety.
What’s next
At the Commission on Police Practice’s recent meeting, community brought up several concerns over pursuits, including the speeds they reach, the sometimes minor violations that start pursuits and state protections that provide immunity to police departments that participate in chases.
Alpert, the professor who is part of a working group that helped craft “Vehicular Pursuits: A guide for law enforcement executives on managing the associated risks” that was published last year, said a robust policy, thorough training and persistent ability is key if departments want to minimize injuries and deaths.
“They are so high risk and the consequences can be devastating,” he said. “And it’s going to happen. It could be your child, your mother, your husband.”
Some cities have struggled to find that balance. Recently, New Jersey rolled back its pursuit policy to allow officers to chase suspected car thieves after auto thefts increased. San Francisco also loosened its policy so officers could have more flexibility to chase people suspected of retail theft and other property crimes.
Commission said at the meeting that they intended to look into hiring a policy expert who can help the group evaluate the department’s pursuit policy. They also discussed requesting San Diego pursuit data so they could take a close look at the sorts of outcomes chases have.
The oversight group can make policy change recommendations to the police department, but it’s up to the San Diego police chief to decide if those changes will be implemented.
“We will not let this topic fade away,” commission Chair Gloria Tran said.
