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An aspect of the recent pedestrian deaths in Kakaako that has been given little attention is that a police pursuit was involved.
Could police chases be causing more havoc than warranted? Unfortunately, the recent case is not atypical of the outcomes of police chases in the United States. According to streetsblog.org, an average of 355 people are killed from police chases per year with three of them police, and a third of them innocent bystanders.
In 2015, The Washington Post reported that police chases kill more people every year than tornadoes, lightning and hurricanes combined.
The same acticle revealed that 91 percent of police pursuits are in response to nonviolent crimes, e.g., red-light passing, shoplifting and car theft. Are those valid reasons to cause deaths, especially to innocent bystanders? Could such tragedies be avoided if some other method of apprehension is used, such as license plate number, police radio coordination, helicopter surveillance or road blocks, especially on an island?
Chuck Prentiss
Kailua
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