By Michael Laws
The death of an elderly and innocent couple in Christchurch on Thursday has reignited the police-chase issue – and the quandary of what to do when drivers flee the law.
Ordinarily, this would be a no-brainer. Catch them. That is what we would expect of any law enforcement agency. There's no point in having any law unless it is enforced.
But the nature of modern society is that car chases do not occur out on some deserted rural road. They usually occur in town, in built-up areas, and with hundreds of potential victims should something go wrong.
And, boy, have things gone wrong. These are deaths No10 and No11 over the past 12 months. And unlike many of the previous fatalities, the latest victims are not young hoons wrapping themselves around inanimate objects. Norm Fitt and his partner Dee Jordan are the collateral damage of existing police policy.
Public sentiment does not mind when the fleeing drivers kill themselves. Or even a passenger or two. This is regarded as a rough justice: if they had stopped when required, they would still be alive today. A shrug of the shoulders – they didn't and hence the consequences.
That is a harder argument to sustain when the deaths have absolutely no association with the original crime. In this case, a young driver known to police, unregistered, unlicensed and part of the Christchurch hoon racing set, ploughed into the couple during his intended getaway. According to police he was speeding and ignoring red lights as part of that attempt.
Police chase policy is relatively simple. If there is a palpable danger to life, then they are to abandon the chase. It will be for the suitable authorities to determine whether that policy was applied in this particular case.
But the wider issue remains. Is the existing policy actually encouraging miscreants to flee?
The individual at the heart of this tragedy probably assumed, and rightly, that driving recklessly through red lights in downtown Christchurch would be too risky for any following police. He gambled and two other people lost.
And yet the wonder is that this kind of tragedy does not happen more often. It soon will. We have bred a group of feral anti-socials who regard reckless endangerment, and outwitting the police, as their especial entertainment. They will attempt to evade capture irrespective of any policy. It's part of the fun.
In a couple of months the public will be introduced to this moron as he stands in the dock facing charges. He will be clean-shaven, wearing a clean shirt and feigning contrition. He may go to prison, he may not. The point is, surely, that he should.
But even if he ends up as the plaything of Bubba, his incarceration will be minor compared to the couple who had their lives so carelessly scrubbed.
At which point, yet again, our society loses a little more faith in the justice system. Indeed the term seems oxymoronic – because justice is for this 20-something to be banged up forever for killing a couple. That he did not possess the intent should be irrelevant: he did kill them.
It was no accident in the proper sense of that word. It was an entirely foreseeable tragedy once he glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the flashing lights. And put the foot down.
And what are police required to do in such circumstances? The pressure will now be for them to pussyfoot even more. And thereby encourage the morons to attempt the same maneouvres as the Christchurch killer. If anything, the policy must be reversely applied: there will be no quarter, no slackening. We will catch you.
Of course there will be fatalities from such a policy. Hopefully, only the fleeing drivers. But occasionally an innocent will be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
What is now required is a court sentencing policy that matches the public exasperation. Legislation that makes any attempt to evade capture forfeit any remission from the maximum sentence for any crime committed during that attempt. In such a way would the message be imparted.
And these needless deaths must be about a message. That killing is killing irrespective of the niceties of mens rea.
The tendency of the courts to treat manslaughter as a lesser crime is wrong. Whether deliberately leaving your toddler to drown in a bath, to kicking someone in the head with the intent of maim rather than murder – recent manslaughter verdicts have equated such tragedies with accidental killing. They are not.
In the meantime, we still have scum on our streets and in their cars. Our instruction to police must not be to slacken, or to doubt. It must be to enforce the law, and swiftly. And accept that only one person killed the Christchurch couple last week. And it was not the pursuing police officer.
Sunday Star Times, 29th August 2010