Oversight Board recommends changes to San Diego Chase policy

In the wake of multiple fatal crashes resulting from police pursuits in San Diego, a civilian oversight board recommended Wednesday that the department overhaul the way it initiates and conducts pursuits.

The Commission on Police Practices advised the department to limit pursuits thus, no pursuits are initiated for misdemeanors or property crimes “unless other aggravating factors such as armed resistance are present.”

It’s unclear whether the department will implement the proposed changes, which drew sharp criticism from the police union when they were first discussed this summer. Chief Scott Wahl has two months to respond to the policy proposals.

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“We have been awaiting these recommendations and will now use the 60-day review period to understand their suggestions and determine what next steps may be as a result of this review,” the department said in a statement to the Union-Tribune. “We would like to thank the CPP for their dedication on this matter and look forward to continuing to work with them on this and other matters in the future.”

The department’s pursuit policy came under scrutiny after a 2023 crash that killed two young boys, left brothers Malikai, 8, and Mason Orozco-Romero, 4, and seriously injured their mother and another woman.

A 20 year old man who was reportedly evading police, rammed his car into the vehicle in which the boys and the two women were traveling. The pursuit was initiated after officers noticed a broken headlight.

In August, as the committee asked the department to consider preliminary policy recommendations, a San Diego police officer was killed and a second was injured when they were struck by a car while responding to a pursuit.

Officer Austin Machitar and his partner were responding to a call when a vehicle driven by a 16-year-old boy crashed into the side of his police unit. Police chased the teen, but the chase was quickly stopped due to the high speed. Machitar has passed away and the driver of the vehicle, Edgar Giovanny Oviedo, was also killed.

The Police Officer’s Association has strongly opposed the proposed set of recommendations. “The CPP’s recommendations are misleading and pose significant risks to our community,” the association said in a statement last summer.

On Wednesday, the committee took action to formally recommend the changes.

Before making its recommendations in July, the commission reviewed data from more than a thousand pursuits, finding that about 60% of pursuits began after a suspected violation occurred..

Nearly one in five pursuits resulted in an accident, with nearly 75% of those incidents resulting in injuries, the committee found in its research.

“Crime pursuits should be rare unless there is clear evidence that the suspect poses an imminent danger to the public,” the commission wrote in its recommendations.

Pursuits of suspects wanted on non-violent arrest warrants were also discouraged.

“The potential danger of the pursuit itself should be smaller than the danger that arises if the suspect remains at large,” the committee said.

The final recommendation on when to start pursuits has changed since it was initially proposed, Commissioner Doug Case said at Wednesday’s meeting.

“Our preliminary recommendation was that they should only be initiated for violent crimes,” he said. “We did quite a bit of analysis on that, got feedback from many different sources, and that’s what we came up with.”

The committee also recommended that the department establish a pursuit review board and include in the accident report analysis any incidents, such as death or property damage, that may have occurred after the pursuit ended, and the definition of pursuit by the department so that it is identical to the one used by the California Highway Patrol.

The department should also explore the use of “advanced technologies” such as GPS tracking and drone surveillance, the committee said.

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