re: Livingston Police chase ends in death in BR; victim innocent bystander

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While it's tragic somebody lost their life, the only person to blame is the guy that ran. Period.

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As long as we have someone to blame everything is ok.

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Like how you blame the police and bad policies?

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Nobody has blamed the police in here.

We are trying to debate whether the policy of pursuit should be changed? Are there better avenues to take in these situations?

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Like how you blame the police and bad policies?

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Nobody is faulting an officer for having to make a split second operational decision. The point here is lets take a look at the pursuit policies. Thats it.

Yes, officers can make the decision to call off the chase. It is a hard decision to make. Florida Blvd at Stevendale Road is higher speed traffic area and it is unfortunate that someone turned in the middle of a chase.

I would say if someone going through a neighborhood or business district on tight roads in peak hours I can see the decision to call off the chase. A major hwy where traffic flows at a higher rate of speed at 10 pm I don't see it happening.

In my day I did a lot of PIT Maneuver's or spike strips especially if someone was driving in a residential neighborhood or a congested area. Most of the people I chased committed murder, armed robberies, kidnapping, or battery. Most of these people would have had no issue harming an innocent person to escape.

My question where is why not blame the person being chased?

Yes, I chased a person, my dept did spike strips, he jumped out of the vehicle running on the street until he grabbed an innocent woman. I chased this guy through three yards and saw that he had a weapon to a young ladies head. The second she bit him and he reared back to pull his weapon on her I took the clear shot to his head to protect that young lady. Should we have let an animal like this run the streets.

How about a guy that just killed his wife an kid in a domestic dispute. He was on his way to kill his inlaws. He drove at speeds over 75 mph in tight residential areas. My partner put down spike strips to stop him. That guy kept going on popped tires unloading rounds in a residential neighborhood. He almost hit a child riding a bike and we finally did a PIT Maneuver to stop him. He unloaded 3 rounds into my windshield and the only reason why I did not take him out was he ran out of rounds.

Yeah, we need people like this to escape and cause more harm.

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Nobody has blamed the police in here.

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You may want to reread the thread.


There is nothing blanket policy that will work. It's really life, not a computer algorithm with one answer.

You can be like NOPD and implement no pursuit policies, then have many criminals flee as they do now, knowing NOPD won't chase.

You can be like many departments and leave it up to a supervisor to allow or cancel the pursuit.

You can leave it up to the individual officer to make the determination, but nothing will be perfect.

There will be bad guys that run for whatever reason that crash or something and an innocent person gets hurt or killed.

There will be bad guys who've just done something heinous that will run and won't be pursued.

There isnt a helicopter over all these cities and parishes just flying around hoping something will pop off. That costs money, money many, many departments don't have.

Bad guys steal cars, steal license plates, have fake temporary tags or have no tags at all, so that thought process doesn't hold water either.

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Nobody is blaming the cops in here. We are discussing if policies should be changed.

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Good luck man I'm going to happy hour then running from the cops

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don't see where this was a high speed chase.

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There was a pursuit, it's towards the middle bottom of the article. The knuckleheads just turned down a dead end since they didn't know the area and the van got stuck while they were driving around a fence.

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Still don't see where this was a high speed chase.

We are talking of high-speed pursuits that put the public in danger

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On Aug. 6, Bracey and Haynes, both 27, allegedly put Schanda Handley into a van and headed east on Interstate 10, toward Baton Rouge. They were near Port Allen when things took an unexpected turn.

There was a traffic jam on the interstate. A piece of equipment had overturned, and crews were trying to get it upright, said West Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff Mike Cazes.

An off-duty Iberville Parish deputy was stuck in the delay when he saw a van driving on the shoulder of the interstate to escape the bottleneck.

Cazes said the deputy pursued the van until it reached Hwy. 415 in Port Allen.

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This was a vehicle pursuit on the shoulder of the interstate during a traffic jam. All the deputy had at the time of the pursuit was a traffic violation. Nothing more. Had he not pursued this van, Schanda Handley would have been murdered


Some departments have no pursuit policies.

Some have purse anything that run policies

And some have pursue only felony violation policies.

There is no perfect policy that will ensure no citizens will get hurt or killed. If you just let everything go, some people will get killed. If you pursue, then some people willl get killed. It's unfortunate and tragic.

The guy from last night was a convicted murderer who tried to run over some cops that were simply doing their jobs. To blame anyone else but him for last night's tragedy is unfair at best. He and he alone is responsible for that death. Not the police or their pursuit policy.


And just to clear something up, BRPD was not involved in that pursuit last night. It was Livingston. BRPD simply investigated the accident since it occurred just inside the city limits

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Yea, I saw that.

But it wasn't a chase at dangerously high speeds.

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You based that on what exactly?